1. Some Speech Basics Phonetic Transcription, Context-dependent variation, and Intonation
Jennifer J. Venditti
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Columbia Computer Science
12 September 2002

2. 1. Phonetic Transcription

3. Spelling vs. Sounds same spelling = different sounds
o comb, tomb, bomb oo blood, food, good
c court, center, cheese s reason, surreal, shy
same sound = different spellings
[i] sea, see, scene, receive, thief [s] cereal, same, miss
[u] true, few, choose, lieu, do [ay] prime, buy, rhyme, lie
combination of letters = single sound
ch child, beach th that, bathe
oo good, foot gh laugh
single letter = combination of sounds
x exit, Texas u use, music
‘silent’ letters
k knife, know p psycho, pterodactyl
e moose, bone gh through

4. Figures 4.1 and 4.2:
Jurafsky & Martin (2000),
pages

5. On-line pronunciation dictionaries
phoneset
derived from:
number of wordforms
English
variety
LDC PRONLEX
ARPAbet
90,694
American
CMUdict
100,000
CELEX
IPA
160,595
British
Source: Jurafsky & Martin (2000), page 121.

6. Places of articulation
alveolar
post-alveolar/palatal
dental
velar
uvular
labial
pharyngeal
laryngeal/glottal

7. Vocal fold vibration
[UCLA Phonetics Lab demo]

8. Articulatory parameters for English consonants (in ARPAbet)
PLACE OF ARTICULATION
bilabial
labio-dental
inter-dental
alveolar
palatal
velar
glottal
stop p b t d k g q
fric. f v th dh s z sh zh h
affric. ch jh
nasal m n ng
approx w
l/r y
flap dx
MANNER OF ARTICULATION
VOICING:
voiceless
voiced

9. American English vowel space
FRONT
BACK
HIGH
LOW iy ih eh ae aa ao uw uh ah ax ix ux ey ow aw oy ay

10. [iy] vs. [uw]
(From a lecture given by Rochelle Newman)

11. [ae] vs. [aa]
(From a lecture given by Rochelle Newman)

12. Acoustic landmarks [p] [t] [ix] [ih] [ax] [ae] [iy] [sh] [s] [n] [l]
“Patricia and Patsy and Sally”

13. Articulators in action
(Sample from the Queen’s University / ATR Labs
X-ray Film Database)
“Why did Ken set the soggy net on top of his deck?”

14. Exercise (1) Write your name in: (a) IPA. (b) ARPAbet (if possible).
Choose one of the following triplets and transcribe each word in both IPA and ARPAbet.
cone, tomb, bottom
blood, fool, hook
court, race, cheese
reason, surreal, cash
thing, these, other
laugh, through, ghoul

15. Figures 4.1 and 4.2:
Jurafsky & Martin (2000),
pages

16. IPA consonants
(Distributed by the International Phonetics Association.)

17. IPA vowels
(Distributed by the International Phonetics Association.)

18. Context-dependent phonetic variation

19. Context-dependent variation
What we would consider a single ‘sound’ can be pronounced differently depending on the phonetic context. For example, the phoneme /t/:
Figure 4.8: Jurafsky & Martin (2000), page 104.

20. Another regular alternation
I can ask [ay k ae n ae s k]
I can see [ay k ae n s iy]
I can bake [ay k ae m b ey k]
I can play [ay k ae m p l ey]
I can go [ay k ae ng g ow]
I can carry [ay k ae ng k ae r iy]
n  m / __ [+labial stop]
n  ng / __ [+velar stop]
(inopportune [n], insatiable [n], impervious [m],
immortal [m], incoherent [ng], ingratitude [ng])

21. English plurals hiccup [p]  hiccups flood [d]  floods
sock [k]  socks scab [b]  scabs
habit [t]  habits frog [g]  frogs
spoof [f]  spoofs comb [m]  combs
hearth [th]  hearths grave [v]  graves
lathe [dh]  lathes
beach [ch]  beaches fool [l]  fools
dish [sh]  dishes sewer [r]  sewers
judge [jh]  judges pies [ay]  pies
race [s]  races curfew [uw]  curfews
axe [s]  axes sofa [ax]  sofas
raise [z]  raises

22. Phonological rules for Engl. plurals
Assume that the lexical form of plural is /z/.
Insertion:   ix / [+sibilant] ^__ z #
Devoicing: z  s / [-voice] ^__ #
bus+PL cape+PL hen+PL
/b ah s +z/ /k ey p +z/ /h eh n +z/
insertion: b ah s +ix z
devoicing: -- k ey p s --
[b ah s ix z] [k ey p s] [h eh n z]
/b ah s +z/ /k ey p +z/ /h eh n +z/
devoicing: b ah s s k ey p s --
insertion:
*[b ah s s] [k ey p s] [h eh n z]