Further readings on this section

Phonetics and Phonology (ENG)



VU

Lesson-16
ENGLISH WORDS AND SENTENCES-I

At the end of this section, the students will be able to
• EXPLAIN the fundamental features of connected speech.

Topic-080: English Words and Sentences

There is a lot of difference between words spoken in isolation than in a connected speech. The key difference between citation speech (where a word is in its complete form) and connected speech is the variable degree of emphasis placed on different words in the connected speech. This degree of emphasis is probably related to the amount of information that a word conveys in a particular utterance in conversation. For example, the citation speech/conversational speech difference is particularly noticeable for the closed class of words. This class of words such as determiners (a, an, the, conjunctions and, or, and prepositions (of, in, with)—the grammatical words—are very rarely emphasized in the connected speech, and thus their normal pronunciation in the connected speech is quite different from their citation speech forms. But remember that, as with other words, closed-class words show a strong form, which occurs when the word is emphasized, as in sentences such as He wanted pie and ice cream,
not pie or ice cream. There is also a weak form which occurs when the word is in an unstressed position.

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