Consonants Consonants in Port Talbot English generally follow those of
Received Pronunciation. Some
phonological characteristics of consonants specific to PTE include: • Consonants can be
geminated by any preceding vowel except long non-close vowels, which is most noticeable for
fortis plosives and when they are in intervocalic positions. For instance, the plosives in these pairs are lengthened:
lob–
lobby,
shunt–
shunting and
sit–
city. In clusters, the first of any fortis elements is selected: in
shunting or in
nasty or simply the first consonant when there is no fortis element, as in
lovely in which is lengthened. • The
voiceless stops have considerable strong
aspiration , often as a weak
affricate . That is especially for the case of . •
T-glottalization is uncommon but may occur word-finally. •
H-dropping also often occurs. • are postalveolar affricates , as in RP. • Like many other Welsh accents, Port Talbot English is
non-rhotic, but when pronounced, is more often a tap than an approximant . • is always clear . • Consonants from Welsh such as and are encountered in local Welsh placenames.
Vowels Monophthongs Length • Unstressed long vowels tend to be shortened, as seen in
free wheel . • Sometimes, under the same environment as geminating consonants, short vowels can be lengthened as in
casserole .
Quality • The vowel is tense, but unlike Received Pronunciation, it is long , as in the vowel (see
Happy tensing). • Vowels corresponding to unstressed in RP are as follows: • in the inflectional suffixes
-ed and
-es; • in the suffix
-est; • in prefixes like
anti- and
poly-. • There is no contrastive vowel. Depending on word, it is replaced by either (in polysyllables), a disyllabic sequence of and (in monosyllables) and a monosyllabic sequence when word initial (including
hear and
here, where the is generally dropped). • As in many other southern Welsh accents, the vowel is rounded and fronted to . However, a small minority of speakers realise it rhotically as as in many varieties of
North American English. • The
horse–hoarse merger is absent in PTE, hence the words
horse and
hoarse are kept distinct. is found in
fortress and
important, where the
horse vowel may be found in other dialects that keep the distinction. • is open-mid in stressed positions. When unstressed, it may be slightly raised to mid . • The vowel is mainly . Exceptions are before and , as in
all or
exhaust, as well as the word
saucepan, where it is replaced by the vowel . However long does appear before the cluster and the word
palsy. • The
trap–bath split is nearly absent, although the word
bath along with
path,
laugh and its derivatives,
ghastly and
last(ly) have a long , yet just like in
Northern England, the remainder of words are short . • The words
bad,
bag and
man are often found with long .
Diphthongs Diphthongs of PTE are . words are mostly pronounced with , but there also exists a marginal which appears in a small number of words, such as
Dai and
aye. PTE, like Welsh dialects such as
Abercraf English, has preserved several diphthong–monophthong distinctions that other varieties have not. They include: • A distinction between and , corresponding to the vowel in other dialects. Thus the pairs
blue/
blew and
grue/
grew are not homophones. • When a word is spelt with an , the corresponding vowel is . It also occurs in the words
insurance and
surety. • The spellings , and following are typically pronounced . • can also be found in the word
blue, and the sequence , such as
flute,
lunatic and
Pluto • is found otherwise, such as
crew or
glue. • The sequence in most dialects will be rendered as in word-initial position and after , such as
use and
youth.
You and its derivatives can be pronounced either as or . is otherwise found for all other positions. • Another distinction for the and lexical sets, thus the minimal pairs
pain/
pane and
toe/
tow (see
Long mid mergers). They are generally diphthongised as and when the spelling contains / and / respectively and monophthongised as and elsewhere. However, these are subject to several exceptions: • The vowel is always diphthong word-finally or preceding a vowel. It is further seen in the suffix sequence , thus
café,
mosaic and
patience are always . It is usually a diphthong before a nasal (
strange and
came), however proper names do have a monophthong (
Cambridge and
James). • The is a monophthong in
bait,
gait,
gaiter,
Jamaica,
raisin,
traipse and
waist. • Before a single , the is always diphthongal, such as
coal or
gold. The spelling is diphthongal in
roll,
stroll and its derivatives, yet monophthongal elsewhere. • is monophthongal in
(al)though, and morpheme-final
-ow (
elbow and
window). •
Own as a possessive adjective (such as
your own) is monophthongal.
Elision and assimilation • , at the end of a morpheme or word, are very commonly elided:
not good and
handbag , the latter with the assimilation of the nasal with the
b. • The indefinite article
an (before a vowel) may be reduced to
a, as in
apple . • The schwa is often elided although but it is also very common to retain it. • The sequence
co(-)op, like in the rest of South Wales, is characteristically pronounced like
cop . • Elisions in the phrases ''isn't it?
, never mind
and there you are'' are very common. •
Why + negative
do, such as ''why don't
, why doesn't
or why didn't'' is also very commonly elided to .
Phonemic incidence • Like in most of Northern England and the Midlands,
tooth is pronounced with the vowel, as in . •
Mauve is pronounced with., instead of or . •
Motor is pronounced , and the strong form of
their is pronounced . • In an address,
girl and
man are pronounced with the vowel . The following features apply for only some speakers: •
Daunt and
jaunt may be pronounced with . •
Hose and
whole may be pronounced with and
area with . •
Want may be pronounced with , instead of .
Prosody • Intonation in PTE is similar to Abercraf English. One prominent pattern is that the main pitch movement is not necessarily confined to the stressed syllable but can be spread further, to the end of the word. • Like in other Welsh accents, PTE tends to avoid having double stress patterns, making words such as
Bridgend or
icecream lose their secondary stress. ==Grammar==