In order to represent pronunciation on paper, a system of symbols is necessary to indicate accurately the vowel, diphthong, and consonant sounds as well as the accent mark, or marks, and the division of the word into syllables.
Representing speech sounds on paper
The vowel sounds
We learned in childhood that the vowels are a, e, i, о, u, and sometimes w and y. But this is but a slight clue as to what a vowel really is. The symbols that we have just enumerated are letters—vowel letters, to be more exact. If you say the first one, a slowly you will discover that it is made up of two sounds: the a in ale and almost the e in eve. It is not therefore a pure vowel. You can try this out on the other vowel letters and see how many of them represent pure vowels.
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ambiguity, antecedent, articulation, breathing, conjunction, consonants, emotion, excercise, grammar, logic, modifiers, oneness, parallel, phonetics, phrase, shifts, speech, syllables, voice, vowels
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