Phonetics: Phonemes and Syllables

The English alphabet has 26 letters but they are used to produce 44 sounds. 

The English speech sounds are divided into two categories: Vowels and Consonants.

British Received Pronunciation has 20 distinct vowel sounds and 24 consonants.

There are 12 pure vowels and 8 dipthongs. The pure vowels involve one movement of the jaw but the dipthongs involve a glide from one vowel to another and are represented by double symbols. Dipthongs are vowels which begin as one vowel and end as another. For example consider:  aim, page and stay or ice, hide and fly.

Consonants are classified on the basis of place and manner of articulation; organs of speech and the way in which passage of air is restricted.

Phonemes and Syllables

English uses 44 sounds or phonemes. The unit that is next in hierarchy to the speech sound is the syllable.

In each syllable there is one sound that is more prominent than the rest.

Usually it is a vowel (or a dipthong).

The vowel is called the nucleus of a syllable.

The consonant that begins a syllable is called a releasing consonant and the one that comes at the end of a syllable is called the arresting consonant.

The nucleus is symbolized as V and the marginal elements are symbolized C.

A syllable which ends in a consonant is called a closed syllable, while one that ends in vowel is called an open syllable.

bad, good, camp are examples of closed syllables.

go, tea, crow are examples of open syllables.

Word Accent: In words of more than one syllable not all the syllables are equally prominent. Those that are more prominent than the others are said to receive the accent.

Tip: Find Pronunciation Key from Encarta Dictionary: English ( North America) in your Windows 7. Research Pane at the top by putting pronunciation key and phonetics as search trms.