Formulation of General Rules of the English Pronunciation

General rules of the English pronunciation are formulated as an endeavour to give a single English pronunciation to every word in an English dictionary by applying the concept of sub-syllables and mathematics. There were remarkable changes with the introduction of IPA in English pronunciation towards the end of 19th century and several revisions in 20th and 21st centuries which went unnoticed to many of us.

Prominently, some phonetic sounds/symbols were newly introduced and some of the old phonetic sounds/symbols were deleted in English pronunciation.

(I) Syllabification. Identify the stressed (primary/secondary) syllable(s) of a multi-syllable word from the left hand side of the word. Make the number of letters of the stressed syllable as many as possible. Do not change/delete the letter(s)/the sound of the letter(s) of the stressed syllable as far as possible. Counting from the left, in case of any change, go for the minimum change. Make the number of syllables of a word as small as possible.

(II) The letters- a, e, i, o, u, y generally do not take the sound- uh (full schwa)/uh (faint schwa) in the stressed syllable (except in some monosyllables and in the formation of diphthongs and triphthongs). Generally, the letter- a/e/i/o/u/y takes the sound- uh/uh to become unstressed syllable. (III) Do not change/delete the letter(s)/the sound of the letter(s) of the unstressed syllable as far as possible. In case of any change, go for the minimum change. Counting from the left hand side, make the number of the letters of the unstressed syllable as many as possible.

(IV) Generally, every stressed syllable and unstressed syllable is followed by unstressed syllable and stressed syllable respectively. The unstressed syllable can be followed by unstressed or stressed syllable but the stressed syllable is always followed by the unstressed syllable, except in the case of compound words, some interjections and adverbs. The pronunciation of mutli-syllables with more stressed syllables is preffered.

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