 Welcome back to our series of videos that explains to you the techniques of phonetic transcription using an actual example. The exercise I'm going to deal with this time is exercise number two entitled Descent of the Hords, and it has been taken from the VLC transcription series. Here is our task. We have to transcribe the text Descent of the Hords phonemically using the LPD notation which you can find in the Longman pronunciation dictionary. And as usual, our phonological reference dialect is received pronunciation. To make the task a bit easier, we have added stress marks and we also use line numbers for reasons of referencing. Furthermore, the text has been split into three parts. Here is the first. But before we start, I would like to mention that it is quite useful to have a list of the vocalic phonemes available where we added the two weak vowels, e and u, which the LPD notation uses in unstressed positions, as in words like funny or love you. Since the consonants are easier to remember, we don't need them, do we? Okay, let's start and let's look at the solution line by line. Here's the first. Descent of the Hords. We have two weak forms here, but we will talk about them later. Quite interesting. Well, the stress syllable in Descent, even though it's a noun, is the second syllable. Here is line two. I'm afraid that I shan't be able to help you. And in this case, we have two of these weak vowels. As I said, they're not true phonemic symbols of RP, but they're used in the LPD notation. In this Saturday, and not to worry, we have two vowel symbols that have names, the so-called ash, you remember, and the wedge in worry. And furthermore, in worry, we have another weak vowel. A common source for mistakes is the short or in not, where students often seem to fail to remember the correct vocalic symbol. The last line, one of the others will give me a hand, contains another wedge. In fact, two wedges and one ash. Here they are. Wedge, wedge, ash. Okay. Now, if we look at the effects of connected speech, we will see that there is one strong form, the, the others. And the reason for this strong form is, of course, the fact that the next word starts with a vowel. And beyond the strong forms, we have a number of weak forms which are framed blue, and I already mentioned some of them. Let's continue with the second part. We've got my brother in law, and here you immediately might want to add, don't we have a liaison effect here where we use a linking R in brother in law, brother in law? Well, of course, we often do that, but since the connected speech effects, illusion, liaison, and assimilation are optional, my advice is avoid them in transcription tasks. You only make mistakes. But we will make them visible in a second. We've got my brother in law, line six, and his wife and three kids coming. I can't see sources for mistakes in these two lines. But in line seven, it's quite interesting that we have two strong forms, that's and have. These are monosyllabic function words which can be weakened, but that is normally only weakened if it is a conjunction. Here, of course, it is a demonstrative, so it doesn't occur in its weak form. And have is only used as a weak form when the word functions as the perfective auxiliary. Here it doesn't. Here it is the equivalent of must, so it occurs in the strong form. Where will they all sleep, line eight? Well, I can't see big problems in this line. So let's look at further effects, weakening. Of course, we have a large number of weak forms in this text. Monosyllabic function words that are weakened if they're unstressed. We have an interesting effect of assimilation. Got my where, of course, the bilabial nasal turns the alveolar closive into a bilabial closive. So this is a case of regressive assimilation. But as I said, it is optional, so I'd better not transcribe it if I wasn't sure. And we have a liaison effect, as I said earlier on. The linking R, which is realized here, as in my brother-in-law. Again, you don't have to transcribe it. Let's continue with the final part. We'll have to see, or one of us in line 10, we'll have the camp bed, we'll have the camp bed, and the other will take the sofa, I should think. Well again, the discussion of half is quite interesting. We have a strong form half we'll have to see in line 9, where of course half is not a perfective auxiliary, but again the equivalent of must. The other, we already had that form earlier on, so the other is, again, the is strong because the next word starts with a vowel, with a vowel wedge. And quite interestingly, in another case, here, half is weak, we'll have the camp bed, well, half can occur if the object is a non-pronominal object. So instead of have you, but or have it, we have have the camp bed, so here we have a weak form. Well, and finally we have a liaison effect, and this time it is in sofa, it is the intrusive R, which is a typical feature of received pronunciation, but as I said, all these effects, liaison effects are optional, so you don't have to transcribe it. Okay, that's it again. If you need the printed version of the solution, either consult the VLC, Electoral Library, where you can get the slides of this video as a PDF printout, or take part in one of our phonetics and phonology classes on the virtual linguistics compass. So thank you very much, and see you again.