Final Assessment Questions on “Theoretical phonetics” Card-1 Connection of Phonetics with Other Sciences

Card-13

1. 
   General principles of vowel formation.
   

English vowels are classified according to the following principles:
1. Position of the lips.
2. Position of the tongue.
3. Length.
4. Degree of tenseness
5. The character of the end.
6. Stability of articulation.
According to the position of the lips vowels are divided into rounded [o, o:, u, u:] and unrounded – all the rest.
2. Vowels are classified according to the horizontal and vertical movement of the tongue. According to the horizontal movement of the tongue English vowels are divided into front, front-retracted, central, back and back-advanced. According to the vertical movement of the tongue English vowels are divided into high (close), mid and low (open).
3.According to the length English vowels are divided into long [i:, u:, o:, α:, з:] and short [i, u, o, æ, e, ə, Λ]
4. According to the stability of articulation English vowels are divided into monophthongs, or simple vowels and diphthongs, or complex vowels. Monophthongs are articulated with more or less stable lip, tongue and walls position.

2. 
   The Acoustic Classification of English Consonants
   

The acoustic character of a consonant is conditioned by its articulation. Plosives and affricates (e.g. /t, d, tò, ʤ/) differ from fricatives. A plosive is characterized by the absence of noise in part of the spectrum. The plosion is marked by a burst of noise, i.e. the formant of noise appears. Fricatives are characterized by the presence of a noise formant throughout the spectrum. Plosives and affricates are classed as discontinuous and fricatives as continuant.
Labial Consonants

• 
  bilabial articulated with both lips – [w], [m], [p], [b]
  
• 
  labiodental articulated with the lower lip and upper teeth – [f], [v].