Phonetics: The Sounds of Language Presentation based on Chapter 6 of Fromkin-Rodman-Hyams

Phonetics The study of speech sounds The description of all the sounds used in human language

Speech sounds The sounds of all the languages of the world together constitute a limited set of the sounds that the human vocal tract can produce

Continuous articulation We move our organs of speech continuously and produce a continuous signal All speakers run sounds and words together

Units of speech The speech of a language is divisible into sound units, from the possible human inventory of sounds

Identity of speech sounds No two speakers ever say that "same thing" identically, nor does one person at different times Our knowledge of a language determines when we judge physically different sounds to be the same; We know which aspects or properties of the signal are linguistically significant and which are not

Description of sounds Acoustic phonetics: studies the physical properties of sounds Auditory phonetics: studies the way listeners perceive these sounds Articulatory phonetics: studies how the vocal tract produces the sounds of language

Spelling and speech Alphabetic spelling represents the pronunciation of words, more or less systematically Systematically means one sound = one symbol and one symbol = one sound

English spelling English spelling is less systematic than others it was more systematic at one time, but pronunciation changed where spelling did not; also the Latin alphabet was not designed to represent English sounds, especially the vowels) Spanish spelling is much more systematic

Problems with the English alphabet 1 Several letters may represent a single sound: to, too, two, through, threw, clue, shoe

Problems with the English alphabet 2 A single letter may represent different sounds: dame, dad, father, call, village, many

Problems with the English alphabet 3 A combination of letters may represent a single sound: shoot, character, Thomas, physics, either, deal, rough, nation, coat, glacial, theater, plain

Problems with the English alphabet 4 Some letters have no sound at all in certain words: mnemonic, autumn, resign, ghost, pterodactyl, write, hole, corps, psychology, sword, debt, gnaw, bough, lamb, island, knot

Problems with the English alphabet 5 The spelling may fail to represent sounds that occur: cute

Problems with the English alphabet 6 One letter may represent two sounds: exam

Phonetic alphabet Therefore, phoneticians need a "phonetic alphabet", one in which each distinct human sound has a distinct symbol to represent it and each symbol represents one and only one distinct sound We use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

Table 6.1 A phonetic alphabet for English pronunciation

Note Speakers of different English dialects pronounce some words differently from those of other speakers, e.g. which vs. witch, caught vs. cot.

Articulatory phonetics The study of how sounds are produced in the vocal tract

Movement of air The production of any sound involves the movement of air Most speech sounds are produced by pushing lung air through the opening between the vocal cords (the glottis) (the box it’s in it’s called the larynx), up the throat (the pharynx) and out the oral cavity and/or the nasal cavity

What distinguishes one sound from another? The size and shape of the vessel containing the air that is moving is what distinguishes one sound from another, in our case, the vocal tract A small bottle makes a high-pitched sound, a bit bottle makes a low-pitched sound

Fig. 6.1 The vocal tract

Classes of sounds CONSONANTS: are produced with some restriction or closure in the vocal tract which impedes (fully or to some extent) the flow of air from the lungs VOWELS: are produced without such a restriction NOTE: The terms consonants and vowels refer to sounds, not letters

CONSONANTS

Places of articulation Different consonantal sounds result (in part) according to the place of articulation: the place in the vocal tract where the airflow restriction occurs Tongue and lips are the articulators which move to cause the restriction

Bilabials Lips are the articulators [p] “pin” [b] “bin” [m] “mint”

Labiodentals Lower teeth and upper lip are the articulators [f] “fine”, “photograph” [v] “vine”

Interdentals (dentals) Tip of the tongue and upper teeth are the articulators [θ] “thick” [ð] “this”

Alveolars [t] “time” [d] “dine” [n] “nine” [s] “sign” [z] “resign” “magazine” [l] “line” [r] “rhyme” “reign” The ‘r’ sounds can be produced in a variety of ways, even in English

Palatals (and alveopalatals) [ š ] ship, mission, chef [ ž ] vision, garage (in some dialects) [ č ] chip [ ǰ ] jeep, gin

Velars [k] car, kin [g] get [ŋ] sing, singer

Glottal [h] (glottal fricative) house [ʔ] (glottal stop) bottle (in some dialects of American English) Between vowel sounds, e.g. the elefant [ðiʔɛləfənt] (automatic)

MANNERS OF ARTICULATION This is what distinguishes among the different sounds which share a particular point of articulation Besides POA, speech sounds also vary in the way the airstream is affected as it flows from the lungs up and out of the mouth and nose

1a) Voiceless sounds The vocal cords are two muscle flaps surrounding the glottis If the vocal cords are apart during airflow, the air flows freely through the glottis and the rest of the vocal tract. Voiceless sounds result E.g. [s] sip, [t] tip, [p] pit

1b) Voiced sounds If the vocal cords are together, the air forces its way through the glottis and causes the cords to vibrate. These sounds are called voiced E.g. [z] zip, [d] dip, [b] bit All the vowels and more than half the consonants are voiced

Voiceless vs. voiced consonants [p] [b]: pin vs. bin [t] [d]: ten vs. den [k] [g]: cap vs. gap [θ] [ð]: wreath [riθ] vs. wreathe [rið] [f] [v]: fine vs. vine [s] [z]: seal vs. zeal [č ] [ǰ]: choke vs. joke

Voiceless aspirated consonants In English, some voiceless consonants extend their voicelessness into the following vowel This results in a puff of air coming out with the consonant These sounds are called aspirated This can be indicated with a superscript h next to the consonant

Voiceless aspirated consonants [th] ten (compare with Spanish “ten”) [ph] papa (compare with Spanish “papa”) [kh] kilo (compare with Spanish “kilo”)

Voiceless aspirated consonants NOTE: Aspiration in these English consonants doesn’t occur when the consonant is preceded by [s] in the same syllable, e.g. tale [thejl] vs. stale [stejl]

2) Oral vs. nasal sounds Now we know what distinguishes the bilabial [p] and [b]: voicing But what distinguishes these two from the other English bilabial [m]?

Oral vs. nasal sounds [m] is a nasal sound; [p] and [b] are non-nasal or oral sounds Nasal sounds in English: [ m n ŋ ] (Spanish has one more: [ɲ] = “ñ”)

Nasality The velum is the soft palate in the roof of the mouth (in the back) It is movable and it allows to open and close the passage to the nasal cavity For most sounds, the velum is closed (oral sounds) For nasal sounds, the velum is open and air escapes through the nose

m, b, p

Examples of nasality bust [bʌst] vs. must [mʌst] dear [dir] vs. near [nir] rug [rʌg] vs. rung [rʌŋ]

3) Stops (vs. continuants) As we saw, in producing consonants, the airstream is always obstructed in some way It may be completely stopped or just partially obstructed Stops: [p b m t d n k g ŋ ʔ č ǰ ] Continuants: the rest

4) Fricatives In the production of some continuants, the airflow is so severely obstructed that it causes friction These sounds are called fricatives [ f v θ ð š ž ]

5) Affricates Some sounds are produced by a stop closure followed immediately by a gradual release of the closure that produces an effect characteristic of a fricative Affricates: [ č ǰ ] …

Affricates Phonetically an affricate is a sequence of a stop plus a fricative Compare “white shoes” with “why choose”; if you say them rapidly they are indistinguishable

Affricate symbols In standard IPA, (bec. in standard IPA [č] is written [ʧ] and [ǰ] is written [ʤ] (bec. in standard IPA [š] is written [ʃ] and [ž] is written [ʒ]

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 Lateral: [l] (“lip”, “llama”) Retroflex: [ɹ] (the book uses [r]) (“rip”, “car”)

Spanish liquids Spanish doesn’t have a retroflex liquid, but has two other “r’s”: Flap: [ɾ] pero (Teschner writes it [r]) American English speakers pronounce the [d] and [t] this way in words like writer and ladder Trill: [r] perro, rosa (Teschner writes it [ŕ])

Glides [j] and [w] (“you”, “woo”) are produced with little or no obstruction in the mouth [j] is palatal (similar mouth position to that of the vowel [i]) [w] is labio-velar (similar mouth position to that of the vowel [u])

VOWELS

Quality of vowels Vowel sounds are produced without any obstruction in the oral tract Vowels are sounds that can stand on their own, they carry pitch and loudness, they may be long or short The quality of a vowel depends on the configuration of the vocal tract during its production

Classification of vowels Vowels can be classified (described) according to 3 questions: How high is the tongue? What part of the tongue is involved (front-middle-back)? Are the lips rounded or spread out?

Reference points The vowels can be represented as a triangle or trapezoid [i] is a high front vowel (beet) [u] is a high back vowel (moon) [a] is a low back vowel (father, cot) ([ɑ] in standard IPA)…

Other vowels Spanish has those 3 vowels plus two more mid vowels [e] “ve” and [o] “dos” English has a few more:

Vowels

Lip rounding There is one other major factor involved besides height and frontness: lip rounding (pursing) In English, back vowels (except [a]) are rounded (the lips protrude), the rest are not

Lip rounding Other languages have front rounded vowels (e.g French) or back unrounded vowels (e.g. Japanese)

Diphthongs A diphthong is a sequence of a vowel and a glide (or glide plus vowel) English has 3 real diphthongs [aj] (my) [aw] (cow) [ɔj] (boy) In addition, [e] and [o] are slightly diphthonguized in most dialects: [ej] [ɔj] Spanish has a lot more diphthongs, as we will see

Nasalization of vowels In some languages, vowels can be nasal, not just oral, e.g. French, Portuguese, Polish In English all vowels are slightly nasalized if followed by a nasal consonant (in some dialects more than others, cf. nasal twang)

Tense and lax vowels In English, like in many languages (but not Spanish), some vowels are typically longer (or tenser or diphthonguized) than others [i] beat vs. [ɪ] bit [e] bait vs. [ɛ] bet [u] boot vs. [U] put [o] boat vs. [ɔ] bore

Lengthening of vowels English vowels are longer when followed by a voiced consonant than a voiceless consonant bead [bi:d] vs beat [bit]

Dialect differences Dialects may differ a bit in the number and quality of their vowels…

Some dialect differences in English British RP (Received Pronunciation) has a low rounded back vowel, as in the word “hot” [hɒt] Some dialects of American English only have the vowel [ɔ] before [r] (door); elsewhere it has been replaced by [a], e.g. cot [kat] vs. caught [kat/kɔt]