361 CHAPTER 6: PHONETICS: THE SOUNDS OF LANGUAGE ( ) PowerPoint by Don L. F. Nilsen to accompany An Introduction to Language (8e, 2007) by Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman and Nina Hyams

362 ARTICULATORY PHONETICS (Callary 120) (cf Fromkin Rodman Hyams 227)

363 PLACE OF ARTICULATION   BILABIALS   LABIO-DENTALS   INTERDENTALS   ALVEOLARS   PALATALS   VELARS   (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 235)

364 MANNER OF ARTICULATION   STOPS   FRICATIVES   AFFRICATES   NASALS (NASALIZING)   VOICING   (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 235)

365 MANNER OF ARTICULATION EXERCISE  TALKING SOFTLY: Everyone in the class should talk softly as they say something.  WHISPERING: Everyone in the class should whisper as they say something.  NOTE: In talking softly all of the vowels and most of the consonants are voiced, but in whispering none of the vowels or consonants are voiced. When you talk softly in church rather than whispering, your voice will carry throughout the church.  (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 227)

366  NASALIZATION: The velic in the back of the throat opens and closes the nasal cavity to allow nasalization or not.  Everyone in the class should keep the velic open as they say something so that all of the sounds will be nasalized.  NOTE: If the velic is defective, or if the palate is defective, then many sounds become nasalized that should not be nasalized. This is why people with a detective palate must have an artificial palate installed.  (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 227)

367  DENALIZATION: Everyone in the class should keep the velic closed as they say something so that none of the sounds will be nasalized.  NOTE: People with adenoid problems, or with colds in their noses sound denasalized.  Now everyone in the class should hold their nose as they say something. Is the resulting sound a nasal sound, or a denasalized sound? Explain.  QUESTION: Are the nasal sounds in English stops or continuants?  ANSWER: From the point of view of the mouth, they are stops; however, from the point of view of the nose, they are continuants.  (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 227)

368  CHANGE OF PITCH: The “voice box” is also called the “larynx.”  As air passes through the larynx it can be cut off (voiceless), or it can be allowed through (voiceless).  If the air is allowed through, but the vocal folds are held close together the result is a high pitch; if they are held close together the result is a low pitch.  Pitch can be heard only in voiced continuants.  All of our vowels, and most of our consonants are voiced continuants.  (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 227, 235)

369 CONTRAST THE SOUNDS & SPELLINGS OF THE FOLLOWING WORDS psycho-socksthough-thoughteasy-essaypneumonia-newgnew-newknew-newThomas-tankphone-peasrough-throughbleached-blackenedcheese-cowwhich-whowash-sugarsinger-fingergem-get (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 251)

3610 REGIONAL DIALECTS CONTRAST THE FOLLOWING cot-caughtmerry-marry-Marymourning-morningpin-penwitch-which

3611 REGIONAL DIALECTS PRONOUNCE THE FOLLOWING calfcreekeithergreasyhoglotMrs.nearouthouseroofschedulespoontomatoeswashwith

3612 IDENTIFY THE SOUND IDENTIFY THE FEATURES  Your teacher will give you three features, and you will give the unique sound that these three features identify.  Your teacher will give you a sound, and you will give the three or more features that will uniquely identify the sound.  (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 235)

3613 POINTS OF ARTICULATION (Nilsen & Nilsen Pronunciation Contrasts 85) (cf Fromkin Rodman Hyams 227)

3614 PHONETIC ALPHABET FOR ENGLISH (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 225)

3615 PHONETIC SYMBOLS (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 235)

3616 AMERICAN VOWELS (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 239)

3617 PUNS   Richard Lederer in the introduction to his Get Thee to a Punnery said that puns are “a three- ring circus of words: words clowning, words teetering on tightropes, words swinging from tent-tops, words thrusting their heads into the mouth of lions.”   Tony Tanner said that a pun is like an adulterous bed in which two meanings that should be separated are coupled together.   (Nilsen & Nilsen 181)

3618   Debra Fried defined puns as “the weird accidents, amazing flukes and lucky hits that the one-armed bandit of language dishes up….”   This last example is a case of once- removed personification, since a “one- armed bandit” is itself a personified reference to a gambling machine.   (Nilsen & Nilsen 181)

3619 SIGN LANGUAGE ARTICULATION

3620 SIGN LANGUAGE (Klima and Belugi 42) (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 248)

3621 (Klima and Belugi 42) (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 248)

3622 (Klima and Belugi 42) (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 248)

3623 SILENT CONSONANTS  For each of the following words with a silent consonant, think of a related word in which the consonant is pronounced. This is not possible for all words.  autumn, bough, corps, debt, ghost, gnaw, gnostic, hole, island, knot, knowledge, lamb, mnemonic, pneumonia, psychology, pterodacty, resign, sword, write  (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 224)

3624 SPELLING OF LONG VOWELS  Short vowel sounds are easy to spell in English: “bit,” “bet,” “bat,” “but,” “bot” (a horse fly)  But long vowels in English are chaotic in their spelling. We might add a “silent” e, or write more than one vowel letter, etc.  Furthermore, our sound system has changed drastically, but our writing system has not, so on first blush, the English spelling system appears to be chaotic.

3625 spelling inconsistencies  I take it you already know  of tough and bough and cough and dough?  Some may stumble, but not you,  On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.  So now you are ready, perhaps,  To learn of less familiar traps?  (Bolinger 480)  (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 253)

3626  Beware of heard, a dreadful word  That looks like beard and sounds like bird.  And dead, it’s said like bed, not bead;  For goodness’ sake, don’t call it deed!  Watch out for meat and great and threat.  (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.)  A moth is not a moth in mother,  Nor both in bother, broth in brother.  (Bolinger 480)  (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 253)

3627 “THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER” by Lewis Carroll  Write the following in phonetic script:  The time has come the walrus said to talk of many things,  Of shoes and ships and seeling wax, of cabbages and kings,  and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings.  (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 251)

3628 SIMILARITY THEORY In this series of jokes, the puns of the first joke represents total similarity (or identity), and the puns in each joke from then on becomes less and less similar. In the last joke, the punning words are so dissimilar that it is a stretch to figure them out at all.

3629 FORM-MEANING CORRESPONDENCES Antonyms (woman-man), Heteronyms (bow-bow), Homographs (bank-bank [NOTE: These are also Homophones), Homonoids (sex and violins = saxon violence), Homonyms (to-too-two), Hyponyms (metaphor-metaphor), Metanalysis (un naperon => an apron), Polysemes (ring-ring), Synonyms (dog-hound)

3630 IDENTITY   Jorge Borges wrote a parody of Cervantes's Don Quixote. The parody used all of the same words, the same phrases and the same sentences as were in Cervantes’s original.   Borges claimed that his parody was much richer than the original because it contained all of the meaning of the original, plus it had all of the meaning of the parody.   In addition, the parody had the benefit of many years of literary criticism to add to its richness.

3631 POLYSEMY   POLYSEMY: When a single word has two different senses.   Q: What did one tonsil say to the other?   A: You'd better get dressed. The doctor's taking us out tonight.

3632 HOMOGRAPHY   HOMOGRAPHY: When two different words are pronounced and spelled the same.   Q: Why can't the leopard escape from the zoo?   A: Because he is always spotted.

3633 !HOMOPHONY   HOMOPHONY: When two different words are pronounced the same but are spelled differently:   Q: What's black and white and red/read all over?   A: A newspaper.

3634 !!HOMONOIDISM   HOMONOIDISM: When words are similar but not the same in sound and spelling:   1st: Knock Knock   2nd: Who's there?   1st: Eskimos, Christians, and Italians   2nd: Eskimos, Christians, and Italians who?   1st: Eskimos, Christians, and Italians no lies.

3635 !!!METANALYSIS   METANALYSIS: An inaccurate understanding of where one word or phrase ends and the next one begins   Q: Why does a Frenchman have only one egg for breakfast?   A: Because one egg is an oeuf.   (cf Fromkin Rodman Hyams 221)

36 References: Bolinger, Dwight. Aspects of Language, Second Edition. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Callary, Edward. “Phonetics.” in Language: Readings in Language and Culture, Sixth Edition. Eds. Virginia P. Clark, Paul A.Eschholz, and Alfred F. Rosa. Boston, MA: Bedford, St. Martins, 1998, Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams. “Phonetics: The Sounds of Language. An Introduction to Language, 8th Edition. Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007, Klima, Edward, and Ursula Belugi. Sign Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor. Westport, CT: Greenwood, Nilsen, Don L. F. “English Spelling as a Morphophonemic System: A Sociolinguistic Perspective.” Wisconsin English Journal 33.2 (1991): Nilsen, Don L. F., and Alleen Pace Nilsen. Pronunciation Contrasts in English. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press 1973 (Reissued 2002).