English phonology
Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar 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.
Phonological analysis of English often concentrates on or uses, as a reference point, one or more of the 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 independently from these standardized accents, particularly regional dialects. Information about these standardized accents functions only as a limited guide to all of English phonology, which one can later expand upon once one becomes more familiar with some of the many other dialects of English that are spoken.
Phonemes
A phoneme of a language or dialect is an abstraction of a speech sound or of a group of different sounds which 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 this and many other English words do not always correspond directly to the letters used to spell them.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. 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 19–20 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, whose distribution is more limited. Fortis consonants are always voiceless, aspirated in syllable onset, and sometimes also glottalized to an extent in syllable coda, 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.Consonant examples
The following table shows typical examples of the occurrence of the above consonant phonemes in words.Sonorants
- The pronunciation of varies by dialect:
- * Received Pronunciation has two main allophones of : the clear or plain, and the dark or velarized. The clear variant is used before vowels when they are in the same syllable, and the dark variant when the precedes a consonant or is in syllable-final position before silence.
- * In South Wales, Ireland, and the Caribbean, is often always clear, and in North Wales, Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand it is always dark.
- * In General American and Canada, is generally dark, but to varying degrees: before stressed vowels it is neutral or only slightly velarized. In southern U.S. accents it is noticeably clear between vowels, and in some other positions.
- * In urban accents of Southern England, as well as New Zealand and some parts of the United States, can be pronounced as an approximant or semivowel at the end of a syllable.
- Depending on dialect, has at least the following allophones in varieties of English around the world :
- * postalveolar approximant
- * retroflex approximant
- * labiodental approximant
- * alveolar flap
- * alveolar trill
- * voiced uvular fricative
- In most dialects is labialized in many positions, as in reed and tree ; in the latter case, the may be slightly labialized as well.
- In some rhotic accents, such as General American, when not followed by a vowel is realized as an r-coloring of the preceding vowel or its coda: nurse, butter.
- The distinctions between the nasals are neutralized in some environments. For example, before a final, or there is nearly always only one nasal sound that can appear in each case:, or respectively. This effect can even occur across syllable or word boundaries, particularly in stressed syllables: synchrony is pronounced whereas synchronic may be pronounced either as or as. For other possible syllable-final combinations, see in the Phonotactics section below.
Obstruents
- The allophones of the fortes include:
- *aspirated 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 after within the same syllable, as in stan, span, scan, and at the ends of syllables, as in mat, map, mac. The voiceless fricatives are always unaspirated, but a notable exception to this are English-speaking areas of Wales, where they are often aspirated.
- * In many accents of English, fortis stops are glottalized in some positions. This may be heard either as a glottal stop preceding the oral closure or as a substitution of the glottal stop for the oral stop. can only be 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 and, respectively. Glottal replacement often happens in cases such as those just given, so that football is frequently pronounced. In addition, however, glottal replacement is increasingly common in British English when occurs between vowels if the preceding vowel is stressed; thus better is often pronounced by younger speakers as. Such t-glottalization also occurs in many British regional accents, including Cockney, where it can also occur at the end of words, and where and are sometimes treated the same way.
- Among stops, both fortes and lenes:
- * May have no audible release in the word-final position. These allophones are more common in North America than Great Britain.
- * Always have a 'masked release' before another plosive or affricate, 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, as in top player. A notable exception to this is Welsh English, where stops are usually released in this environment.
- * The affricates have a mandatory fricative release in all environments.
- Very often in the United States and Canada, and less frequently in Australia and New Zealand, both can be pronounced as a voiced flap in certain positions: when they come between a preceding stressed vowel and precede an unstressed vowel or syllabic. Examples include water, bottle, petal, peddle. The flap may even appear at word boundaries, as in put it on. When the combination appears in such positions, some American speakers pronounce it as a nasalized flap that may become indistinguishable from, so winter may be pronounced similarly or identically to winner.
- Yod-coalescence is a process that palatalizes the clusters,, and into,, and respectively, frequently occurring with clusters that would be considered to span a syllable boundary.
- *Yod-coalescence in stressed syllables, such as in tune and dune, occurs in Australian, Cockney, Estuary English, Hiberno-English, Newfoundland English, South African English, and to a certain extent in New Zealand English and Scottish English. This can lead to additional homophony; for instance, dew and due come to be pronounced the same as Jew.
- *In certain varieties—such as Australian English, South African English, and New Zealand English— and in stressed syllables can coalesce into and, respectively. In Australian English for example, assume is pronounced by some speakers. Furthermore, some British, Canadian, American, New Zealand and Australian speakers may change the sound to before, so that a word having a cluster of like in strewn would be pronounced.
- The postalveolar consonants are also often slightly labialized:.
Vowels
| , | ||
| , |
For a table that shows the pronunciations of these vowels in a wider range of English dialects, see IPA chart for English dialects.
The following tables show the vowel phonemes of three standard varieties of English. The notation system used here for Received Pronunciation is fairly standard; the others less so. The feature descriptions given here are abstracted somewhat; the actual pronunciations of these vowels are somewhat more accurately conveyed by the IPA symbols used.
The differences between these tables can be explained as follows:
- General American lacks a phoneme corresponding to RP , instead using in the words and generally in the words. In a few North American accents, namely in Eastern New England, Western Pennsylvania, and to some degree in Pacific Northwest and Eastern Canadian English, words do not have the vowel of but instead merge with.
- RP transcriptions use rather than largely for convenience and historical tradition; it does not necessarily represent a different sound from the General American phoneme, although the RP vowel may be described as somewhat less open than the American one.
- The different notations used for the vowel of in RP and General American 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 ; 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 rather than in, a more closed rather than in, an open-mid rather than traditional RP's in and, and , an opener rather than somewhat closer in, a fronted rather than in and, and somewhat different pronunciations of most of the diphthongs. Note that central in and open-mid in are possible realizations in modern RP; in the case of the latter vowel, it is even more common than the traditional open.
- The difference between RP and Australian lies only in transcription, as both of them are realized as close-mid.
- Both Australian and RP are long monophthongs, the difference between them lies in tongue height: Australian is close-mid, whereas the corresponding RP vowel is open-mid.
- Australian has the bad–lad split, with distinctive short and long variants in various words of the set: a long phoneme in words like bad contrasts with a short in words like lad.
- The vowel is often omitted from descriptions of Australian, as for most speakers it has split into the long monophthong or the sequence .
- The vowel is coming to be pronounced more open by many modern RP speakers. In American speech, however, there is a tendency for it to become more closed, tenser and even diphthongized, particularly in certain environments, such as before a nasal consonant. Some American accents, for example those of New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore, make a marginal phonemic distinction between and, although the two occur largely in mutually exclusive environments. See :/æ/ raising.
- A significant number of words have in General American, but in RP. The pronunciation varies between and in Australia, with speakers from South Australia using more extensively than speakers from other regions.
- In General American and Canadian, many of the vowels can be r-colored by way of realization of a following. This is often transcribed phonetically using a vowel symbol with an added retroflexion diacritic ; thus the symbol has been created for an r-colored schwa as in, and the vowel of can be modified to make so that the word start may be transcribed. Alternatively, the vowel might be written to indicate an r-colored offglide. The vowel of is generally always r-colored in these dialects, and this can be written .
- In modern RP and other dialects, many words from the group are coming to be pronounced by an increasing number of speakers with the vowel. Also the RP vowels and may be monophthongized to and respectively.
- The vowels of and are commonly pronounced as narrow diphthongs, approaching and, in RP. Near-RP speakers may have particularly marked diphthongization of the type and, respectively. In General American, the pronunciation varies between a monophthong and a diphthong.
Allophones of vowels
- Vowels are shortened when followed in a syllable by a voiceless consonant. 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' – 'ride' ; 'face' – 'phase' ; 'advice' – 'advise'.
- In many accents of English, tense vowels undergo breaking before, resulting in pronunciations like for peel, for pool, for pail, and for pole.
- In RP, the vowel may be pronounced more back, as, before syllable-final, as in goal. In Australian English the vowel is similarly backed to before. A similar phenomenon may occur in Southern American English.
- The vowel is often pronounced in open syllables.
- The and diphthongs may be pronounced with a less open starting point when followed by a voiceless consonant; this is chiefly a feature of Canadian speech, but is also found in parts of the United States. Thus writer may be distinguished from rider even when flapping causes the and to be pronounced identically.
Unstressed syllables
- schwa,, as in and ; also in many other positions such as about, photograph, paddock, etc. This sound is essentially restricted to unstressed syllables exclusively. In the approach presented here it is identified as a phoneme, 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,, as in in General American and some other rhotic dialects, which can be identified with the underlying sequence.
- syllabic consonants: as in bottle, as in button, 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 or .
- , as in roses and making. This can be identified with the phoneme, although in unstressed syllables it may be pronounced more centrally, and for some speakers it is merged with in these syllables. Among speakers who retain the distinction there are many cases where free variation between and is found, as in the second syllable of typical.
- , as in argument, today, for which similar considerations apply as in the case of. Some speakers may also have a rounded schwa,, used in words like omission.
- , as in happy, coffee, in many dialects. The phonemic status of this is not easy to establish. Some authors consider it to correspond phonemically with a close front vowel that is neither the vowel of nor that of ; it occurs chiefly in contexts where the contrast between these vowels is neutralized, implying that it represents an archiphoneme, which may be written. Many speakers, however, do have a contrast in pairs of words like studied and studded or taxis and taxes; the contrast may be vs., vs. or vs., hence some authors consider that the happY-vowel should be identified phonemically either with the vowel of or that of, depending on speaker. See also happy-tensing.
- , as in influence, to each. This is the back rounded counterpart to described above; its phonemic status is treated in the same works as cited there.
Some unstressed syllables, however, retain full vowels, i.e. vowels other than those listed above. Examples are the in ambition and the in finite. Some phonologists regard such syllables as not being fully unstressed ; some dictionaries have marked such syllables as having secondary stress. However linguists such as Ladefoged and regard this as a difference purely of vowel quality and not of stress, and thus argue that vowel reduction itself is phonemic in English. Examples of words where vowel reduction seems to be distinctive for some speakers include chickaree vs. chicory, and Pharaoh vs. farrow.
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. 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. 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, placed before the syllables to which they apply. The two words just given may therefore be represented as and.
Some analysts identify an additional level of 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. Hence the third syllable of organization, if pronounced with as shown above, might be said to have tertiary stress.
In some analyses, then, the concept of lexical stress may become conflated with that of vowel reduction. An approach which attempts to separate these two 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. 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, see below.
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 dot. 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 and sequences as and or, 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 and syllabify as and, as long as the consonant cluster is a possible syllable coda; in addition, preferentially syllabifies with the preceding vowel even when both syllables are unstressed, so that occurs as. This is the analysis used in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. However, this view is not widely accepted, as explained in the following section.
Syllable structure
The syllable structure in English is 3V5, with a near maximal example being strengths. 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. This coarticulation can lead to articulatory gestures that seem very much like deletions or complete assimilations. For example, hundred pounds may sound like and jumped back may sound like, but X-ray and electropalatographic studies demonstrate that inaudible and possibly weakened contacts or lingual gestures may still be made. Thus the second 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" 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: 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 rather than *, and hasty is rather than * or *. However, when such a division results in an onset cluster which is not allowed in English, the division must respect this. Thus if the word extra were divided * the resulting onset of the second syllable would be, a cluster which does not occur initially in English. The division 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 comma should be divided and not *, 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 the word hurry could be divided or, but the former would result in an analysis with a syllable-final while the latter would result in a syllable final . Some phonologists have suggested a compromise analysis where the consonant in the middle belongs to both syllables, and is described as ambisyllabic. In this way, it is possible to suggest an analysis of hurry which comprises the syllables and, the medial 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 by the M.O.P., but dictionaries prefer the division.
In the approach used by the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, Wells 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 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, but in shellfish, the belongs with the following syllable: →, but →, where the is a little longer and the is not reduced. Similarly, in toe-strap Wells argues that the second is a full plosive, as usual in syllable onset, whereas in toast-rack the second is in many dialects reduced to the unreleased allophone it takes in syllable codas, or even elided: → ; likewise nitrate → with a voiceless , vs night-rate → with a voiced. Cues of syllable boundaries include aspiration of syllable onsets and flapping of coda , epenthetic stops like in syllable codas, and r-colored vowels when the is in the coda vs. labialization when it is in the onset .
Onset
The following can occur as the onset:| All single consonant phonemes except | genre |
| Stop plus approximant other than : ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, | play, blood, clean, glove, prize, bring, tree, dream, crowd, green, twin, dwarf, Guam, quick, puissance |
| Voiceless fricative or plus approximant other than : ,,,,,,,,, | floor, sleep, thlipsis, friend, three, shrimp, what, swing, thwart, reservoir |
| Consonant plus : ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, | pure, beautiful, tube, during, cute, argue, music, new, few, view, thew, suit, Zeus, huge, lurid |
| plus voiceless stop: ,, | speak, stop, skill |
| plus nasal other than : , | smile, snow |
| plus voiceless fricative: , | sphere, sthenic |
| plus voiceless stop plus approximant: ,,,,,,,,, | split, sclera, spring, street, scream, square, smew, spew, student, skewer |
| plus voiceless fricative plus approximant: | sphragistics |
Notes:
Other onsets
Certain English onsets appear only in contractions: e.g. , and or . Some, such as , , or , can occur in interjections. An archaic voiceless fricative plus nasal exists, , as does an archaic .
Several additional onsets occur in loan words such as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and .
Some clusters of this type can be converted to regular English phonotactics by simplifying the cluster: e.g. , , , , , , , , and .
Others can be replaced by native clusters differing only in voice: , and .
Nucleus
The following can occur as the nucleus:- All vowel sounds
- , and in certain situations
- in rhotic varieties of English in certain situations
Coda
argues that a variety of syllable codas are possible in English, even in words like entry and sundry, with being treated as affricates along the lines of. 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 coda:
| The single consonant phonemes except,, and, in non-rhotic varieties, | |
| Lateral approximant plus stop or affricate:,,,,,, | help, bulb, belt, hold, belch, indulge, milk |
| In rhotic varieties, plus stop or affricate:,,,,,,, | harp, orb, fort, beard, arch, large, mark, morgue |
| Lateral approximant + fricative:,,,,, | golf, solve, wealth, else, bells, Welsh |
| In rhotic varieties, + fricative:,,,,, | dwarf, carve, north, force, Mars, marsh |
| Lateral approximant + nasal:, | film, kiln |
| In rhotic varieties, + nasal or lateral:,, | arm, born, snarl |
| Nasal + homorganic stop or affricate:,,,,, | jump, tent, end, lunch, lounge, pink |
| Nasal + fricative:,,,,, in some varieties | triumph, warmth, month, prince, bronze, length |
| Voiceless fricative plus voiceless stop:,,, | left, crisp, lost, ask |
| Two voiceless fricatives: | fifth |
| Two voiceless stops:, | opt, act |
| Stop plus voiceless fricative:,,,,, | depth, lapse, eighth, klutz, width, box |
| Lateral approximant + two consonants:,,,,,, | sculpt, alps, twelfth, waltz, whilst, mulct, calx |
| In rhotic varieties, + two consonants:,,,,, | warmth, excerpt, corpse, quartz, horst, infarct |
| Nasal + homorganic stop + stop or fricative:,,, ,, in some varieties | prompt, glimpse, thousandth, distinct, jinx, length |
| Three obstruents:, | sixth, next |
For some speakers, a fricative before is elided so that these never appear phonetically: becomes, becomes, becomes.
Syllable-level patterns
- Syllables may consist of a single vowel, meaning that onset and coda are not mandatory.
- The consonant does not occur in syllable-initial position.
- The consonant does not occur in syllable-final position.
- Onset clusters ending in are followed by or its variants.
- Long vowels and diphthongs are not found before, 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. The short vowels occur before only in assimilated non-native words such as ginseng and Sung or non-finally in some dialects in words like strength and length
- is rare in syllable-initial position.
- Stop + before are excluded.
- Sequences of + C1 + V̆ + C1, where C1 is a consonant other than and V̆ is a short vowel, are virtually nonexistent.
Word-level patterns
- does not occur in stressed syllables.
- does not occur in word-initial position in native English words, although it can occur syllable-initially as in luxurious, and at the start of borrowed words such as genre.
- ,, and, in rhotic varieties, can be the syllable nucleus in an unstressed syllable following another consonant, especially,, or. Such syllables are often analyzed phonemically as having an underlying 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.
Prosody
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, 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 is spoken in isolation, or at the end of a sentence, the syllable ra 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. Many English function words have distinct strong and weak pronunciations; for example, the word a in the last example is pronounced, while the more common unstressed a is pronounced. 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 ' 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 ' 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, in Africa and in India 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.Intonation
Phonological contrasts in intonation can be said to be found in three different and independent domains. In the work of Halliday 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.
Example of phonological contrast involving placement of intonation unit boundaries :
Example of phonological contrast involving placement of tonic syllable :
Example of phonological contrast involving choice of tone
There is typically a contrast involving tone between wh-questions and yes/no questions, the former having a falling tone and the latter a rising tone, though studies of spontaneous speech have shown frequent exceptions to this rule. Tag questions asking for information are said to carry rising tones while those asking for confirmation have falling tone.
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 of the and sounds still reflected by the in words like night and taught, and the splitting of voiced and voiceless allophones of fricatives into separate phonemes. 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, and English wh|.
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 and in words like price and mouth became diphthongized, and other long vowels became higher: became , became and later , became , and became and later . These shifts are responsible for the modern pronunciations of many written vowel combinations, including those involving a silent final.
Many other changes in vowels have taken place over the centuries. These various changes mean that many words that formerly rhymed no longer do. For example, in Shakespeare's time, following the Great Vowel Shift, food, good and blood all had the vowel, but in modern pronunciation good has been shortened to, while blood has been shortened and lowered to 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.