![]() * For doubled spellings see section 3.2 and much of chapter 4. TABLE 2.1: THE INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET SYMBOLS FOR THE 24 CONSONANT PHONEMES OF THE RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION ACCENT OF ENGLISHĬonsonant phonemes with doubled spellings* which are rare in one-syllable wordsĬonsonant phonemes with doubled spellings* which are regular at the end of one-syllable words after a short vowel phoneme spelt with one letterĬonsonant phonemes without doubled spellings See Notes to sections 9.9/15/19 and 10.33.Ģ.3 The consonant phonemes of Received PronunciationĦTable 2.1 presents the IPA symbols for the 24 consonant phonemes of RP. Mikhail), and is symbolised /x/ - on no account to be confused with letter, but I have not included this correspondence in my analysis because /x/ is not a phoneme of RP. lough, or in transcriptions of some Russian names, e. dreich, loch, Sassenach, and German names like Schumacher (or in some Irish words, e. the throat-clearing sound which is spelt in some Scottish words, e.the voiceless counterpart of /w/, which is usually spelt, sounds roughly like ‘hw’, and is symbolised /ʍ/ examples would be which, when.However, two consonant phonemes which do not occur in RP (and are therefore not counted in my analyses of correspondences) but do occur in many Scots accents are mentioned in a few places: Those which are voiceless are so labelled in Table 2.1, and various sub-systems which rely on this distinction are discussed under /d, t/ in sections 3.5.2 and 3.5.7, under /ɪ/ in section 5.4.3, and also in sections 3.7.8, 5.7.2 and 7.2.3.ĥThere is little difference in the number or pronunciation of the consonant phonemes across much of the English-speaking world, and much less variation than in the vowel phonemes – in fact, differences in vowel phonemes almost entirely define the differences between accents. The symbols for consonant phonemes are easier to learn (because most are ordinary letters, though some have unfamiliar values), so I start with them.ĤFor some purposes it is important to distinguish between voiceless consonant phonemes – those pronounced without vibrating the vocal cords – and voiced consonant phonemes – the rest. Many words in this book are written in IPA alongside the conventional spelling, so that you can do some incidental learning as you read. You will need to learn to read this system fluently in order to be able to use the rest of this book. To do this, I use the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). But for the purposes of this book a single way of representing each phoneme is needed. Of these, 24 are consonant phonemes, and 20 are vowel phonemes.ģFrom the fact that there are many more phonemes in RP than the 26 letters of the English alphabet, it is fairly clear that some phonemes have no predominant one-letter spelling. 2.2 How many phonemes?Ģ In RP there are 44 phonemes. The French textbook of English from which I learnt phonetic transcription (see below) in 1963 called it the accent ‘des milieux cultivés du sud-est anglais’, but that was too narrow a definition though it is particularly prevalent in educated circles in the South-East of England, people from all over Britain have this accent, and their regional origins are therefore difficult to deduce from their accent. Recently some linguists have re-named it ‘Southern British Standard’ (SBS), or ‘Standard Southern British’, or even ‘General British’ (Cruttenden, 2014), but I have retained the term RP because it is more widely known. Because this book deals with British spelling, the accent I have chosen is the British accent known to many linguists as ‘Received Pronunciation’ (RP). ![]() ![]() In order to list phonemes, therefore, I first had to choose an accent to base my list on. 1English is spoken with many accents, and the number of phonemes, and the exact sounds of many of them, vary across accents.
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