1. Place of Articulation, continued
September 30, 2013

2. Administrative Stuff
Production exercise #1 is due at 5 pm on Wednesday.
I’ve only received a few recordings so far!
This Friday: practice transcription exercise on place of articulation.
This has been posted to the course website.
For next Monday: another English transcription exercise
Broad and narrow
Phonetic features (dimensions of articulation)
Mid-sagittal diagrams
Let’s walk over a basic transcription problem…

3. A Useful Diacritic Some English syllables have a consonant peak.
This can only happen with /n/, /m/, /l/ and /r/.
When this happens, the consonant is said to be syllabic and is denoted with a small vertical dash underneath.
Examples:
‘chasm’
‘ribbon’
‘eagle’
‘feature’

4. An Interesting Fact Some vowels are louder than others
dB of different vowels relative to (Fonagy, 1966):
: 0.0
[e] : -3.6
[o] : -7.2
[i] : -9.7
[u] :
Why?

5. Another Interesting Fact
Some vowels are inherently longer than others.
Data from Swedish (Elert, 1964):
long short
high [i y u] 140 msec 95
mid
low
Why?

6. Sonority Loudness is also a highly context-dependent measure.
Can vary wildly within speaker, from speaker to speaker, from room to room, and across speaking contexts.
However, all things being equal, some speech sounds are louder than others.
Course in Phonetics:
“The sonority of a sound is its loudness relative to that of other sounds with the same length, stress and pitch.”

7. From Ladefoged

8. A Sonority Scale low vowels high vowels glides high sonority liquids
nasals
fricatives
stops
high sonority
low sonority
Write this on the board

9. Sonority and Syllables
An old idea (e.g., Pike, 1943): syllables are organized around peaks in sonority.
This is the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP).
Example: [bæd] is a well-formed syllable in English.
[æ]
[b] [d]
high sonority
low sonority

10. Sonority and Syllables
An old idea (e.g., Pike, 1943): syllables are organized around peaks in sonority.
This is the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP).
Example: [blænd] works well, too.
[æ]
[l] [n]
[b] [d]
high sonority
low sonority

11. Technical Terms sonority peak [æ] [l] [n] [b] [d] high sonority
low sonority

12. Technical Terms The sonority peak forms the nucleus of the syllable.
[æ]
[l] [n]
[b] [d]
nucleus
high sonority
low sonority

13. Technical Terms The sonority peak forms the nucleus of the syllable.
The sounds that precede the nucleus form the syllable onset.
[æ]
[l] [n]
[b] [d]
onset
high sonority
low sonority

14. Technical Terms The sonority peak forms the nucleus of the syllable.
The sounds that precede the nucleus form the syllable onset.
The sounds that follow the nucleus form the syllable coda.
[æ]
[l] [n]
[b] [d]
coda
high sonority
low sonority

15. Technical Terms The sonority peak forms the nucleus of the syllable.
The sounds that precede the nucleus form the syllable onset.
The sounds that follow the nucleus form the syllable coda.
Together, the nucleus and coda form the syllable rhyme.
[æ]
[l] [n]
[b] [d]
rhyme
high sonority
low sonority

16. Let’s Try This One More Time
If a liquid or nasal is in the syllable onset, it is not syllabic:
“reach”, “look”
If a liquid or nasal is in the syllable coda, it is not syllabic:
“fear”, “mall”, “form”, “cold”
If a liquid or nasal is in the syllable peak, it is syllabic:
“bird”, “worm”
“pull” (for speakers like me)

17. IPA Chart:Stops
You are already familiar with Bilabial, Alveolar, Velar
= the 3 most common places of articulation for stops
UPSID Database (in Maddieson’s Patterns of Sounds, 1984)
surveys 317 languages
314 have bilabial stops (Wichita, Hupa, Aleut)
316 have alveolar/dental stops (Hawaiian)
315 have velar stops (Hupa, Kirghiz)

18. Bilabials-Alveolars-Velars

19. Palatals

20. Palatal Stops Peter says:
59 languages in UPSID database have palatal stops
Palatals vs. Velars in Ngwo (spoken in Cameroon)

21. Also: Palatal Nasals symbol: not to be confused with the velar nasal:
PL:
Examples from Hungarian 

22. Uvulars

23. Uvular Stops Peter says:
47 languages in UPSID database have uvular stops
Uvular nasal:
Peter, again:
Japanese: ‘Japan’

24. Quechua Contrasts
Quechua is spoken primarily in Bolivia and Peru.

25. Pharyngeals

26. Epiglottals, Glottals There are no pharyngeal stops.
However, there is an epiglottal stop:
Peter says:
Check out Stefan’s epiglottis
There are also glottal stops:
As in English: “uh-oh”, “bottle”, “kitten”
More on these later

27. Epiglottals in Agul
Agul is spoken in Dagestan, near the Caspian Sea, in Russia
Note: no nasal pharyngeals, epiglottals, or glottals.
Why?

28. Back to the Coronals

29. Back to the Coronals Two parameters to consider here:
The active articulator
The tongue tip (apical)
The tongue blade (laminal)
The passive articulator or target
The upper lip (linguo-labial)
Between the teeth (interdental)
The upper teeth (dental)
The alveolar ridge (alveolar)
Behind the alveolar ridge (post-alveolar)

30. Coronal Basics Coronal stops are usually dental or alveolar.
Dental stops are usually laminal
produced with the blade of the tongue
as is typical in, e.g., French, Spanish
Alveolar stops are usually apical
pronounced with the tip of the tongue
as is typical in English
Dental ~ Alveolar contrasts are rare, but they do exist.

31. Laminal Dentals
check out the labio-dental flap file

32. Apical Alveolars

33. Yanyuwa Coronal Contrast
Yanyuwa is spoken in the Northern Territory of Australia
UPSID data--
Languages with the following number of stop place contrasts:
<-- 5 of these languages are from Australia!
Yanyuwa has 7 stop place contrasts!

34. Retroflex Stops
Retroflex stops are produced in the post-alveolar region, by curling the tip of the tongue back.
Common in south Asian languages.
Peter says:

35. Sindhi place contrasts

36. Malayalam Place Contrasts

37. Palatography + Linguography

38. Yanyuwa, again

39. Two Places at Once
Labial-velar stops are not uncommon, especially in African languages.
Examples from Idoma (spoken in Nigeria):

40. Linguolabials
Linguolabials are formed by touching the blade of the tongue to the upper lip.
Examples from V’enen Taut, a language spoken in Vanuatu (the South Pacific):

41. Place Contrast Round-up
Most languages have three stop places:
bilabial
dental/alveolar
velar
If a language has a fourth stop place, it is usually
palatal or uvular
If a language has a fifth stop place, it is usually
retroflex
sometimes labial-velar