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English sibilant pronunciation patterns | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5012 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 1 of 13 07 February 2015 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I need help to identify and create some guidelines for pronunciation patterns of s, z and c in English, often a stumbling block for Spanish speakers.
As an advanced learner and teacher I'm really frustrated by inefficient 'inductive' approaches and the lack of decent materials dealing with these, which would be so useful at the early stages -- it seems like it's expected from (Spanish) learners to never master this area, so it's completely neglected. I'm thus starting this thread to try and compile a minimal set of orthography and pronunciation patterns (as opposed to non-existent rules) to help learners of English guess the sibilant phonemes /s/, /ʃ/, /z/, /ʒ/ used in words containing the letters c, z, and s. If someone knows resources glossing over this, any pointer(s) would be appreciated as well. The point is to list patterns (and exceptions!) in order of importance so as to maximize usefulness and coverage. This would be my initial list, let's see if I got this straight: 1. "C" always sounds like /k/ or one of the unvoiced /s/ and /ʃ/: -Syllable-final "c", and syllable-starting "c" in "ca", "co", and "cu" always sounds as /k/. Examples: car, cop, cure, electric, occupy, accent, accident. (Edit) Exceptions: apparently scientific/medical terms of Latin/Greek origin beginning with "cae-" or "coe": caesar(ean), caecum, coeliac, coelenterate... US spellings seem to have been reduced to "ce-". -"c" in "cy" always sounds as /s/, but "c" in "ce" and "ci" will change to /ʃ/ if followed by "a". Examples: /s/ mercy, cyanotic, ace, certain, ice, cite, racist, science, socio- prefix, /ʃ/ crustacean, ocean, social. -Additional/exceptional words where "c" results in /ʃ/: fascism, fascist. Note this does not normally happen, f.e. in "ascend" or "scissors". 2. "s" offers the most variations. -Addition of prefixes and suffixes keeps the original sibilant sound: side → aside, beside; sure → assurance, so watch out: generally no voicing, shifting, etc. in derivative words! (exception: controversy → controversial) -"sh" always sounds /ʃ/. Examples: ash, shame, shy. -"ss" "always" represents unvoiced /s/. Examples: ass, assess, assassin. Exceptions: dessert, possess (/pəˈzes/), scissors. -Word-initial "s" sounds as /s/. Examples: sap, set, side, sole, superb, start. -Single "s" becomes voiced /z/ when the sound is word-final and preceded by a vowel or a voiced consonant, or between two voiced sounds. Examples: (/s/) ask, gist, stops, tops, taps, (/z/) tabs, as, cause, causeway, erase, eyes, lies, laser, prism, prison, stubs, suffix -ese. Exceptions: bus, cease, goose, house, loose, louse, moose, mouse, suffix -ous. -"s" shifts from /s/ to /ʃ/ when followed by -ion, -ure. Examples: session, sure, censure. -When both the above apply, "s" sounds not like /ʃ/ but its voiced counterpart /ʒ/ (which doesn't exist in Spanish, which is why this may be better presented last). Examples: erasure, version, vision, visual, leisure. Additional voiced pattern: "s" → /ʒ/ in Asian, -asual, -isual (voiced-only pattern, because "sensual", "sexual", etc. present no /s/ → /ʃ/ shift). 3. "z" represents the voiced phoneme /z/ regardless of position within word or being doubled (as opposed to "s" which can represent any of the four sibilants), but it will change to /ʒ/ when followed by "-ure" (voiced analogous of "s" changing to /ʃ/). Examples: zap, zebra, azimuth, buzz, pizazz, quiz, quizzical, puzzle, (/ʒ/) azure, seizure. Exceptions: in pizza, pizzeria, etc. "z" → /ts/. As a general rule of thumb, loan words may and often do escape from 'native' pronunciation patterns. OK, that's it for now. Let's see what you have to comment / correct / reformulate :) IPA symbols typed at and pasted from http://ipa.typeit.org/ Edited by mrwarper on 08 February 2015 at 12:35pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6383 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 13 07 February 2015 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Fascism is a loan from Italian.
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6368 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 3 of 13 07 February 2015 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Nice! I had a comment, but realized it was wrong, so now this will just be a +1 post.
EDIT: No, actually: "caesar" is an example where "ca" does not lead to a /k/ sound. Edited by Ari on 07 February 2015 at 7:23pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5012 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 4 of 13 07 February 2015 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well spotted, shall we make it "c" + <something more precise, but complicated>*, or simply list "caesar" as a one-off exception? I can't think of more right now, but maybe you do.
*I really prefer having "ca, co, cu", "cy" and "ci" like that not to imply about how the following letters are pronounced -- it's accurate for the most part, and at the same time more elegant and compact: think "cider" vs. "cigar", or "pacy" vs. "cyan", etc. all covered in one go, except for... how many words? ;) I'll list that as an exception for now. Thanks Ari! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5048 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 13 07 February 2015 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is a good, general rule of thumb for most ordinary English words. Just off the top of my head there are a couple of exceptions from science and medicine: coelacanth: siːləkænθ - My favorite prehistoric/living fossil fish, love those lobed fins! Come on coelacanth, evolve! Walk upon the land! Like Caesar and its derivative caesarian, it comes into English via Latin- and in the case of coelacanth via Greek (reference via Google itself): "mid 19th century: from modern Latin Coelacanthus (genus name), from Greek koilos ‘hollow’ + akantha ‘spine’ (because its fins have hollow spines)." There's also the rather nasty coeliac (UK) disease (/ˈsiːli.æk/; spelled celiac in the US. Once again the etymology is from Latin via Greek: (reference via Google itself by typing "word" + "etymology") "mid 17th century: from Latin coeliacus, from Greek koiliakos, from koilia ‘belly.’" So some Latin loan words seem to be an exception to "c" always sounding like "k" when preceding an "o". Watch out for scientific/medical words imported from Latin. Though your average English learner in Spain is highly unlikely to ever run into "coelacanths" unless they are deep sea fishing in the southern Indian Ocean off of Madagascar, or perhaps scrabble/crossword players. English is such a hodge-podge, mulligan stew/gumbo of a language that we always have loads of exceptions to prove almost any rule. The old rule I learned in elementary school for spelling: "i" before "e" except after "c", helps me to spell "receive" correctly every time. I still remember it to this day. It wouldn't do anything at all to help me spell "science" if I were an ESL student! I can see myself trying to explain that one- "Hmmm, well, yes, technically, you're right. That is a "c" and "i" does come after it instead of "e"---- aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh!!!! This is one of the reasons why I love Spanish so much. It's also why I'm not ready to learn French just yet. Thank you Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. Edited by iguanamon on 07 February 2015 at 9:20pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5768 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 6 of 13 07 February 2015 at 9:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm pretty sure the s in the "louse" in your list should be pronounced with an unvoiced /s/. Lousy, on the other hand, contains the voiced /z/. I guess this makes "louse" another lousy exception.
I also want to pronounce the z in azure as a voiced /z/ but the OED tells me I'm wrong and you're right! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 4845 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 7 of 13 07 February 2015 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
This part has some unpredictability, as in "fission" /ʒ/ and "mission" /ʃ/ for no obvious reason (NB: "fission" with /ʃ/ is also observed). And according to your rules as stated, "session" should have /ʒ/ instead of correctly /ʃ/, since it's preceded by a vowel. "Erasure" also takes /ʃ/ as well as /ʒ/, while "version," "leisure," "measure" cannot. It seems to me that no clear rule applies in the case of "(s)s-ion/ure," where the pronunciation depends on the word and the accent.
Exception: "controversial," if you use /ʃ/, as is dominant in the USA. Although /s/ is also not wrong. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4493 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 8 of 13 08 February 2015 at 1:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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Fission with ʒ sounds really off to me - I would only ever use ʃ there.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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