CONNECTED SPEECH

(cf. Roach, Phonetics, Ch. 8)

IPA symbols represent the correct pronunciation of single words or of segments of speech.
However, we use single words or segments in isolation only occasionally. E.g., we can say “ah!”
/ɑː/ to express surprise, or “sh!” /ʃ/ if we want to tell somebody to be quiet.

Most commonly we use segments of speech or single words in a sequence of other words, to form
phrases or sentences. The sound “ah!” /ɑː/, for example, is likely to be found in whole sentences, to
express:

- surprise (“Ah, there you are!”)

- pleasure (“Ah, this coffee is good.”)
- admiration or sympathy (“Ah well, better luck next time.”)
- when you disagree with somebody (“Ah, but that may not be true.”)

In fact, we commonly use language in continuous, connected speech.

Connected speech means speech produced without pauses. A consequence of connected
speech is that single segments of speech are influenced by neighbouring segments (that is to say,
speech sounds that come before and after them), and may slightly change their place or manner of
articulation, or may sometimes totally disappear. Therefore the pronunciation of an isolated word
may be different from the pronunciation of the same word in connected speech.
The changes in connected speech fall into two main types: assimilation and elision.

ASSIMILATION

In assimilation, one sound becomes phonetically similar to an adjacent sound.

For example, the two words this and shop in isolation are pronounced

- this /ðɪs/
- shop /ʃɒp/.

In rapid speech, when the two words are pronounced together, the sound /s/ in this is influenced by
the following initial sound and changes to /ʃ/. What we actually hear is:

- this shop /ðɪʃʃɒp/.

In other words, the sound /s/ in this is assimilated to the following sound /ʃ/. The sound /s/
phonetically is a voiceless alveolar fricative, whereas /ʃ/ is a voiceless post-alveolar fricative.
In this shop /ðɪʃʃɒp/, therefore, assimilation produces a change in the place of articulation of
the preceding sound, from alveolar to post-alveolar: /s/ to /ʃ/.

Consider now another example of assimilation.

If the word ‘have’ occurs in final position, its final consonant /v/ will usually be voiced; but
when that /v/ is followed by a voiceless consonant, it too becomes voiceless. E.g.:

- Yes, I have. / jes aɪ hæv /

- I have to… / aɪ hæf tu /

1
 The sound /t/ influences the preceding sound /v/. But in this case the influence is not in the
place of articulation, as it was in this shop. In fact, when /v/ in have becomes /f/, it does not change
its own place of articulation (labiodental); what changes is the voicing: /v/ is voiced, /f/ is voiceless.
The sound /t/ assimilates the preceding sound /v/ to its voiceless quality.

Another case of assimilation involves a change from a ‘stronger’ consonant to a ‘weaker’ one.
An example may be the rapid pronunciation of the sentence “Get some of that soap”. A word-by-
word pronunciation would give:

- Get some of that soap /get sʌm əv ðæt səʊp/

In rapid speech assimilation takes place:

- Get some of that soap /ges‿sʌm ə ðæs‿səʊp/

The initial /s/ sounds of some and soap influence the final /t/ sounds of the previous words, and
assimilate them to their own quality.
In fact, while /t/ is a plosive sound, in rapid speech it becomes a fricative sound like the
following /s/.
We have a change in the manner of articulation, from plosive /t/ to fricative /s/.

The examples given above show three types of assimilation:

1) Assimilation of voice. A voiced segment may become voiceless when being adjacent to
another voiceless segment:

I have to… / aɪ hæf tu /

We also have the opposite case: a voiceless segment becoming voiced because of the influence
of an adjacent segment.
An example is the -s suffix for the plural of nouns. While in words like parts, groups, cakes,
the sound /s/ is voiceless because the previous sounds /t/, /p/, /k/ are voiceless, when the
preceding consonant is voiced the /s/ too is voiced and becomes /z/:

dogs / dɒɡz /
loves / lʌvz /
slabs / slæbz /
slides / slaɪdz /

Similarly, when the previous sound is a vowel, since vowels are always voiced, the plural
suffix -s is also voiced as /z/:

bars / bɑːz/
boys / bɔɪz /
doors / dɔːz /
matches / mætʃiz /

This is true also for the 3rd person singular of the present tense of verbs:

she writes /raɪts/

she rides /raɪdz/
2
 she goes /goʊz/

2) Assimilation of place. It refers to a change in the place of articulation of a segment, usually a

consonant. We have already seen the example:

this shop /ðɪʃʃɒp/

This type of assimilation is common in English with word-final alveolar consonants such as /t/,
/d/, /n/. If the following word starts with a consonant that has a different place of articulation, in
rapid speech the final /t/, /d/, /n/ are likely to change and take on the same place of articulation
of the following initial sound. E.g.:

that boy / θæt bɔɪ / in rapid speech: / θæp‿bɔɪ /

that girl / θæt ɡɜːl / in rapid speech: / θæk‿ɡɜːl /

The final sound /t/, an alveolar consonant, takes on the same place of articulation of the
following sounds. In the first example, it becomes a bilabial, like the following initial /b/; in the
second example, it becomes a velar, like the following initial /g/.

3) Assimilation of manner. One sound changes the manner of its articulation to become similar
in manner to a neighbouring sound. We have already seen the example:

Get some of that soap /ges‿sʌm ə ðæs‿səʊp/

In rapid speech, the fricative manner of the initial /s/ in some and soap is transferred to the
previous /t/ sounds, which also become fricatives.

REGRESSIVE/PROGRESSIVE ASSIMILATION
In the example

- this shop /ðɪʃʃɒp/

we have a case of regressive assimilation, i.e. assimilation ‘regresses’, goes backwards from a
sound to the preceding sound. The /ʃ/ in shop influences the previous sound /s/.
We have regressive assimilation also in the other examples:

- I have to… / aɪ hæf tu /

- Get some of that soap /ges‿sʌm ə ðæs‿səʊp/

Less frequently, assimilation is progressive, i.e. it ‘progresses’, so to say, moves forward to

influence a sound that follows.
We have seen the cases

- dogs / dɒɡz /
- loves / lʌvz /,

where the voiced character of /g/, /v/ is transmitted to the following /s/.

3
COARTICULATION

Studies in assimilation bring to light the phonetic influence of one segment of speech on another.
However, further studies have demonstrated that such influence extends much further than just from
one segment to another, from one sound to the neighbour. The whole phonetic context may
influence the articulation of speech sounds. Such wider influences are called coarticulation. Here
are some examples of coarticulation.
In the word

screws /skru:z/

lip-rounding is required for the pronunciation of /u:/, and also – in English – for the /r/ sound. The
sounds /s/ and /z/ are not normally pronounced with rounded lips. However, in this word, in this
phonetic context, the command to round the lips for /r/ and /u:/ is sent from the brain to the
articulators even before those sounds are actually articulated, so that even the initial /s/ is
pronounced with rounded lips; and the command will remain in effect after the end of the /u:/ and
produce lip-rounding in the final /z/ too. The effect of lip-rounding thus extends over the whole
context, to all the sounds in the word.

Similarly, the sound /t/ is not normally pronounced with rounded lips. But in the phrase

you too /ju: tu:/

the /t/ occurs between the two rounded vowel sounds /u:/; consequently the /t/ is also pronounced
with lip-rounding.

One more case of coarticulation is the nasalization of vowels.

Vowels are normally not nasalized, that is to say, they are pronounced with the soft palate raised,
and the air during their pronunciation goes out through the oral cavity, as you can see from the
following pictures.

Soft palate – Nasal cavity –

Oral cavity

However, when the wowel is adjacent to or between nasal consonants, it tends to be nasalized.
Examples: the vowels /æ/, /ʌ/ in the words
4
 man /mæn/
money/mʌni/

are nasalized, i.e. they are pronounced with the soft palate lowered and the air from the lungs going
out through the nasal cavity, not through the oral cavity, as it would be normal for their articulation.

DIACRITICS & ALLOPHONES

As we have just seen from the examples, in connected speech a phoneme often shows changes in its
articulation.

In common phonemic transcriptions such as /skru:z/, /ju: tu:/, /mæn/, /mʌni/, those changes in
pronunciation are not represented.
The IPA chart, however, has a table of so-called diacritic symbols, or diacritics /ˌdaɪəˈkrɪtɪks/,
that allow more precision about pronunciations.
In the diacritics table we have the symbol [w] to show lip-rounding (labialization). Therefore the
phonemic transcriptions /skru:z/, /ju: tu:/ could be more exactly represented as

- /swkru:z w/
- /ju: twu:/;

Nasalization is represented with a swung dash, the diacritic [ ᷉ ], put over the vowel.
/mæn/, /mʌni/ may therefore be represented as

- [m᷉æn], [m᷉ʌni]

The pronunciation of the word ostrich (“struzzo”) is represented as /ˈɒstrɪtʃ/, and this is the current
phonemic transcription to be found in dictionaries. Some details in the sounds of this word are:

- the /r/ sound is voiceless in this context; in diacritic symbols, this is represented by a small
circle under the consonant: [ṛ];
- /tʃ/ will be pronounced with rounded lips; and this is represented with the symbol [w];
- before the sound /tʃ/ there will be a glottal stop, i.e. the closure of the vocal folds,
represented with the symbol [ʔ].

A more exact transcription will therefore be

- ostrich [ˈɒstṛɪʔtʃʷ];

NOTE: the transcription including diacritics is called a phonetic transcription and is usually put
between square brackets: [].The simplified version /ˈɒstrɪtʃ/ is a phonemic transcription, and is
conventionally put between slant brackets: //.
Similarly, sounds with diacritic symbols are represented between square brackets: [ṛ], [tʃʷ];
phonemic symbols, between slant brackets: /r/, /tʃ/.
/r/, /tʃ/ and all the other IPA symbols for consonants and vowels are phonemes; the same
symbols with diacritics are called allophones (/ˈæləfəʊnz/; in Italian, allòfoni).

5
[tʃʷ] and /tʃ/ are not two different phonemes; they represent the same phoneme, but [tʃʷ] is a variant
of the basic phoneme /tʃ/. An allophone is a ‘phonemic variant,’ and the slight difference in the
pronunciation of the two sounds does not affect meaning.
In fact, a phoneme may be pronounced in many different ways, depending on the context in
which it appears.
In standard English, for example, the /r/ in ray and tray seem to be the same sound’, and in
common phonemic transcriptions it is represented by the same symbol /r/:

- ray /reɪ/
- tray /treɪ/

Phonetically the two /r/ sounds are different. The /r/ in ray is voiced and non-fricative, while
the /r/ in tray is voiceless and fricative. We say that the phoneme /r/ in this case has two allophones:
(1) the voiced non-fricative sound, and (2) the voiceless fricative one. The basic phoneme is
represented as /r/, whereas the two allophones as represented as [ɹ] and [˳ɹ] respectively.
One more example is the word little. The initial and final /l/ sounds represent the same
phoneme, but their articulation is different: both are “alveolar voiced lateral approximants”, but the
initial /l/ is pronounced with the back of the tongue lowered, while the second one with the back of
the tongue raised towards the velum or the uvula. These different realizations of the same sound, or
allophones, are represented as [l] and [l] respectively. Thus little is transcribed /lɪtl/ in phonemic
terms, and [lɪtl] in phonetic symbols.

ELISION

The term elision (/ɪˈlɪʒn/; in Italian, “elisione”) refers to the disappearence of one or more sounds in
connencted speech. The missing sounds are said to have been ‘elided’ (/iˈlaɪdɪd/; in Italian, “elìsi”).
E.g., the sentence

- She looked particularly interesting

in slow, careful speech would be pronounced word by word:

- /ʃi: lʊkt pəˈtɪkjələli ˈɪntrəstɪŋ/;

In rapid conversational speech, however, the sentence may sound like this:

- /ʃi lʊk pəˈtɪkli ˈɪntrstɪŋ/.

The /t/ sound in looked, the two syllables /jələ/ in particularly, the schwa vowel /ə/ in interesting
have all been elided in rapid speech.

Elision of vowels usually happens in rapid speech when a vowel occurs between some consonants,
as in the following words:

- perhaps /pˈhæps/ (vowel between two voiceless consonants elided in the first syllable)
- potato /pˈteɪtəʊ/ (vowel between two voiceless consonants elided in the first syllable)
- bicycle /ˈbaɪskl/ (vowel between two voiceless consonants elided in the second syllable)
- philosophy /fəˈlɒsfi/ (vowel between two voiceless consonants elided in the third syllable)

Elision of consonants happens most commonly when a speaker ‘simplifies’ a complex sequence of
consonants. E.g.:
6
 - acts /ækts/ /æks/ (/t/ sound elided in rapid speech)
- Twelfth night /twelfθ naɪt/ /twelθ naɪt/ or /twelf naɪt/ (/f/ or /θ/ sounds often elided
in rapid speech)

One final example, that joins elision and assimilation. Let’s look at the following sentence, first in a
word-by-word pronunciation, then in rapid speech:

- There is much to say about that

- /ðɛɘrɪz mʌʧ tuː seɪ əˈbaʊt ðæt/
- / ðɘzˈmʌʧ tɘˈseɪ ɘˈbaʊððæt/