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However, some Latin nouns ending in -us are not second declension (cf. Latin grammar). For example, third declension neuter nouns such as opus and corpus have plurals opera and corpora, and fourth declension masculine and feminine nouns such as sinus and tribus have plurals sinūs and tribūs. Some English words derive from Latin idiosyncratically.
The following is the chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet, a standardized system of phonetic symbols devised and maintained by the International Phonetic Association.
Within the chart “close”, “open”, “mid”, “front”, “central”, and “back” refer to the placement of the sound within the mouth. [3] At points where two sounds share an intersection, the left is unrounded, and the right is rounded which refers to the shape of the lips while making the sound. [4]
The words given as examples for two different symbols may sound the same to you. For example, you may pronounce cot and caught the same , do and dew , or marry and merry . This often happens because of dialect variation (see our articles English phonology and International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects ).
Abstract nouns: deceit, information, cunning, and nouns derived from adjectives, such as honesty, wisdom, intelligence, poverty, stupidity, curiosity, and words ending with "-ness", such as goodness, freshness, laziness, and nouns which are homonyms of adjectives with a similar meaning, such as good, bad (can also use goodness and badness), hot ...
Until the 17th century, words like happy could end with the vowel of my (originally [iː], but it was diphthongised in the Great Vowel Shift), which alternated with a short i sound. (Many words spelt -ee, -ea, -ey once had the vowel of day; there is still alternation between that vowel and the happy vowel in words such as Sunday and Monday ...
Words ending in unstressed -ile derived from Latin adjectives ending -ilis are mostly pronounced with a full vowel in BrE / aɪ l / but a reduced vowel or syllabic L in AmE / əl / (e.g. fertile rhymes with fur tile in BrE but with furtle in AmE). AmE will (unlike BrE, except when indicated with B2) have a reduced last vowel:
This affects words such as lamb and plumb, as well as derived forms with suffixes, such as lambs, lambing, plumbed, plumber. By analogy with words like these, certain other words ending in /m/, which had no historical /b/ sound, had a silent letter b added to their spelling by way of hypercorrection. Such words include limb and crumb. [35]