Differences between NAE and British English

There are a number of noticeable diferences between estándar Shouthern British and estándar NAE pronunciation:

-Phonemic pronunciation.-Allophonic variation.-Pronunciation of common words.-Word stress.

Differences in phonemic inventories

• Differences in the consonant inventories

• One minor difference between consonant inventories of NAE and British English are:

• NAE still have the voiceless /hw/ distinct from /w/. (e.g. in words such as what, which, and whether)

• This /hw/ sound is also still common in Scottish standard.

Differences in phonemic inventories

• Differences in the vowel inventories

• The phonemic differences between NAE and British English vowel inventories are considerably greater than the differences in their consonant inventories.

Differences in phonemic inventories

Differences in allophonic variation

• Differences in vowel production

• The differences in allophonic variation between British English and NAE are much more extensive than the differences in their phonemic inventories.

Differences in allophonic variation

• Differences in consonant production

• The pronunciation of /r/. In prevocalic position (e.g. red, rice, row), the British /r/ is produced farther forward in the mouth than NAE /r/.

• In postvocalic position, NAE speakers produce a darker version of initial or medial /r/.

Differences in allophonic variation

Different pronuntiations of common words

• Words spelled with a: are pronounced with the vowel /ɑ:/ in British English but with / æ / in NAE:

• Ask• Dance • Answer• branch

Different pronunciations of common words

• Words with syllable–initial alveolar consonants

• Many words with syllable-initial alveolar consonant /t,d,n/ and now less frequently /l,s,z/ before a /ʊw/ sound spelled /ʊ, ew or eʊ/.

Different pronuntiation of common words

• Words with /ʊ/ spellings following alveolar consonants

• Some speakers of British English have tendency to pronounce /y/ in certain words with /ʊ/ spellings.

Different pronunciations of common words

• Words spelled with er

• British English er is pronounced /ar/ but in NAE / ɜ: / ej:

• Clerk• Derby• keer

Different pronuntiation of common words

• Words ending in –ile

• Words that end in –ile tend to be pronounced (/ail/ in British English and /əl/ in NAE) ej:

• Hostile, fertile,docile.

Differences in word stress

• There are also numerous words in British English in which the primary differerence in pronunciation can be traced to differences in word stress.

Differences in word strees

• Verbs ending in –ate

• In many two syllable verbs ending in –ate NAE, tends to stress the root syllable and British English the suffix

Differences in word stress

• Words of french origin

• In this case NAE tends to mirror the french syllable-final stress pattern, and British English anglicizes these words with stress on the first syllable.

Differences in word stress

• There are also several types of three or four words in which stress falls on the second syllable in NAE but on the first syllable in British English

Differencess in word stress

• Secondary stress differences in words ending in –ily.

• There are many five-syllable words ending in –ily for which British English gives primary stress to the first syllable whereas NAE gives primary stress to the third syllable.

Differences in word stress• Words ending in –ary, -ery, ory and mony

Differences in word stress

• Words ending in –day e.g: days of the week this syllable is unestressed and has reduced vowel in British English variety, however, it has a full vowel and is stressed in NAE.

Differences in word stress

• Place names ending in –aster/-ester

• Place names ending in –aster/-ester have a different pattern in NAE and British English, since the latter variety gives less stress to penultimate syllable.

Southern Dialects• Southern American English

Southern Dialects

• Pronunciation• Grammar• Vocabulary

Southern Dialects

• Pronunciation

• Few generalizations can be made about Southern pronunciation as there is great variation between the regions of the South between older and younger people, and between people of different ethnic backgrounds.

Southern Dialects• Newer Southern American English

The following phenomena are relatively widespread in Newer SAE, though the extent of these features varies across regions and between rural and urban areas. The older the speaker, the less likely he or she is to display these features.

Southern Dialects• The merger of /e/and /ɪ/ before nasal

consonants.• Lax and tense vowels often neutralize before /l/ .

• The diphthong / aɪ / becomes monophthongized to

/ɑ:/.• Others monophthongized / aɪ / in all contexts.• In some regions of the South, there is a merger of

/ɔ:r/ and /ɑ:r/.

Southern Dialects• Grammar of Newer Southern

American English

• Use of the contraction y’all as the second person plural pronoun.

• When addressing a group, y’all is general, e.g “I know y’all”, and it used to address the group as a whole, whereas “all y’all” is used to emphasize specificity of each and every member of the group, e.g “I know all y’all”.

e.g: “I’ve got y’all’s assignments here”.

Southern Dialects• In rural Southern Appalachia an “n” is added to

pronounce indicating “one”; “his’n: “his one”, “her’n: “her one”, “yor’n”: “your one”. Another example is “yemses”. It may be susstituted for the 2nd person plural possessive yours.

e.g: “that book is yemses”.

• Use of done as an auxiliary verb between the subject and verb in sentences conveying the past tense. e.g: “I done told you before”.

Southern Dialects

• Vocabulary

• Use of over yonder in place of “over there” or “in or at that indicated place”, especially to refer to a particularly different spot, such as in “the house over yonder”.