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The term phonetics derived from the Greek words (phone) meaning sound, voice, and (ta phonetica) meaning matters pertaining to the voice , the science of the voice. In modern times phonetics is often defined, as “the science of speech sounds considered as elements of language…”. ”the science which treats of the sounds of which language is composed.”

Such definitions are inevitably loose because it is impossible to define phonetics as a science of a single sentence. Instead of giving a formal definition of phonetics, it would be much more exact, clearer and easier to describe phonetics as a science and discipline.

It should be noted that phonetics is not a separate, independent science.

It is a branch of linguistics, like the other branches, such as lexicology and grammar. These linguistic sciences study language from three different points of view. Lexicology deals with the vocabulary of a language, with the origin and development of words, with their meaning and with word-building. Grammar defines the rules governing the modification of words and the combination of words into sentences.

Language is the most important means of human intercourse. Being the most important medium of human intercommunication, language is at the same directly and inseparably connected with thought.

The direct and inseparable connection between language and thought manifests itself not only in the generally recognized fact that thoughts can be expressed in actual speech only by means of words organized into sentences pronounced with the proper intonation, but in the less obvious fact that thoughts can originate and be formulated in the human mind also only on the basis of words, which consist of sounds.

However, words alone are not sufficient for thought and speech. Separate words do not express any thought. In order to formulate and express a thought the necessary words must be modified and combined into a sentence in accordance with the rules of grammar, and the sentence must be pronounced with the proper intonation.

Human speech sounds are of a complex nature and they may be viewed from four points articulatory, auditory, acoustic and functional (or social and linguistic). These are the aspects of speech sounds. None of these four aspects can be separated from any other in the actual process of communication by word of mouth. But each of these can be singled out for purposes of linguistic analysis and thus becomes a separate object of investigation, which necessitates the division of phonetics as a science into several branches.

Each of these branches has its own methods of investigation and its terminology.

The term nasal is descriptive of the articulatory aspect of the sounds [m, n, ŋ,]; acoustically they are resonants; the term sonorant characterizes them from the viewpoint of the auditory impression they produce; the statement that all these sounds are realizations of different phonemes in English, while [ŋ] is an allophone of the phoneme /n/ in Italian, characterizes them from a functional or purely linguistic point of view.

One must clearly understand the correlation between articulatory, acoustic, auditory and purely linguistic terms and take care not to confuse them in describing.

Morphology

This is the study of the structure of words. The name comes from Greek morphos (=shape or form). The smallest units of meaning may be whole simple words (e.g. man, run, big) or parts of complex words (e.g. un-, -faith- and -ful in unfaithful) which are called morphemes.

Some morphemes, such as faith in un-faith-ful or dream in dream-ing can stand alone as words which make sense. These are known as free morphemes. You will see how very many simple words are free morphemes, but can combine with other morphemes, both free and bound (see below) to form complex words.

Where two simple words are joined together to form a new complete word, this is called a compound word. Examples include teapot, starlight and careworn. When these terms are first coined, they are shown in some dictionaries with a hyphen, as light-house or fish-finger.

Other morphemes, such as prefixes and suffixes (collectively called affixes), cannot stand alone - they need to be part of a complex word to make sense. Examples are dis- in dis-miss, dis-pute or dis-grace, -ing in dream-ing, -ness in happi-ness or sad-ness and even -s used to form plurals, as in boy-s or horse-s. These morphemes are said to be bound morphemes.

Inflection and derivation

Bound morphemes are traditionally divided into two further classes. Sometimes a word is changed in its form to show the internal grammar of a sentence (&#quot;agreement&#quot;). Examples would be plural forms of nouns (dog + s → dog-s) or past (imperfect) tenses of regular verbs (want + ed → want-ed). The study of such changes is inflectional morphology (because the words in question are inflected - altered by adding a suffix).

Other compound or complex words are made by adding together elements without reference to the internal grammar of a sentence. For example, the verb infect suggests a new verb disinfect (=to undo the action of infecting). New words are often formed by noun + -ize, noun + ism, or verb + able (scandalize, Stalinism, disposable). The study of such words, "derived" from existing words or morphemes is derivational morphology. The elements of which the word is made may have a grammatical relationship within the word (you may find this idea difficult), but their formation is independent of the syntax of the clause or sentence in which they occur. If you find this puzzling, two things may help:

Inflectional morphology is much easier to recognize. A relatively small number of types of inflection (showing number or tense, say) covers most cases.

All compound and most complex words show derivational morphology. If a complex word does not show inflection it will show derivation.

But note: a complex word may show both inflection and derivation! A derived word may be inflected to show, for example, tense or number: deported or disposables (as in nappies or diapers).

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This table shows how the most common kinds of inflection are found in three word classes:

Inflection of nouns, verbs and qualifiers

Nouns

Verbs

Adjectives and adverbs

Addition of terminal s to show plural (one cat; two cats);

Addition of 's to show possession (Henry's cat).

Ending shows tense (wanted) or person ([she] wants).

Addition of -er → comparative (hotter; likelier);

Addition of -est → superlative (coldest; soonest).

This table illustrates how derivation can occur:

Derivational morphology in complex words

Prefix

Base of Word

Suffix

Complex Word

Bi

cycl(e)

ing

Bicycling

Dis

grace

ful

Disgraceful

In

tolera(te)

able

Intolerable

Re

vision

ist

Revisionist

Un, co

operat(e)

ive, ly

Uncooperatively

Un

likely (y becomes i)

hood

Unlikelihood

Remember that morphology is the study of the structure of words. The structure of words can also be studied to show how the meaning of a given morpheme, or its relation to the rest of the word, varies from one complex word to another. Consider how sun works in the following words: sunbeam, sunburnt, sundial, sunflower, sunglasses, sunlight, sunrise, sun-spot (scientific sense), sun-spot (tourist sense), suntan.

Inflection does not really yield “new” words, but alters the form of existing ones for specific reasons of grammar. Derivation, on the other hand, does lead to the creation of new words. David Crystal (Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language; p. 90) lists four normal processes of word-formation, of which three are examples of derivation:Four kinds of word-formation

Prefixation

(derivational)

Suffixation

(derivational)

Compounding

(derivational)

Conversion

(not derivational)

Affix placed before base of word, e.g. disobey

Affix placed after base of word, e.g. kindness

Two base forms are added together, e.g. blackbird

Word changes class, without any change of form, e.g. (the) pet (n) becomes (to) pet (vb.)

Words considered as wholes can be categorized according to how they work within phrases, clauses or sentences. These categories, traditionally called parts of speech are now more usually known as word classes. Parts of speech are labels for categories in which words are usually placed. But in a given sentence a word from one category may behave as if it were in another. A dictionary will only record established or standard usage.

The traditional parts of speech were of eight kinds, excluding the two articles (a/an, the). These were nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, and interjections. Modern linguists prefer to list words in classes that are coherent - all the words in them should behave in the same way. But if this principle were applied rigidly, we would have hundreds of classes, so irregularities are tolerated!

Closed and open word classes

Table of closed word classes | table of open word classes

Some classes of words are called closed because they contain a relatively small number of items to which no new words can normally be added. These are words (prepositions and conjunctions) which make connections (connectives or connectors), pronouns and words (including articles) like the, some, each that co-occur with nouns - these are called determiners.

Other classes of word are constantly being added to. Each contains a vast number of terms already. They are open to new words being introduced. The open classes are nouns, verbs and the words which qualify them, adjectives and adverbs. These form the bulk of a language's vocabulary or lexis (also lexicon, though this sometimes refers to a published version). These classes may be called lexical whereas the closed-class words are structural or functional. These tables illustrate the two kinds of word class.

Closed word classes

Determiner

Pronoun

Preposition

Conjunction

A, the, any, my, those, which

She, them, who, that, himself

In, across, at, by, near, within

And, but, if, or, while, unless

Open word classes

Noun

Verb

Adjective

Adverb

Abstract: fear, joy

Concrete: chair, mud

Common: boy, town

Proper: Fred, Hull

Transitive: bite, steal

Intransitive: live, cry

Modal: can, will, may

Auxiliary: be, have, do

Descriptive: lazy, tall

Comparative: lazier

Superlative: tallest

Manner: reluctantly, keenly, easily, softly

Time: soon, often

Place: here, there

Problems of classification

Some words are difficult to classify. Not all grammatical descriptions will place them in the same word class. This, these or those are sometimes classified as demonstrative (or distinctive) adjectives or pronouns. Possessives, like my, his, their, are sometimes classified as pronouns (showing the word from which they are formed), sometimes as adjectives, showing their grammatical function of qualifying nouns: usually they are pronouns when alone (I like that) and adjectives when they precede a noun (I like this weather). Traditional lists of adverbs contain words like very which qualify other adverbs or adjectives. This word class is sometimes called a "dustbin" class, because any word which defies classification will be put in it! Among words which have sometimes been classified as adverbs are the following: however, just, no, not, quickly, tomorrow and when.

This incoherence has long been recognized by grammarians who subdivide adverbs into further categories, such as adverbs of time, place or manner.

In trying to organize words into coherent classes, linguists will consider any or all of the following: what they mean (semantics), their form (morphology), provenance (historical origin) and function in a phrase, clause or sentence (syntax).

Some words, such as numbers, do not fit in any of the word classes given above. They can behave as adjectives (one loaf or two?) or pronouns (I want one now!). And no one description of word classes is regarded as finally authoritative. Some classes (such as verbs or conjunctions) are fairly coherent. You should be able to discuss the problems of how or where to classify words which seem not to "fit".

Also note that a dictionary does not (or should not) prescribe, but indicates the word class or part of speech where a word is usually placed. But in a given sentence, if the speaker or writer has used it as if it were in a different class, then this is where it should be placed.

For example, toilet is usually classified as a noun. But UK primary school teachers often speak of toileting children (I had to toilet John twice today). In describing such a sentence, you should be guided by the internal grammar of the sentence (syntax) rather than the dictionary. Here toilet is a transitive verb. If this usage becomes standard, lexicographers will record it. This kind of word formation is called conversion, a self-explanatory name.

In linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek σύνταξις "arrangement" from σύν syn, "together", and τάξις táxis, "an ordering") is "the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages."[1]

In addition to referring to the overarching discipline, the term syntax is also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the syntax of Modern Irish."[citation needed] Modern research in syntax attempts to describe languages in terms of such rules.[citation needed] Many professionals in this discipline attempt to find general rules that apply to all natural languages.[citation needed] The term syntax is also used to refer to the rules governing the behavior of mathematical systems, such as formal languages used in logic.

MINOR MEANS OF WORD-FORMATION – NON-PRODUCTIVE MEANS OF WORD FORMATION IN PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH: SOUND INTERCHANGE, REDUPLICATION, BACK-FORMATION, BLENDING, DISTINCTIVE STRESS (Q.V.), ETC.

CLIPPING

Consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts.

Mathematics – maths

Laboratory – lab

Captain – cap

Gymnastics – gym

3 types:

1) The first part is left (the commonest type)

advertisement – ad

2) The second part is left

telephone – phone

airplane – plane

3) A middle part is left

influenza – flu

refrigerator – fridge

Accepted by the speakers of the language clipping can acquire grammatical categories (used in plural forms)

BLENDING

Is blending part of two words to form one word (merging into one word)

Smoke + fog = smog

Breakfast + lunch = brunch

Smoke + haze = smaze (дымка)

- addictive type: they are transformable into a phrase consisting of two words combined by a conjunction “and”

smog → smoke & fog

- blending of restrictive type: transformable into an attributive phrase, where the first element serves as modifier of a second.

Positron – positive electron

Medicare – medical care

WORD MANUFACTURING

A word or word combination that appears or especially coined by some author. But it doesn’t name a new object or doesn’t express a new concept

Sentence – sentenceness

“I am English & my Englishness is in my vision” (Lawrence)

Word manufacturing by children:

Влюбчивый – вьбчивый

Барельеф – баба рельеф

SOUND INTERCHANGE

Sound interchange is the way of word building when some sounds are changed to form a new word. It is non-productive in Modern English; it was productive in Old English and can be met in other Indo-European languages.

The causes of sound interchange can be different. It can be the result of Ancient Ablaut which cannot be explained by the phonetic laws during the period of the language development known to scientists., e.g. to strike - stroke, to sing - song etc. It can be also the result of Ancient Umlaut or vowel mutation which is the result of palatalizing the root vowel because of the front vowel in the syllable coming after the root (regressive assimilation), e.g. hot - to heat (hotian), blood - to bleed (blodian) etc.

In many cases we have vowel and consonant interchange. In nouns we have voiceless consonants and in verbs we have corresponding voiced consonants because in Old English these consonants in nouns were at the end of the word and in verbs in the intervocal position, e.g. bath - to bathe, life - to live, breath - to breathe etc.

STRESS INTERCHANGE

Stress interchange can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin: nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on the last syllable, e.g. `accent - to ac`cent. This phenomenon is explained in the following way: French verbs and nouns had different structure when they were borrowed into English; verbs had one syllable more than the corresponding nouns. When these borrowings were assimilated in English the stress in them was shifted to the previous syllable (the second from the end) . Later on the last unstressed syllable in verbs borrowed from French was dropped (the same as in native verbs) and after that the stress in verbs was on the last syllable while in nouns it was on the first syllable. As a result of it we have such pairs in English as: to af`fix -`affix, to con`flict- `conflict, to ex`port -`export, to ex`tract - `extract etc. As a result of stress interchange we have also vowel interchange in such words because vowels are pronounced differently in stressed and unstressed positions.

SOUND IMITATION

It is the way of word building when imitating different sounds forms a word. There are some semantic groups of words formed by means of sound imitation

a) Sounds produced by human beings, such as: to whisper, to giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle etc.

b) Sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, such as: to hiss, to buzz, to bark, to moo, to twitter etc.

c) Sounds produced by nature and objects, such as: to splash, to rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to ding-dong, to tinkle etc.

The corresponding nouns are formed by means of conversion, e.g. clang (of a bell), chatter (of children) etc.

Word-formation – the process of forming words by combining root and affixal morphemes according to certain patterns specific for the language (affixation, composition), or without any outward means of word formation (conversion, semantic derivation).

Word formation (словообразование)

Is a branch of science of the language, which studies the patterns on which a language forms new lexical items (new unities, new words)

It’s a process of forming words by combining root & affixal morphemes.

According to certain patterns specific for the language or without any outward means.

(conversion)

2 major groups of word formation:

1) Words formed as grammatical syntagmas, combinations of full linguistic signs (types: compounding (словосложение), prefixation, suffixation, conversion, and back derivation)

2) Words, which are not grammatical syntagmas, which are not made up of full linguistic signs.

Ex.: expressive symbolism, blending, clipping, rhyme & some others.

Common for both groups is that a new word is based on synchronic relationship between morphemes.

Different types of word formation:

COMPOUNDING

Is joining together 2 or more stems.

Types:

1) Without a connecting element

headache, heartbreak

2) With a vowel or consonant as a linking element

speedometer, craftsman

3) With a preposition or conjunction as a linking element

down-and-out (в ужасном положении, опустошенный)

son-in-law

Compounds can be classified according to their structure:

consisting of simple stem

heartbreak

compounds where at least one stem is a derived one

football player

where one stem is clipped

Xmas

H-bag (handbag)

where one of the elements is also a compound

wastepaper basket

compound nouns, adjectives, verbs.

There are also the so-called reduplicative compounds:

Tick-tick, chow-chow

PREFIXATION

Prefixes are such particles that can be prefixed to full words. But are they not with independent existence.

Native prefixes have developed out of independent words; there is a small number of them.

a-

be-

mid-

fore-

mis-

Prefixes of foreign origin have come into the language ready-made

Some scholars: the system of English word formation was entirely upset by the Norman Conquest.

Normans have paved the way for the non-Germanic trend the language has taken since that time.

From French English borrowed many words with suffixes & prefixes, they became assimilated in the language & started to be used in word building. It led to enormous cut down of the traditional word formation out of native material. Old prefixes (some of them) disappeared forever (too weak phonetically)

Æt-

Ed-

Nowadays English has no prefixed equivalents for some German prefixes

Er-

Ver-

Zer-

A lot of borrowed prefixes in English:

Auto-

Demi-

Mono-

Multi-

Semi-

Post-

SUFFIXATION

A suffix is a derivative final element, which is or was productive in forming new words.

It has semantic value, but doesn’t occur as an independent speech use.

The contact of English with foreign languages has led to the adoption of countless foreign words, which started to be used in word building.

→ we have many hybrid types of derivatives.

A hybrid is a word different element of which are of etymologically different origin.

2 groups:

1) A foreign word is combined with a native affix

- full

- less

- ness

clearness, faithless, faithful

2) Foreign affixes are added to native words

- ance

- al

- ity

- able

As for the first 3 they have never become productive in English; - able was assimilated in English very early and has became productive in many words.

Eatable

Loveable

Semi suffixes are elements, which stand midway between full words & suffixes

- like

- worthy

- way

- wise

a Godlike creature

trustworthy

clockwise

midway

6 ways of suffixing in English:

1) Derivation by native suffixes without changes in stress, vowels, consonants

Godlike

2) Derivation by borrowed suffix without changes in stress, vowels, consonants

loveable

3) Derivation by imported suffixes, which involves the change in

Japan Japanese

4) The suffix is added to a Latin stem which closely related to an English word

science – scientist

5) The suffix is added to a Latin stem, which has no English equivalent

lingua – lingual

6) Words borrowed separately but have the same patterns of word building

candidate – candidacy

president – presidency

This is called correlative derivation.

CONVERSION

(zero derivation)

A certain stem is used for the formation of a categorically different word without a derivative element being added.

Bag – to bag

Back – to back

Bottle – to bottle

This specific pattern is very productive in English

The most popular types are noun → verb or verb → noun

To take off – a take off

Conversion can be total or partial

Partial: the then president (тогдашний)

An adverb is used as an adjective, only in this particular context.

Total: work – to work