Synopses & Reviews
This is an introduction to the phonology of present-day English. It deals principally with three varieties of English: "General American," Southern British "Received Pronunciation" and "Scottish Standard English." It offers a systematic and detailed discussion of the features shared by these major accents, and explains some major differences. Other varieties of English--Australian and New Zealand English, South African English and Hiberno-English--are also discussed briefly. Without focusing on current phonological theory and its evolution, the author demonstrates the importance of "theory," in whatever shape or form, in phonological argumentation. This textbook will be welcomed by all students of English language and linguistics.
Review
"...Giegerich's book combines a wealth of data with extensive discussion (within this narrow framework) and provides enough reference to the counterexamples to phonemic analysis to make most readers want to see what kind of additional insights (and additional problems) can be found in a less restrictive generative analysis of the same facts." John T. Jensen, Canadian Journal of Linguistics
Review
"...Giegerich's book combines a wealth of data with extensive discussion (within this narrow framework) and provides enough reference to the counterexamples to phonemic analysis to make most readers want to see what kind of additional insights (and additional problems) can be found in a less restrictive generative analysis of the same facts." John T. Jensen, Canadian Journal of Linguistics
Synopsis
This introduction to the phonology of present-day English offers a systematic and detailed discussion of the features shared by three varieties of English: "General American," Southern British "Received Pronunciation" and "Scottish Standard English".
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 325-329) and index.
Table of Contents
Preface; 1. Speech sounds and their production; 2. Towards a sound system for English: consonant phonemes; 3. Some vowel systems of English; 4. Phonological features, part I: the classification of English vowel phonemes; 5. Phonological features, part II: the consonant system; 6. Syllables; 7. Word stress; 8. Phonetic representations: the realisations of phonemes; 9. Phrases, sentences and the phonology of connected speech; 10. Representations and derivations; References; Index.