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CONNECTED SPEECH PROCESSES (CSP’S)
Remember: allophones are contextual variants of phonemes.
broad (phonemic)
/pæl/
narrow (phonetic)
[pʰælɣ] or [pʰæɫ]
/læp/
[læʔp]
notes
- initial /p/ is aspirated
- final (coda) /l/ is velarised (‘dark’)
- initial /l/ is light (not velarised)
- final /p/ is preglottalised
When a word occurs in connected speech, i.e. when words precede or follow it, it may be subject to
various Connected Speech Processes (CSPs). Many of these CSPs are optional, but for the exam,
treat them as essential. Some words also show what are called ‘weak’ forms.
WEAK FORMS
If you are asked what the pronunciation of the words ‘for’ and ‘and’ are, you will naturally give
citation form responses (i.e. the forms as they occur in isolation):
for /fɔ/ [fɔ]
and /ænd/ [ænd]
But now consider how these words actually sound in the flow of connected speech:
1) It was bought for the children and not for the parents.
The most likely realisations of the words ‘for’ and ‘and’ in the contexts in 1) in something like RP
(and many other accents) would be [fə] and [ənd] or even [nd] or [n]. These are known as weak
forms because they occur if the word is unstressed. Consider these sentences:
eye, I; to, too/two; or, awe/ore/oar; for, four; by, buy
Even though these words are identical in terms of citation forms, they usually have different forms
in connected speech.
Remember that unstressed syllables contain a limited set of vowels in English: /ə, ɪ, ʊ/, and that
schwa is the only vowel which is always unstressed (i.e. /ɪ, ʊ/ may be stressed as in ‘winter’ /ˈwɪntə/
and ‘(do-)gooder’ /ˈɡʊdə/). Other vowels (and the diphthongs) are always stressed.
CONNECTED SPEECH PROCESSES – ASSIMILATION
As the name suggests, assimilation involves two sounds becoming more similar. The sounds
affected are normally at the end of a word, and they are usually alveolar. As the sound affected by
assimilation takes on features of the upcoming sound, assimilation is termed anticipatory.
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word
ten
citation form
/tɛn/
in
/ɪn/
good
/ɡʊd/
phrase
ten oxen
ten pigs
ten boys
ten girls
ten cups
in Aberdeen
in Copenhagen
in Pakistan
good advice
good picture
good boy
good girl
good career
You should hear/feel that the realisations in connected speech are not the expected voiced alveolar
nasals except in the first examples given above. Narrow transcription of these forms:
broad
/tɛn ˈɒksən/
/tɛm pɪɡz/
/tɛm bɔɪz/
/tɛŋ ɡɜːlz/
/tɛŋ kʌps/
narrow
[tʰɛn ˈɒʔksən]
[tʰɛm pɪɡz]
[tʰɛm bɔɪz]
[tʰɛŋ ɡɜlɣz]
[tʰɛŋ kʰɐʔps]
broad
/ɡʊb ˈpɪkʧə/
/ɡʊb bɔɪ/
/ɡʊɡ ɡɜl/
/ɡʊɡ kəˈrɪə/
narrow
[ɡʊb ˈpʰɪʔkʧə]
[ɡʊb bɔɪ]
[ɡʊɡ ɡɜːlɣ]
[ɡʊɡ kʰəˈɹɪə]
Notice that we transcribe the effect of the assimilation in these cases in the broad transcription too
because the outcome of the assimilation is a separate phoneme of English which occurs in other
words even if there is no assimilation, i.e. /m/ just like in ‘them’ and /ŋ/ just like in ‘king’.
But there are other cases where the outcome of the CSP is not a separate phoneme of English, but
only ever occurs as an allophone of /n/ in that context. As it is a contextual variant of /n/ in these
cases, we transcribe it as /n/ in the broad transcription. Some examples are presented below:
broad
/tɛn θɪŋz/
/tɛn jɪəz/
/ɪn θɜsk/
/ɪn faɪf/
/ɪn jɔk/
/ɡʊd ˈfilɪŋ/
/ɡʊd jɪə/
/ɡʊd θɔt/
narrow
[tʰɛnD θɪŋz]
[tʰɛɲ jɪəz]
[ ɪnD θɜːsk]
[ ɪmD faɪf] or [ ɪɱ faɪf]
[ ɪɲ jɔːʔk]
[ɡʊbD ˈfːlɪŋ]
[ɡʊɟ jɪə]
[ɡʊdD θɔːʔt]
phrase
ten things
ten years
in Thirsk
in Fife
in York
good feeling
good year
good thought
The new diacritic introduced here is the diacritic for a dental place of articulation [ D ] which we can
place under a symbol which is normally alveolar to show a dental sound, e.g. the voiced dental
nasal [nD]. If the dental diacritic is placed under a bilabial sound it indicates a labiodental realisation,
e.g. the voiced labiodental plosive [bD]. There is also a separate symbol for the voiced labiodental
nasal which you may occasionally see: [ɱ] = [mD].
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SOME OTHER ASSIMILATIONS
Other assimilations in RP do occur. The voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ and the voiced alveolar
fricative /z/ undergo anticipatory place of assimilation when followed by /ʃ/.
phrase
this shop
his shoe
broad
/ðɪʃ ʃɒp/
/hɪʒ ʃuː/
narrow
[ðɪʃ ʃɒʔp]
[hɪʒ ʃuː]
Another assimilation targets word-initial /ð/. This phoneme only occurs initially in very common
function words like ‘this, these, that, those, there, then, though, they, them, the’. Very often it
undergoes perseverative assimilation, i.e. it is affected by a preceding word. Actually the
assimilation is complex because the dental place may spread from /ð/ to the preceding sound in
anticipatory assimilation at the same time that the /ð/ takes on the manner features of the preceding
sound in perseverative assimilation, i.e. assimilation goes in both directions.
phrase
all those
on these
broad
/ɔːl ləʊz/
/ɒn niːz/
narrow
[ɔːlDɣ lDəʊz]
[ɒnD nDiːz]
ELISIONS
Occasionally when words come together they create a complex sequence of consonants. In these
cases it can happen that one or more consonants are elided (deleted). Something similar happens
inside some English words, e.g. ‘fifths’ /fɪfθs/ [fɪθs].
Usually the consonants most affected are alveolar stops:
spelling
last week
next week
next Monday
stopped working
kept going
raised benches
broad
/lɑːs wiːk/
/nɛks wiːk/
/nɛks ˈmʌnˌdeɪ/
/stɒp ˈwɜːkɪŋ/
/kɛp ˈɡəʊɪŋ/
/reɪz ˈbɛnʧɪz/
narrow
[lɑːs wiːʔk]
[nɛʔks wiːʔk]
[nɛʔks ˈmʌnˌdeɪ]
[st˭ɒʔp ˈwɜːkʰ ɪŋ]
[kʰɛʔp ˈɡəʊɪŋ]
[ɹeɪz ˈbɛnʧɪz]
In all of these cases a final /t/ or /d/ appears to have been elided.
Another very common elision affects the weak forms of function words like ‘he, him, his, her, here,
have, had’ with /h/ being elided.
1) I’d known her for seven years /aɪd nəʊn ə fə ˈsɛvən jɪəz/
2) Why don’t you call him? /waɪ dəʊnt ju kɔːl ɪm/
3) Jill has got two, but the others have got three /ʤɪl əz ɡɒt tuː bət ðɪ ˈʌðəz əv ɡɒt θriː/
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The schwa vowel can be considered to have been elided before a consonant to create a syllabic
consonant, e.g. /ˈmɪdəl/ vs. /ˈmɪdl/.
INSERTIONS
Sometimes when two words come together, a sound appears between them.
For many people, when two vowels come together they are separated by a glottal stop. This is a
very common pattern which occurs across a range of languages (e.g. German, Czech, Hindi,
Italian). In English it is only one of several possibilities, and it tends to be associated with some
kind of emphasis.
7) I didn’t see Eve [aɪ ˈdɪdnʔt siː ʔ iːv]
Because the glottal stop is not a phoneme of English, we do not transcribe this phonemically. (We
could transcribe it as the addition of a /t/ in accents where a /t/ does not become a glottal stop
between vowels as in ‘better’ [bɛʔə], but this seems a little extreme).
Other forms which we tend not to transcribe phonemically are the [j] and [w] sounds which can
occur when high (i.e. close) vowels are involved. This again is a very common process across
languages, and for this reason it seems to be a very low-level phonetic process like the glottal stop
insertion and not something which involves speakers deliberately adding a phoneme to their speech.
8) two of them [tʰuː w əv ðəm]
9) I didn’t see Ella [aɪ ˈdɪdnʔt siː j ˈɛlə]
This is just a linking feature, so it’s not even clear which word we should attach it to (like the glottal
stop in 7).
One process which does appear to involve the addition of a phoneme is ‘r-liaison’ (sometimes
called ‘r-sandhi’). In Standard Southern British English and its predecessor RP, /r/ sometimes
appears and sometimes does not appear in certain words.
10) car keys /kɑː kiːz/
11) car alarm /kɑːr əˈlɑːm/
This is called ‘linking /r/’ because the /r/ is a historical remnant, as the spelling indicates. Some
varieties of English (called ‘non-rhotic’) lack an /r/ sound in the syllable coda, e.g. alarm /əˈlɑːm/.
Rhotic varieties of English like Irish, Scottish, North American, have retained this historical /r/, e.g.
alarm /əˈlɑrm/. In the non-rhotic varieties the historical final /r/ only occurs when a word beginning
with a vowel follows to link to that vowel, e.g. car alarm /kɑːr əˈlɑːm/.
The non-rhotic varieties have gone a stage further, and have introduced /r/ into environments in
which it should not occur historically (i.e. words which never had a final /r/) and where an /r/ does
not occur in rhotic accents.
12) Pizza Express /ˈpiːtsər ˈɛkˌsprɛs/
13) Anna Evans /ˈænər ˈɛvənz/
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This is called ‘intrusive /r/’ because the /r/ has intruded into a new environment. The environment
for intrusive /r/ is limited to non-high vowels /ɑ, ɔ, ə, ɜ/. Notice intrusive /r/ also happens before
words which have elided /h/: Emma and Anna ‘ve gone.
So a rhotic accent never has an /r/ in ‘Anna Evans’ but it always has an /r/ in ‘alarm’ /əˈlɑrm/.
Non-rhotic speakers find /r/-liaison very hard to hear – the /r/ is ignored. Pay attention to contexts in
which it might occur in transcription.
READING
Roach, P. (2000). English phonetics and phonology. Cambridge: CUP. Chapters 12 & 14.
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