Thursday, 22 February 2018

A Gifted Musician

kən ju ˈpleɪ ðə ˈvaɪəˈlɪn ||
aɪ də ˈnəʊ || aɪv ˈnevə ˈtraɪd


Key at bottom of page.

Commentary

can: When unstressed, as it usually is, the modal verb can has the weak from /kən/.

you: The symbol u represents the same vowel phoneme as the symbol . We use u in unstressed syllables and in stressed syllables. This distinction isn't very helpful for TEFL purposes and learners should simply treat the two symbols as the same. Because we are using two different symbols for one phoneme, this means our transcription isn't truly phonemic (phonemic transcription = one symbol for each phoneme).

the: When unstressed, as it usually is, the definite article the has the weak form /ðə/ when the following word begins with a consonant.

I: Although I is a monosyllabic function/grammatical word and is usually unstressed, it doesn’t usually have a weak form.

don’t know: The high-frequency phrase don’t know can be pronounced /də ˈnəʊ/ with don’t being unstressed and reduced to /də/. Other variants include /ˈdəʊ ˈnəʊ/, /ˈdəʊn ˈnəʊ/ and /ˈdəʊnt ˈnəʊ/.

I’ve: When unstressed, as it usually is, auxiliary have has the weak form /v/ when preceded by the pronouns I, you, we or they. The weak form combines with these pronouns to form the contractions I’ve /aɪv/, you’ve /ju(ː)v/, we’ve /wi(ː)v/ and they’ve /ðeɪv/.

tried: The regular -ed ending has three pronunciations:
  •          /ɪd/ after /t/ or /d/
  •          /t/ after all other voiceless consonants
  •          /d/ after vowels and all other voiced consonants

Can you play the violin?
I dunno. I’ve never tried.

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