English Transcription Course

M. Luisa Garcia Lecumberri

University o f the Basque Country

and

John A. Maidment
University College London

O Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
 First edition published 2000 by Hodder Education

Published 2013 by Routledge

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Copyright © 2000 M. Luisa Garcia Lecumberri and John A. Maidment

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The advice and information in this book are believed to be true and
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 CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Lesson 1: Symbols and terminology 5

Lesson 2: Transcription hints 11

Lesson 3: Stress, rhythm and weak forms 17

Lesson 4: Sandhi r 33

Lesson 5: C onsonant syllabicity 40

Lesson 6: Elision 47

Lesson 7: Assimilation 55

Lesson 8: Glottaling 64

Lesson 9: Further practice 71

Appendix: Answers to exercises 80

Answers to Lesson 1 80
Answers to Lesson 2 81
Answers to Lesson 3 82
Answers to Lesson 4 98
Answers to Lesson 5 106
Answers to Lesson 6 114
Answers to Lesson 7 122
Answers to Lesson 8 130
Answers to Lesson 9 138

Glossary 149

Bibliography 155
This page intentionally left blank
 Introduction

This book is designed to help you develop and improve your skills in transcribing
English phonetically. Anyone who is interested in the way m odern English sounds
can benefit from working through the lessons in this book, each of which deals in
detail with a particular aspect of the pronunciation of English, provides an overview
of the theoretical background and backs this up with a num ber of exercises of different
kinds. M odel answers to all the exercises in the book may be found in the Appendix.
There is also a glossary where you can find definitions of all the technical terms and
abbreviations used in the lessons.
Phonetic transcription is a useful learning technique for two different kinds of
people. F or native speakers of English who wish to know more about English pronun­
ciation, transcription is one way of reinforcing the idea that the spoken and written
representations of language are completely different things. Transcription helps you
to realise what you actually say, rather than what you think you say. Anyone who
does phonetic transcription regularly is likely to be surprised fairly often at the discov­
ery of some new phenom enon that they had not been aware of before. We certainly
found this when preparing the transcribed texts for the book. F or learners of English
as a foreign or second language, transcribing texts helps to make one aware of the
target one should be aiming for and of the pronunciation (or range of pronunciations)
one can expect to hear from native speakers. The spelling system of English (its ortho­
graphy) is notoriously unhelpful when it comes to learning the pronunciation of the
language.
F or both types of user, phonetic transcription can make you realise that the pronun­
ciation of a word can differ, sometimes quite radically, depending on the sort of envir­
onm ent in which the word is said. A couple of simple examples should help to make this
clear.
If anyone were to ask a native speaker of English how the word from is pronounced,
the m ost probable answer would be /from /. This is the form of the word which is used
when the word is said in isolation and not part of a longer utterance. This form is called
the w ord’s citation form. The same form can also be heard as part of a longer utterance
(a piece of connected speech), for example in the question, Where do you come from?
2 Introduction

However, in the answer to this question it is very likely that the word will not be pro ­
nounced /from/, but /from/, for example in I come from Manchester. Another, slightly
more complicated, example concerns words such as couldn’t and shouldn’t. Some of the
possible variations of the pronunciation of the first of these are set out below:
Orthographic form: couldn ’t
C itation forms: /kudont/ or /kudnt/
Connected speech forms: /kudont/ or /kudnt/ or /kudn/ or /kudon/
Example: I couldn’t answer that question.
/kubmp/ or /kudomp/ or /kubm/ or /kudom/
Example: I couldn’t make up my mind
/kuggk/ or /kudoqk/ or /kugg/ or /kudog/
Example: I couldn’t go.
Fortunately, these types of variation in phonetic form are not random or arbitrary.
They are, for most part, common to all languages and are the result of a universal
tendency for speakers to economise on the am ount of effort they put into the move­
ments necessary to produce speech. Although there are differences in detail between
one language and another, the speech of speakers of all languages displays this type
of feature which can be explained by reference to a small num ber of connected
speech processes. M any of the lessons in this book are designed to make you familiar
with the common connected speech processes of English and to give you practice in
including them in your transcriptions. A transcription of a piece of English text of
m ore than a few words which did not include an example of the operation of at least
one connected speech process would probably be an inaccurate and unrealistic repre­
sentation of how that text would be spoken by an English native speaker. To put this
another way: if you wish to produce a transcription of a piece of English which is
accurate and realistic, it is no use simply looking each word up in a pronouncing
dictionary, where typically what is recorded is the citation form, and then stringing
these pronunciations together. English people simply do not speak that way. Neither
do speakers of any other language.
A transcription of a piece of text in English may differ greatly depending on the
accent being transcribed and the style of speech which is represented.
The way English is pronounced is, of course, different in different areas. Someone
who comes from Scotland will very probably not sound the same as someone from
Australia, so transcriptions representing the speech of the two speakers should not
look the same. In this book we concentrate exclusively on an accent of British English
known as Received Pronunciation (RP) or Southern British Standard (SBS). This accent
has a num ber of advantages. First, it is very well described in the literature on the
pronunciation of English. Second, it is very widely used for the purposes of teaching
English as a foreign or second language. Third, there are a num ber of pronouncing dic­
tionaries available which use RP as their model and m ost general-purpose dictionaries,
in G reat Britain at least, use RP as the basis for the pronunciations they give.
People sound different on different occasions. In a formal situation, such as an inter­
view, m ost people tend to speak more precisely and to avoid some of the connected
speech processes which change or delete sounds. The same may be true when people
are speaking to someone whom they do not know well. W hen people are in a relaxed,
 Introduction 3

casual situation and are speaking to people they know well and feel at ease with, they
tend to produce speech where the citation forms of words are changed or reduced.
These differences are differences of speech style. The style aimed at throughout this
book is a relaxed, informal one. In some of the earlier lessons, where some of the con­
nected speech processes have not yet been introduced, a reading o f the transcriptions
given might sound rather more formal.
The structure of each lesson in this book is as follows. The topic of the lesson is intro­
duced and explained with plenty of examples. The topic is then illustrated in a
transcribed passage which contains a num ber of occurrences of the relevant phenom ­
enon. These occurrences are highlighted in the transcription. Then there are a number
of exercises of various types to help you make sure you have understood the topic and
can produce transcriptions containing the feature concerned. F or instance, you may be
asked to look at a passage in orthography and to identify places in the passage where
the phenom enon might occur. Or you might be given a transcribed passage where the
phenom enon is not included and your task is to edit the transcription to show it at
appropriate points. The final exercises in each lesson are always a number of passages
for you to transcribe. Again, you can be sure that the relevant phenom enon occurs
quite a few times in these passages.
The book consists of eight lessons. Each lesson introduces a new topic (or in some
cases a num ber of related topics) and explains the theoretical background with a lot
o f examples. There are exercises for you to do in each lesson and the answers to all
the exercises can be found in the Appendix. Although you can, of course, do the lessons
in any order you wish, it would perhaps be wiser to follow the order given, since the
exercises are cumulative, in the sense that features introduced in earlier lessons are
included in later exercises without any further explanation. The last section of the
book consists of a num ber of passages for you to transcribe as further practice.
Since this book is primarily about transcribing, the theory has been kept as short and
simple as possible. You can find out more about the theoretical issues mentioned in
textbooks such as Gimsons Introduction to the Pronunciation o f English (Cruttenden,
1994), English Phonetics and Phonology (Roach, 1991), Speech Sounds (Ashby, 1995)
or one of the other texts on English phonetics and phonology which you can find in
the Bibliography. If you are interested in transcribing or learning about the sounds
of American English, we can recommend two very accessible books: Applied Phonetics:
The Sounds o f American English (Edwards, 1992) and Applied Phonetics Workbook
(Edwards and Gregg, 1997)
It is impossible to learn to transcribe without getting involved with some technical
terminology. We have tried to keep this to a minimum and have given explanations
of the terms used. There is a glossary with brief definitions of technical terms at the
end of the book. Terms included in the glossary are printed in bold type on their first
appearance in the text.
If your native language is not English, phonetic transcription is one way of im prov­
ing your pronunciation of English. However, this course cannot solve all your prob­
lems. The spelling system of English is so complex and full of exceptions and special
cases that the only foolproof way of finding out how an unknown word is pronounced
is to look the word up in a good pronouncing dictionary. A good example is provided
by the word acorn. The vast majority of words which begin with the letters ac are pro­
nounced either /ok/ if the first syllable is unstressed (such as across, accept) or /aek/ if
4 Introduction

the first syllable is stressed (such as accident, acrid). But acorn begins with /ei/. There is
no way of predicting this and, apart from the verb ache and related forms, such as
aching, achy, this is the only common word beginning with ac which is pronounced
like this. One suggestion for a pronouncing dictionary is the Longman Pronunciation
Dictionary (Wells, 1990).
Transcribing phonetically is a skill which needs regular practice. It is much better to
do a little transcription fairly often rather than a lot all at once. Some of the passages in
this book are fairly long, but that does not mean that you need to transcribe the whole
passage in one sitting. We advise transcribing sections of 100 words or so and then
checking on your progress with the help of the answers in the Appendix.
If you are working without a teacher, but you know someone else who is also learn­
ing to transcribe, it is a good idea to swap transcriptions and try to spot each other’s
errors (and good points!), before looking at the answer provided. A nother useful activ­
ity is to work on a transcription in a group, where you can learn from one other.
Finally, a word about the transcriptions we have provided as answers. These m ust be
viewed as specimen answers only. We have provided notes to point out some alterna­
tives to the pronunciation chosen. However, it would make this book enormously long
and difficult to read if we attem pted to mention every possible alternative. If your tran ­
scription does not agree with ours on a particular point then that does not necessarily
mean that your version is wrong. W hat you can be sure of, though, is th at our version is
acceptable.

Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the encouragement and technical support provided by their
two universities, the D epartm ent of Phonetics at University College London, and the
University of the Basque Country. W armest thanks go to all the authors of the
passages used in this book: Molly Bennet, Federico Eguiluz, M. M ar and M. L.
Garcia Lecumberri, Tirion Havard, M. Luisa Lecumberri, John M aidm ent, Rakesh
Odedra, Gary Padbury, Wendy Plimmer, Jennifer Shepherd, H eather Visser, D orothy
Wilson and Kathleen Wilson. They all generously allowed us to alter their original
versions in the process of adapting them for the various tasks. We take full responsi­
bility for the final versions.

References
Ashby, P. 1995: Speech Sounds. London: Routledge.
Cruttenden, A. (Ed.). 1994\ Gimsons Introduction to the Pronunciation o f English.
London: Edward Arnold.
Edwards, H. T. 1992: Applied Phonetics: The Sounds of American English. San Diego,
CA: Singular Publishing.
Edwards, H. T. And Gregg, A. L. 1997: Applied Phonetics Workbook: A Systematic
Approach to Phonetic Transcription. San Diego, CA: Singular Publishing.
Roach, P. 1991: English Phonetics and Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Wells, J. C. 1990: Longm an Pronunciation Dictionary. London: Longman.
 Lesson 1
Symbols and term inology

In this lesson we shall introduce the symbols that will be used throughout the book.
There are various sets of symbols used for the transcription of English. In this book
we shall use the symbols in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (Wells, 1990). The
basic terminology used to describe speech sounds will also be introduced in this lesson.

Consonant symbols
There are 24 consonant sounds in RP English. They may be classified according to their
place and m anner of articulation and voicing, as set out in Table 1.1 below. In the table,
the first of a pair of symbols represents a voiceless sound and the second a voiced sound.
Each o f the above consonants is illustrated by a keyword in Table 1.2 which follows.
The consonant is usually found at the beginning of the keyword, but for some
sounds which cannot occur initially in a word the consonant is in bold type.
Voicing: A voiced consonant is one which is accompanied by vibration of the vocal
folds. If you pronounce a long /z/ sound, as if im itating the buzzing of a bee, and at the

Table 1.1 Consonant symbols

bilabial alveolar velar

plosives P b t d k g
nasals m n Q
labiodental dental alveolar post-alveolar glottal
fricatives f V 0 6 s z I 3 h

post-alveolar
affricates tl d3
labial-velar alveolar lateral post-alveolar palatal
approximants w I r j
6 Symbols and terminology

Table 1.2 Consonant keywords and their transcriptions

consonant keyword transcription consonant keyword transcription

P pie /pai/ I shy /Jai/

b buy /bai/ 3 measure /me38/
t tie /tai/ tj chore /tjo:/
d die /dai/ d3 jaw /d3o:/
k cow /kau/ h high /hai/
9 guy /gai/ m my /mai/
f fee /fi:/ n nigh /nai/
V vie /vai/ Q sing /SIQ/
0 thigh /0ai/ w why /wai/
5 thy /5ai/ I lie /lai/
s sigh /sai/ r rye /rai/
z zoo /zu:/ j you /ju:/

same time place your thum b and finger on your throat, you should be able to feel
the vibrations. F or some voiced sounds, specifically voiced plosives, the vibration of
the vocal folds does not always continue throughout the sound, but starts immediately
after the end of the sound. Voiceless sounds have no vocal fold vibration. Try a long /s/
sound, imitating the hissing of a snake. You should not feel any vibrations in your
throat.
The voiceless consonants of RP English are:
ptkfBsJtJh

The voiced consonants of RP English are:

b'dgv5z'3d3mnrjwlrj
Exercise 1.1 Look at the following short passage and try to identify all the voiceless
consonants in it.
I haven't got a car at the moment. M y car was stolen last Friday. I left it at the station
all day and when I got back in the evening it had vanished. I hope the insurance com­
pany will send me a cheque soon, so that I can go and buy another one.

Exercise 1.2 Which of the following words contain only voiced consonant sounds?
much, moody, number, yellow, roses, knees, youth, loses, doses, dozes, wishing,
leisure, those, under, jeans, this, his, wins, garage, universal.
Place of articulation: All speech sounds are made with a stream of air moving through
the vocal tract. F or all the sounds of English, m ost of the time, the airstream is set in
m otion by the lungs and travels up the windpipe (also called the trachea), through the
voice-box (the larynx) where the vocal folds are situated, through the pharynx and then
through the oral cavity or the nasal cavity (or both). Speech sounds are made by inter­
fering with this stream of air, usually at some point within the oral cavity. The exact
point of such interference is known as the place of articulation (poa) of the sound.
RP English makes use of the following places (Table 1.3).
 Consonant symbols 1

Table 1.3 Places of articulation

bilabial the two lips approach one another to interfere with the airstream; RP
English bilabial sounds are /p b m/
labiodental the lower lip approaches the upper front teeth; RP labiodental sounds are
If v/
dental the tip of the tongue approaches the back of the upper front teeth; RP dental
sounds are /0 6/
alveolar the tip of the tongue approaches the area just behind the upper front teeth;
this area is known as the alveolar ridge; RP alveolar sounds are /t d n s z I/
post-alveolar the tip or the blade of the tongue approaches the rear part of the alveolar
ridge; RP post-alveolar sounds are !\ 3 d3 r/
palatal the middle part of the tongue approaches the roof of the oral cavity; the
only palatal sound in RP English is I\I
velar the back part of the tongue approaches the soft part at the back the roof of
the oral cavity; this is known as the soft palate or velum; RP English velar
sounds are Ik g 13/
glottal the two vocal folds in the larynx approach each other to interfere with the
airstream; the only glottal consonant in RP English is /hi; however, there is
another glottal sound with you will become familiar in a later lesson; this is
known as a glottal stop [?]
labial-velar this is a complex place of articulation; the back of the tongue approaches
the velum as for velar sounds, but at the same time the lips are rounded
and protruded; the only labial-velar sound in RP English is /w/.

Exercise 1.3 Look at the following passage and try to identify the place of articulation
of the first consonant of each word (if it begins with a consonant).

Last Tuesday my brother came to see me. He wanted to borrow my videorecorder

because his is not very reliable. M y nephew’s birthday is next Thursday. They are
going to have a party fo r some friends and they want to show some films.

Manner of articulation: At each place of articulation it is possible to interfere with the

airstream in a num ber of different ways. This aspect of sound production is known as
manner of articulation (moa). See Table 1.4 for the manners for consonant sounds
which RP English uses.

Exercise 1.4 Sort the following words into five classes on the basis of the m anner of
articulation of their initial consonant sound.

sixty, five, generous, lesson, doubt, give, quite, xylophone, usual, thrown, then,
monster, hope, chemist, knot, cherry, physics, yacht, wrong, rubber

Sonorant, obstruent and stop: Two other very useful terms when dealing with conso­
nants are sonorant and obstruent. These refer to large classes of manners of articulation.
Sonorant consonants are the following: nasals and approxim ants (both median and
lateral). Vowels are also sonorant. Obstruent consonants are the following: plosives,
affricates and fricatives. The term stop also refers to m anner of articulation. Stops
are those sounds which have a complete closure in the oral cavity: plosives, affricates
and nasals.
8 Symbols and terminology

Table 1.4 Manners of articulation

plosive the airstream is completely blocked for a short time and the blockage is
released rapidly, causing the compressed air to burst out of the vocal tract;
RP English plosive consonants are /p b t d k g/
fricative the vocal tract is narrowed so that the airstream becomes turbulent and
produces friction noise; RP fricatives are /f v 0 5 s z f 3 h/
affricate as for plosives, the airstream is blocked, but the blockage is released much
more slowly and a short period of friction is heard; RP affricates are /tj d3/
approximant the vocal tract is narrowed, but not enough to cause air turbulence; there is
therefore no friction noise; RP approximants are of two kinds: median
approximants where the air escapes over the centre of the tongue and
lateral approximants where there is a blockage in the centre but the sides of
the tongue are lowered so that air can escape laterally; the median
approximants of RP are /w r j / and the only lateral approximant in RP is /I/
nasal as for plosives and affricates, nasals are produced with a complete blockage
in the oral cavity; however, air is allowed to escape continuously through the
nasal cavity; RP nasals are /m n q/

Exercise 1.5 Sort the following words into three sets depending on whether they begin
with an obstruent, a sonorant or a stop. Notice that some words will appear in more
than one set.
choose, soap, metal, ripe, coast, white, told, youth, lorry, friend, thought, boast,
purple, gate, violet, nasty, quiet

Vowels
RP English vowels are of two different sorts called monophthongs and diphthongs. A
m onophthong or simple vowel is a vowel sound which has a constant quality.
A diphthong, on the other hand, changes its quality. It has a starting quality which
is different from its ending quality. The m onophthongs of RP are laid out in Table
1.5 and the diphthongs in Table 1.6.

Table 1.5 RP Monophthongs

vowel symbol keyword transcription

i: leek /li:k/
1 lick /lik/
e leg /leg/
ae lack /laek/
A luck /Uk/
a: lark /la:k/
D lock /lok/
o: lord /bid/
u look /luk/
u: Luke /lu:k/
3: lurk /b ik /
8 butter /bAt8/
 Vowels 9

Table 1.6 RP Diphthongs

vowel symbol keyword transcription

ai tie /tai/
ei day /dei/
01 toy /toi/
au now /nau/
8U no neu
18 dear /die/
es dare /dee/
U8 tour /toe/

Vowel length: RP English vowels are either long or short. The long vowels are all the
diphthongs plus the five m onophthongs /i: a: o: u: 3:/. All the other vowels are short.
Vowel features: The m onophthongs of RP English may be classified in three different
ways according to (1) their lip posture, (2) their location and (3) their height.
Lip posture has two values in RP English:

• rounded: for the vowels /o: D u u:/

• unrounded: for the vowels /i: 1 e ae a: a 3 : 9/

Location has three values in RP English:

• front: when the highest point of the tongue lies below the hard palate - this is true for
the vowels /i: 1 e ae/
• hack: when the highest point of the tongue lies below the soft palate, as for the vowels
/a: 0: d u u:/
• central: when the highest point of the tongue lies in an intermediate position at the
junction of the hard and soft palates - this is so for the vowels / a 3 : 9/
Height has three values in RP English:

• close or high: when the highest point of the tongue is close to the roof of the m outh,
as for the vowels /\: u :/
• open or low: when there is a considerable distance between the highest point of the
tongue and the roof of the m outh, as for the vowels /a: 0/
• mid: when the highest point of the tongue is midway between close and open, as for
the vowels / i e ae a 3 : d 0 :/; the mid-vowels of RP English can be further subdivided
into close-mid or mid-high: / i u/, open-mid or mid-low: /ae a 0 : / and just mid /e 3 : 9/

F or the purposes of this book the m ost im portant distinction which rests on vowel
features is between high/mid-high and the rest.

Exercise 1.6 In the following passage identify all the high and mid-high monophthongs.

There are three reasons I should give if anyone asked why it is a good idea to learn
English transcription. First, it helps you to realise what you say as opposed to what
you think you say. Second, it teaches you that written language is not the same as
spoken language. Third, it can be quite a lot o f fun.
10 Symbols and terminology

Exercise 1.7 Transcribe the following simple words.

band hall jum p weep love quit
ask top miss juice out time
bless cliff drop hoop bead turn
trap dive fear grow load fair
boil work want lose close boot
cook pull dome why cross chair
 Lesson 2
Transcription hints

In Lesson 1 we introduced the basic symbols to be used in the phonetic transcription of

English and some of the basic terminology needed to describe speech sounds. Here, we
will look at some refinements to the symbol set and give some hints on how to avoid
common errors when transcribing.

Neutralisation symbols
In m odern RP English a num ber of changes have taken place which affect vowel qual­
ities. Fifty years or more ago a word like city was pronounced /siti/. Nowadays it often
gets pronounced /siti:/, although the earlier pronunciation is still heard. W hat is more
troublesome is that m any speakers use a vowel which is intermediate between /i:/ and
/i/. This means that in some circumstances the difference between the two vowels is
becoming blurred or neutralised. In order to cope with this situation an extra symbol
needs to be employed. Our transcription of words like city uses the symbol /i/ (without
the length m ark) for the second vowel: /siti/. This can be interpreted as meaning: for
the second vowel of the word some speakers use /i:/, some speakers use /i/ and some
speakers use a vowel which is neither /i:/ nor /i/, but somewhere in between. The
same situation is true for the two vowels /u :/ and /u/. In a phrase such as to a party,
the first word may be /tu :/ or /tu / or the vowel may be somewhere between /u :/ and
/u/. In cases like this we shall use the neutralisation symbol /u/ and write /tu 9
p aiti/. (Notice that the second vowel in party is also written with a neutralisation
symbol.) You must be careful to realise that these neutralisation symbols are not
appropriate in all situations. There is no doubt that native speakers of RP English
use /i:/ and never /i/ in a word like bean, so it would be wrong to write /bin/ when
transcribing this word. Similarly, the word bin is always /bin/, never /bi:n/ or /bin/.
N eutralisation of /i:/- /i/ and /u :/- /u / is always found in unstressed1 syllables. It is
most common at the ends of words or morphemes. If there is a following consonant,

*If you are not sure about stress, please be patient. This is one of the topics dealt with in Lesson 3.
12 Transcription hints

it must belong to a different m orpheme (that is to say, the neutralised high vowel may
be found word-finally even though sometimes it appears followed by other sounds if a
morpheme is added).
One further point concerns words such as before and remember. If you look these up
in a pronouncing dictionary you will probably find that the recommended pronuncia­
tion has /i/ in the first syllable. However, many younger speakers these days use /i:/ in
words like this. In the transcriptions in this book we have used the neutralisation
symbol wherever we think there is a likelihood of hearing some native speakers of
RP English using /i/ and others using /i:/ or of speakers using a vowel which is difficult
to identify as either /i/ or /i:/. So we transcribe the above words /bifo:/ and /rim em bo/.

Vowel monophthonging
Traditionally, words such as poor, sure, tour were pronounced with the diphthong /ue/.
This diphthong is slowly disappearing in m odern RP and is being replaced by the long,
back, rounded m onophthong /o:/. This means that some pairs of words which used to
be distinct now sound identical. F or example, more and moor used to be /m o :/ and
/m u a/. Now many people pronounce them both /m o:/. In this book we shall use the
m onophthongal pronunciation wherever possible. The only words which consistently
use the /uq/ diphthong are those spelt with the letter com bination ewer, words such
as brewer, sewer, ewer, fewer. These can never be pronounced with /o :/. The other situa­
tion where /uq/ is retained is when a word ending in / u : / and is spelled with ue has the
ending r attached to it, as in truer and bluer. These words retain the diphthongal
pronunciation. Actually, for m any speakers, the vowel quality at the beginning of
the diphthong may be /u :/ rather than /u/, so it is better to use the neutralisation
symbol /u/. So, the above words would be transcribed /bruo SU0 juo fjuo truo
bluo/.

Plurals, possessives and past tenses

One very frequent type of error that occurs when people are beginning to transcribe
English arises from a failure to realise that identical spellings can have different pro ­
nunciations. This is true of the plural form of nouns in English. M ost nouns add an
orthographic s to make their plural form: book-books, dog-dogs and so on. However,
the pronunciation of the plural morpheme varies according the noun to which it is
added. The general rule is that the plural morpheme m ust agree in voicing with the
last sound of the noun. So, nouns which end in a voiced consonant or a vowel add
/z/ and those that end with a voiceless consonant add /s/.
Examples:
robes /roubz/
ropes /ro u p s/
doors /do:z/
wells /w elz/
homes /houm z/
troughs /tro ts/