Page:An outline of English phonetics ... with 131 illustrations (IA cu31924027389505).pdf/20

2 compare the a’s in father, fall, any, fat, watch, the i’s in wind (noun), machine, bird , the u’s in rule, put, hut ; compare also the o’s in stove, move, love , the ea’s in meat, head, great, bear , etc.

7. He also finds that many English sounds may be spelt in a large number of different ways. Thus the words meet, meat, niece, pique, key, quay, Leigh all have the same vowel sound; so also have the words sauce, lawn, stalk, stork, board, warn, broth, thought, broad, floor.

8. Discrepancies between pronunciation and ordinary spelling are not confined to the English language. In French -lle has different values in ville and fille, o has different values in grosse and gosse , portions is pronounced in two different ways according as it is a noun or a verb; on the other hand the sound o is spelt differently in the words mot, tôt, beau, chevaux. In German ch has different values in rauchen and Frauchen, u has different values in Fuß and Nuß

9. The result of these inconsistencies is that the foreigner is in innumerable cases entirely at a loss to know what sounds should be used, and is continually mispronouncing words. Hence it is that phonetic writing becomes a necessity for anyone wishing to acquire a good pronunciation of these languages.

10. Phonetic writing is defined as a system of alphabetic writing in which each symbol represents one and only one distinct elementary speech sound. When distinguished from conventional spelling, phonetic writing is generally known as.

11. The phonetic alphabet used here is that of the International Phonetic Association. A list of the symbols occurring in this book, with their values, is given in the introduction.

12. The forms of the symbols necessary in phonetic transcription depend to some extent on the object in view.

13. If it desired to have separate symbols for all the sounds occurring in several languages and dialects, a very large number of symbols and diacritical marks will be necessary, with the result that the transcription of any one of the languages becomes complicated and difficult to read, Transcriptions of this kind are called transcriptions.