Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo :: essays papers

Johnny Got His Gun War in its self is a tragedy. Experiencing the tragedies of war has a life long impact on ones life. In the novel " Johnny got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo, Joe Bonham is a victim of war and he is forever changed physicaly, mentally and spiritualy. Through Joe it is evident that the price we pay for war is much to high. All people in life have some sort of basic function. Weather it be a parapaliegic who lives alone, goes to work, has some sort of social life, and is a member of a wheelchair basket ball team or a quadrapaliegic who is incapable of doing much but still communicate with friends and family members. Joe is in a terribly worse situation then any of them. Joe spends his days in a hospital bed. He is incapable of any sort of fuction other than moving his head up and down. He can not speak nor can he eat for he has no mouth nor a face. He must be assisted for thing's that a 3 year old child could probably do on their own like changing close or going to the washroom. This predicament, which Joe finds himself in, causes Joe tremendous mental anguish. "Please I can't. Please no. Somebody come. Help me. I can't lie here forever like this until maybe years from now I die. 1 can't. Nobody can. It isn't possible." (Trumbo 3.64) To try to imagine the mental stress which Joe suffers from is unconceivable to any human being. Joe can not distinguish his memories from his consciencnouss nor can he judge if he is awake or asleep. Joe can not communicate with his keepers which is the worst of all his folies "He kept tapping. He kept on now for another reason aside from the simple desire to speak which had started him out. He kept on tapping because he didn't dare stop he didn't dare think. He didn't have the courage to ask himself so simple a question as how long will it be before the nurse understands what I'm doing."(Trumbo 15.180) this causes Joe the most anguish because all he wants now, in his condition, is to go into the world and show everyone the horrors of war. Joe imagines himself in a schoolhouse recitng this nursery rhyme: "Hickory *censored*ory dock my daddy' nuts from shell shock. Humpty dumpty thought he was wise till gas came along and burned out his eyes.

English Consonants

RESEARCH PAPERS | 23 How Many Consonant Sounds Are There in English? How Many Consonant Sounds Are There in English? by David Deterding, National Institute of Education, Singapore †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. Most analyses agree that there are 24 consonant sounds in English. However, it is valuable to consider in some detail a few issues that affect the status of these consonants. First, we can think about why the affricates /t? / and /d / are treated as single consonants rather than sequences of two consonants. Second, one might discuss why it is that /w/ and /j/ are classified as consonants rather than vowels. Third, there is the possibility of a voiceless counterpart of /w/ that, for some speakers, differentiates which from witch. And finally, there is the question of whether the velar nasal /? / is actually an allophone of /n/. After considering these issues, most people will still conclude that there are 24 consonants in English. However, the discussion can help us gain a deeper understanding of English phonology. †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. s Introduction How many consonant sounds do you think there are in English? Of course, most of us know that there are 20 consonant letters in our alphabet (or 21 if you include ‘y’), but here we are talking about sounds, not letters. And there is a mismatch between sounds and letters: sometimes two letters combine to represent one sound, so that ‘s’ + ‘h’ combine to represent the sound /? / and ‘t’ + ‘h’ combine for /? /, and sometimes one letter is pronounced as a sequence of two sounds, as ‘x’ is usually /ks/. So the number of consonant letters in our alphabet is irrelevant when considering the number of consonant sounds (phonemes) in English. The basic answer to the original question is that there are 24 consonant sounds in English: q 6 plosives : /p b t d k / q 9 fricatives : /f v ? ? s z ? / q 2 affricates : /t? d / q 3 nasals : /m n ? / q 1 lateral-approximant : /l/ q 3 approximants : /w j r/ However, things are never quite as simple as that in the study of languages, and there are a number of issues that we might consider in more depth: q Why are /t? / and /d / regarded as single phonemes and not as sequences of two phonemes? q Why are /w/ an d /j/ regarded as consonants and not vowels? q Do those people who distinguish which from witch have one extra phoneme, / /, a voiceless equivalent of /w/? q Should /? / really be regarded as a separate phoneme? Or can it be analysed as an allophone of /n/? s The status of /t? / and /d / The two affricates are each written as a sequence of two symbols, so why do we regard them as single consonants? Why do we not, for example, analyse cheese /t? i z/ as having two consonants at the start, /t/ followed by /? /? The answer is that /t? / behaves phonologically as a single sound, even if phonetically it is rather similar to a plosive followed by a fricative. In analysing its behaviour, we need to think about the patterns of distribution of /t/ and /? (Laver, 1994:365), so we should consider what sequences of sounds can occur together, particularly at the start of a syllable. English allows quite complex syllable onsets, such as /str/ in string and /spl/ in splash, but it does not generally permit a plosive followed by a fricative, so */pf k/, */ts? / and */k p/ are not possible words of English. (In the few cases where the spelling does suggest a plosive followed by a fricative at the start of th e word, such as psychology, the plosive is actually silent. ) But note that chip /t / and check /t? ek/ are perfectly good words of English. So if we treated /t? / as a sequence of two phonemes, we would have to make a special exception to the rule that an English word cannot begin with a plosive followed by a fricative. Note that /t? / can also occur at the end of a word, as with catch /k t? / and rich /r? t? /, and there are no other instances where /? / can occur after a plosive at the end of a word, as */k k? / and */r? p? / are not possible words in English. The situation with /d / provides even stronger evidence. The consonant / / is rather rare in English, and apart from in some recent loan words such as genre / ? nr? /, beige /be? /, and rouge /ru / (all of which still sound rather foreign), / / can only occur in the middle of a word, mostly between two vowels, as in pleasure Copyright  © 2005 Singapore Tertiary English Teachers Society1, 2005 STETS Language & Communication Review, Vol. 4, No. (STETS) w 24 | David Deterding s The status of /w/ and /j/ If you say /w/ and drag it out, it sounds rather like /u /, and similarly /j/ sounds rather like /i / (Roach, 2000:64). If they sound like vowels, why do we classify /w/ and /j/ as consonants? Sometimes it is valuable to make a distinction between a contoid and a consonant: contoids are articulated with an obstruction in the vocal tract, but consonants are sounds which can occur at the edge of a syllable (Laver, 1994:147-8). In other words, contoid is a phonetic term which describes the articulation of a sound, while consonant is a phonological term which describes its behaviour within a syllable. From the phonetic perspective of articulation, we find that plosives, fricatives, nasals, and the lateral approximant /l/ are all contoids, because they all involve a constriction in the vocal tract, but /j/ and /w/ (and maybe /r/ as well) are not contoids. But now we should consider phonological behaviour and thereby determine which sounds should be classified as consonants. Let us think about what can occur before /et/ to create a monosyllabic English word. We have words such as bet /bet/, pet /pet/, set /set/, net /net/, and debt /det/, but not */? t/ or */ et/, so we regard /b p s n d/ as consonants because they occur at the edge of a syllable, but /? / are vowels. However, note that we can also have wet /wet/ and yet /jet/. This confirms that /w/ and /j/ are consonants. In one other aspect of behaviour, we can consider the distribution of the indefinite articles a and an: a occurs before consonants, while an occurs before vowels, and this depends on the pronunciation and not the spelling, so it is an hour not *a hour because /a / begins with a vowel (the ‘h’ is silent). But note that we have a waste and a year, not *an waste and *an year, and notice that once more this is based on pronunciation and not on spelling, as it is a university (which begins with /j/) and not *an university. So again we see that /w/ and /j/ behave as consonants, not as vowels (Roach, 2000:64). s The status of /? / In standard phonemic analysis, we assume that if the occurrence of a sound can be predicted from the surrounding sounds, it is regarded as an allophone and not as a phoneme. So, for example, we treat [ ], the dark /l/ sound that occurs at the end of a word such as fill, as an allophone of /l/ because we can specify that it only occurs in the coda of a syllable (or as a syllabic consonant in words such as bottle), unlike its clear counterpart which occurs before a vowel. So what about /? /? Note that /? / can also only appear in the coda of a syllable, and furthermore we can predict that /? / rather than /n/ will always occur before another velar sound, such as in bank /b ? k/ and anger / ? ?/. So should /? / be regarded as an allophone of /n/ (and then be written as [? rather than /? /)? The crucial test for a phoneme is the existence of a minimal pair: if there are two words which only differ with respect to one sound distinction, then we know that we have two separate phonemes. For example, we know that /f/ and /v/ are different phonemes of English because of the existence of the minimal pair fan /f n/ and van /v n/ where the only difference is in the initial consonant, and similarly the difference in the final sound of back /b k/ and bag /b / establishes /k/ and / / as separate phonemes of English. On this basis, we can be confident that /n/ and /? / are different phonemes, because we have many minimal pairs such as sin /s? n/ and sing /s /, and also ran /r n/ and rang /r ? /. This would seem to be the end of the story, but of course it is not. s The possibility of / / Do you make a distinction between which and witch? For most speakers, these two words are homophones as they are both pronounced as /w? t? /, though many Americans do make a distinction (Wells, 1982:126), and most Copyright  © 2005 Singapore Tertiary English Teachers Society (STETS) w w w /ple ? / and measure /me ? /. But notice that jet /d et/ and barge /b? d / are perfectly good words in English. So if we were to regard /d / as a sequence of two separate sounds, we would have to say that / / can only occur near the start or at the end of a word if it is preceded by /d/, which would be rather strange. So the claim that /t? / and /d / are single sounds in English is well-founded, because they behave phonologica lly like single sounds in the structure of English words. However, one might note that Ladefoged (2001:27) does treat both these English affricates as sequences of two sounds, partly because his emphasis is rather more on phonetics than on the phonological structure of English. Scottish speakers also do (Wells, 1982:408). Indeed, it was once normal for all speakers of English to make this distinction, but by the end of the eighteenth century even educated southern speakers no longer maintained it (Mugglestone, 2003:132). For speakers who retain this distinction, it might be necessary to include an extra phoneme, with / / representing the voiceless counterpart of /w/, so that which is / ? ? / while witch is /w? t? / However, even here the analysis is not so simple. Historically, this sound was a consonant cluster /hw/, parallel to other clusters beginning with /h/, such as /hr/, /hn/ and /hl/ (Cruttenden, 2001:215). These others have now disappeared, so apart from the possibility of /hw/, the only remaining consonant cluster involving /h/ is /hj/ in words such as huge /hju d / and human /hju m? n/. And even the status of this is doubtful, as one might alternatively regard /ju / as a diphthong (Deterding, 2004). So, from a historical perspective, / / might be treated as /hw/. But from a synchronic perspective, we should note that the contrast between / / and /w/ is parallel to the contrast between many pairs of consonants in English, such as /t/ and /d/, /s/ and /? /, and /f/ and /v/. The fact that the voiceless/voiced contrast is wellestablished in English lends support to the treatment of / / as a phoneme in its own right. We might therefore conclude that some speakers do have this extra phoneme. w v w v How Many Consonant Sounds Are There in English? | 25 so it’s fun being with them [F9-f:40] In fact, extra velar plosives also occasionally get inserted at the end of words such as selling, studying and young in relatively informal Singapore data (Lim & Deterding, 2005), as shown in the following examples also from the NIECSSE corpus: selling um decorative stuff [iF9-c:83] that I was studying †¦ this [iF9-c:238] when we were young †¦ we used to erm [iF10-e:180] If a velar plosive gets inserted occasionally after /? /, maybe we should analyse it as present in the underlying representation of the word, and then instead of saying that it sometimes gets inserted, we should state that it sometimes fails to get deleted. And if this is the case, s Conclusion It is still basically true that there are 24 consonants in English, though it may under some circumstances be possible to regard /t? / and /d / as sequences of two sounds, some speakers may have an extra phoneme / /, and the status of /? / is questionable. Even though we can conclude that there are 24 consonants in English, consideration of some of the issues regarding the phonological analysis of English can give us a deeper understanding of he structure of the sound system of the language. STETS Language & Communication Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2005 w v v An alternative possibility is to say that words like sing have a silent / / at the end, and this silent / / gets deleted when it occurs at the end of a word (Roach, 2000:68). In fact, for some speakers of English, this deletion rule does not apply and sing is pronounced as [s ] (Roach, 2000:67), so clearly for speakers such as this, we should analyse [? ] as an allophone of /n/. Furthermore, in careful pronunciation, some speakers insert a velar plosive at the end of words such as being, and this can occur in Singapore English (Setter & Deterding, 2003) as is evident from the following utterance from the NIECSSE corpus (Deterding & Low, 2001): then the distribution of [? ] is entirely predictable, so it is an allophone and not a phoneme. Finally we might note that words such as long /l /, strong /str / and young /j ? / have no final / /, but there is a / / when a comparative suffix is added: longer /l ?/, stronger /str ?/, younger /j ? ?/. So this seems to lend further support to the possible existence in the base form of these words of a final / / which gets deleted in some circumstances. (But note that there is no / / with the –ing suffix or the agentive –er suffix: singing /s / and singer /s /; not */s / and */s ?/. ) In conclusion, we can say that, on the basis of minimal pairs, /? / is generally regarded as a phoneme of English, but that there are some counter-arguments which raise a few questions about its status. 26 | David Deterding REFERENCES Deterding, D. (2004). How many vowel sounds are there in English? STETS Language & Communication Review, 19(10): 19-21. Deterding, D. & Low, E. L. (2001). The NIE corpus of spoken Singapore English (NIECSSE). SAAL Quarterly, 56: 2–5. Ladefoged, P. (2001). A course in phonetics (4th edition). Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers. Laver, J. (1994). Principles of phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lim, S. H. & Deterding, D. (2005). Added final plosives in Singapore English. In D. Deterding, A. Brown and E. L. Low (Eds. ), English in Singapore: Phonetic research on a corpus, pp. 37-42. Singapore: McGraw Hill. Mugglestone, L. 2003). ‘Talking proper’: The rise of accent as a social symbol (2nd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Roach, P. (2000). English phonetics and phonology: A practical course (3rd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Setter, J. & Deterding, D. (2003, August). Extra final consonants in the English of Hong Kong and Singapore. Paper presented at the International Conference of Ph onetic Sciences, Barcelona. Wells, J. (1982). Accents of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Copyright  © 2005 Singapore Tertiary English Teachers Society (STETS)

The British Constitution Essay example - 482 Words

The British Constitution A constitution is a set of laws on how a country is governed. The British Constitution is unwritten, unlike the constitution in America, and, as such, is referred to as an uncodified constitution. The British Constitution can be found in a variety of documents. Supporters of our constitution believe that the current way allows for flexibility and change to occur without too many problems. Those who want a written constitution believe that it should be codified so that the public as a whole has access to it – as opposed to just constitutional experts who know where to look and how to interpret it. Amendments to Britain’s unwritten constitution are made the same way –†¦show more content†¦There are two basic principles to the British Constitution: * The Rule of Law * The Supremacy of Parliament The main arguments for a written and codified constitution: Parliament is currently unrestrained: It can make or unmake any law. It cannot be checked by any other branch of the system Its heavy workload can mean poor laws are passed The Unitary system can mean the creation of laws that are inappropriate to regions of the UK ~ The independence of the Judiciary would be protected ~ Basic rights of citizens are identified and guaranteed ~ There will be less constitutional crises as there will not be confusion as to what is unconstitutional behaviour ~ A large parliamentary majority means the domination of the legislature by the executive. An elective dictatorship ~ The first past the post system creates an exaggerated mandate for the largest party, which is unlikely to have over 50% of the votes (this has not happened since 1945) ~ Without a Bill of Rights, it is Parliaments duty to preserve liberties. However these can be removed at any time by Parliament (e.g. Internment, the Prevention of Terrorism Act). The main arguments against a written and codified constitution: ~ If it aint broke, dont fix it. The British constitution has served us well over theShow MoreRelatedThe Uk s Constitution And The British Constitution2341 Words   |  10 PagesA constitution is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as â€Å"A body of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or organisation is governed.† It has also been described by the writer AV Dicey as â€Å"All rules which directly or indirectly affect the distribution and exercise of the sovereign power in the state.† (A V Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, Macmillan, London 1915). The UK s constitution is not written in a single documentRead MoreThe reform of the British constitution remains unfinished business.1439 Words   |  6 Pages In this essay, I would like to analyse why the reform of the British constitution is seen as unfinished business. Constitutional reform is when the system of government and how government institutions interact is changed. This has also meant the codification of some components of the constitution in the UK. Between 1997 and 2007, there were a considerable number of constitutional reforms introduced by the Blair governments. These reforms included devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern IrelandRead MoreThe Pros and Cons of an Unwritten Constitution in the UK Essay example655 Words   |  3 PagesUnwritten Constitution in the UK The UK has an unwritten constitution unlike the U.S.A. Instead Britains laws, policies and codes are developed through statutes, common law, convention and more recently E.U law. It is misleading to call the British constitution unwritten; a more precise form of classification would be un-codified. This means that the British constitution has no single document, which states principles and rules of a state. However, The British constitutionRead MoreIs the Uks Constituition Becoming Increasingly Codified Essay843 Words   |  4 PagesThe British constitution has become increasingly codified, discuss. A constitution is a set of rules that defines the manner a country is run. The British constitution is said to be an unwritten constitution, more accurately it is uncodified as much more of the British constitution is written down, however, they are not all written down in a single document like a codified constitution would require as how the US is, however draws from several different sources such as; statutes laws, commonRead MoreA comparison of the United States Constitution And The Declaration of Independence712 Words   |  3 PagesIntroduction The United States Constitution and The Declaration of Independence are two of America s most famous documents that laid the foundation for it s independence as a nation and separation from British rule. The following paper will compare these two documents and decipher the difference of the two. While both Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution contain important information regarding America s independence they are also different in many respects. DraftedRead MoreThe British Of The French And Indian War1247 Words   |  5 PagesPage 1 of 5 It’s 1763, and the British just signed a treaty with France to mark the end of the French/Indian War (1756-1763). The British were very happy with themselves, they just won the war! They had a right to feel victorious. The British colonies in North America were in that same happy, victorious state. But all that happiness and victory came at a price. The price was the immense debt that Britain faced after the war. The British needed money fast to pay off their debt. But tensions aroseRead MoreThe Transformation of the American Colonies Essay1700 Words   |  7 Pagesunderwent a radical transformation becoming an independent self-governing nation. The British debt accumulated from the French and Indian War brought colonists into conflict with the mother country over a variety of social, political and economic issues. This turmoil pushed the colonials to fight for their independence and develop a government that would counter these problems. With the introduction of the constit ution, the American Revolution initiated a radical departure from the America prior to 1763Read MoreThe Revolution Of The United States1297 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,† as stated in the Constitution as well as stated by the philosopher John Locke, is the basis for the United States of America as we know it today. The notion that all humans were created equal and that all people are entitled to basic human rights came from the various experiences the colonists faced through the Revolution, which was a vital influence in the creation of the Constitution. The revolution was a key turning point in American history, itRead MoreThe Constitution of the U.K. Essay1234 Words   |  5 PagesThe Constitution of the U.K. There are two meanings to the word constitution the first is that It will contain all of the rules for the organisation of the state.and secondly It will usuall be ‘entrenced’ which means that it is hard to change. The constitution of a country is a set of rules regulating the powers of its government and the rights and duties of its citizens. In all but a few democracies in the world, the nations constitution canRead MoreThe Modern Day Legal Systems1671 Words   |  7 Pagescivilizations have affected Canadian law. These include the Code of Hammurabi, the Mosaic law, Greek and Roman laws, the Magna Carta and a few others. More recently are the civil and common law derived from the French and British respectively. Canada did not always have a written constitution. The territory we now refer to as Canada was once populated by the French and English colonial masters. These colonists extended the laws of their home countries to their colonies. As the population of this territory