Minimal Pairs
(-different words which have almost the same pronunciation)
cab------------cap
bag-----------back
sit------------seat
bit-----------beat
sip----------seep
pan------------pen
hold-------------old
three------------tree
teen-------------tin
heart-------------art
sick-------------seek
Examples:-
(Give it a try)
The CAB driver wore a CAP
He took my BAG to the BACK
I took a SEAT to SIT, but BIT my tongue and started to BEAT her before she took a SIP and let the drink SEEP through..
Pronunciation of Morpheme
Singular/Plural
cab-------------cabS
cap-----------capS
bus-----------busES
bag-------------bagS
back------------backS
can-----------canS
match-----------matchES
Irregular Plural
ox------------oxEN
child----------childREN
mouse----------mICE
sheep-----------sheep
man--------------mEn
woman-------------womEn
criterion-----------criteriA
#( P,T,K,F,TH...will have a plural pronunciation form of "s")
#(B,D,G,N,L,R,A,Y...will have a plural pronunciation form of "z")
#(ES,SH,Z,CH.....will have a plural pronunciation form of "ez")
('s' is normally pronounce as a 'z')*
('es' will carr the sound of 'ez')*
*these are known as variants or better known as ALLORMORPHS
Past Tense (t,d,ed..etc.)
play---------playED
watch------------watchED
beg---------begGED
Here is the work we did in CLASS :)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhat are Irregular Plurals?
ReplyDeleteNouns that are made plural by changing the spelling instead of adding an 's', 'es', or 'ies' are called irregular plurals.
1)Irregular -(e)n plurals
The plural of a few nouns can also be formed from the singular by adding '-n' or '-en'.
Singular Plural
ox oxen
bee been
child children
man men
woman women
2) Ablaut plurals
The plural is sometimes formed by simply changing the vowel sound of the singular word.
Singular Plural
foot feet
goose geese
louse lice
man men
mouse mice
tooth teeth
3)Irregular plurals from Latin and Greek
English has borrowed a great many words from Latin and Classical Greek. The traditional Latin plurals are found more often in academic and scientific contexts. The Latin plurals are listed below:
a) Final a becomes -ae or just add '-s'
Singular Plural
alumna alumnae
formula formulae/formulas
annebula nebulae
vertebra vertebrae
vita vitae
tenna antennae/antennas
b) Final ex or ix becomes -ices or just add '-es'.
Singular Plural
index indices/indexes
matrix matrices/matrixes
vertex vertices
appendix appendices
c)Final is becomes '-es'.
Singular Plural
axis axes
crisis crises
testis testes
analysis analyses
basis bases
crisis crises
diagnosis diagnoses
ellipsis ellipses
hypothesis hypotheses
oasis oases
paralysis paralyses
parenthesis parentheses
synthesis syntheses
synopsis synopses
d) Final us becomes '-i' or '-es', '-era', '-ora'.
Singular Plural
alumnus alumni
cactus cacti
focus foci/focuses
fungus fungi/funguses
nucleus nuclei
radius radii
stimulus stimuli
census censuses
prospectus prospectuses
syllabus syllabi/syllabuses
octopus octopuses
corpus corpora
genus genera
viscus viscera
* The Greek plurals are listed below:
a)Final ma in nouns of Greek origin can add '-ta' or '-s'.
Singular Plural
stigma stigmata/stigmas
stoma stomata/stomas
schema schemata/schemas
dogma dogmata/dogmas
lemma lemmata/lemmas
anathema anathemata/anathemas
b)Final on becomes '-a'.
Singular Plural
automaton automata
criterion criteria
phenomenon phenomena
polyhedron polyhedra
4)Irregular plurals from other language.
Some nouns of French origin add an '-x', which may be silent or pronounced /z.
Singular Plural
beau beaux or beaus
bureau bureaus or bureaux
château châteaux or châteaus
tableau tableaux or tableaus
Minimal Pairs Word List
ReplyDelete(Final Consonants)
mop - ma
rope - row
pipe - pie
pop - pa
boat - bow
note - know
boot - boo
bait - bay
beet - bee
bike - buy
lock - law
rock - raw
rake - ray
moon - moo
rain - ray
bone - bow
bean - bee
Minimal Pairs Word List
(Initial Consonant)
key - tea
kick - tick
cake - take
cook - took
comb - tome
cap - tap
core - tore
lake - wake
line - whine
rock - walk
rake - wake
rag - wag
red - wed
Minimal Pairs Word List
(Initial S Clusters)
spot - pot
spur - purr
speck - peck
spike - pike
spy - pie
spill - pill
store - tore
stick - tick
stop - top
star - tar
stair - tear
stool - tool
smile - mile
small - mall
smack - mack
smash - mash
snow - know
snail - nail
sneeze - knees
snap - nap
school - cool
ski - key
scar - car
scoop - coop
sled - lead
What is phonology?
ReplyDeletePhonology is the study of the sound system of languages. It is a huge area of language theory and it is difficult to do more on a general language course than have an outline knowledge of what it includes.
In an exam, you may be asked to comment on a text that you are seeing for the first time in terms of various language descriptions, of which phonology may be one. At one extreme, phonology is concerned with anatomy and physiology – the organs of speech and how we learn to use them.
At another extreme,phonology shades into socio-linguistics as we consider social attitudes to features of sound such as accent
and intonation.
And part of the subject is concerned with finding objective standard ways of recording
speech, and representing this symbolically.
For some kinds of study – perhaps a language investigation into the phonological development of young children or regional variations in accent, you will need to use phonetic transcription to be credible.
But this is not necessary in all kinds of study – in an exam, you may be concerned with stylistic effects of sound in advertising or literature, such as assonance, rhyme or onomatopoeia – and you do not need to use special phonetic symbols to do this.
Mostly we use air that is moving out of our lungs (pulmonic egressive air) to speak. We
may pause while breathing in, or try to use the ingressive air – but this is likely to produce quiet speech,which is unclear to our listeners.
In languages other than English, speakers may also use non-pulmonic sound, such as clicks (found in southern Africa) or glottalic sounds (found worldwide). In the larynx, the vocal folds set up vibrations in the egressive air.
The vibrating air passes through further cavities which can modify the sound and finally are
articulated by the passive (immobile) articulators – the hard palate, the alveolar ridge and the upper teeth – and the active (mobile) articulators.
These are the pharynx, the velum (or soft palate), the jaw and lower teeth, the lips and, above all, the tongue. This is so important and so flexible an organ, that language scientists identify different regions of the tongue by name, as these are associated with particular sounds.
Working outwards these are:
• the back – opposite the soft palate
• the centre – opposite the meeting point of hard and soft palate
• the front – opposite the hard palate
• the blade – the tapering area facing the ridge of teeth
• the tip – the extreme end of the tongue
The first three of these (back, centre and front) are known together as the dorsum (which is Latin for backbone or spine)
Phonology, phonemes and phonetics
ReplyDeleteYou may have known for some time that the suffix –phone is to do with sounds. Think, forinstance, of telephone, microphone, gramophone and xylophone.
The morpheme comes from Greek phonema, which
means a sound.
• Telephone means “distant sound”
• Microphone means “small sound” (because it sends an input to an amplifier which in turn drives loudspeakers – so the original sound is small compared to the output sound)
• Gramophone was originally a trade name.
It comes from inverting the original form, phonograph(=sound-writing) – so called because the sound caused a needle to trace a pattern on a wax cylinder. The process is reversed for playing the sound back
• Xylophone means “wood sound” (because the instrument is one of very few where the musical note is produced simply by making wood resonate)
The fundamental unit of grammar is a morpheme. A basic unit of written language is a grapheme. And the basic unit of sound is a phoneme.
However, this is technically what Professor Crystal describes as “the smallest contrastive unit” and it is highly useful to you in explaining things – but strictly speaking may not exist in real spoken language use.
That is, almost anything you say is a continuum and you rarely assemble
a series of discrete sounds into a connected whole. (It is possible to do this with synthesised speech, as used by Professor Stephen Hawking – but the result is so different from naturally occurring speech that we can recognize it instantly.)
And there is no perfect or single right way to say anything – just as well because we can never exactly reproduce a previous performance.
What is a phoneme?
ReplyDelete.. Its not true to say that a phoneme is a sound,or even that it’s a class of sounds
.. Phonemes exist in human brains
.. They are abstract cognitive (linguistic)entities
.. They are conventions shared by a speech
community but vary, sometimes very
significantly, between speech communities
.. When we speak we intend our listeners to
understand what words we have uttered.
.. A word in the brain is represented as a
sequence of phonemes (or graphemes for the
written word)
.. To communicate a sequence of words we must
utter a sequence of sounds (or write the words
or use sign language …)
.. A spoken word results from the production of a sequence of vocal tract gestures
.. These gestures result in a sequence of sounds.
.. We interpret this sequence of sounds as a
sequence of phonemes
.. When we learn a language we learn to
associate sequences of sounds in the
physical world with sequences of phonemes
(and therefore words) in the mental world.
.. The same sound may belong to a different
phoneme in a different speech community or
even in a different phonetic context.
..doesn’t that mean that a phoneme is
realised as a class (or set) of physical sounds?
.. Yes, well almost … as some sounds can, in
different contexts, belong to (or represent)
different phonemes
.. This means that the phonemes are represented
in the physical world by potentially overlapping
sets of sounds
The set of sounds (in the external acoustic
world) that represent a phoneme can be
referred to as a set of allophones.
.. “allo-” indicates “difference, alternation or
divergence.
What is a phoneme?
An allophone is a sound that can represent a
particular phoneme.
A phoneme can be said to have a huge
number of slightly different allophones.
This is too complex to work with so we break
this down into a much smaller set of discrete
sounds that we can transcribe phonetically or
measure in some other way.
.. One of the reasons for a phoneme having
different allophones is coarticulation.
That is, in different contexts the effect of
adjacent phonemes can affect a phoneme’s
physical realisation.
.. Another reason is convention. A speech
community has an implicit (unconscious)
agreement that certain allophones be used in
certain contexts.
Classical phonology took a simple view of the
relationship between phonemes and allophones:-
.. phonemes are contrastive, allophones are not
.. an allophone belongs to a single phoneme
.. allophones of the same phoneme are in
complementary distribution
.. allophones are phonetically similar
Phonemic Analysis
.. Phonemic analysis uses a narrow transcription
of the speech of a language to determine what
are the phonemes (the their allophones) for
that language.
.. The phonemic analysis relies on the
assumption that (a) the transcribed words have
different meanings and (b) the transcription
reliably captures the language’s sound system.
Minimal pairs (1)
.. Phonemes are the linguistically contrastive or significant sounds (or sets of sounds) of a
language.
.. Such a contrast is usually demonstrated by
the existence of minimal pairs or contrast in
identical environment (CIE).
.. The search for minimal pairs is the most
important strategy in phonemic analysis.
Minimal pairs are pairs of words which vary
only by the identity of the segment1 at a single
location in the word (eg. [mæt] and [kæt]).
If two segments contrast in identical
environment then they must belong to different
phonemes. That is, if we change one sound to
another and it changes the meaning then the
sounds belong to different phonemes.
Minimal pair word list...
ReplyDeletebase-vase
bat-vat
bane-vane
best-vest
bolt-volt
bowel-vowel
dub-dove
robe-rove
cab-calve
cub-curve
marble-marvel
B6-V6
Minimal pairs (vowel sounds)
fast-first
bad-bed
sit-seat
wet-wait
bat-but
Minimal pairs (consonant sounds)
berry-very
buy-pie
thin-thing
alive-arrive
catch-cat
sea-she
fan-van
fat-hat
sing-thing
bad-badge
page-pays
Here are some example of Irregular Plural list...
ReplyDeleteSINGULAR - PLURAL
cactus - cacti
focus - focuses
thesis - theses
synopsis - synopses
hypothesis-hypotheses
child -children
woman -women
ox -oxen
man -men
memorandum-memoranda
criterion -criteria
louse -lice
mouse -mice
formula -formulae
foot -feet
goose -geese
tooth -teeth
beau -beaux
bureau -bureaux
matrix -matrices
radius -radii
There are also some words that no change
Singular - Plural
deer - deer
fish -fish
sheep -sheep
species -species
series -series
offspring-offspring
means -means
Minimal Pairs=
ReplyDeleteMinimal pairs are pairs of words that have one phonemic change between them. For example: "let" and "lit". Using these pairs to help students recognize the minor differences between English muted vowel sounds can greatly help not only pronunciation skills, but also comprehension.
EXAMPLES=
PIN –BIN
ROT- LOT
ZEAL-SEAL
BIN-BEAN
PEN-PAN
HAT-HAD
Singular/Plural
DUTY-DUTIES
KISS-KISSES
FOX-FOXES
WISH-WISHES
BATCH-BATCHES
CHERRY-CHERRIES
HOAX-HOAXES
SCRATCH-SCRATCHES
SPY-SPIES
VOLCANO-VOLCANOES
Irregular Plural=
There are two types of irregular plurals:
1. Words that don't change.
2. Words that don't follow plural spelling rules.
Words That Don't Change=
Aircraft-aircraft,deer-deer, fish-fish, moose-moose, offspring-offspring, sheep-sheep species-species, salmon-salmon, trout-trout.
Words That Don't Follow Plural Spelling Rules=
Child-children, die-dice, foot-feet, goose-geese, louse-lice, man-men, mouse-mice, ox-oxen person-people, tooth-teeth, woman-women.
Past Tense (t,d,ed..etc.)=
SWITCH-SWITCHED
BUILD-BUILT
WORK-WORKED
COOK-COOKED
Types of Sentences
ReplyDeleteSentences are categorized in two ways: by structure and by purpose.
Types of Sentences by Structure
Simple Sentence
A simple sentence is also called as an independent clause, contains of a subject and a verb and expresses a complete thought, but they can also contain a compound subjects or verbs. In the following simple sentences, subjects are highlighted in yellow, and verbs are in green.
1.The baby cried.
This simple sentence has one independent clause which contains one subject, baby and one predicate, cried.
2.The horse jumped.
This simple sentence has one independent clause which contains one subject, runner and one predicate, jumped.
3.The girl ran into her bedroom
This simple sentence has one independent clause which contains one subject, girl and one predicate, ran into her bedroom.
4.Juan and Arturo play football every afternoon.
This simple sentence contains of a compound subject, Juan and Arturo
And one predicate, play football.
Compound Sentences
A compound sentence contains two independent clauses joined by a coordinator. The clauses are joined by a coordinating conjunction (with or without a comma) or by a correlative conjunction (with or without a comma). The coordinators are as follows: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. In the following compound sentences, subjects are in yellow, verbs are in green, and the coordinators and the commas that precede them are in red.
1.I tried to speak Spanish, and my friend tried to speak France.
2.Rahman played football, so Sheila went shopping.
3.Rahman played football, for Sheila went shopping.
Each sentence contains two independent clauses, and they are joined by a coordinator with a comma preceding it. Sentences B and C, for example, are identical except for the coordinators. In sentence B, which action occurred first? Obviously, "Rahman played football" first, and as a consequence, "Sheila went shopping. In sentence C, "Sheila went shopping" first. In sentence C, "Rahman played football" because, possibly, he didn't have anything else to do, for or because "Sheila went shopping.
Complex Sentences
A complex sentence has an independent clause joined by one or more dependent clauses. A complex sentence always has a subordinator such as because, since, after, although, or when or a relative pronoun such as that, who, or which. In the following complex sentences, subjects are in yellow, verbs are in green, and the subordinators and their commas (when required) are in red.
1.When he handed in his homework, he forgot to give the teacher the last page.
2.Miss Julie returned the homework after she noticed the error.
3.The students are studying because they have a test tomorrow.
4.After they finished studying, Jeeva and Rina went to the movies.
When a complex sentence begins with a subordinator such as sentences A and D, a comma is required at the end of the dependent clause. When the independent clause begins the sentence with subordinators in the middle as in sentences B, C, and E, no comma is required.
Complex- compound Sentences
Sentences containing adjective clauses (or dependent clauses) are also complex because they contain an independent clause and a dependent clause. In the following complex sentences, subjects are in yellow, verbs are in green, and the subordinators and their commas (when required) are in red.
1.The woman who (m) my mom talked to sells cosmetics.
2.The novel that Joey read is on the shelf.
3.The house which Romeo and Ronald were born in is still standing.
Types of Sentences by Purpose
ReplyDelete The Declarative Sentence
A declarative sentence simply states a fact or argument, states an idea, without requiring either an answer or action from the reader, it does not give a command or request, nor does it ask a question. You punctuate your declarative sentences with a simple period. Declarative sentences consist of a subject and a predicate. The subject may be a simple subject or a compound subject.
•His name is Rajesh.
•Mario plays the piano.
•I hope you can come tomorrow.
•We've forgotten the sugar.
•Ottawa is the capital of Canada.
Interrogative Sentences
An interrogative sentence is a type of sentence which usually asks a question and uses a question mark (?). They may ask for information or for confirmation or denial of a statement. They typically begin with a question word such as what, who, or how, or an auxiliary verb such as do/does, can or would. However, there are two kinds of interrogative sentences and they are the direct interrogative and indirect interrogative. Be careful to distinguish between direct and indirect questions. Direct questions normally use inverted word order (verb before subject) and end with a question mark. Indirect questions normally do not use inverted word order and do not end with a question mark.
Direct/Interrogative
1.When was Lester Pearson prime minister?
2.Who took your suite case?
3.When will you be returning from your holidays?
Indirect/Declarative
1.I wonder when Lester Pearson was prime minister.
2.I thought Rina had taken your suite case.
3.I wonder how happy you will be spending your holidays with your family.
Exclamatory Sentences
A type of sentence that expresses strong feelings by making an exclamation (Compare with sentences that make a statement, express a command, or ask a question). With the appropriate intonation, other sentence types (especially decelarative sentence can be used to form exclamatives. An exclamatory sentence ends with an exclamation point.
•I can't believe it! Reading and writing actually paid off!"
•How beautiful this river is!
•Ouch! You stepped on my toe.
•My life will never be the same without you!
Imperative Sentences
An imperative sentence gives a command or request. It usually ends with a period, but it may also end with an exclamation point (!).It can also sometimes be stated like a question, but a reply isn’t necessary and neither is a question mark.
•Get me some water.
•Leave that cat alone.
•Go to the store for me.
•Bring me some ice.
•(You) get me some water.
•(You) leave the cat alone.
•(You) go to the store for me.
•(You) Bring me some ice.
Conditional Sentences
English conditional sentences can be divided into the two broad classes of factual/predictive and hypothetical (counterfactual), depending on the form of the verb in the condition (protasis). The terms "factual" and "counterfactual" broadly correspond to the linguistic modalities called realis and irrealis.Conditional sentences are made up of two parts: the if-clause (condition) and the main clause(result that follows).
IF-CLAUSE MAIN CLAUSE
If it rains, will take an umbrella.
Examples of real if-clauses:
•I have some money, I go to a club. (zero conditional or first conditional can be used)
It's a situation that happens very often.
•When my uncle visited us, he would always help me with my homework.
My uncle visited us many times.
Examples of unreal if-clauses.
•If I could fly, I...
But that will never happen.
•If she had told me about that,...
but she didn't tell me.
If the main-clause is real, then it is exactly the same as a normal sentence. For example:
•If he's late again, I will fire him. (first conditional]
The situation is real because it can happen at any time.
•If the weather was nice, she often walked to work.
The situation is real because it happened (at least according to the speaker).
Minimal Pairs
ReplyDeleteMinimal pairs are words that vary by only a single sound, usually meaning sounds that students often get confused by, like the "th" and "t" in "thin" and "tin".
Vowel Sounds
• Minimal Pairs /ɪ/ and /i:/ (sit and seat)
• Minimal Pairs /e/ and /eɪ/ (wet and wait)
• Minimal Pairs /æ/ and /ʌ/ (bat and but)
• Minimal Pairs /əʊ/ and /ɔ:/ (so and saw)
• Minimal Pairs /æ/ and /e/ (bad and bed)
• Minimal Pairs /ɑ:/ and /ɜ:/ (fast and first)
Consonant Sounds
• Minimal Pairs /b/ and /v/ (berry and very)
• Minimal Pairs /b/ and /p/ (buy and pie)
• Minimal Pairs /n/ and /ŋ/ (thin and thing)
• Minimal Pairs /l/ and /r/ (alive and arrive)
• Minimal Pairs /ʧ/ and /t/ (catch and cat)
• Minimal Pairs /s/ and /ʃ/ (sea and she)
• Minimal Pairs /f/ and /v/ (fan and van)
• Minimal Pairs /f/ and /h/ (fat and hat)
• Minimal Pairs /s/ and /θ/ (sing and thing)
• Minimal Pairs /ð/ and /z/ (with and whizz)
• Minimal Pairs /ʤ/ and /z/ (page and pays)
• Minimal Pairs /d/ and /ʤ/ (bad and badge)
Initial Consonant Sounds
• Minimal Pairs initial /f/ and /p/ (fast and past)
Final Consonant Sounds
• Minimal Pairs final /m/ and /n/ (am and an)
• Minimal Pairs final /t/ and /d/ (hat and had)
Minimal pairs
ReplyDeleteA minimal pair is a pair of words that differ in a single phoneme. Minimal pairs are often used to show that two sounds contrast in a language.
Example
cat-cut
ankle-uncle
match-much
it-eat
hit-heat
bin-bean
live-leave
sad-said