1 Linguistics week Phonetics 3

2 Check table 6.2, p243

3 Parameters for describing consonants u So far (this is not complete yet) we have – Airstream (usually the same for all consonants) – Place of articulation – Voicing – Manner of articulation u So, [p] is … – egressive pulmonic – bilabial – voiceless – plosive

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5 More manners of articulation: u Trills (articulators collide rapidly and repeatedly) – Bilabial (brrr: not really part of English) [ ʙ ] – Alveolar (perro dog, in Spanish) [r] – Uvular (Paris, in French) [ ʀ ] u Tap (usually alveolar) – Like a trill, but only one collision – In Spanish pero but [ ɾ ]

6 And glottal consonants… u The glottal stop [ ʔ ] – Usually without plosion – Used in Cantonese 識唔識, 得唔得 – Taiwanese? – And English, in London accent! u The glottal fricative [h] is generally used to represent English “h”, and ㄏ spoken by Taiwanese people – In mainland Mandarin, it’s [x], a velar fricative

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8 Some other fricative sounds u Mandarin has a voiceless retroflex fricative – It is [ ʂ ], representing ㄕ – Retroflexion means that the tongue is curled u There is also a voiced retroflex fricative – [ ʐ ], aka ㄖ – However, some people transcribe this as [ ɻ ] – They believe it is a retroflex approximant u And, there is a voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative – [ ɕ ], or ㄒ (only the consonantal part)

9 Affricates u A plosive followed by a homorganic fricative – Homorganic = “same place of articulation” – so [kf] in breakfast is not an affricate, because [k] and [f] do not have the same place of artic. – [ ʣ ] and [ ʦ ] are affricates, but are not normally treated so in English phonology – The only affricate English phonemes are / ʤ / and / ʧ /

10 Affricates in Mandarin u /ts ʰ / and /ts/ u /t ʂʰ / and /t ʂ / u /t ɕʰ / and /t ɕ / – Can you guess what they are? – What is the ʰ ? – Why have I suddenly started using /asd/ instead of [asd]? (slant brackets instead of square brackets) u ㄘ and ㄗ u ㄔ and ㄓ (retroflex affricate) u ㄐ and ㄑ (alveolo-palatal affricate)

11 Aspiration u Aspirated and unaspirated consonants – ㄅ is unaspirated [p] – ㄆ is aspirated [p h ] (puff of air) u English: spit vs pit (aspiration difference) – Compare pit vs bit – That is a voicing difference u Aspiration is much less important in English than in Chinese – Can you explain why?

12 Because aspiration in Mandarin is phonemic (also, tone in Mandarin is phonemic) u p ʰ and p are two different phones; two different sounds u but in Mandarin they are different phonemes – /p ʰ a/ ( ㄆㄚ ) and /pa/ ( ㄅㄚ ) represent different meanings – in English p ʰ and p do not help to distinguish meaning – There are no minimal pairs like p ʰ a and pa

13 Mandarin sounds u PA_NPA_4.htm PA_NPA_4.htm

14 Vowels vs consonants u Consonants – There is some obstruction in the vocal tract (=the mouth or throat) u Vowels – There is no such obstruction (the air flows freely)

15 Regional accent variation u English accents – The consonants are generally the same – The vowels are often very different u Mandarin Chinese accents – Pronunciation of consonants often varies widely according to region

16 Describing vowels u Say [i] followed by [æ] (like cat) – Think about where your tongue is – Look in a mirror – What changes? What can you say about the position of the tongue in the two cases? u This is one of the features of vowel description

17 Another feature (=characteristic) u Now compare [ ɑ ] (father) with [æ] (like cat) u You can also try comparing the vowels in ㄢ and ㄤ u Notice any difference? u This is the second distinguishing feature

18 The third parameter u Compare 四 with 速 u Or, compare ㄧ with ㄩ – The difference should be quickly apparent

19 So, the 3 features are…

20 The IPA vowel chart u This represents of the inside of the mouth u It shows – the cardinal vowels »marked by black dots – and the approximate position of vowels common in many languages u The next slide shows the position of English vowels on the same kind of chart

21 BritishAmerican

22 Diphthongs u Yule describes these as a vowel + an approximant (p49) so /bajt/; /bawt/ u We can also say there are two vowels involved – an initial vowel, in “bite” or ㄞ = a – a target vowel, in “bite” or ㄞ = I – the tongue moves towards I – but doesn’t actually reach its target – Check the cool website for a democool website

23 So what is a phoneme? u A phoneme is a member of the set of sounds of a particular language u A phoneme can be spoken in different ways, depending on – the other sounds near it, in the utterance (context) – the local accent or dialect – the person speaking u These different realizations (different ways) are the allophones of the phoneme u A phoneme can be distinguished from every other phoneme – You do this by checking that a minimal pair exists

24 Economy of effort: allophonic differences within one syllable u The vowels in ㄢ and ㄤ are different (front and back) because the speaker is preparing for the following consonant u The consonants /k/ in kit and cat differ slightly because the speaker is preparing for the following vowel. Tongue position for the first is further forward u Why do these allophonic differences exist? u In language, as in life, people are lazy! – It is logical that tongue movement should be minimized – As long as people can understand what we are saying!

25 Economy of effort: assimilation u Another syllable or word influences pronunciation, in rapid speech u How do you pronounce 根本 ? – This is an example of progressive assimilation u What about 多少錢 – This is an example of elision

26 Assimilation in English and French u Usually it’s regressive – A phoneme is changed to accommodate (match) the next phoneme. u Voicing – Newspaper, of course, have to – News has /z/; newspaper has [s] to accommodate the following /p/ – French avec /avek/ in avec vous /aveg vu/ “with you”

27 Assimilation of place of articulation u /tem/ in ten minutes  /i Ʒ / in is she? u milation.html milation.html – For more examples u Read about assimilation at on2/asscoareli-into.htm on2/asscoareli-into.htm