Chapter 2
Phonetics
Phonetics:
The study of the speech sounds that occur in all human languages to represent meanings
1.Acoustic phonetics: the study of
the physical properties of sounds.
2.Auditory phonetics: the study of the
way listeners perceive the speech
sounds.3.Articulatory phonetics: the study
of how linguistic sounds are
produced.
Fields of phonetics :
Spelling and Speech
A. The sounds in a language often
are represented by spelling
rather unsystematically.
B. The Phonetic Alphabet The discrepancy between spelling and sounds gave rise to a movement of “spelling reformers” called orthoepists. They wanted to revise the alphabet so that one letter would correspond to one sound and one sound to one letter.
C. The efforts and contribution of
George Bernard Shaw to the
phonetic alphabet.
D. In 1888 the interest in the
scientific description of speech
sounds led the International
Phonetic Association (IPA) to
develop a phonetic alphabet to
symbolize the sounds found in
all languages.
E. A phonetic alphabet should
include enough symbols to
represent “crucial” linguistic
differences. At the same time it
should not, and cannot, include
noncrucial differences.
Articulatory PhoneticsI. Airstream Mechanisms
A. pulmonic sounds: speech
sounds are produced by
pushing the air in the lung
out of the body through the
mouth and sometimes through
the nose.
B. egressive sounds: the air is
pushed out.C. implosives sounds: the air is sucked in instead of flowing out; produced by a glottalic airstream mechanism. (occur in the languages of the American Indians and throughout Africa, India, and Pakistan.)
D. clicks sounds: the air is sucked
in; produced by a velaric
airstream mechanism.
( occurring in the Southern
Bantu languages.)
E. ejectives sounds: the air in the
mouth is pushed out produced
by a glottalic airstream
mechanism ( occurring in
many American Indian as well
as African and Caucasian
languages.)
Three airstream mechanisms:
pulmonic airstream: plosives etc.
glottalic airstream: implosives,
ejectives
velaric airstream: clicks
II. Voiced and Voiceless Sounds
A. voiceless: (a) the vocal cords
are apart, (b) the airstream is
not obstructed at the glottis
and it passes freely into the
supraglottal cavities.
B. voiced: (a) the vocal cords are
together, (b)the airstream
forces its way through and
causes them to vibrate.
C. The voiced/voiceless distinction
is a very important one in
English. It is this phonetic
feature or property that
distinguishes between word
pairs like:
rope/robe fate/fade rack/rag
voiced / voiceless
III. Nasal and Oral Sounds
A. oral sounds: (a) the velum is
raised all the way to touch the
back of the throat the passage
through the nose is cut off; (b)
the nasal passage is blocked in
this way,(c) the air can escape
only through the mouth.
B. nasal sounds: the velum is lowered, air escaping through the nose as well as the mouth.
C. The phonetic features or
properties permit the
classification of all speech sounds
into four classes: voiced,voiceless,
nasal, oral. One sound may
belong to more than one class.
IV. Places of Articulation
A. Labials
1. bilabials: [p], [b],[m] are
articulated by bringing both lips
together.
[p], [b],[m]
2. labiodental: [f],[v] are articulated
by touching the bottom lip to the
upper teeth.
B. Interdentals: the th in the words thin and then, the tip of the tongue is inserted between the upper and lower teeth.[] []
C. Alveolars: to articulate a [d],
[n], [t], [s],or [z], the tongue is
aised to the bony tooth ridge;
[t] and [s] are voiceless
alveolar sounds, [d] and [z]
are voiced, and only [n] is
nasal.
[t] [d]
[s] [z]
D. Velars: produced by raising
the back of the tongue to the
soft palate or velum, as the
initial and final sounds of the
words kick, gig, and the final
sounds of the words back, bag,
and bang.
[k] [g]
E. Palatals: the front part of the
tongue is raised to a point on
the hard palate just behind the
alveolar ridge, as the voiceless
palatal sound begins the words
shoe, sure and ends the words
rush, push.
[š] [ž]
F. Coronals: the alveolar and
palatal sounds are grouped
together as coronal, sharing the
common property of being
articulated by raising the
tongue blade toward the hard
palate.
Manners of Articulation
The voiced/voiceless and oral/nasal features do not refer to the movement or position of the tongue, teeth, or lips. Rather they reflect the way the airstream is affected as it travels from the lungs up and out of the mouth and nose.
Such features or phonetic properties have traditionally been referred to as manners of articulation or simply manner features.
I. Stops and Continuants
Sounds that are stopped completely in the oral cavity for a brief period are called stops, and the stream of air continues without complete interruption through the mouth opening are called continuants.
[p],[b],[m]--are bilabial stops, with
the airstream stopped
at the mouth by the
complete closure of the
lips.
[t],[d],[n]—are alveolar stops; the
airstream is stopped by
the tongue making a
complete closure at the
alveolar ridge
[k],[g],[]--are velar stops with the
complete closure at the
velum.
II. Aspirated and Unaspirated Sounds
In English when we pronounce the word pit, there is a brief period of voicelessness immediately after the [p] sound is released. That is, after the lips come apart the vocal cords remain open for a very short time.
Such sounds are called aspirated because an extra puff of air is produced. When we pronounce the [p] in spit, however, the vocal cords start vibrating as soon as the lips are opened. Such sounds are called unaspirated.
Aspirated sounds are indicated by following the phonetic symbol with a raised h as in the following examples:
pate [ph et] spate [spet]
tale [th el] stale [stel]
kale [kh el] scal [skel]
III. Fricatives
If you put your hand in front of your mouth and produce an [s],[z],[f],[v],[],[],[š],or[ž]sound, you will feel the air coming out of your mouth.
The passage in the mouth through which the air must pass is very narrow, causing friction. Such sounds are called fricatives.
[f] [v] --labiodental fricatives
[s] [z] --alveolar fricatives
[š] [ž] --palatal fricatives
[] [] -- interdental fricatives
IV. Affricates
Some sounds are produced by a stop closure followed immediately by a slow release of the closure characteristic of a fricative. These sounds are called affricates.
[tš] =[t]+[š] white shoes
[dž]=[d]+[ž]
[d] [t]
stage1 strage2
V. Liquids
In the production of the sounds [l] and [r], there is some obstruction of the airstream in the mouth, but not enough to cause any real constriction or friction. These sounds are called liquids.
[l] is a lateral liquid, the tongue is raised to the alveolar ridge, but the sides of the tongue are down permitting the air to escape laterally over the sides of the tongue.
[r] is produced in a variety of ways. Many English speakers produce [r] by curling the tip of the tongue back behind the alveolar ridge. Such sounds are called retroflex sounds.
VI. Glides
In articulating [j] or [w], the tongue moves rapidly in gliding fashion either toward or away from a neighboring vowel, hence the term glide.
[j]-- palatal glide
[w]--labio-velar glide
[h]-- glide, somtimes
classified as a voiceless
glottal fricative.
VOWELS
When we pronounce vowels our oral cavities are open without any contact points and the airstream flows out freely. As for the quality of vowels, it’s determined by our tongues raised or lowered and our lips spread or pursed.
Vowels aren’t like consonants.
--they carry pitch and loudness and can be pronounced alone. In addition, for many of the beginning students, it’s more difficult to distinguish their articulatory features from each other by many different schemes.
Because vowels are produced without any articulators touching or even coming close together.“ Only when you watch an x-ray movie of someone’s talking you’ll find why vowels have traditionally been classified.” Thus we have 3 questions:
1. How high is the tongue?
2. What part of the tongue is
involved; that is , what part is
fronted or backed?
3. What is the position of the lips?
(I) Tongue positions
We can exam how vowels are produced with some parts of the relative not absolute.
front
(Height)
High
Low
Back
Rounded
/u/(boot)
//(put)
/o/(boat)
//(office)
/bah
(beet)/i/
(bit)//
(bait)/e/
(bet) //
(bat)//
(Rosa)/
(but)//
Front vowels
/i/ a high front vowel
// a lower-high front vowel
/e/ a higher-mid front vowel
// a lower-mid front vowel
// a low front vowel
Back vowels
/u/ a high back vowel
// a lower-high back vowel
/o/ a higher-mid back vowel
// a lower-mid back vowel
// a low back vowel
Schwa vowels
// a unstressed mid-central vowel
// a stressed mid-central vowel
(II) Lip rounding
All the back English vowels are pronounced with the lips rounded or pursed except //. On the contrary, non-back vowels are unrounded. However, it’s not true of all languages. French and Swedish languages have front- and back-rounded vowels. Mandarin, Japanese and the Cameroonian languages have high back unrounded vowels.
EX. 中文一字 [四 ]的發音含有類似英文 boot 的母音但唇形卻是 non-rounded spread lips; 而 [速 ]則是 high back-rounded lips.
(III) Diphthongs
They are described as a sequence of two sounds—vowel + glide.
EX: bite aj a vowel + j glide
browaw a vowel + w glide
boy j vowel + j glide
(VI) Nasalization Of Vowels In English, nasal vowels occur before or after nasal consonants. (eg.Hint hint, bean bin, camp kmp, bone brn ) However, the languages like Southern Min, nasalized vowels may occur when no nasal consonant is adjacent.
EX: pi “ compare ”
pĩ “ not round ”
Prosodic suprasegmental features
Such features as length, pitch, and the complex feature stress and how they are used in various languages to distinguish the meaning of words and sentences are often referred as prosodic or suprasegmental features.
1. Long vowels in English are
produced with greater tension
of the tongue muscles than their
short counterparts and therefore
also referred to as tense vowels.
Ex: day [dey]
2. In some languages there are vowels
and /or consonants that differ
phonetically from each other only
by duration . Therefore, it is
customary to transcribe this
difference either by doubling the
symbol or by the use of a diacritic
“ colon” after the segment, as for
example [aa] or [a:]. [bb] or [b:]/
3. What are tone languages ? Give
one example. Languages that
use the pitch of individual
vowels or syllables to contrast
meanings of words are called
tone languages. Take one word
in Nupe.
(a language spoke in Nigeria)
for example
[naa] [ ] L low tone “ a nickname ”‵[naa] [ - ] M mid tone “ rice paddy ”
[naa] [′] H high tone “ young maternal
uncle or aunt ”
[naa] [ ^ ] HL falling tone “ face ”
[naa] [ ] LH rising tone “ thick ”
4. A contour tone VS. register tone
For instance:
Tones that “ glide “ are called contour tones; tones that do not are called level or register tones.
mā ( 媽 ) : a register tonemă ( 馬 ) : a contour tone
5. What are downdrift languages ?
In a language, when a low tone
or high is phonetically lower than
its preceding low or high tone
(usually intervened with a high or
low tone), it is called downdrift.
6. Let’s read the following sen
tence in Twi, we’ll find the relat
ive pitch, rather than the absolut
e pitch, important.
“ Kofi searches for a little food
for his friend’s child. ”
h h ádu k á m
L H L H H L L H L L H L L H_________________________________________
7________________________________________
6_______h____á___________________________
5___________________k____________________
4____h__________________________á________
3____________du__________________________
2________________________________________
1___________________________________m____
DIACRITICS
Diacritic marks on vowel nasalization, prosodic features, and tone can be used to modify the basic phonetic symbols.
Phonetics is the science of speech sounds. It aims to provide the set of features or properties that can be used to describe and distinguish all the sounds used in human.
The discrepancy between spelling and sounds in English and other languages motivated the development of phonetic alphabets in which one letter corresponds to one sound The major phonetic alphabet in use is that of the International Phonetic Association (IPA).
All human speech sounds fall into classes according to their phonetic properties of features. During the production of voiced sounds the vocal cords are together and vibrating whereas in voiceless sounds the vocal cords or glottis is open and non-vibrating.
Voiceless sounds may also be aspirated or unaspirated. Classes of sounds which differ according to their manner of articulation also include oral and nasal sounds, continuants or stops. Non-sonorant continuants are fricatives; the class of sonorant continuants include, vowels, glides, and liquids.
Vowels form the nucleus of syllables and are therefore syllabic. They differ according to the position of the tongue and lips: high, mid, or low tongue; front or back of the tongue; rounded or unrounded lips.
Length pitch and loudness are prosodic or suprasegmental features which also differentiate sounds. The vowels in English may be long or short, stressed or untressed.
In many languages the pitch of the vowel or syllable is linguistically significant in distinguishing the meaning of words. Such language are called tone languages as opposed to intonation languages in which pitch is never used to contrast words.
Diacritics to specify such properties as nasalization, length, voicelessness, syllabicity, stress, tone, or rounding may be combined with the phonetic symbols for more detailed phonetic transcriptions.
Aspiration: [thi]
Unreleased: [sit]Palatalization: [ty i]
Labiolization: [twuv ]
Dentalized: [t n ]Nasalized: [t ĩ n]
Syllabified: [btl]
Devoicing: [tri]Velarized: [w d]
Q1: Are nasals stops or continuants?
Key: They are stops.
Q2: Are [][] coronals?Key: Yes, they are. Interdentals are coronals.Q3: Are affricates + or -
continuants?Key: They - continuants.
Q4: Are velars coronals?Key: NO, they are NOT.Q5: Are liquids
+consonantal?Key: Yes, they are. Liquids are +consonantals.
Q6: Are glides + or - consonantals? Are glides + or – vocalic?Key: They – conso
nantals and -vocalics.
Q7: What is the difference between [t] and [s] in terms of manners of articulation?
Key: One is a stop; the other is a continuant.
Q8: Why are [s][z][][][t][d] a natural class?Key: Because they are
all sibilants.Q9: What English consonants are +conoral and +anterior?
Key: They are [t] [d] [s] [z] [n] [l] [r]; alveolar sounds.
Q10: What is the high front rounded vowel?
Key: It is [y].
Q11: All +back vowels in English are rounded?
Key: Wrong. The +low back vowel is –rounded.Q12: The vowel [] is +tense
and -back?Key: No, it is a lax vowel.
Q13: What is the rounded counterpart of [o]?Key: It is [].
Q14: What is the difference between [] and []?
Key: They are different in roundedness.Q15: Are [] and []
different sounds?Key: They are differnet. [] is a voiceless bilabial fricative; [] is a mid front tense rounded vowel .