Question:
I'm studying Betty Schrampfer Azar's book, Understanding and Using
English Grammar Second Edition. What do you think about the book? Is it
a good book?
I also want to ask about the explanation given in:
- page 199
She said that "seats" should be read as "seat + s" but "seeds" should
be read as "seed + z". I don't understand the explanation she gave
about the reason.
- page 9
She said that two syllable verbs such as "listen" (1st syllable
stressed) is spelled as "listening" (one ''n'') in -ing form, but
"begin" (2nd syllable stressed) is spelled as ''beginning'' (two ''n'')
in -ing form. I don't understand her explanation about the 1st and 2nd
syllable stressed.
Could anyone explain about these matters?
Answer:
I'm sorry, bur I'm not familiar with the book.
This is a question of pronunciation, which I would not expect to find in
a text on grammar. A simplified explanation is:
1) There are several ways to categorize consonants in English. One of
those is whether the consonant is "voiced", nade with the vocal
cords vibrating, or "voicelss". There are pairs for most English
consonants (in ASCII IPA):
voiced: b t g dZ v D z Z
voiceless: p d k tS f T s S
/tS/ is the initial sound in ,
/S/ is rhw initial sound in
/dZ/ is the initial sound in ,
/Z/ is the medial sound in
/T/ is the initial sound in /thin/,
/D/ is the initial sound in /then/
2) consonant _clusters_ tend toward being voiced or unvoiced. You will
notice in the list above that there is no /tZ/ or /dS/. The
pluralizing -s for words that end in a voiced consonant will then
tend to be voiced, and for words that in a voiceless consonant will
tend to be voiceless.
is pronounced /si:t/. /t/ being voicelss, the plural
will have the voicelss /s/: /si:ts/.
is pronounced /ni:d/. /d/ being voiced, the plural
will have the voiced /z/: /ni:dz/.
Note that the inflectional <-s> is pronounced /Iz/ (or /@z/) after
sibilants whether voiced (/z/ /Z/ /dZ/) or unvoiced (/s/ /S/ /tS/).
That is because the sequence of two sibilants needs a full additional
syllable to keep them from collapsing into a single sound.
The rules for doubling final consonants in inflected forms is not the
same for UK and US English. Nor is usage consistant in either language
area. The most common situation is for words ending in a single vowel
sound + a single consonant sound. Note that counting letters won't do:
/dri:m/ has final single vowel /i:/ and single consonant /m/.
Whem you see an inflected form, a doubled consonant indicates that the
stress is on the final syllable but a single consonant
indicates that tress falls earlier . The exceptions to this
rule abound in all varieties of English, but it will serve until you
learn which particular differences hold for the variety you are learning.
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