Phonetics, part III: Suprasegmentals

October 19, 2012

The Docket1. Morphology homeworks to hand back!

2. I have mid-term review sheets, as well.

3. Suprasegmentals!

• Plus: more phonetics practice.

4. Homework #2 is still due on Monday (October 22nd).

Another Basic Distinction• Consonants and vowels together make up the class of segments in phonetics.

• Each segment is a configuration of articulations…

• ordered in time in an utterance.

• Languages also have phonetic features which can span across multiple segments.

• = suprasegmental features

• supra = “above” the segment.

• One basic example:

• Languages organize strings of segments into syllables.

Syllabicity• Syllables are hard to define phonetically…

• But native speakers have an intuitive sense of what does and does not constitute a syllable.

• Normally, syllables will have:

• consonants (optionally) at beginning and end;

• a vowel in the middle.

• = the syllabic “peak”

• However, in English, nasals (/m/, /n/) and liquids (/l/, /r/) can form the peak of a syllable.

• = syllabic consonants.

Syllabic Examples• Syllabic consonants are transcribed with a small vertical dash underneath them.

• Examples:

‘chasm’

‘ribbon’

‘eagle’

‘feature’

• The book wants you to believe that there are vowels in these syllables: [ər], [əl], etc.

• …but don’t believe it!

Suprasegmentals• Other suprasegmental features include:

1. Stress

2. Length

3. Tone

4. Intonation

• These suprasegmental features are always defined in a relative manner.

• Some segments are longer than others,

• Some syllables are more stressed than others,

• etc.

1. Stress• Stress makes a syllable sound more prominent.

• (due to increased articulatory effort)

• Stress may be denoted by an accent over the vowel in the stressed syllable.

• Examples of stress contrasts:

• “contrast”

• (N)

• (V)

• “insult”

• (N)

• (V)

2. Length• Languages can distinguish segments on the basis of length.

• = some segments simply last longer than others.

• Italian contrasts both long and short vowels and consonants.

Danish Vowels• Danish contrasts long and short vowels.

3. Tone• In tone languages, speakers change the rate at which

their vocal folds vibrate to signal important differences in meaning.

• Note: we hear the rate of vocal fold vibration as the “pitch” of a speaker’s voice.

• In tone languages, each syllable is produced with a characteristic tone.

1. Register tone languages

• Pitch must hit a certain level on any given syllable.

2. Contour tone languages

• Pitch changes on a single syllable may form a complex pattern.

Ibibio Tones• Ibibio is a register tone language spoken in southern Nigeria

Mandarin Tone

ma1: mother

ma2: hemp

ma3: horse

ma4: to scold

• Mandarin (Chinese) is a classic example of a contour tone language.

Mandarin Sentences

ma1-ma0 ma4 ma3. “Mother scolds the horse.”

ma3 ma4 ma1-ma0. “The horse scolds mother.”

Intonation• English is not a tone language like Chinese or

Ibibio…

• but it has something called “intonation”

• English intonation:

1. High and Low accents attach to stressed syllables

• (transcribed with H* or L*)

2. High and Low tones appear at the ends of phrases and utterances.

• (transcribed with H% or L%)

• The important difference: English “tones” are specified by context, not by the lexicon.

Intonation Examples• In English intonation, statements usually have:

• A high accented syllable (H*) within the sentence.

• A low tone (L%) at the end of the sentence.

H* L%

Manny came with Anna.

• Meanwhile, questions usually have:

• A low accented syllable (L*) within the sentence.

• A high tone (H%) at the end of the sentence.

L* H%

Manny came with Anna?