Vowels (monophthongs)

Lesson 1. Phonetics and Phonology. Sound phenomena

I. Glossary

vowel ['vauəl] – голосний

consonant ['kɔn(t)s(ə)nənt] – приголосний

obstruction [əb'strʌkʃ(ə)n] – перешкода

phonetics [fə'netɪks] – фонетика

transmit [trænz'mɪt] – передавати

perceive [pə'siːv] – сприймати, усвідомлювати, відчувати, розрізняти

phonology [fə'nɔləʤɪ] – фонологія

phoneme ['fəuniːm] – фонема

pronunciation [prəˌnʌn(t)sɪ'eɪʃ(ə)n] – вимова

to distinguish [dɪ'stɪŋgwɪʃ] – розрізняти

monophthong ['mɔnəfθɔŋ] – монофтонг

diphthong ['dɪfθɔŋ] – дифтонг

phenomenon [fɪ'nɔmɪnən] – явище

aspiration [ˌæsp(ə)'reɪʃ(ə)n] – аспірація, придих

assimilation [əˌsɪmɪ'leɪʃ(ə)n] – асиміляція, уподібнення

plosion ('pləuʒ(ə)n] – вибух

A vowelis a voiced sound produced in the mouth with no obstruction to the air stream.

A consonant is a sound produced with an obstruction to the air stream.

Phonetics (from the Greek word phone = sound/voice) is a fundamental branch of linguistics that describes how vowels and consonants are produced or “articulated”; how speech sounds are transmitted; how speech sounds are perceived.

Phonology deals with the way speech sounds behave in particular languages or in languages generally.

A phoneme is the smallest ‘distinctive unit sound’ of a language. It distinguishes one word from another in a given language. This means changing a phoneme in a word produces another word that has a different meaning. In the pair of words 'cat' and 'bat', the distinguishing sounds /c/ and /b/ are both phonemes.

In English, there is no one-to-one relation between the system of writing and the system of pronunciation. The alphabet which we use to write English has 26 letters but in (Standard British) English there are approximately 44 speech sounds.

Symbols used to represent the sounds of the English language

Vowels (monophthongs)

IPA Phonetic Symbol	Example
	tree, sea, receive, women, believe, we, people
	bit, symbol, recall, business
	cat, apple, compact
	car, far, garage, heart
	sort, ball, ought, awful, board, floor, audacity, saw
	put, foot, could, butcher, woman
	fool, rule, shoes, true, crew, move, through
	up, other, but, couple, blood, love
	her, first, turn, search
	until, about, alias
	bed, effort, head, said, friend
	rock, impossible, body, cough, knowledge