词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Questions About Pronunciation and S

First broadcast: January 26, 2005

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: we answer a couple of questions with help from English teacher Lida Baker¹ in Los Angeles.

The first is from a listener who teaches physics at Hebei Normal University in China. Bill Zhao wants to know if all voiceless consonants³ should be pronounced as voiced consonants if they come right after the sound of "s." Voiced means the vocal⁴ chords vibrate. For example, in the word "sports," he hears people pronounce the "p" as a "b." Lida Baker has the explanation:

LIDA BAKER: " It's not actually a 'b,' but it has certain characteristics of a 'b,' and I'll tell you why that is.

"'S' is a voiceless sound and 'p' is a voiceless sound. The problem in a word like 'sport' is that the vowel⁵ after the 'p' is a voiced sound. All vowels⁶ are voiced sounds: oh, ah, ee, oo, right? So what happens when you have a voiceless sound like a 'p' next to a voiced sound like a vowel, to some people that 'p' is going to sound a little bit like a 'b.' And that's what Mr. Zhao is hearing. There's a little bit of crossover between the voiceless and the voiced sound because of the fact that they're neighbors in that word.

"But if you look in any dictionary at the phonetic⁷ spelling of a word like sport or scout⁸, that voiceless sound is written phonetically⁹ as a voiceless sound -- in other words, as a 'p' or a 't' or a 'k.' And dictionaries don't indicate that there is this kind of intermediate quality to the sound because native speakers don't hear that. O.K. The bottom line is, it is still a voiceless sound but it has qualities of a voiced sound because of the fact that the vowel comes after it.

"Now there is one exception which I'm sure Mr. Zhao was also aware of, which is the case where you have what is written as a 't' occurring between two vowels in a word like pretty, p-r-e-t-t-y, which in British English is pronounced pri-tee. But in American English that 't' changes into a 'd' sound and we say ... "

RS: "Pri-dee."

LIDA BAKER: "That's right, and the reason for that is that you have this voiceless 't' sound between two vowels.'

AA: "Wait, a voiceless 't' between two vowels, or is it -- "

LIDA BAKER: "Well, don't think about the spelling. Think about the pronunciation: preh-tee. If I slow it down, I'm going to pronounce it as a 't.' But there's those two vowel sounds there -- eh, ee -- and the voiceless 'tuh' will change to a 'd' sound in American English because of the fact that the consonant² is surrounded by two voiced sounds.

"And the voiced sounds around it overwhelm, if you will, the voiceless quality of the consonant, and in this case it changes to a 'd.' But that's as far as I know only true in most dialects of North American English and it certainly isn't true in British English and in a lot of other varieties of English around the world."

AA: The next question is from Atefeh in Iran. She's studying English literature at a university, and would like to know the difference between the abbreviation U.S.A. spelled with periods and U.S.A. spelled without periods. As Lida Baker explains, the only difference has to do with style.

LIDA BAKER: "The meaning is the same, and whether you use the periods or not is something that your writing teacher is going to tell you that she prefers for you to write it this way or that way. Or if you're a professional writer and you're working for a newspaper or a magazine, generally different publications have their own style guidelines and they will tell you how they want you to write it.

"I should point out for people who are in the university and writing papers that there are style manuals for different college fields. For example, there is the style manual of the American Psychological Association, the APA style manual ... Students who are majoring in psychology¹⁰ as well as other social sciences are required to follow the guidelines of that style manual when they write papers. In my writing classes, I don't care which way students do it, as long as they're consistent."

AA: Lida Baker teaches in the American Language Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and writes textbooks for English learners.

That's all for Wordmaster this week. Our e-mail address is。。。。。。。and our Web site is voanews.com/wordmaster. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

 

1 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

2 consonant   

n.辅音；adj.[音]符合的

参考例句：

• The quality of this suit isn't quite consonant with its price.这套衣服的质量和价钱不相称。
• These are common consonant clusters at the beginning of words.这些单词的开头有相同辅音组合。

3 consonants   

n.辅音，子音( consonant的名词复数 )；辅音字母

参考例句：

• Consonants are frequently assimilated to neighboring consonants. 辅音往往被其邻近的辅音同化。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Vowels possess greater sonority than consonants. 元音比辅音响亮。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

4 vocal   

adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目

参考例句：

• The tongue is a vocal organ.舌头是一个发音器官。
• Public opinion at last became vocal.终于舆论哗然。

5 vowel   

n.元音；元音字母

参考例句：

• A long vowel is a long sound as in the word"shoe ".长元音即如“shoe” 一词中的长音。
• The vowel in words like 'my' and 'thigh' is not very difficult.单词my和thigh中的元音并不难发。

6 vowels   

n.元音，元音字母( vowel的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Vowels possess greater sonority than consonants. 元音比辅音响亮。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Note the various sounds of vowels followed by r. 注意r跟随的各种元音的发音。 来自超越目标英语 第3册

7 phonetic   

adj.语言的，语言上的，表示语音的

参考例句：

• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。
• English phonetic teaching is an important teaching step in elementary stages.语音教学是英语基础阶段重要的教学环节。

8 scout   

n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索

参考例句：

• He was mistaken for an enemy scout and badly wounded.他被误认为是敌人的侦察兵，受了重伤。
• The scout made a stealthy approach to the enemy position.侦察兵偷偷地靠近敌军阵地。

9 phonetically   

按照发音地，语音学上

参考例句：

• In actual speech, a phoneme is realized phonetically as a certain phone. 在实际会话中，音位总是以某个音素的形式得以体现出来。
• Though phonetically alike, they are written with different ideographs. 虽然语音相同，它们的书写却不同。

10 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。