Understanding and Teaching the Pronunciation of English.pdf

Vowel + vowel: When two vowel sounds come together,
a /y/ or /w/ glide can sometimes be heard:

theater pronunciation create

ruin throughout going

Consonant + consonant: Sequences of two identical
consonants, or of a stop plus a stop or a"ricate, are often
found in compound words. Then the two sounds blend
together and become longer.

Same consonant: bookcase roommate house-sitter

Stop + stop or a"ricate: hotdog background

seatbelt eggplant shopkeeper

cute child good judge keep checking

Assimilation (sounds become similar)

We talked earlier about speakers’ natural tendency to !nd
easier ways to pronounce words—to say sounds using smaller
and more e#cient movements of the articulators. Because of
this tendency, a sound sometimes becomes more similar to a
sound that comes before or after it. This process is called
assimilation. (It comes from the same root as the word
similar.) Assimilation makes words easier to pronounce by

bringing about easier movements of the tongue, lips, and

other articulators from one sound to the next. Every language

has some kind of assimilation, although not all languages use

assimilation in exactly the same way.

Assimilation often changes the place of articulation of a

sound to match a sound next to it. The phoneme /n/ often

assimilates to a sound after it. For example, in the following

phrases, we can hear di"erences in the last sound in the

preposition in:

We’re in America. /ɪnəˈmɛrɪkə/

We’re in Nevada. /ɪnnəˈvædə/

We’re in Mexico. /ɪmˈmɛksɪkow/

We’re in Canada. /ɪŋˈkænədə/

We expect in to sound like /ɪn/—that’s its citation form—but

this is not always the case. When in comes before a bilabial

sound, it can also become the bilabial sound /m/. Before a

velar sound, it can become the velar sound /ŋ/. (Note: This

type of assimilation happens with /n/, but not with /m/. For

example, something is never pronounced /sʌnθɪŋ/.)

In the previous example, when two sounds came together,

the second sound caused the !rst sound to change. This is the

most common situation in assimilation. However, in a

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/y/

/w/

/y/ /y/

/w/ /w/