Vowels and Consonants, Reading, Grammar-Literature in English

Vowels and Consonants,  Reading, Grammar-Literature in English

1.0            Oral English

1.1     Vowels and Consonants

There are forty-four sound segments in English comprising twenty vowels and twenty-four consonants and in English Alphabets there are twenty six letters five are vowels while twenty one are consonants.

1.1.1  The vowels

There are five letters, a, e, i, o, u which are letters broken into twenty sounds segments. The production of these takes place as the air stream flows from the lings to the mouth without any obstruction, when the speech sound is produced the mouth is open and the tongue does not touch the top of the mouth and teeth, when a vowel is produced there is no obstruction of the air stream. For example if your produce /e/ you will notice that air flows out freely from the lungs. Although the long is raised when the vowel is produced, it does not make any contact with any other articulator as to obstruct the free flow of the air stream. Unlike the consonant when produced there is always some kind of interruption of the air stream from the lungs e.g. /m/ when produced, you notice the flow of air is obstructed.

         

Classification of Vowels

Classification of the English Vowels

The vowels in English are classified into two main groups, pure vowels, which are known as monothongs and diphthongs. Pure vowels are divided into short and long vowels.

These are some examples of the pure vowels.

1.     /i:/ as in beat and seal

2.     /i/ as in bit and sit

3.     /e/ as in bed and egg

4.     /e/ as in pat and mat

5.     /a:/ as in market and farm

6.     /   / as in dog and pocket

7.     /:/ as in sort and cork

8.     /u/ as in put and food

9.     /u:/ as in two and woo

10.                        /3 / as in hunt and hung

11.                        /3:/ as in bird and herb

12.                        /    / as in akin and baker

1.1.2    Consonants

The major difference between consonants and vowels, is that when a vowel is produced, airflows from the lungs without obstruction unlike when a consonant is produced the airflow from the lungs is interrupted somewhere in the mouth. We therefore say that a consonant is a speech sound that is produced with the obstruction of air stream. The obstruction could said to be either partial or complete when some consonants are produced the flow is obstructed by the lips. This kind of obstruction is called complete or total consonant like /p/ is produced. On the other hand, when a letter like /I/ is produced the flow of air is partially obstructed by the lower lip and the upper teeth. The obstruction here is partial because even if the lower lip and the teeth are in contact, air still passes through the narrow space between the lip and the teeth. We say that air however passes with some frictional noise.

The important thing about the production of consonant is that there is always an amount of obstruction of the air-stream from the lungs. The degree of obstruction of the air is one of the three important factors used in classifying the English Consonants. We therefore can classify consonant based on these:

a.     Place of articulation

b.     Manner of articulation

c.      State of the glottis

1.1.3    Some Letters but different sounds

There are some letters that occurs in words that are the same but the sound production are different e.g. the vowel are:

/a/ in air, aeroplane, tape, aim.

/a/ in have, about, alive, laugh

/e/ in egg, end, eight, enter

/e/ in English, eat, easy, east.

/p/ in Psychology, photo

/p/ in point, part

1.1.4    Some sound but different letters

There are some sounds that are the same but the letters are different in some words e.g.

/i:/ in leave, beef, sieve, receive, heat,

/i:/ in speech sound called the long /i:/ here the tongue is kept longer in the same position than the short /i/, /f/ in fight, laugh, photo, lieutenant.

1.2     Sound contrast

1.2.1 Consonants sound contrast: There are three types initial, medial and final

a.     Initial is the consonant at the beginning of the word e.g. Pin, bin, sink, zinc, fat, bat, queen, king etc.

b.     Media this occurs at the middle of the word e.g. Prices, Prizes, written, ridden.

c.      Final this occurs at the end both, boat, fish.

1.2.2    Vowel sound contrast: Initial, the vowel that occurs at the beginning of some words e.g. eat, it, eel, under, until, over. Medial the vowels that occur at the middle of some words e.g. Pan, pen, fan, fun, bead, photo.

1.2.3    Consonant clusters: This is the occurrence of two or more consonants in a word without an intervening vowel in English, there are usually an initial clusters of two or more consonants.

Identification of consonants clusters is not easy in some English word by just looking at the written form of the word. Such words show the letters only but when they are pronounced, there reveal the consonant clusters in them. E.g. Few, New, View, Hew, Skew, Stupid, Student.

On the other hand, we see occurrence of clusters at the initial of these words, bride, crime, flame, stand, sprint, dwell, shrink, stray. When the clusters are more than two, often times letter “s” begins the word e.g.  Sprint, Strong, Stray, Stranded, Stripe, Scrap.

1.2.4    Voice and voiceless sounds

Voiced sound is the production of consonant and vowel sounds with the involvement of the vocal cords. The vocal cords as well as your breath are moved e.g. k, g, d, z.  voiceless sound is the production of consonant sounds without the involvement of the movement of the vocal cords e.g. s, ch, h.

1.3     Stress

Stress is the effort we exert for the production of some sound. We do not exert equal effort for the production of all the sounds because some syllables are uttered with greater breath effort and muscular energy than the others. The syllables which are uttered with greater muscular energy are louder and longer those are what we call stress.

In English language, there are three degrees of stress namely: primary stress, secondary stress and un-stress. The syllables which are uttered with great muscular energy are said to be stressed while those produced with less effort are un-stressed. A stress syllable is written in capital letter.

1.3.1  Word Stress

In speech, we use words of one, two, or more syllables, we have monosyllable words which are usually stressed when pronounced in isolation. Syllable is the smallest unit that a word can be divided into. The stress could be at the beginning or middle or last part of the word e.g. “potato” the stress is on the second syllable PoTAto. We do not have any rules guiding the stress pattern of words in English but if a word has two syllables, the first syllable is usually stressed. In cases where the first syllable is a prefix, the second syllable has the stress and the first syllable is unstressed e.g.

First syllable words stress                          Second syllable stress

INcrease               WINdow                        ExCEED

HOStile                DOCtor                          CanTEEN

Cover                                                                   PreTEND

Pillow                                                         UnkNOWN

TAble                                                                   UnTIL

                                                                   UnLESS

1.3.2 Sentence Stress

A sentence in English contain word of different classes. Some of these seem to be relatively more important than the others. The distinction is indicated by stressing the apparently mere important words while the less important ones are unstressed on the basis of their functions in a sentence. Words are classified into two; the first is called content words comprising the nouns, verbs adverbs and adjectives. The second group of words are called the Grammatical words comprising the prepositions, articles, conjunction, pronouns and auxiliary verbs, while the control words are stressed in English language, the grammatical words are not usually stressed e.g. The CAR has been STOPPED only the two content words “car” and “stopped” are stressed while the others which are grammatical words are not stressed in order to maintain the rhythmic pattern of the language.

In some cases stresses does an important grammatical function of differentiating classes of words with the same spelling e.g. a word may function as a noun in one context as a verb in another. The stress pattern changes to reflect the change in function and meaning of such a word. The stress pattern on a word determined what part of speech that word becomes either a noun, a verb, if the stress is on the first syllable it is noun but if the stress pattern is on the second syllable it becomes a verb. E.g.

Noun                                                 verb

OBject                                     ObJECT

CONtest                                  ConTEST

TRANSport                                      TransPORT

IMport                                     ImPORT

CONvert                                  conVERT

1.4     Intonation

Intonation and stress are very important in spoken English. They both work together to give special meaning and emphasis to an utterance. Intonation is used in speech to distinguish the pitch of what the speaker intends when he speaks, the voice pitch changes, becomes high or low depending on the meaning the speaker intends. The changes in pitch are important because if there are no such changes, the speech would sound monotonous or even meaningless.

Intonation is so important in English that it forms an important part of the spoken utterance and shows a speakers attitude to what he is saying to his listener, intonation may indicate doubt certainty, disbelief, interest or indifference e.g. if a speaker answers “yes” in reply to a questions, different shades of meaning can be inferred from the speaker’s intonation. This reply may mean two different things when given a falling tune it mean strong affirmation which shows that there is no doubt in the speakers mind. But when the same reply is given a rising tune, it suggests some reservation in the mind.

Falling Tune

This is often used in declarative sentences, commands, exclamation and wh-question (questions which demand some information) such sentences usually contain both stress and un-stress syllables which are not spoken at the same pitch level. The first stressed syllable in the sentences is the highest in pitch while any other syllable that comes after is spoken in a little lower pitch.

Here the voice pitch combs down little by little until it gets to the last word which carries the final fall. Any un-stressed syllable after the last stressed syllable are said on a low level. Pitch in order to maintain the fall, e.g.

Statements:

JOY WORKS HARD in SCHool

Emaka has Given the Book to her

Commands

KEEP the Books on the TAble

Don’t disobey your TEAcher

Wh – question

WHY are you very Late?

Who GAVE you the information?

Exclamation

What a GOOD Result

What a PLEAsant SurPRISE

Rising tune

The rising tune is used in polar question i.e. question that require only “Yes” or “no” as answer). As in every sentence where no special contrast or emphasis is intended, the last stress syllable indicates the pitch pattern. In a polar question, the last stressed carries the rise in the pitch but if there are unstressed syllables after it, these unstressed syllables are said on a high pitch in order to continue the rise.

Is the WINE SWEET?

Will Monday be GOOD for it?

Did you EAT LAST NIGHT?

The rising tune is usually used to convey a speakers attitude, if there is any special thing the speaker intends to say the rise in time is usually gradual. The rise in pitch is often time gradual when the speakers attitude is that of indifference or lack of interest. When one wants to make a polite request and greetings the rise in pitch is gradual.

a. Utterance showing indifference

1. You can DO WHAT you WANT

2. If you WANT to

I THINK that’s RIGHT

b. Listing Items

1. ONE                 TWO          THREE                and    FOUR

2. WE NEED SOME RICE, BEANS FISH and MEAT                     

3. She wore a CAP, SHIRT, BANCLES and a PAIR of TROUsers

When counting, the final item in the list is usually said on a final tune as indicated in the examples. It is pertinent to note therefore that although falling and rising intonation patterns are the two basic patterns, the two pitch movement could also be together in a long sentence. In non final parts of a sentence the rising pattern is used while the final is used in a falling pitch.

Example of rise and fall pattern in long sentences.

1.     While the MEN were WORking, the CHILDREN were playing

2.     HE WAS HUNGRY, but he REFUSED to BEG FOR food BECAUSE of HIS INTEGRITY.

Finally, intonation should be correcting used by a speaker if he wishes to achieve the intended effect. We can therefore say that intonation do not show the the different simple sentence, types in English, it also helps to convey the mood or attitude of the speaker.

2.0 Reading

2.1     Definition / concept of reading

Reading is the act of looking at written items or symbols and understanding the meaning of what you have seen or looked at. Although it is not in all cases that the meaning of what you have seen or looked at. Although it is not in all cases that one understands the symbol or written items he or she must have looked at. Reading could also be said to be, going through written or printed words in silence or aloud.

Reading involves two processes, the physical and the mental. The physical is act of seeing group of words while mental is the recognizing and understanding of what you have seen.

2.2 Types of Reading

There are four types of reading

1.     Skimming / Scanning: This is a method of reading quickly through a document in order to find out a particular point or main point, scanning on the other hand is to look quickly but not very carefully at a document.

2.     Rapid reading: This is a method whereby you read at a fast pace usually used to review familiar material or used when reading for relaxation.

3.     Careful/Study reading: This is used when a material is to be evaluated or summarized. This is also used when a material is to be memorized.

4.     Normal Reading: This is used when the style of a book is to be appreciated because the reading rate is slow or average in speed.

2.3     Reading problems

1.     Linguistic Factor: This has to do with grammar, the reader ought to learn the grammar of the language before he can understand what he/she is reading.

2.     Reader’s state of Health: The reader has to be in good health both in the mind and in environment. There should be absence of noise of any sort the reader should be sound in mind in order to understand what he is reading.

3.     Reader’s background: This has to do with how the reader was brought up. If the reader was brought up in an environment where there are lost of materials of books to motivate the reader, he grows up to be a better reader than the one that did not have that opportunity. Interest also is a factor, the person that has interest makes a better reader than one without interest and attitude.

4.     Head Movement:  Moving of head unconsciously from side to side. This makes the reader tired easily and it is time consuming and unnecessary.

5.     Pointing to the words: Pointing to what you are reading with fingers, rulers, pencils as you rend slows down reading. Since the eyes move faster that the objects used to point the words.

6.     Vocalization / sub vocalization: This is reading the words silently to yourself with lips moving while sub-vocalization is sounding the words in your throat.

7.     Regression: This is the method of reading and re-reading. Going back to what you have read already several times. This could be because the reader does not have confidence or is not concentrating on what he is reading.

3.0 Grammar 

3.1     Definition of Grammar

Grammar is a branch of linguistics that is concerned with the analysis and description of the patterns in which the words of a language are arranged in order to convey meaning. In linguistics studies, grammar is used to show a set to convey meaning. In linguistics studies, grammar is used to show a set of rules, which will produce all the well-informed sentences possible in a language.

Grammar provides the vocabulary you need in your study of language by giving names to the kind of words and the parts of a sentence. Grammar concerns itself with the forms word can take and the work, which words do in sentences.

It is the study of how words combine to form larger units that is phrases, clauses and sentences. Sentence is the highest, the clause, the phrases, word and the morpheme.

a.     Sentence is a group of words which has a subject and predicate and is used as part of a sentence e.g. the boy in black shirt is my friend. Structurally, we look it a sentence as being made up clauses, or a clause. A sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop. In order to have a sentence someone or something must perform an action.

b.     Clause: A group of words that has a subject and a predicate and is used as part of  a sentence e.g. The man came into the house.

A clause can be either independent, (man or dependent subordinate). Each clause is in turn made up of various parts, each part being assigned specific functions e.g. S = subject, V = verb, C = Complement, O = object, A = Adjunct.

c.      Phrase: A group of words that does not have a subject or predicate and does not take complete sense e.g. A short fat lady.

d.     Word: A single unit of language which means something and can be spoken or written e.g. handsome.

e.      Morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning that a word can be divided into e.g. “nonsense” “non” and “sense”.

3.2 PART OF SPEECH

There are eight parts of speech

1.     Noun

2.     pronoun

3.     verb

4.     Adverb

5.     Adjective

6.     Preposition

7.     Conjunction

8.     Interjection

1.     Noun: A word used to name a person, place or thing or idea e.g. James, Ngozi, Nasarawa.

2.     Pronoun: Is a word used in place of a noun to avoid repetition e.g. she, he etc. There are different types of pronoun, personal, possessive, reflexive, reciprocal, indefinite, relative, interrogative and demonstrative.

3.     Adjective: This is a word used to modify or add more meaning to a noun and pronoun e.g. Mary is a pretty girl. Adjective have three degrees of comparison, positive, comparative and superlative.

Positive                Comparative                 Superlative

Fat                        fatter                                        fattest

Good                              better                                       best

Intelligent             more intelligent              most intelligent 

4.     Verb: This is a word that express action or otherwise helps to make a statement. It is also known as doing word e.g. play, talk, walk.

5.     Adverb: This is a word that modifies or qualifies a verb, adjectives e.g. carefully, happily, foolishly.

6.     Propositions: A preposition is a word used to show the relation of a noun to some other in sentence e.g. about, at, but, bedside, between etc.

7.     Conjunction: A  conjunction is a word that joins words or group of words. It could be coordinating conjunction, correlative or subordinate conjunction.

i.                   And, but, or, not, for (coordinating).

ii.                 Either …. Or, not, only ……. But, whether, or (correlative)

iii.              Subordinating conjunction: after, although, as, if, when, where.

8.     Interjection: This is a word that expresses emotion and grammatical relation to other words in the sentence. It is also known as exclamation or expressing feeling e.g. Ah!, Oh!, Hurray! Hal, Mummy!, what a pity!

There can be more than one of such symbol after expression, depending on the degree of the emotion being expressed. The following expressions exemplify the use of interjection: Excellent, How mindful interjection does not only have to come at the end of all expression in all cases, it can indeed, be used after a word within a larger expression. E.g.

i.                   Alas! The boy has died.

ii.                 Save, O, lord! the hand of my enemies.

Interjection can be used to express various emotions, joy, sorrow, surprise, grief, etc.

3.3 Sentences

This is a group of words, which has a subject or predicate and can make complete sense. A sentence is a group of words that are arranged to make sense.

Types of sentence

Simple, compound and Complex

i.                   Simple sentence: This type of sentence has one main idea and no subordinate clause. It makes one sense only e.g. the baby cried a lot.

ii.                 Compound sentence: There are two independent (main) clauses in this type of sentences. These clauses are linked by a conjunction e.g. John is my friend and Abraham is my cousin.

iii.              Complex sentence: This type of sentence contains one independent and one or more dependent (subordinate) clauses e.g. The man traveled when the road became clear although it was very quiet.

iv.              Compound complex sentence: This is a sentence with at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause e.g. because the student overslept he came late to the examination hall and failed the paper.

3.4. Punctuation: It is a literary device which aims at showing how words are grouped together for convenience and clear meaning. If punctuation marks are badly used, they badly affect the meaning of the sentence. E.g.

(a)  The teacher said the student is stupid,

(b)  The teacher, said the student “is stupid”

i.                   Full stop (.) is used at the end of sentence and in abbreviations

ii.                 The comma (,) is used to indicate a pause before continuation of the sentence.

iii.              Question marks (?) are used of the end of a question.

iv.              The Apostrophe (‘) is used for shortened words and to show ownership.

v.                 The hyphen (-) is used for joining compound word; e.g. bye-laws.

vi.              The colon (:) is used to introduce a list e.g. the chief ingredient of the soup include; moat, fish vegetable, pepper and salt.

vii.            Semi colon (;) is used separate the parts of sentences that are complicated.

viii.         The exclamation mark (!) is used to show emotion for example: when one is hurt, surprise. Angry etc

ix.              The quotation mark (“ ”) are inverted commas used to indicate a quotation.

3.5. Direct and indirect speech: Direct speech - is a speech in which we quote the exact words of the speaker e.g. “The exams ended two days ago”, said the lecturer.

“Are you free now?” asked Marian.

Indirect Speech - Also known as reported speech is a speech in which we paraphrase the words of the speaker. It usually begins in the past tense with such forms as he said that, he told me that, he asked if, he asked me to etc. Mary asked if I was free then.

4.0     Literature in English

4.1     Definition of Literature: Literature is defined as pieces of writing through creating and imagination for the society to feel, see and taste. It could be on religion, politics, culture and any other society norm. The piece of writing could be in Novel, Poetry or Drama.

4.2. Literary Genres: This is the form that the piece of writing could be classified into and they are three: Prose, Poetry and Drama.

a.     Prose: is a piece of writing in form of narration and it involved narration, description and it has plot that is series of events, which make up the story. Theme the main subject of the story style the way the author makes his characters real to the public and the atmosphere. Prose is written in chapters which is divided into paragraphs. Prose could be either fiction or notification.

b.     Drama: Drama is piece or play meant to be acted on stage or pen area. It is referred to as the mirror of life in particular of a society or any other thing. Drama is written in acts scenes which is done of dialogues.

c.      Poetry: is an act of writing that reveals or hews an idea in a compressed form. Poetry is usually written in stanzas and imagery is used hero.

4.3. Characteristics of Each Literary Genres

4.3.1 Characteristics of Prose

1. It is written in chapters which is made up paragraphs

2. It is a long narration of a story

Diphthongs

Diphthongs are sounds produced on double nuclei. The most important features of a diphthong is that it contains a glide from one vowel quality to another. In other words, the tongue moves from one vowel position to another in producing such a sound. There are eight diphthong sounds in English language.

The diphthongs are divided into two:

(i)                Closing diphthongs and

(ii)             Centering diphthongs

Closing diphthongs – These are words produce when the tongue moves towards the close and half close vowels that is /i/ and /u/. the closing diphthongs are five in number. These are

(13)        /ei/ days, reign, rain, pay, bail etc.

(14)        /    / e.g. goat, note, go, toe, fold etc.

(15)        /    / e.g. I, high, by, buy, cry, write, rice etc.

(16)        /    / e.g. found, doubt, loud, now, cow, grown etc.

(17)        /    / e.g. toy, boy, avoid, voice, soil, coil, oil, boil etc.

The remaining three diphthongs are centering diphthongs which are vowel sound  produced when the tongue moves from any other or particular vowel area towards the central vowel /   /. These centering diphthongs are.

(18)        /      / e.g. dear, fear, cheer, beard, year, steer

(19)        /  / e.g. rare, fare, air, here, stare, bare etc

(20)         /     / e.g. more, pure, tour etc.

CONSONANTS SOUND

Description of the consonant sound using the three parameters.

(i)                Place of articulation

(ii)             Manner of articulation

(iii)           Place of glottis

Place of articulation refers to the point or place where articulation takes place in the vocal track. The point where the greatest constriction occurs in the buccal cavity. In other words, it has to do with the parts of human speech organs that come together in the production of a sound. These place of articulation include:

i)                   Bilabial sounds

ii)                Labio – dental sounds

iii)              Inter – dental sounds

iv)              Alveola sounds

v)                Palato – alveolar sounds

vi)              Palata sounds

vii)           Velar sounds

viii)         Glottal sound

Bilabial sounds e.g. /p/, /b/, /m/, /w/

Labio – Dental sounds e.g. /f/ and /v/

Dental sound e.g.  and ð

Alveolar sounds e.g. /t/ and /d/

Palato – alveolar e.g. /   /  and /    /.

Palata sounds – e.g. /j/

Velar sounds e.g. /k/ /g/ and /    /.

Glotta sound e.g. /h/

MANNER OF ARTICULATION

The manner of articulation refers to the extent of a constriction in the vocal tract in the course of producing a consonant sound. In other words, it deals with how a sound is articulated. The manner of articulation takes into account the degree of obstruction to the air stream in the vocal cord. These manner of articulation include stop / plosive, fricative, attricate, lateral, nasal, approximants.

Plosives: e.g. /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ and /g/

Fricatives e.g /f/ /v/ /s/ /z/ / 3/ /s/ // / ð/ and /h/

Affricatives e.g. /ts/ and /d3/

Approximants e.g. /   / /w/ and /j/

Nasals: e.g. /n/ and /   /.

Lateral e.g. /   /

STATE OF GLOTTIS

State of glottis explains the state in which the human glottis assumes when consonant sounds are produced. It expresses what happens to the glottis and the vocal cords when the sounds are produced. At the level of the state of the glottis, speech sounds can either be voiced or voiceless. Hence, the consonant sounds are sub divided into two. These are voiced sounds and voiceless sounds.

Voiced sounds: /b/ /d/ /g/ /j/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /r/ /v/ /w/ /z/ /3/ /d3/ /ð/ /    /