Language Sketch of German

1、Language Sketch of German1. IntroductionGerman is a branch of Indo-European language family. Many vocabularies originate from Latin and Greek. German, natively spoken by nearly one hundred million people, is the most popular native language in the European Union. German is the official language for

2、Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, and one of the official languages in Switzerland. In the case, German has many variants and dialects (German language, 2014). But the language sketch focuses on the major set of sounds and sound patterns, which is closer to those used in Germany. Besides, the ketch m

3、ainly uses Modern German Pronunciation by Christopher Hall for reference. 2. Consonant systemConsonants are more significant than vowels in Germanconsonants build up about 61 per cent of the sounds (Hall 1992). German consonants have a lot in common with English, but there are still some differences

4、. Table 1 shows the consonant phonemes of German with IPA symbols. Their distribution will be discussed below. Table 1. Consonant phonemes of GermanBilabial LabiodentalDentalAlveolarPost AlveolarPalatalVelarUvularGlottalPlosivep bt d k g Nasalm n Trill r Tap,Flap Fricative f v s z ç hAffricatep

5、f pfts111 t dApprox. j Lat. approx. l The phonemes in the chart are contrastive. Following is some near minimal pairs. Examples of voicing contrasts on stops:Spelling Transcription GlossPaß pa:s passport Bus bs busTag ta:k dayDach da:x roofExamples of manner contrasts: Spelling Transcription Gl

6、ossPaß pa:s passportFuß fu:s foot nett nt niceSenf znf mustard 2.1 Final-obstruent devoicing In German, voiced stops and fricatives do not appear in the codas. In these codas, the voiced stops and fricatives are replaced by their voiceless counterparts. Hence, the phonemes /b/, /d/, /g/, /

7、v/, /z/, and / do not occur in the coda, but /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /s/ and /do. For example:lieb lip Weg veklieblich liplç brav bRafHand hant Handlich hantlç Such phenomenon also happens before a voiceless consonant within a syllable. For instance:gibst gipst legst lekst2.2 AspirationVoicele

8、ss stops are aspirated at the beginning or end of word, and before stressed or unstressed vowels. There is no aspiration of stops after / or /s/. For example:Aspirated Unaspirated komm km steil teilpopulär popu'l Skandal skan'dalHand hant There is also devoicing phenomenon of /l/ and /R

9、/ in German very similar to the situation of approximant devoicing in English. For example:Kreis kRas Plan plan2.3 Unrelease of stop(1) The first stop is unreleased in the two-stop clusters. For example: schwankt vakt(2) The first two stops are unreleased in the three-stop clusters. For example: Hau

10、ptbahnhof 'hap t banhof2.4 Problems for English speakers (1) /v/ is most frequently represented by the consonant w. For example, warum vaRm The consonant v represents the sound f most of the time. For example, Vater fat(2) The consonant s at onsets represents the phone z. For example,

11、sieben zibn Summe 'zm(3) In German, the morpheme ng does not represent the sound g. ng only represents the sound , whereas in English ng can represent g and . For example: German English Hunger 'h hunger 'hgFinger 'f finger 'fg(4) In German, l needs to be pronunced very clearly a

12、ll the time, while in English there is also a velarized that is not so obvious in pronunciation. For example:English Germanhill h  heile 'halcoal ko Wille vilbottle 'bt viel fil2.5 Allophones (1) ç & x is in complementary distribution. The voiceless palatal fricative ç app

13、ears at onsets, after front vowels, and after consonants, while the voiceless velar fricative appears elsewhere. For example:ç Chemie çemi Bach baxfechten fçtn Bucht bxtMilch mlç Since ç & x are phonetically similar and in seperate environments, they are regarded allopho

14、nes of the phoneme /x/. (2) In German alveolar trill r, uvular trill R and uvular fricative are acceptable to represent the consonant r and do not change the meaning. Hence, r, and R are allophones of the phoneme /r/. For example:pras pRas pas can represent the same word Preis and do not change its

15、meaning. 3. VowelsAccording to Christopher Hall (1992), there are sixteen monophthongs or pure vowels in German. Since /e:/ and /:/ are pretty similar, supported by a native German speaker, I will treat /e:/ as /:/ in the sketch. Hence, in the following vowel chart there are fifteen pure vowels and

16、the vowel / derived from the allophone of the consonant /r/. I will discuss the special vowel / later. In addition, there are three diphthongs: /a/, /a/, and / /, but not marked in Table 2. Table 2. Vowel Chart of German: I: u:y: o:Ø:3.1 Vowel pairsThe monophthongs form seven pairs: /i:/&/,

17、 /:/&/, /a:/&/a/, /u:/&/, /o:/&/, /y:/&/, and /ø:/&/. They differ in quality and vowel length. For example:/i:/ vs / Miete 'mi:t vs Mitte 'mt /:/ vs / stehlen 't:ln vs stellen 'tln3.2 Reduced lengthThe length of the legthened vowels would be reduced

18、in unstressed position. For example:/u:/ is reduced to /u/: Union u'nio:n/o:/ is reduced to /o/: orange o'a3.3 The special vowel / is an allophone of the consonant /r/. But it is treated as a monophthong in German. It can be described as lax central near-low unrounded vowel. English / and /

19、are very close to German/. Its difficult for non-native speakers to distinct them. For example:meine 'man  meiner 'manFliege 'fli:g Flieger 'fli:gEven though / represents the word-final er, its different from / and / in English. For example: English Germanbitter 'bt bitter &

20、#39;bt4. Stress and intonation4.1 Word stressThe language sketch focuses on talking about the native German words. As for the simple words, the first syllable is most frequently given the stress. For example:Schwester 'vst Wiese 'vi:zAs for the complex words, the suffixes can affect the lexi

21、cal stress. In German, there are unstressed prefixes, stressed prefixes, prefixes which can be stressed or unstressed, and the suffixes that do not affect the stress. For example, be-, ge-, ent-, er-, ver-, and zer- are unstressed prefixes. For instance:bedeuten b'dtn enthalten nt'haltnAs fo

22、r the compounds, the first element of the compound is given primary stress. For example:(1) Bahnhof (2) Familien name4.2 Sentence stressLike English, German content words are more prominent than function words in a sentence. The interval between the stresses within a sentence is almost the same. But

23、 my souces do not mention specific rules for German sentence stress. 4.3 Intonation There are five intonationation patterns in German. The first three patterns are the basic ones. The first pattern is the fall. The pitch falls suddenly. The fall is steep and abrupt. The fall is applied in statement,

24、 commands and wh-question. For example:Ich komme. （I come.）The second pattern is the rise. It is mainly used in YES/NO question. For example:Kommt ihr denn jetzt? (Do you come now?) The third pattern is level pitch. This pattern has movement, compared with the fall and the rise. It mainly shows that

25、 the utterance is incomplete. For example:Möchten Sie Tee oder Kaffee? (Would you like tea or coffee?)The fourth pattern is the rise-fall. It is used to express great emotion. For example:Wie hast du das gemacht? (How did you do that?)The final pattern is the fall-rise. It is used to emphasize

26、the information. For example:Ist das unser Wagen? (Is that our car?)5. Syllable structureGerman syllable structure is generally CV or CVC (German language, 2014). 5.1 OnsetAccording to my observation, there are five types of complex onsets. The first four are two-phoneme cluster. The final one is th

27、ree-phoneme cluster. (1) The fricative / can be followed by voiceless stops; the liquid /l/; the fricative /v/; the phoneme /r/; or nasals /m/ and /n/. For example: stehen 'tn schneiden 'nadn(2) Voiceless stop can be followed by the fircative /v/; /r/; or the nasal /n/. For example: Knie kni

28、: Preis  pas (3) Voiced stop can be followed by the nasal/m/; or /l/. For example: blaß blas(4) The affricate /ts/ can be followed by /v/. The affricate /pf/ can be followed by /l/. For example: zwei tsva(5) The fricative / can be followed by voiceless stop and /r/. For example: sprache 'pa: straße 'ta:s5.2 Coda I have discus