Download 5 Phonological Overregularity Main topics Part A: Phonemic

5 Phonological Overregularity
Main topics
Part A: Phonemic Patterning
Part B: Rhythmic Patterning
5.0 Lead-in activities
Lead-in Activities
What does it indicate for stylistics analysis?
Style as choice implies that, since the style of the text resides in certain structures which
predominate in statistics, stylistic analysis should focus on the overregular structures in the texts.
What does overregularity mean?
It refers to the writers’ giving up other choices and limiting themselves to certain structures, that
repetition of certain structure in the texts.
What are the different levels that can represent overregularity?
Phonological, syntactical, etc.
5.1Syllable and Related knowledge
Overregularity at phon. level is reflected on a key term: syllable
The repetition of an element in a stressed syllable form the Phonemic Patterning of a line or
beyond a line.
The combination of stressed and unstressed syllables forms the Rhythmic Patterning of a LINE
within a poem.
What is syllable and its elements?
A syllable is composed of (Rhyme: Nucleus) (Vowel) and Onset (Front Consonant) and Coda
(consonant after the vowel)
A syllable in English is composed of one vowel or one diphthong as the necessary element, and
some consonants as additional element.

The structure of an English Syllable= C0-3 VC0-4
5.1 Syllable and Related knowledge
0-3 means that there can be no more than three consonants preposed the vowel or diphthong, as
illustrated in strong, spring, etc.
0-4 indicates that there can be no more than four consonants postposed the vowels or diphthong, as
seen in sixths, twentieths, etc.
The Repetition of the different element within a stressed syllable can form different phonemic
patterning.
 Syllable=C
V
C
Repetition of elements in syllable
What are the models for the combination of the elements in a syllable?
C: alliteration
CV: inverse rhyme
V: assonance
VC: rhyme
C:

consonance
CC: pararhyme
broad sense (Imperfect)
Rhyme


narrow sense (Perfect)
Classification of rhyme in terms of other criteria
5.2.1 Perfect Rhyme
1.Single/male/masculine rhyme: repetition of nucleus and coda in a stressed syllable (pad—sad;
get—yet; late--gate
2.Double/feminine rhyme: lending—bending; another—brother
3.Polysyllabic rhyme: glamorous—
amorous
5.2.2 Imperfect (half) Rhyme
A. alliteration(头韵): The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew.
B. assonance(中韵): light—guide;
pad—sat; late—fake
C. consonance（尾韵）: dash—fish; pat—sit; sand—bend
D. pararhyme (首尾韵):great—groat; spit—spat; sit—sat; put—pot
Imperfect Rhyme
E. reverse rhyme ( 倒韵 ): great—graze; pad—pat; map---mad
F. eye / sight / visual / spelling rhyme: love—move; far—war; do---go; does---goes
End rhyme: rhyme occurs at the end of verse lines.
Internal rhyme: rhyme occurs within a verse line.
5.3 Alliteration(头韵)
Definition: the repetition of the initial consonant cluster in stressed syllables.
Notes:
A) In English, a syllable consists of three parts: an initial consonant cluster, a vowel or diphthong
and a final consonants cluster.
B) It is not necessary the initial syllable, but the main stressed syllable of a word which greatly
carries the alliteration.
e.g. Long alliterates with unlovely
C) Alliteration in Idioms , tongue twister and title of literary works etc.
e.g. now and never; last but not least
Sense and sensibility
Pride and prejudice
5.3.1 Examples
A tutor who tooted a flute
Tried to tutor two tutors to toot
Said the two to the tutor
“Is it harder to toot or
To tutor two tutors to toot?”

(anonymous)
Tongue twister
A big bug bit the little beetle but the little
beetle bit the big bug back.
Betty Botter bought some butter, but she
said this butter's bitter!
I wish you were a fish in my dish.
Six sleek swans swam swiftly southwards.
5.3.2 Functions of Alliteration
To link together words that are similar in feeling and thought, e.g. (2)
As though a rose should shut and be a bud again. (Keats)
To echo the sense or meaning conveyed by the two lines and to help to create a heavy and
depressed mood, e.g. (3)
Functions of Alliteration
To give great emphasis to these words, only through hard and intense struggle can freedom and
liberty be won, e.g. (4)
To form a connection of both similarity and contrast, e.g. (5)
5.4 Assonance（腹/中韵）
Definition: the repetition of identical vowel or diphthong in stressed syllables,
e.g(18).
Think from how many trees
Dead leaves are brought
To earth on seed or wing…

(Vernon Watkins, The Compost Heap)
Interpretation
Assonance（腹韵）
The meaning of tree, leaves, seed, words are already associated. They represent the cycle of life:
from the organic to the inorganic and from the inorganic to the organic.
Thus, the assonance not only can contribute to music quality of a literary text, but its meaning.
Example(19) Song by Donald Justice
Questions:
 Which words form assonance in the poem?
Group 1:Open, rose, snow, oh, told, row
Group 2: scale day, tale
Group 3: street, leap
What is the indication for each group?
Generally, most instance of assonance in this poem chiefly function to unify words and ideas.
Group 1: (a)/әu/ sound at the end of the first two lines, connects the two lines together, which
express an independent idea: the way morning opened resembles the way that a rose unfolds itself.
(b) W the diphthongs /әu/ in snow, rose and oh are produced, our mouth must open—just as
morning light spreads or a rose unfolds.
(c) The word “oh” express the wonder at the scenes of color and beauty.
(d) Since the diphthong /әu/ takes longer duration to produce than monophthongs, it may suggest
the way morning slowly unfolds in the poem.
Interpretation
Group 2: The day is like a fairy tale, a beautiful and sunny day.
Group 3: The street leaps towards the light, a personified description of the beginning of the day
when the lamp are turned out.
5.5 Consonance（尾韵）
Definition: the repetition of the final consonant cluster in stressed syllables.
Example(20) by Emily Dickinson
Who can write down the word forming consonance on the BK?
crumb, home, seam, swim
How about ocean and noon? No. they are in unstressed syllable.
What is the implication of the consonance? Make the text organized and add music quality of the
poem, e.g. (20).
Explanation
(a) What does the poem try to depict? A bird, which eats a worm, pecks at the grass, hops by a
beetle, and glances around fearfully. The creature is frightened by the speaker and flies away.
 What was the image of the bird?
An emblem for the quick, lively, ungraspable wild essence that distances nature from the human
beings who desire to appropriate or tame it.
Explanation
What metaphor is used in the final stanza?
Dickinson provides one of the most breath-taking descriptions of flying. Simply by offering two
quick comparisons of flight and by using aquatic motion (rowing and swimming), she evokes the
delicacy and fluidity of moving through air.
Example (21)
What is the consonance? Call, gull, well, still
Implication: The repetition of /l/ unites the key words of the stanza. The sound of has the lingering,
almost echoing effect, which reinforces the tone of the poem, e.g. (21).
Review
Dictation
Identification of assonance, consonance and alliteration, etc.
Function of the phonemic patterning
What are the types of rhyme?
5.6 Rhyme
Definition: the identity of sounds between words and verse lines extending back from the end to the
last fully accented vowel and not further. Function of Rhyme
To get the texts more organized
To bestow ‘music’ to the texts
To bind lines which are closely associated in content.
Discussion of examples
What type of rhyme in Example 6, 7,8? M or F?
Understanding of Example(11)
What is the grammatical structure of the poem?
What did the narrator do?
Whom did he meet?
Where did he meet his friends and enemies?
Understanding of Example (13)
What feeling does the narrator try to describe?
What does the weather look like?
Where does the narrator depict?
What does the narrator regret in the past days?
Understanding of Example 15
What does the narrator compare to?
What is the similarity between summer and his lover?
What is the difference between summer and his lover?
How can his lover be in eternal?
Example 6
Q1 : Who’s she?
How does Byron describe her beauty?
What’s her face and her eyes look like?
Example 10
What is hope?
What features are Hope endowed with
Example 11
Where is I, the narrator?
Who does he meet?
What are the feature of the persons he met?
What did he do to the persons?
Example 13
What is the day Spencer described?
What kind of weather?
Where was Spencer?
What did he see on the bank of the Thames?
What can we do for the flowers?
What was Spencer’s changing emotion in the poem?
Example 29
What are the characteristics of the sound in Line 3 and 4?
What are the characteristics of the sound in Line 5 and 6?
英诗押韵格式(Rhyme Scheme)
Rhyme scheme: rhymes are arranged in a pattern within a poem.
1. 交替式 (alternate rhyme) abab, cdcd…
2. 英雄双韵体（heroic couplet） aa, bb,
3. 四行四步式（four-beat）abab 或 abcd
4. 连环式（rime couee）aab, bbc, ccd…
5. 七行体(又叫君王诗体)（rhyme royal）ababbcc
6. 八行体（ottava rima） abababcc
7. 九行体（Spencerian stanza） ababbcbcc
8. 十四行体（商籁体）
（sonnet）
Br. abab, cdcd, efef, gg
Italian abba, abba, cdcdcd
5.7 Onomatopeia
Two Types of Onomatopeia
Definition: (A) It first refers to the use of word formed in imitation of natural sounds associated
with the object or action involved.
Example(25)
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring.
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
Each of them is an imitation of the sound that a particular bird makes, forming a happy, harmonious
chorus on the sweet spring.
(B) It refers to the recurrence of phonemes in a text, which suggests certain natural sounds which
reinforce the meaning conveyed in that text unit.
Example(29):
’Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.
Explain on P107-108
Part II Rhythmic Patterning
Rhyme is concerned with the consonants and vowels in the stressed syllables.
Rhythm is concerned with the stressed and unstressed syllables.
(1) Stress embraces primary stress and secondary stress, the former indicated with high vertical
stroke and the latter with low vertical stroke.
(2) open class words, including nouns, verbs(not auxiliary verbs), adjectives, adverbs are stressed in
utterance; close-class words, including pronouns, articles, prepositions are unstressed in utterance.
5.8 Meter
Rhythmic patterning is depicted with meter.
Two step to analyze meter
A) to examine the types of foot
B) to see how many feet there are in each line
A) Foot: the unit of stressed and unstressed syllables which is repeated to form metrical patterns.
Four types of Foot:
Iamb, Trochee, Anapaest,Dactyl
5.8.1 Four types of foot
(a)Iamb: the commonest type of verse foot. It has a pattern alternating stressed and unstressed
syllables beginning with an unstressed syllable(抑扬格),e.g. the sea
(b)Trochee: alternating stressed and unstressed syllable, beginning with a stressed syllable（扬抑
格,e.g. on the sea.
Four types of foot
(c)Anapaest: a pattern in which one stressed syllable alternates with two unstressed syllables, but
beginning with the two unstressed syllables（抑抑扬格）e.g. pretty.
(d)Dactyl: a pattern: a pattern alternating one stressed and two unstressed syllable,
beginning with the stressed syllable（扬抑抑格）,e.g. beautiful.
(Note: A and B belong to the rising rhythm, C and D belong to the falling rhythm.)
5) Spondee: two stressed syllables
5.8.2 Song for the foot
Iambic feet are firm and flat
And come down heavily like THAT.
Trochees dancing very lightly
Sparkle, froth and bubble brightly,
Dactylic daintiness lilting so prettily
Moves about fluttering rather than wittily
While for speed and for haste such a rhythm is the best
As we find in the race of the quick anapaest
(Marjorie Boulton, 1953:26)
B) Step two: to see how many feet there are in each line, such as monometer, dimeter, trimeter,
tetrameter,pentameter, hexameter, meaning one, two, three, four, and five respectively.
Example: iambic pentameter(抑扬格五音步)
The Cur/few tolls /the knell /of par/ting day
Summary: analysis of the rhythm of a poem must take into account the variation on the basic
rhythmic pattern.
5.8.3 The functions of sound and meter
1) for aesthetic pleasure—sound and meter patterning are fundamentally pleasing, in the way that
music is;
2)to conform to a convention/ style/ poetic form—as with clothes and buildings, poetry has fashion,
and different forms of sound patterning have been popular at different times.
3) to experiment or innovate with a form—poets innovate to create new poetic forms and also to
challenge assumptions about the forms of language which are considered appropriate to poetry.
4) to demonstrate technical skill, and for intellectual pleasure—there is a kind of satisfaction to be
derived from the cleverness of some poems and the magic of form and meaning being perfectly
combined.
5) for emphasis or contrast
6) onomatopoeia—when the rhythm of a line or its sounds imitates the sound of what is being
described.
5.8.4 Variation of rhythmic pattern
1)leaving one foot without a strong
stress;
2)putting two strong stresses in one foot;
3)inverting any foot;
4)putting a hypermetric syllable at the end of a line or;
5)having a catalectic foot
 (i.e. a foot having one or two syllables short.)
Function: these metrical variations have a strong communicative function and can create great
aesthetic effects, for they usually coincide with important words or changes of emotion.
Notes: people may have differ as to how to analyze the rhythm of a poem. This may not be a bad
thing because the ambiguity of rhythm only enriches the meaning of a poem.
5.8.5 Variation of rhythms
Reasons: to avoid monotony and damage of contents by form
Principle: the dominant rhythm should remain unchanged
Methods:
A: substitution of the same kind of rhythm(同类节奏的替代)
B: monosyllabic substitution(单音节替代)
C: mixed substitution(混合替代: A + B)
D: substitution by hypermetrical syllable (超音步音节)and anacrusis (行首轻音节)
6.0 Types of poem in English
Origin: at different times, different patterns of meter and sound have developed and become
accepted as ways of structuring poems.
These conventional structures often have names, and when analyzing poems, it is worth being able
to identify the more frequent conventions that a poet use.
6.1 Couplets
双句：包括两个相连的诗行的一种诗的单位，通常压韵并具有同样的格律，经常组成一个完
整的意思和句法单位。
Couplets are two lines of verse, usually connected by a rhyme. Rhyming couplets have been popular
throughout most periods of English poetry, the eighteenth century in particular.
Her eyes are wild, her head is bare,
The sun has burnt her coal-black hair,
Her eye-brows have a rusty stain,
And she came from far over the main[诗]大海; 大洋, [古]本土.

By Wordsworth
6.2 Quatrains 四行诗
Stanzas of four lines, with iambic meter and lines of nine and eight syllables alternately. The
nine-syllable lines end in unstressed syllables, forming double rhyme. For example:
When lovely woman stoops to folly,

And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
Example

What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,

To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,

And wring his bosom---- is to die.

Oliver Goldsmith,1976
6.3 Blank verse
Blank verse consists of lines in iambic pentameter which do not rhyme. These are very common in
English literature: Shakespere’s characters (the late sixteenth century) frequently speak in blank verse
and other examples include Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lose (17th century), Wordsworth’s The
Prelude (late 18th century), and some of Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues (mid-19th century).
Example
But do not let us quarrel any more,
No my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
6.4 Sonnet
（Shakespearean and Petrarchan）
The sonnet is a poetic form which has been used in English since the mid-16th century. The basic
form is fourteen lines, each of ten syllables, and usually in iambic pentameter.
A variety of rhyming schemes are possible, and the rhyming scheme usually indicates the
progression of ideas through the poem.
The poem is organized into three groups of quatrains with alternately rhyming lines, and a final
rhyming couplet.
(1)Sonnet structured in this way are referred to as Shakesperean sonnets. The sonnet by Spencer
used to illustrate rhyming schemes is also an example of a rhyming scheme linked to the progression
of ideas.
(2)Another common sonnet form is the Italian (or Petrarchan sonnet), where lines are rhymed in a
group of eight (an octave) and a group of six (a sestet). A poem rhymed in this way usually looks at an
idea from an angle for the first eight lines, and then from another angle for the last six.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
a
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
b
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
a
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
b
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
c
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
d
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
c
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: d
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
e
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
f
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, e
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
f
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
g
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. g

Shakespere Sonnet 18
6.5 Free verse
This is a form of verse that uses little or no conventional rhyme or meter. It has been very popular in
the 20th century.
Pin Money
On Friday mornings
the whole estate smelt of glue.
The women were sticking tassels on to lampshades,
earning their pin money.
6.6 Limericks
Limericks are five-line verse in which generally the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme, and the
second and the third lines rhyme.
The lines are usually anapestic (two unstressed syllables, followed by a stressed) with three feet in
the first, the third and the fifth lines, and two feet in the second and third.
There was a young lady named Wright
Who could travel much faster than light
She started one day
In the ordinary way
And come back the previous night
Notice: the word ‘ordinary’ in the limerick below needs to be pronounced with three syllables in
order to scan—this is elision which was discussed earlier.
英诗的分类
1. 按有无格律分
A 格律诗（metrical; either rhymed or not
B 自由诗 (neither metrical nor rhymed)
 2. 按是否押韵分
A 押韵诗 （either metrical or not）
B 无韵诗
a blank verse (metrical)
b free verse (not metrical)
6.7 Summary
All these forms may give the impression that poetry can be a very rule-bound activity. This is
partially true.
At some moments in history, poetry has followed very strict conventions, and though many poets
today use free verse forms, poems are still written which conform to strict conventions.
However, poets have always played with conventions as well, and you will come across poems form
all periods which are experiment with structural forms.
7. Exercise
P.122 Identify the sound patterns in Example(1)
P. 129 Mark the rhythm of the stanza and comment on the effects of the metrical variation