Modifications of English vowels and consonants in connected speech .The phenomena of assimilation ,accomodation ,elision and interchange

Assimilation is said to be partial when the assimilated consonant retains its main phonemic features and becomes only partly similar in some feature of its articulation to the assimilating sound (in twice [twaɪs] the principal (fully voiced) variant of the phoneme [w] is replaced by its partly devoiced variant).Assimilation is said to be intermediate between complete and partial when the assimilated consonant changes into a different sound, but does not coincide with the assimilating consonant (in the word gooseberry ['ɡuzbərɪ], [s] in goose [ɡuːs] is replaced by [z] under the influence of [b] in berry).Assimilation can be of three types as far as its direction is concerned: progressive, regressive and double (reciprocal).In progressive assimilation the assimilated consonant is influenced by the preceding consonant (in the word place the fully voiced variant of the consonant phoneme [l] is assimilated to [p] and is replaced by a partly devoiced variant of the same phoneme).In regressive assimilation the preceding consonant is influenced by the following one (the voiced consonant [z] in news [njuːz] is replaced by the voiceless consonant [s] in the compound newspaper ['njuːspeɪpə] under the influence of the voiceless sound [p]).In double, or reciprocal, assimilation two adjacent consonants influence each other (in twenty ['twentɪ], the sonorant [w] is assimilated to the voiceless plosive consonant [t] by becoming partly devoiced and [t] is assimilated to [w] and is represented by its labialized variant).Assimilation which occurs in everyday speech in the present-day pronunciation is called living (let you out [ˏlet ju 'aʊt – ˏletʃu 'aʊt]. If the present-day pronunciation of a word is the result of an assimilation which took place at an earlier stage in the history of the language, we have the so-called historical assimilation (occasion [ə'keɪʒən] from [o'kæzjon]). In the pronunciation of such compounds as horse-shoe ['hɔːʃʃuː], gooseberry ['ɡuzbərɪ], we have contextual assimilations. In contextual assimilation a word comes to have a pronunciation different from that which it has when said by itself.It is useful to distinguish between obligatory assimilation and non- obligatory assimilation. Obligatory assimilation occurs in the speech of all people who speak a certain language, no matter what style of speech is used. Non-obligatory assimilation appears in rapid and careless speech.Teachers, public speakers, lecturers should avoid using this assimilation and foreign students should not try to imitate such speech.3.2. AccomodationThe modification in the articulation of a vowel under the influence of an adjacent consonant, or, vice versa, the modification in the articulation of a consonant under the influence of an adjacent vowel is called adaptation, or accommodation.So, accommodation is a partial change in the articulation of a consonant sound under the influence of an adjacent vowel sound in colloquial speech and, conversely, under the influence of a consonant sound, there are partial changes in the articulation of an adjacent vowel sound.Thus, the consonantal sound becomes partially labialized under the influence of the subsequent labialized vowel sound: tooth [tu:θ], look look [lʊk], noon [nu:n].Long vowels before nasal consonants are nasalized, because at the moment of pronouncing the vowel, the soft palate is lowered to articulate the sonorous consonant: morning [ˈmɔ:nɪŋ], aunt [a:nt].In accommodation, the sound does not change its relevant features and is pronounced as a variant of one phoneme, slightly altered by the influence of a neighboring sound. In modern English there are three types of accommodation:The non-labialized consonant is replaced by the labialized variant under the influence of the subsequent labialized phoneme: tea – too, less – loose, none – noon. The vowel of the back row is replaced by its advanced forward variant under the influence of the preceding middle-language phoneme /j/: booty-beauty, moon-music.The vowel phoneme may be represented by its more open variant before the dark /ł/ influenced by the posterior coarticulation of the latter. Thus, the vowels in bell, tell [ε] are slightly more open than the vowels in bed, ten [e].Accommodation is a somewhat different phenomenon from assimilation and dissimilation. These three kinds of combinatorial sound changes differ in different ways. If assimilation and dissimilation differ in the nature of changes in articulatively interacting sounds (assimilation-dissimilation), then accommodation is opposed to assimilation and dissimilation on a completely different basis – by the nature (category, category) of interacting sounds (vowels – consonants). In all cases of accommodation, there is a convergence of the articulation of adjacent sounds, as in assimilation (and not its divergence, as in dissimilation), so accommodation can be considered as a special kind of assimilation.ConclusionSound modification in a speech chain is the universal phenomenon peculiar to any language. The ability to produce and understand fluent live speech by ear is an important competence for those who study English. The study of this question allows us to draw the following conclusions: - the English language is characterized by both positional and combinatorial changes in sounds. Positional changes are mainly represented by elision and reduction of vowel sounds and alternations of vowels or consonants.Combinatorial sound changes in speech are assimilation and accommodation between vowels and consonants;- learners of English need to get acquainted with the basic rules of interaction of sounds, which are typical for this language, and learn to comply with them in their own speech. Ignoring these phenomena leads to increased foreign language accent and difficulty in communication.BibliographyVassilyev. V. A. EnglishPhonetics : Atheoreticalcourse: Доп. в качестве учебника для студентов и-тов и ф-тов иностранных языков / V. A. Vassilyev. – 1970.Леонтьева, С. Ф. Теоретическая фонетика современного английского языка = ATheoreticalcourseofEnglishPhonetics : [учебник для пед. вузов и ун-тов] / Леонтьева, Светлана Фёдоровна ; С. Ф. Леонтьева. – М. : Менеджер, 2004. – 335, [1]с.Sokolova M.A., Gintovt K.P. English Phonetics. A Theoretical Course. – M. 2008.Бурая Е.А. 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