2018-09-05 Pronunciation: reduced structure words

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - notes from all classes
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American English has 15 vowels.
bat / bait
bet / beet
bit / bite
bot / boat
but / boot
bout
boy
bought
book
/ə/
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You can ship cheap sheep in a cheap sheep ship.
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p. 62 exercise 5 - Mark the primary stress in each content word.
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p. 64 gives examples of the types of structure words.
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p. 65 exercise 8A - Repeat these sentences. What do you notice about the pronunciation of the structure words?
We reduce them (much like we often reduce unstressed syllables within a word). This usually means we pronounce vowels like /ə/ and reduce or drop many consonants, especially ‘h’.
Both “has” and “his” might be pronounced /əz/.
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/h/ is often dropped
/v/ at the end of “have” and “of” can be dropped before a consonant
/t/ can be flapped (like “city”) or pronounced like [ʔ] (glottal stop)
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There are many pairs of words that get reduced together:
want to -> wanna
got to -> gotta
going to -> gonna
don’t know -> dunno
would have -> woulda
shouldn’t have -> shouldna
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One-syllable structure words are almost always reduced.
Longer words aren’t (completely) reduced, like “between” and “someone” and “myself”.
	(They still usually don’t have stress.)
I live between Porter and Harvard.
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For most structure words, the important thins is that you can understand when native speakers reduce them. You don’t have to reduce them yourself.
However, there are some words that we will misunderstand if you don’t reduce them.
I can talk right now.
I can’t talk right now.
- If you don’t reduce “can” in sentences like the first one, most people will hear “can’t”.
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Homework (optional): Punctuate and pronounce this so it makes sense:
	I know that that that had had had had in front of it before.
	(Extra: James while John had had had had had had had had had had had the teacher’s approval.)