English phonology

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|#default=Template:Error }} Template:English phonology topics Template:IPA notice English phonology is the system of speech sounds used in spoken English. Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the worldwide dialects of English share a largely similar (but not identical) phonological system. Among other things, most dialects have vowel reduction in unstressed syllables and a complex set of phonological features that distinguish fortis and lenis consonants (stops, affricates, and fricatives).

Phonological analysis of English often concentrates on prestige or standard accents, such as Received Pronunciation for England, General American for the United States, and General Australian for Australia. Nevertheless, many other dialects of English are spoken, which have developed differently from these standardized accents, particularly regional dialects. Descriptions of standardized reference accents provide only a limited guide to the phonology of other dialects of English.

Phonemes

A phoneme of a language or dialect is an abstraction of a speech sound or of a group of different sounds that are all perceived to have the same function by speakers of that particular language or dialect. For example, the English word through consists of three phonemes: the initial "th" sound, the "r" sound, and a vowel sound. The phonemes in that and many other English words do not always correspond directly to the letters used to spell them (English orthography is not as strongly phonemic as that of many other languages).

The number and distribution of phonemes in English vary from dialect to dialect, and also depend on the interpretation of the individual researcher. The number of consonant phonemes is generally put at 24 (or slightly more depending on the dialect). The number of vowels is subject to greater variation; in the system presented on this page there are 20–25 vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation, 14–16 in General American and 19–21 in Australian English. The pronunciation keys used in dictionaries generally contain a slightly greater number of symbols than this, to take account of certain sounds used in foreign words and certain noticeable distinctions that may not be—strictly speaking—phonemic.

Consonants

The following table shows the 24 consonant phonemes found in most dialects of English, plus Template:IPA, whose distribution is more limited. Fortis consonants are always voiceless, aspirated in syllable onset (except in clusters beginning with Template:IPA or Template:IPA), and sometimes also glottalized to an extent in syllable coda (most likely to occur with Template:IPA, see T-glottalization), while lenis consonants are always unaspirated and un-glottalized, and generally partially or fully voiced. The alveolars are usually apical, i.e. pronounced with the tip of the tongue touching or approaching the roof of the mouth, though some speakers produce them laminally, i.e. with the blade of the tongue.Template:Sfnp

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn		Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn			Template:IPA link
Plosive	Template:Small	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
	Template:Small	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Fricative	Template:Small	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		(Template:IPA link)Template:Efn	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn
	Template:Small	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Approximant				Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn

Consonant examples

The following table shows typical examples of the occurrence of the above consonant phonemes in words, using minimal pairs where possible.

Fortis		Lenis
Template:IPAslink	pit	Template:IPAslink	bit
Template:IPAslink	tin	Template:IPAslink	din
Template:IPAslink	cut	Template:IPAslink	gut
Template:IPAslink	cheap	Template:IPAslink	jeep
Template:IPAslink	fat	Template:IPAslink	vat
Template:IPAslink	thigh	Template:IPAslink	thy
Template:IPAslink	sap	Template:IPAslink	zap
Template:IPAslink	shin / dilution	Template:IPAslink	delusion
Template:IPAslink	loch
Template:IPAslink	ham
		Template:IPAslink	hum
		Template:IPAslink	Hun
		Template:IPAslink	hung
		Template:IPAslink	your
		Template:IPAslink	wore
		Template:IPAslink	rump
		Template:IPAslink	lump

Sonorants

• The pronunciation of Template:IPA varies by dialect:
  • Received Pronunciation has two main allophones of Template:IPA: the clear or plain Template:IPA (the "light L"), and the dark or velarized Template:IPA (the "dark L"). The clear variant is used before vowels when they are in the same syllable, and the dark variant when the Template:IPA precedes a consonant or is in syllable-final position before silence.
  • In South Wales, Ireland, and the Caribbean, Template:IPA is usually clear, and in North Wales, Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand it is usually dark.
  • In General American and Canada, Template:IPA is generally dark, but to varying degrees: before stressed vowels it is neutral or only slightly velarized.Template:Sfnp In southern U.S. accents it is noticeably clear between vowels, and in some other positions.Template:Sfnp
  • In urban accents of Southern England, as well as New Zealand and some parts of the United States, Template:IPA can be pronounced as an approximant or semivowel (Template:IPA) at the end of a syllable (l-vocalization).
• Depending on dialect, Template:IPA has at least the following allophones in varieties of English around the world (see Pronunciation of English /r/):
  • postalveolar approximant Template:IPA (the most common realization of the Template:IPA phoneme, occurring in most dialects, RP and General American included)
  • retroflex approximant Template:IPA (occurs in most Irish dialects and some American dialects)
  • labiodental approximant Template:IPA (occurs in south-east England and some London accents; known as r-labialization)
  • alveolar flap Template:IPA (occurs in most Scottish, Welsh,Template:Sfnp IndianTemplate:Sfnp and some South African dialects, some conservative dialects in England and Ireland; not to be confused with flapping of Template:IPA and Template:IPA)
  • alveolar trill Template:IPA (occurs in some very conservative Scottish dialects and some Indian, South African and Welsh accents)Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
  • voiced uvular fricative Template:IPA (occurs in northern Northumbria, largely disappeared; known as the Northumbrian burr)
• In most dialects Template:IPA is labialized Template:IPA in many positions, as in reed Template:IPA and tree Template:IPA; in the latter case, the Template:IPA may be slightly labialized as well.Template:Sfnp
• In some rhotic accents, such as General American, Template:IPA when not followed by a vowel is realized as an r-coloring of the preceding vowel or its coda: nurse Template:IPA, butter Template:IPA.
• The distinctions between the nasals are neutralized in some environments. For example, before a final Template:IPA, Template:IPA or Template:IPA there is nearly always only one nasal sound that can appear in each case: Template:IPA, Template:IPA or Template:IPA respectively (as in the words limp, lint, link – note that the n of link is pronounced Template:IPA). This effect can even occur across syllable or word boundaries, particularly in stressed syllables: synchrony is pronounced Template:IPA whereas synchronic may be pronounced with either Template:IPA or Template:IPA. For other possible syllable-final combinations, see Template:Slink in the Phonotactics section below.

Obstruents

In most dialects, the fortis stops and affricate Template:IPA have various different allophones, and are distinguished from the lenis stops and affricate Template:IPA by several phonetic features.Template:Sfnp

• The allophones of the fortes Template:IPA include:
  • aspirated Template:IPA when they occur in the onset of a stressed syllable, as in potato. In clusters involving a following liquid, the aspiration typically manifests as the devoicing of this liquid. These sounds are unaspirated Template:IPA after Template:IPA within the same syllable, as in stan, span, scan, and at the ends of syllables, as in mat, map, mac.Template:Sfnp The voiceless fricatives are nearly always unaspirated, but a notable exception is English-speaking areas of Wales, where they are often aspirated.Template:Sfnp
  • In many accents of English, fortis stops Template:IPA are glottalized in some positions. That may be heard either as a glottal stop preceding the oral closure ("pre-glottalization" or "glottal reinforcement") or as a substitution of the glottal stop Template:IPA for the oral stop (glottal replacement). Template:IPA can be only pre-glottalized. Pre-glottalization normally occurs in British and American English when the fortis consonant phoneme is followed by another consonant or when the consonant is in final position. Thus football and catching are often pronounced Template:IPA and Template:IPA, respectively. Even more frequently, glottal replacement happens in such cases involving Template:IPA, so that football is pronounced Template:IPA. In addition, however, glottal replacement is increasingly common in British English when Template:IPA occurs between vowels if the preceding vowel is stressed; thus better is often pronounced by younger speakers as Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp Such t-glottalization also occurs in many British regional accents, including Cockney, where it can also occur at the end of words, and where Template:IPA and Template:IPA are sometimes treated the same way.Template:Sfnp
  • For some RP-speakers, final voiceless stops, especially Template:IPA, may become ejectives.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
• Among stops, both fortes and lenes:
  • May have no audible release Template:IPA in the word-final position.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp These allophones are more common in North America than Great Britain.Template:Sfnp
  • Almost always have a masked release before another plosive or affricate (as in Template:Not a typo Template:IPA), i.e. the release of the first stop is made after the closure of the second stop. This also applies when the following stop is homorganic (articulated in the same place), as in top player.Template:Sfnp A notable exception is Welsh English in which stops are usually released in that environment.Template:Sfnp
  • The affricates Template:IPA have a mandatory fricative release in all environments.Template:Sfnp
• Very often in the United States and Canada and less frequently in Australia<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> and New Zealand,<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> both Template:IPA can be pronounced as a voiced flap Template:IPA in certain positions: when they come between a preceding stressed vowel (possibly with intervening Template:IPA) and precede an unstressed vowel or syllabic Template:IPA. Examples include water, bottle, petal, Template:Not a typo (the last two words sound alike when flapped). The flap may even appear at word boundaries, as in put it on. When the combination Template:IPA appears in such positions, some American speakers pronounce it as a nasalized flap that may become indistinguishable from Template:IPA, so winter Template:IPA may be pronounced similarly or identically to winner Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
• Yod-coalescence is a process that palatalizes the clusters Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA into Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA respectively, frequently occurring with clusters that would be considered to span a syllable boundary.<ref>Template:Harvp, cited in Template:Harvp.</ref>
  • Yod-coalescence in stressed syllables, such as in tune and dune, occurs in Australian, Cockney, Estuary English, Hiberno-English (some speakers), Newfoundland English, South African English, and to a certain extent in New Zealand English and Scottish English (many speakers). This can lead to additional homophony; for instance, dew and due come to be pronounced the same as Jew.Template:Sfnp
  • In certain varieties such as Australian English, South African English, and New Zealand English, Template:IPA and Template:IPA in stressed syllables can coalesce into Template:IPA and Template:IPA, respectively. In Australian English for example, assume is pronounced Template:IPA by some speakers.Template:Sfnp Furthermore, some British, Canadian, American, New Zealand and Australian speakers may change the Template:IPA sound to Template:IPA before Template:IPA;Template:Sfnp for example, these speakers pronounce strewn as Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
• The postalveolar consonants Template:IPA are strongly labialized: Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
• In addition to Template:IPA, the sequences Template:IPA also have affricate-like realizations in certain positions (as in cats, roads, tram, dram, eighth, behind them, cupful, obvious; see also Template:Section link), but usually only Template:IPA are considered to constitute the monophonemic affricates of English because (among other reasons) only they are found in all of morpheme-initial, -Template:Zwjinternal, and -Template:Zwjfinal positions, and native speakers typically perceive them as single units.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Vowels

English, much like other Germanic languages, has a particularly large number of vowel phonemes, and in addition the vowels of English differ considerably between dialects. Consequently, corresponding vowels may be transcribed with various symbols depending on the dialect under consideration. When considering English as a whole, lexical sets are often used, each named by a word containing the vowel or vowels in question. For example, the Template:Sc2 set consists of words which, like lot, have Template:IPA in British Received Pronunciation (RP) and Template:IPA in General American (GA). The "Template:Sc2 vowel" then refers to the vowel that appears in those words in whichever dialect is being considered, or (at a greater level of abstraction) to a diaphoneme, which represents this interdialectal correspondence. A commonly used system of lexical sets, devised by John C. Wells, is presented below; for each set, the corresponding phonemes are given for RP and General American, using the notation that will be used on this page.

Full monophthongs

Template:Abbr	Template:Abbr	Template:Abbr
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link
Template:Sc2		Template:IPA link
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link
Template:Sc2		Template:IPA link, Template:IPA link
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA link
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link

Diphthongs in
many dialectsTemplate:Sfnp

Template:Abbr	Template:Abbr	Template:Abbr
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link

Full diphthongs

Template:Abbr	Template:Abbr	Template:Abbr
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA

Vowels + historical Template:IPA

Template:Abbr	Template:Abbr	Template:Abbr
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link	Template:IPATemplate:Efn
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA
Template:Sc2
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA, Template:IPA link	Template:IPA

Reduced vowels

Template:Abbr	Template:Abbr	Template:Abbr
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Template:Sc2		Template:IPA
Template:Sc2	Template:IPA link

For a table that shows the pronunciations of these vowels in a wider range of English accents, see Sound correspondences between English accents.

The following tables show the vowel phonemes of three standard varieties of English. The notation system used here for Received Pronunciation (RP) is fairly standard; the others less so. The feature descriptions given here (back, open, etc.) are abstracted somewhat; the actual pronunciations of these vowels are somewhat more accurately conveyed by the IPA symbols used (see Vowel for a chart indicating the meanings of these symbols; though note also the points listed below the following tables). The symbols given in the table are traditional but redirect to their modern implementation.

Received PronunciationTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

	Front		Central		Back
					Template:Small		Template:Small
	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small
Close	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn				Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn
Mid	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn
Open	Template:IPA link					Template:IPA link
Diphthongs	Template:IPA
Triphthongs	(Template:IPA)

General American

	Front		Central		Back
	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small
Close	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Mid	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA link	(Template:IPA link)Template:Efn	(Template:IPA link)Template:Efn	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn
Open	Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link		(Template:IPA link)Template:Efn
Diphthongs	Template:IPA

General Australian

	Front		Central		Back
	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small
Close	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn
Mid	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn
Open	Template:IPA link	(Template:IPA link)Template:Efn	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Diphthongs	Template:IPATemplate:Efn

The differences between these tables can be explained as follows:

• General American lacks a phoneme corresponding to RP Template:IPA (Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2), instead using Template:IPA in the Template:Sc2 words and generally Template:IPA in the Template:Sc2 words. In a few North American accents, namely in Eastern New England (Boston) Template:Sc2 words do not have the vowel of Template:Sc2 (the father–bother merger has not occurred) but instead merge with Template:Sc2.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
• Although the notation Template:IPA is used for the vowel of Template:Sc2 in RP and General American, the actual pronunciation in RP may be closer to a near-open central vowel Template:IPAblink, especially among older speakers. In modern RP, this vowel is increasingly realized as Template:IPAblink to avoid the clash with the lowered variety of Template:IPA in the Template:IPAblink region (the trap–strut merger). In General American, Template:IPA is realized as Template:IPAblink.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
• RP transcriptions use Template:Angbr IPA rather than Template:Angbr IPA largely for convenience and historical tradition; it does not necessarily represent a different sound from the General American phoneme, as the Template:Sc2 vowel is generally realized as Template:IPA in modern RP.<ref name="upton">Template:Cite book</ref>
• The different notations used for the vowel of Template:Sc2 in RP and General American (Template:IPA and Template:IPA) reflect a difference in the most common phonetic realizations of that vowel.
• The triphthongs given in the RP table are usually regarded as sequences of two phonemes (a diphthong plus Template:IPA); however, in RP, these sequences frequently undergo smoothing into single diphthongs or even monophthongs.
• The different notations used here for some of the Australian vowels reflect the phonetic realization of those vowels in Australian: a central Template:IPAblink rather than Template:IPAblink in Template:Sc2, a more closed Template:IPAblink rather than Template:IPAblink in Template:Sc2, a close-mid Template:IPAblink rather than traditional RP's Template:IPAblink in Template:Sc2, an open-mid Template:IPAblink rather than traditional RP's Template:IPAblink in Template:Sc2, an opener Template:IPAblink rather than somewhat closer Template:IPAblink in Template:Sc2, a central Template:IPAblink rather a back Template:IPAblink in Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2, and somewhat different pronunciations of most of the diphthongs. Note that central Template:IPAblink in Template:Sc2, close-mid Template:IPAblink in Template:Sc2 and open-mid Template:IPAblink in Template:Sc2 are standard realizations in modern RP and the difference between modern RP and Australian English in these vowels lies almost only in transcription, rather than pronunciation.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
• Both Australian Template:IPA and RP Template:IPA are long monophthongs, the difference between them being in tongue height: Australian Template:IPA is close-mid Template:IPAblink, whereas the corresponding RP vowel is open-mid Template:IPAblink.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Other points to be noted are these:

• The vowel Template:IPA is generally pronounced more open, approaching Template:IPA, by modern RP speakers.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp<ref name="upton"/> In American speech, however, there is a tendency for it to become more closed, tenser and even diphthongized (to something like Template:IPA), particularly in certain environments, such as before a nasal consonant,Template:Sfnp though younger speakers of some varieties are lowering Template:IPA like RP speakers (see Canadian shift). Some American accents, for example those of New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore, make a marginal phonemic distinction between Template:IPA and Template:IPA, although the two occur largely in mutually exclusive environments. See /æ/ raising.
• A significant number of words (the Template:Sc2 group) have Template:IPA in General American, but Template:IPA in RP. The pronunciation varies between Template:IPA and Template:IPA in Australia, with speakers from South Australia using Template:IPA more extensively than speakers from other regions.
• In General American and Canadian (which are rhotic accents, where Template:IPA is pronounced in positions where it does not precede a vowel), many of the vowels can be r-colored by way of realization of a following Template:IPA. This is often transcribed phonetically using a vowel symbol with an added retroflexion diacritic Template:Angbr IPA; thus the symbol Template:IPA has been created for an r-colored schwa (sometimes called schwar) as in Template:Sc2, and the vowel of Template:Sc2 can be modified to make Template:IPA so that the word start may be transcribed Template:IPA. Alternatively, the Template:Sc2 sequence might be written Template:IPA to indicate an r-colored offglide. The vowel of Template:Sc2 is generally always r-colored in these dialects, and this can be written Template:IPA (or as a syllabic Template:IPA).
• In modern RP and other dialects, many words from the Template:Sc2 group are coming to be pronounced by an increasing number of speakers with the Template:Sc2 vowel (so sure is often pronounced like shore).Template:Sfnp
• The vowels of Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2 are commonly pronounced as narrow diphthongs, approaching Template:IPA and Template:IPA, in RP. Near-RP speakers may have particularly marked diphthongization of the type Template:IPA and Template:IPA, respectively. In General American, the pronunciation varies between a monophthong and a diphthong.Template:Sfnp

Allophones of vowels

Listed here are some of the significant cases of allophony of vowels found within standard English dialects.

• Vowels are shortened when followed in a syllable by a voiceless (fortis) consonant.Template:Sfnp This is known as pre-fortis clipping. Thus in the following word pairs the first item has a shortened vowel while the second has a normal length vowel: 'right' Template:IPA – 'ride' Template:IPA; 'face' Template:IPA – 'phase' Template:IPA; 'advice' Template:IPA – 'advise' Template:IPA.
• In many accents of English, tense vowels undergo breaking before Template:IPA, resulting in pronunciations like Template:IPA for peel, Template:IPA for pool, Template:IPA for pail, and Template:IPA for pole.Template:Citation needed
• In RP, the vowel Template:IPA may be pronounced more back, as Template:IPA, before syllable-final Template:IPA, as in goal. In standard Australian English the vowel Template:IPA is similarly backed to Template:IPA before Template:IPA. A similar phenomenon occurs in Southern American English.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• The vowel Template:IPA is often pronounced Template:IPA in open syllables.Template:Sfnp
• The Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2 diphthongs may be pronounced with a less open starting point when followed by a voiceless consonant;Template:Sfnp this is chiefly a feature of Canadian speech (Canadian raising), but is also found in parts of the United States.Template:Sfnp Thus writer may be distinguished from rider even when flapping causes the Template:IPA and Template:IPA to be pronounced identically.

Unstressed syllables

Unstressed syllables in English may contain almost any vowel, but in practice vowels in stressed and unstressed syllables tend to use different inventories of phonemes. In particular, long vowels are used less often in unstressed syllables than stressed syllables. Additionally there are certain sounds—characterized by central position and weakness—that are particularly often found as the nuclei of unstressed syllables. These include:

• schwa, Template:IPA, as in Template:Sc2 and (in non-rhotic dialects) Template:Sc2 ([[Rhoticity in English#Comma–letter merger|Template:Sc2–Template:Sc2 merger]]); also in many other positions such as about, Template:Not a typo, paddock, etc. This sound is essentially restricted to unstressed syllables exclusively. In the approach presented here it is identified as a phoneme Template:IPA, although other analyses do not have a separate phoneme for schwa and regard it as a reduction or neutralization of other vowels in syllables with the lowest degree of stress.
• r-colored schwa, Template:IPA, as in Template:Sc2 in General American and some other rhotic dialects, which can be identified with the underlying sequence Template:IPA.
• syllabic consonants: Template:IPA as in bottle, Template:IPA as in button, Template:IPA as in rhythm. These may be phonemized either as a plain consonant or as a schwa followed by a consonant; for example button may be represented as Template:IPA or Template:IPA (see above under Consonants).
• Template:IPA, as in roses and making. This can be identified with the phoneme Template:IPA, although in unstressed syllables it may be pronounced more centrally, and for some speakers (particularly in Australian and New Zealand and some American English) it is merged with Template:IPA in these syllables (weak vowel merger). Among speakers who retain the distinction there are many cases where free variation between Template:IPA and Template:IPA is found, as in the second syllable of typical. (The OED has recently adopted the symbol Template:Angbr to indicate such cases.)
• Template:IPA, as in Template:Not a typo, today, for which similar considerations apply as in the case of Template:IPA. (The symbol Template:Angbr is sometimes used in these cases, similarly to Template:Angbr.) Some speakers may also have a rounded schwa, Template:IPA, used in words like omission Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
• Template:IPA, as in happy, coffee, in many dialects (others have Template:IPA in this position).Template:Sfnp The phonemic status of this Template:IPA is not easy to establish. Some authors consider it to correspond phonemically with a close front vowel that is neither the vowel of Template:Sc2 nor that of Template:Sc2; it occurs chiefly in contexts where the contrast between these vowels is neutralized,Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp implying that it represents an archiphoneme, which may be written Template:IPA. Many speakers, however, do have a contrast in pairs of words like studied and studded or taxis and taxes; the contrast may be Template:IPA vs. Template:IPA, Template:IPA vs. Template:IPA or Template:IPA vs. Template:IPA, and thus some authors consider that the happY-vowel should be identified phonemically either with the vowel of Template:Sc2 or that of Template:Sc2, depending on the speaker.Template:Sfnp See also happy-tensing.
• Template:IPA, as in Template:Not a typo, to each. This is the back rounded counterpart to Template:IPA described above; its phonemic status is treated in the same works as cited there.

Vowel reduction in unstressed syllables is a significant feature of English. Syllables of the types listed above often correspond to a syllable containing a different vowel ("full vowel") used in other forms of the same morpheme where that syllable is stressed. For example, the first o in photograph, being stressed, is pronounced with the Template:Sc2 vowel, but in photography, where it is unstressed, it is reduced to schwa. Also, certain common words (a, an, of, for, etc.) are pronounced with a schwa when they are unstressed, although they have different vowels when they are in a stressed position (see Weak and strong forms in English).

Some unstressed syllables, however, retain full (unreduced) vowels, i.e. vowels other than those listed above. Examples are the Template:IPA in ambition and the Template:IPA in finite. Some phonologists regard such syllables as not being fully unstressed (they may describe them as having tertiary stress); some dictionaries have marked such syllables as having secondary stress. However linguists such as LadefogedTemplate:Sfnp and Template:Harvcoltxt regard this as a difference purely of vowel quality and not of stress,Template:Sfnp and thus argue that vowel reduction itself is phonemic in English. Examples of words where vowel reduction seems to be distinctive for some speakersTemplate:Sfnp include chickaree vs. chicory (the latter has the reduced vowel of Template:Sc2, whereas the former has the Template:Sc2 vowel without reduction), and Pharaoh vs. farrow (both have the Template:Sc2 vowel, but in the latter word it may reduce to Template:IPA).

Lexical stress

Template:Main Lexical stress is phonemic in English. For example, the noun increase and the verb increase are distinguished by the positioning of the stress on the first syllable in the former, and on the second syllable in the latter. (See initial-stress-derived noun.) Stressed syllables in English are louder than non-stressed syllables, as well as being longer and having a higher pitch.

In traditional approaches, in any English word consisting of more than one syllable, each syllable is ascribed one of three degrees of stress: primary, secondary or unstressed. Ordinarily, in each such word there will be exactly one syllable with primary stress, possibly one syllable having secondary stress, and the remainder are unstressed (unusually-long words may have multiple syllables with secondary stress). For example, the word amazing has primary stress on the second syllable, while the first and third syllables are unstressed, whereas the word organization has primary stress on the fourth syllable, secondary stress on the first, and the second, third, and fifth unstressed. This is often shown in pronunciation keys using the IPA symbols for primary and secondary stress (which are ˈ and ˌ respectively), placed before the syllables to which they apply. The two words just given may therefore be represented (in RP) as Template:IPA and Template:IPA.

Some analysts identify an additional level of stress (tertiary stress). This is generally ascribed to syllables that are pronounced with less force than those with secondary stress, but nonetheless contain a "full" or "unreduced" vowel (vowels that are considered to be reduced are listed under Template:Slink above). Hence the third syllable of organization, if pronounced with Template:IPA as shown above (rather than being reduced to Template:IPA or Template:IPA), might be said to have tertiary stress. (The precise identification of secondary and tertiary stress differs between analyses; dictionaries do not generally show tertiary stress, although some have taken the approach of marking all syllables with unreduced vowels as having at least secondary stress.)

In some analyses, then, the concept of lexical stress may become conflated with that of vowel reduction. An approach that attempts to separate both is provided by Peter Ladefoged, who states that it is possible to describe English with only one degree of stress, as long as unstressed syllables are phonemically distinguished for vowel reduction.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp In this approach, the distinction between primary and secondary stress is regarded as a phonetic or prosodic detail rather than a phonemic feature – primary stress is seen as an example of the predictable "tonic" stress that falls on the final stressed syllable of a prosodic unit. For more details of this analysis, see Stress and vowel reduction in English.

For stress as a prosodic feature (emphasis of particular words within utterances), see Template:Slink below.

Phonotactics

Phonotactics is the study of the sequences of phonemes that occur in languages and the sound structures that they form. In this study it is usual to represent consonants in general with the letter C and vowels with the letter V, so that a syllable such as 'be' is described as having CV structure. The IPA symbol used to show a division between syllables is the full stop Template:Angbr IPA. Syllabification is the process of dividing continuous speech into discrete syllables, a process in which the position of a syllable division is not always easy to decide upon.

Most languages of the world syllabify Template:IPA and Template:IPA sequences as Template:IPA and Template:IPA or Template:IPA, with consonants preferentially acting as the onset of a syllable containing the following vowel. According to one view, English is unusual in this regard, in that stressed syllables attract following consonants, so that Template:IPA and Template:IPA syllabify as Template:IPA and Template:IPA, as long as the consonant cluster Template:IPA is a possible syllable coda; in addition, Template:IPA preferentially syllabifies with the preceding vowel even when both syllables are unstressed, so that Template:IPA occurs as Template:IPA. This is the analysis used in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary.Template:Sfnp However, this view is not widely accepted, as explained in the following section.

Syllable structure

English allows clusters of up to three consonants in the syllable onset and up to four consonants in the syllable coda,Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp giving a general syllable structure of (C)³V(C)⁴, a potential example being strengths Template:IPA (although this word has variant pronunciations with only 3 coda consonants, such as Template:IPA). A five-consonant coda may occur in the word angsts, but this is a highly exceptional case, as the word is both infrequent and not always pronounced with five final segmentsTemplate:Sfnp (it can be analyzed as a VC⁴ syllableTemplate:Sfnp Template:IPA rather than as VC⁵ Template:IPA). From the phonetic point of view, the analysis of syllable structures is a complex task: because of widespread occurrences of articulatory overlap, English speakers rarely produce an audible release of individual consonants in consonant clusters.Template:Sfnp This coarticulation can lead to articulatory gestures that seem very much like deletions or complete assimilations. For example, hundred pounds may sound like Template:IPA and jumped back (in slow speech, Template:IPA) may sound like Template:IPA, but X-rayTemplate:Sfnp and electropalatographicTemplate:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp studies demonstrate that inaudible and possibly weakened contacts or lingual gestures may still be made. Thus the second Template:IPA in hundred pounds does not entirely assimilate to a labial place of articulation, rather the labial gesture co-occurs with the alveolar one; the "missing" Template:IPA in jumped back may still be articulated, though not heard.

Division into syllables is a difficult area, and different theories have been proposed. A widely accepted approach is the maximal onset principle:Template:Sfnp this states that, subject to certain constraints, any consonants in between vowels should be assigned to the following syllable. Thus the word leaving should be divided Template:IPA rather than *Template:IPA, and hasty is Template:IPA rather than *Template:IPA or *Template:IPA. However, when such a division results in an onset cluster that is not allowed in English, the division must respect this. Thus if the word extra were divided *Template:IPA the resulting onset of the second syllable would be Template:IPA, a cluster that does not occur initially in English. The division Template:IPA is therefore preferred. If assigning a consonant or consonants to the following syllable would result in the preceding syllable ending in an unreduced short vowel, this is avoided. Thus the word lemma should be divided Template:IPA and not *Template:IPA, even though the latter division gives the maximal onset to the following syllable.

In some cases, no solution is completely satisfactory: for example, in British English (RP) the word hurry could be divided Template:IPA or Template:IPA, but the former would result in an analysis with a syllable-final Template:IPA (which is held to be non-occurring) while the latter would result in a syllable-final Template:IPA (which is said not to occur in this accent). Some phonologists have suggested a compromise analysis where the consonant in the middle belongs to both syllables, and is described as ambisyllabic.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp In this way, it is possible to suggest an analysis of hurry that comprises the syllables Template:IPA and Template:IPA, the medial Template:IPA being ambisyllabic. Where the division coincides with a word boundary, or the boundary between elements of a compound word, it is not usual in the case of dictionaries to insist on the maximal onset principle in a way that divides words in a counter-intuitive way; thus the word hardware would be divided Template:IPA by the maximal onset principle, but dictionaries prefer the division Template:IPA.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

In the approach used by the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, WellsTemplate:Sfnp claims that consonants syllabify with the preceding rather than following vowel when the preceding vowel is the nucleus of a more salient syllable, with stressed syllables being the most salient, reduced syllables the least, and full unstressed vowels ("secondary stress") intermediate. But there are lexical differences as well, frequently but not exclusively with compound words. For example, in dolphin and selfish, Wells argues that the stressed syllable ends in Template:IPA, but in shellfish, the Template:IPA belongs with the following syllable: Template:IPA → Template:IPA, but Template:IPA → Template:IPA, where the Template:IPA is a little longer and the Template:IPA is not reduced. Similarly, in toe-strap Wells argues that the second Template:IPA is a full plosive, as usual in syllable onset, whereas in toast-rack the second Template:IPA is in many dialects reduced to the unreleased allophone it takes in syllable codas, or even elided: Template:IPA → Template:IPA; likewise nitrate Template:IPA → Template:IPA with a voiceless Template:IPA (and for some people an affricated tr as in tree), vs night-rate Template:IPA → Template:IPA with a voiced Template:IPA. Cues of syllable boundaries include aspiration of syllable onsets and (in the US) flapping of coda Template:IPA (a tease Template:IPA → Template:IPA vs. at ease Template:IPA → Template:IPA), epenthetic stops like Template:IPA in syllable codas (fence Template:IPA → Template:IPA but inside Template:IPA → Template:IPA), and r-colored vowels when the Template:IPA is in the coda vs. labialization when it is in the onset (key-ring Template:IPA → Template:IPA but fearing Template:IPA → Template:IPA).

Onset

The following can occur as the onsetTemplate:Citation needed:

All single-consonant phonemes except Template:IPA
Stop plus approximant other than Template:IPA: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA,Template:Efn Template:IPA,Template:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	play, blood, clean, glove, prize, bring, tree,Template:Efn dream,Template:Efn crowd, green, twin, dwarf, Guam, quick, puissance
Voiceless fricative or Template:IPA plus approximant other than Template:IPA:Template:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA,Template:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA,Template:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	floor, sleep, thlipsis,Template:Efn schlep, friend, three, shrimp, what,Template:Efn swoon, thwart, voilà
Consonant other than Template:IPA or Template:IPA plus Template:IPA (before Template:IPA or its modified/reduced forms):Template:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA,Template:Efn Template:IPA,Template:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA,Template:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA,Template:Efn Template:IPA,Template:Efn Template:IPA,Template:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPATemplate:Efn	pure, beautiful, tube,Template:Efn during,Template:Efn cute, argue, music, new,Template:Efn few, view, thew,Template:Efn suit,Template:Efn Zeus,Template:Efn huge, luridTemplate:Efn
Template:IPA plus voiceless stop:Template:EfnTemplate:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	speak, stop, skill
Template:IPA plus nasal other than Template:IPA:Template:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPA	smile, snow
Template:IPA plus voiceless non-sibilant fricative:Template:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPA	sphere, sthenic
Template:IPA plus voiceless stop plus approximant:Template:EfnTemplate:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPA,Template:Efn Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA,Template:Efn Template:IPA	split, sclera, spring, street, scream, square, spew, student,Template:Efn skewer
Template:IPA plus nasal plus approximant:	smew, snewTemplate:Efn
Template:IPA plus voiceless non-sibilant fricative plus approximant:Template:Efn	sphragistics

Notes:

Other onsets

Certain English onsets appear only in contractions: e.g. Template:IPA ('sblood), and Template:IPA or Template:IPA ('swounds or 'dswounds). Some, such as Template:IPA (pshaw), Template:IPA (fwoosh), or Template:IPA (vroom), can occur in interjections. An archaic voiceless fricative plus nasal exists, Template:IPA (fnese), as does an archaic Template:IPA (snew).

Several additional onsets occur in loan words (with varying degrees of anglicization) such as Template:IPA (bwana), Template:IPA (moiré), Template:IPA (noire), Template:IPA (zwitterion), Template:IPA (zwieback), Template:IPA (Dvorak), Template:IPA (kvetch), Template:IPA (schvartze), Template:IPA (Tver), Template:IPA (Zwickau), Template:IPA (Kshatriya), Template:IPA (Tlaloc), Template:IPA (Vladimir), Template:IPA (zloty), Template:IPA (Tskhinvali), Template:IPA (Hmong), Template:IPA (Khmer), and Template:IPA (Nganasan).

Some clusters of this type can be converted to regular English phonotactics by simplifying the cluster: e.g. Template:IPA (dziggetai), Template:IPA (Hrolf), Template:IPA (croissant), Template:IPA (Nguyen), Template:IPA (pfennig), Template:IPA (phthalic), Template:IPA (tsunami), Template:IPA (!kung), and Template:IPA (Xhosa).

Others can be replaced by native clusters differing only in voice: Template:IPA (sbirro), and Template:IPA (sgraffito).

Nucleus

The following can occur as the nucleus:

• All vowel sounds
• Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA in certain situations (see below under word-level patterns)
• Template:IPA in rhotic varieties of English (e.g. General American) in certain situations (see below under word-level patterns)

Coda

Most (in theory, all) of the following except those that end with Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA or Template:IPA can be extended with Template:IPA or Template:IPA representing the morpheme -s/-z. Similarly, most (in theory, all) of the following except those that end with Template:IPA or Template:IPA can be extended with Template:IPA or Template:IPA representing the morpheme -t/-d.

Template:Harvcoltxt argues that a variety of syllable codas are possible in English, even Template:IPA in words like entry Template:IPA and sundry Template:IPA, with Template:IPA being treated as affricates along the lines of Template:IPA. He argues that the traditional assumption that pre-vocalic consonants form a syllable with the following vowel is due to the influence of languages like French and Latin, where syllable structure is CVC.CVC regardless of stress placement. Disregarding such contentious cases, which do not occur at the ends of words, the following sequences can occur as the codaTemplate:Citation needed:

The single consonant phonemes except Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA and, in non-rhotic varieties, Template:IPA
Lateral approximant plus stop or affricate: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	help, bulb, belt, hold, belch, indulge, milk
In rhotic varieties, Template:IPA plus stop or affricate: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	harp, orb, fort, beard, arch, large, mark, morgue
Lateral approximant + fricative: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, (Template:IPA)	golf, solve, wealth, else, bells, Welsh, (stealth (v.))
In rhotic varieties, Template:IPA + fricative: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	dwarf, carve, north, birth (v.), force, Mars, marsh
Lateral approximant + nasal: Template:IPA, Template:IPA	film, kiln
In rhotic varieties, Template:IPA + nasal or lateral: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	arm, born, snarl
Nasal + homorganic stop or affricate: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA; some varieties also allow Template:IPA	jump, tent, end, lunch, lounge, pink, sing
Nasal + fricative: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, (Template:IPA), Template:IPA, (Template:IPA), Template:IPA, Template:IPA; some varieties also allow Template:IPA	triumph, Thames, gloomth, (saunf), month, (prince), bronze, songs, length, strength
Voiceless fricative plus voiceless stop: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	left, crisp, lost, ask, smashed, smithed
Voiced fricative plus voiced stop: Template:IPA, Template:IPA	blazed, writhed
Two or three voiceless fricatives: Template:IPA, Template:IPA	fifth, fifths
Two voiceless stops: Template:IPA, Template:IPA	opt, act
Two voiceless stops + fricative: Template:IPA, Template:IPA	opts, acts
Stop plus fricative: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	depth, lapse, ebbs, eighth, klutz, width, adze, box, eggs
Lateral approximant + two or three consonants: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	filmed, sculpt, alps, twelfth,Template:Efn waltz, whilst, mulct, calx
In rhotic varieties, Template:IPA + two consonants: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	farmed, warmth, excerpt, corpse, mourned, quartz, horst, world, infarct, irks
Nasal + homorganic stop + stop or fricative: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA in some varieties	prompt, glimpse, chintz, thousandth, distinct, jinx, length
Nasal + homorganic stop + two fricatives: Template:IPA	thousandths
Nasal + non-homorganic stop: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	dreamt, hemmed, hanged
Three obstruents: Template:IPA, Template:IPA	sixth, next
Four obstruents: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA	sixths, sixthed, texts

• Notes:

For some speakers, a fricative before Template:IPA is elided so that these never appear phonetically: Template:IPA becomes Template:IPA, Template:IPA becomes Template:IPA, Template:IPA becomes Template:IPA.

Syllable-level patterns

• Syllables may consist of a single vowel, meaning that onset and coda are not mandatory.
• The consonant Template:IPA does not occur in syllable-initial position (most speakers do not maintain it even in loans like Ngorongoro and Nguyen).
• The consonant Template:IPA does not occur in syllable-final position.
• Onset clusters ending in Template:IPA are followed by Template:IPA or its variants (see Template:Section link note e above).
• Long vowels and diphthongs are not found before Template:IPA, except for the mimetic words boing and oink, unassimilated foreign words such as Burmese aung and proper names such as Taung, and American-type pronunciations of words like strong (which have Template:IPA or Template:IPA). The short vowels Template:IPA occur before Template:IPA only in assimilated non-native words such as ginseng and Song (name of a Chinese dynasty) or non-finally in some dialects in words like strength and length as well as in varieties without the foot-strut split.
• Template:IPA is rare in syllable-initial position (although in the northern half of England, Template:IPA is used for Template:IPA and is common at the start of syllables).
• Stop + Template:IPA before Template:IPA (all presently or historically Template:IPA) are excluded.Template:Sfnp
• Sequences of Template:IPA + C₁ + V̆ + C₁, where C₁ is a consonant other than Template:IPA and V̆ is a short vowel, are virtually nonexistent.Template:Sfnp

Word-level patterns

• Template:IPA does not occur in stressed syllables, unless it is merged with another vowel as in some varieties.
• Template:IPA does not occur in word-initial position in native English words, although it can occur syllable-initially as in luxurious Template:IPA in American English, and at the start of borrowed words such as genre.
• Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA and, in rhotic varieties, Template:IPA can be the syllable nucleus (i.e. a syllabic consonant) in an unstressed syllable following another consonant, especially Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA or Template:IPA. Such syllables are often analyzed phonemically as having an underlying Template:IPA as the nucleus. See above under Consonants.
• The short vowels are checked vowels, in that they cannot occur without a coda in a word-final stressed syllable. (This does not apply to Template:IPA, which does not occur in stressed syllables as mentioned above.)

Prosody

The prosodic features of English – stress, rhythm, and intonation – can be described as follows.

Prosodic stress

Prosodic stress is extra stress given to words or syllables when they appear in certain positions in an utterance, or when they receive special emphasis.

According to Ladefoged's analysis (as referred to under Template:Slink above), English normally has prosodic stress on the final stressed syllable in an intonation unit. This is said to be the origin of the distinction traditionally made at the lexical level between primary and secondary stress: when a word like admiration (traditionally transcribed as something like Template:IPA) is spoken in isolation, or at the end of a sentence, the syllable ra (the final stressed syllable) is pronounced with greater force than the syllable ad, although when the word is not pronounced with this final intonation there may be no difference between the levels of stress of these two syllables.

Prosodic stress can shift for various pragmatic functions, such as focus or contrast. For instance, in the dialogue Is it brunch tomorrow? No, it's dinner tomorrow, the extra stress shifts from the last stressed syllable of the sentence, tomorrow, to the last stressed syllable of the emphasized word, dinner.

Grammatical function words are usually prosodically unstressed, although they can acquire stress when emphasized (as in Did you find the cat? Well, I found a cat). Many English function words have distinct strong and weak pronunciations; for example, the word a in the last example is pronounced Template:IPA, while the more common unstressed a is pronounced Template:IPA. See Weak and strong forms in English.

Rhythm

English is claimed to be a stress-timed language. That is, stressed syllables tend to appear with a more or less regular rhythm, while non-stressed syllables are shortened to accommodate this. For example, in the sentence One make of car is better than another, the syllables one, make, car, bett- and Template:Notatypo will be stressed and relatively long, while the other syllables will be considerably shorter. The theory of stress-timing predicts that each of the three unstressed syllables in between bett- and Template:Notatypo will be shorter than the syllable of between make and car, because three syllables must fit into the same amount of time as that available for of. However, it should not be assumed that all varieties of English are stress-timed in this way. The English spoken in the West Indies,Template:Sfnp in AfricaTemplate:Sfnp and in IndiaTemplate:Sfnp are probably better characterized as syllable-timed, though the lack of an agreed scientific test for categorizing an accent or language as stress-timed or syllable-timed may lead one to doubt the value of such a characterization.Template:Sfnp

Intonation

Phonological contrasts in intonation can be said to be found in three different and independent domains. In the work of HallidayTemplate:Sfnp the following names are proposed:

• Tonality for the distribution of continuous speech into tone groups.
• Tonicity for the placing of the principal accent on a particular syllable of a word, making it the tonic syllable. This is the domain also referred to as prosodic stress or sentence stress.
• Tone for the choice of pitch movement on the tonic syllable. (The use of the term tone in this sense should not be confused with the tone of tone languages, such as Chinese.)

These terms ("the Three Ts") have been used in more recent work,Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp though they have been criticized for being difficult to remember.Template:Sfnp American systems such as ToBI also identify contrasts involving boundaries between intonation phrases (Halliday's tonality), placement of pitch accent (tonicity), and choice of tone or tones associated with the pitch accent (tone).

Example of phonological contrast involving placement of intonation unit boundaries (boundary marked by comma): Template:Ordered list

Example of phonological contrast involving placement of tonic syllable (marked by capital letters): Template:Ordered list

Example of phonological contrast (British English) involving choice of tone (\ = falling tone, \/ = fall-rise tone) Template:Ordered list

There is typically a contrast involving tone between wh-questions and yes/no questions, the former having a falling tone (e.g. "Where did you \PUT it?") and the latter a rising tone (e.g. "Are you going /OUT?"), though studies of spontaneous speech have shown frequent exceptions to this rule.Template:Sfnp Tag questions asking for information are said to carry rising tones (e.g. "They are coming on Tuesday, /AREN'T they?") while those asking for confirmation have falling tone (e.g. "Your name's John, \ISN'T it.").

History of English pronunciation

The pronunciation system of English has undergone many changes throughout the history of the language, from the phonological system of Old English, to that of Middle English, through to that of the present day. Variation between dialects has always been significant. Former pronunciations of many words are reflected in their spellings, as English orthography has generally not kept pace with phonological changes since the Middle English period.

The English consonant system has been relatively stable over time, although a number of significant changes have occurred. Examples include the loss (in most dialects) of the Template:IPA and Template:IPA sounds still reflected by the Template:Angbr in words like night and taught, and the splitting of voiced and voiceless allophones of fricatives into separate phonemes (such as the two different [[Pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩|phonemes represented by Template:Angbr]]). There have also been many changes in consonant clusters, mostly reductions, for instance those that produced the usual modern pronunciations of such letter combinations as Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr and [[English wh|Template:Angbr]].

The development of vowels has been much more complex. One of the most notable series of changes is that known as the Great Vowel Shift, which began around the late 14th century. Here the Template:IPA and Template:IPA in words like price and mouth became diphthongized, and other long vowels became higher: Template:IPA became Template:IPA (as in meet), Template:IPA became Template:IPA and later Template:IPA (as in name), Template:IPA became Template:IPA (as in goose), and Template:IPA became Template:IPA and later Template:IPA (in RP now Template:IPA; as in bone). These shifts are responsible for the modern pronunciations of many written vowel combinations, including those involving a [[silent e|silent final Template:Angbr]].

Many other changes in vowels have taken place over the centuries (see the separate articles on the low back, high back and high front vowels, short A, and diphthongs). These various changes mean that many words that formerly rhymed (and may be expected to rhyme based on their spelling) no longer do.Template:Sfnp For example, in Shakespeare's time, following the Great Vowel Shift, food, good and blood all had the vowel Template:IPA, but in modern pronunciation good has been shortened to Template:IPA, while blood has been shortened and lowered to Template:IPA in most accents. In other cases, words that were formerly distinct have come to be pronounced the same – examples of such mergers include meet–meat, pane–pain and toe–tow.

Controversial issues

Velar nasal

The phonemic status of the velar nasal consonant Template:IPA is disputed; one analysis claims that the only nasal phonemes in English are Template:IPA and Template:IPA, while Template:IPA is an allophone of Template:IPA found before velar consonants. Evidence in support of this analysis is found in accents of the north-west Midlands of England where Template:IPA is found only before Template:IPA or Template:IPA, with sung being pronounced as Template:IPA. However, in most other accents of English sung is pronounced Template:IPA, producing a three-way phonemic contrast sum – sun – sung Template:IPA and supporting the analysis of the phonemic status of Template:IPA. In support of treating the velar nasal as an allophone of Template:IPA, Template:Harvcoltxt claims on psychological grounds that Template:IPA did not form part of a series of three nasal consonants: "no naïve English-speaking person can be made to feel in his bones that it belongs to a single series with m and n. ... It still feels like ƞg."Template:Sfnp More recent writers have indicated that analyses of Template:IPA as an allophone of Template:IPA may still have merit, even though Template:IPA may appear both with and without a following velar consonant; in such analyses, an underlying Template:IPA that is deleted by a phonological rule would account for occurrences of Template:IPA not followed by a velar consonant.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfn Thus the phonemic representation of sing would be Template:IPA and that of singer is Template:IPA; in order to reach the phonetic form Template:IPA and Template:IPA, it is necessary to apply a rule that changes Template:IPA to Template:IPA before Template:IPA or Template:IPA, then a second rule that deletes Template:IPA when it follows Template:IPA.

• 1. Template:IPA → Template:IPA / ____ velar consonant
• 2. Template:IPA → ∅ / Template:IPA _____

These produce the following results:

Word	Underlying phonological form	Phonetic form
sing	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
singer	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
singing	Template:IPA	Template:IPA

However, these rules do not predict the following phonetic forms:

Word	Underlying phonological form	Phonetic form
anger	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
finger	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
hunger	Template:IPA	Template:IPA

In the above cases, the Template:IPA is not deleted. The words are all single morphemes, unlike singer and singing which are composed of two morphemes, sing plus -er or -ing. Rule 2 can be amended to include a symbol # for a morpheme boundary (including word boundary):

2. Template:IPA

This rule then applies to sing, singer and singing but not to anger, finger, or hunger.

According to this rule, the words hangar ('shed for aircraft'), which contains no internal morpheme boundary, and hanger ('object for hanging clothes'), which comprises two morphemes, are expected to constitute a minimal pair as hangar Template:IPA versus hanger Template:IPA; in actuality, their pronunciations are not consistently distinguished in this manner, as hangar is frequently pronounced Template:IPA.

Additionally, there are exceptions in the form of comparative and superlative forms of adjectives, where Rule 2 must be prevented from applying. The ending -ish is another possible exception.

Word	Underlying phonological form	Phonetic form
long	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
longer	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
longest	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
longish	Template:IPA	Template:IPA

As a result, there is, in theory, a minimal pair consisting of longer (Template:IPA 'more long') and longer (Template:IPA 'person who longs'), though it is doubtful that native speakers make this distinction regularly.Template:Sfnp Names of persons and places, and loanwords, are less predictable. Singapore may be pronounced with or without Template:IPA; bungalow usually has Template:IPA; and Inge may or may not have Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp

Vowel system

It is often stated that English has a particularly large number of vowel phonemes and that there are 20 vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation,Template:Sfnp 14–16 in General American, and 20–21 in Australian English. These numbers, however, reflect just one of many possible phonological analyses. A number of "biphonemic" analyses have proposed that English has a basic set of short (sometimes called "simple" or "checked") vowels, each of which can be shown to be a phoneme and can be combined with another phoneme to form long vowels and diphthongs. One of these biphonemic analyses asserts that diphthongs and long vowels may be interpreted as comprising a short vowel linked to a consonant. The fullest exposition of this approach is found in Template:Harvcoltxt, where all long vowels and diphthongs ("complex nuclei") are made up of a short vowel combined with either Template:IPA (for which the authors use the symbol Template:Angbr), Template:IPA or Template:IPA (plus Template:IPA for rhotic accents), each thus comprising two phonemes.Template:Sfnp Using this system, the word bite would be transcribed Template:IPA, bout as Template:IPA, bar as Template:IPA and bra as Template:IPA. One attraction that the authors claim for this analysis is that it regularizes the distribution of the consonants Template:IPA, Template:IPA, and Template:IPA (as well as Template:IPA in non-rhotic accents), which would otherwise not be found in syllable-final position. Template:Harvcoltxt suggest nine simple vowel phonemes to allow them to represent all the accents of American and British English they surveyed, symbolized Template:IPA (front vowels); Template:IPA (central vowels); and Template:IPA (back vowels).

The analysis from Template:Harvcoltxt came out of a desire to build an "overall system" to accommodate all English dialects, with dialectal distinctions arising from differences in the ordering of phonological rules,Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp as well as in the presence or absence of such rules.Template:Sfnp Another category of biphonemic analyses of English treats long vowels and diphthongs as conjunctions of two vowels. Such analyses, as found in Template:Harvcoltxt or Template:Harvcoltxt for example, are less concerned with dialectal variation. In Template:Harvcoltxt, for example, there are seven basic vowels and these may be doubled (geminated) to represent long vowels, as shown in the table below:

Short vowel	Long vowel
i (bit)	ii (beet)
e (bet)
a (cat)	aa (cart)
o (cot)	oo (caught)
u (pull)	uu (pool)
ʌ (cut)
ə (collect)	əə (curl)

Some of the short vowels may also be combined with Template:IPA (Template:IPA bay, Template:IPA buy, Template:IPA boy), with Template:IPA (Template:IPA Template:IPA, Template:IPA beau) or with Template:IPA (Template:IPA peer, Template:IPA pair, Template:IPA poor). The vowel inventory of English RP in MacCarthy's system therefore totals only seven phonemes. (Analyses such as these could also posit six vowel phonemes, if the vowel of the final syllable in comma is considered to be an unstressed allophone of that of strut.) These seven vowels might be symbolized Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA. Six or seven vowels is a figure that would put English much closer to the average number of vowel phonemes in other languages.Template:Sfn

A radically different approach to the English vowel system was proposed by Chomsky and Halle. Their Sound Pattern of English Template:Harvcol proposed that English has lax and tense vowel phonemes, which are operated on by a complex set of phonological rules to transform underlying phonological forms into surface phonetic representations. This generative analysis is not easily comparable with conventional analyses, but the total number of vowel phonemes proposed falls well short of the figure of 20 often claimed as the number of English vowel phonemes.

See also

• Australian English phonology
• English orthography
• English pronunciation of Greek letters
• General American
• Non-native pronunciations of English
• Old English phonology
• Perception of English /r/ and /l/ by Japanese speakers
• Phonological development
• Phonological history of English vowels
• Phonological history of English consonants
• Pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩
• Received Pronunciation
• Regional accents of English
• Rhoticity in English
• T-glottalization
• R-colored vowel
• Sound correspondences between English accents
• Category:Splits and mergers in English phonology

References

Sources

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Further reading

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• Campbell, F., Gick, B., Wilson, I., Vatikiotis-Bateson, E. (2010), "Spatial and Temporal Properties of Gestures in North American English /r/". Child's Language and Speech, 53 (1): 49–69
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• Dalcher Villafaña, C., Knight, R.A., Jones, M.J., (2008), "Cue Switching in the Perception of Approximants: Evidence from Two English Dialects". University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 14 (2): 63–64
• Espy-Wilson, C. (2004), "Articulatory Strategies, speech Acoustics and Variability". From Sound to Sense June 11 – June 13 at MIT: 62–63
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• Hagiwara, R., Fosnot, S. M., & Alessi, D. M. (2002). "Acoustic phonetics in a clinical setting: A case study of /r/-distortion therapy with surgical intervention". Clinical linguistics & phonetics, 16 (6): 425–441.
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• Hoff, Erika, (2009), Language Development. Scarborough, Ontario. Cengage Learning, 2005.
• Howard, S. (2007), "The interplay between articulation and prosody in children with impaired speech: Observations from electropalatographic and perceptual analysis". International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 9 (1): 20–35.
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• Locke, John L., (1983), Phonological Acquisition and Change. New York, United States. Academic Press, 1983. Print.
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External links

• University of Glasgow Dynamic Dialects Accent Map
• IPA Phonetics Chart of English