Sunday 24 November 2013

psst!


credit: http://www.4teachers.de/

While preparing a lecture on sound sequences in English words, I put up a list of 'illegal' initial consonant clusters, e.g. */pt_/. Words such as ptarmigan, pterodactyl or Ptolemy start with /t_/. I can't offer a word with initial /pt_/ or can you?
What about /ps_/? Yes, there a few:
psst
psi
and optionally though rare in
psittacosis
psoriasis
psephology


Thursday 14 November 2013

reverse transcriptions

In my phonetics classes of this semester I asked my young professionals to convert phonemically transcribed words into their spellings, e.g. /ˈbʊlətɪn, kɑːm, tʃɪmpænˈziː, kənˈspɪrəsi/.

One of the 'trickier' ones was /kənˈdem/. A handful of students came up with this suggestion: condom. Greetings from Sigmund Freud?