Theoretical phonetics. Study guide for second year students. Борискина О.О - 68 стр.

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• Loss of the first noninitial /r/ in a word that has another /r/ in a following
syllable:3
Feb(r)uary, gove(r)nor, su(r)prise, tempe(r)ature
• Loss of final /v/ in of (i.e., reduction to schwa) before words with initial
consonants: lots of money, waste of time, hearts of palm
    /ə/                 /ə/              /ə/
• Loss of initial /h/ and /ð/ in pronominal forms in connected speech:
   ask (h)er, help (h)im, tell (th)em

       Epenthesis
       Epenthesis is the insertion of a vowel or consonant segment within an
existing string of segments. Although less frequent than deletion in English,
epenthesis is by no means uncommon. The most important type of epenthesis in
English occurs in certain morphophonological sequences such as the regular
plural and past tense endings. Here an epenthetic schwa /ə/ is added to break up
clusters of sibilants or alveolar stops. Progressive assimilation alone will not
make the morphological endings sufficiently salient. Thus for the plural endings,
for which we can posit an underlying (z) mor-, pheme, we have:
Assimilation                          Epenthesis
Plate + /z/ = /pleits/                place + /z/ = /´pleisəz/
bag + /z/ = /bægz/                    buzz + /z/ = /´bΛzəz/
And for regular past tense, for which we can posit an underlying /d/ morpheme, we
have:
Assimilation                          Epenthesis
Look + /d/ = /lukt/                   plant + /d/ = /´plæntəd/
grin + /d/ = /grind/                  hand + /d/ = /´hændəd/
Finally, there are also cases of consonant epenthesis in English. Often words
like prince and tense, which end in [ns], are pronounced with an inserted [t] so
that they sound just like prints and tents. In such cases, the insertion of the
voiceless stop /t/ makes it easier for speakers to produce the voiced nasal plus
voiceless fricative sequence. We see the same process at work when some
speakers add a /p/ between the /m/ and /f/ in comfort.4

              Crystal D. Prosodic Systems and Intonation in English
     D. Crystal distinguishes the following functions of intonation.
• Emotional function's most obvious role is to express attitudinal meaning -
sarcasm, surprise, reserve, impatience, delight, shock, anger, interest,
and thousands of other semantic nuances.
• Grammatical function helps to identify grammatical structure in speech,
performing a role similar to punctuation. Units such as clause and sentence often

3
  We believe that speakers of standard NAE will often omit the first /r/ sound in the listed
words; however, in certain words, such as library, the loss of the first /r/ is more dialectal.
4
  In some cases an epenthetic consonant is now represented in the spelling of a word or name.
Examples are p in empty or Thompson (a variant of Thomson).