1. Phonetics Taylor Lecture 4
Phonology and phonetic transcription

2. What do we need to transcribe the world’s languages?
A system that represents all the speech sounds in the world’s languages
A system that has one symbol for every sound
A system that is easy to learn, based on systems already known
A system that is easy to type (or print) 2

3. The International Phonetic Alphabet
A transcription system designed by the International Phonetic Association to transcribe all the sounds found in human language
Some people use modified versions of the IPA. We will be using the standard IPA.
Information on how to download IPA fonts is on your syllabus
modify resources later today so that it’s more usable 3

4. IPA charts: General
Ask if there are any speakers of foreign languages in the class, and figure out if we can get some examples of some sounds not found in English… 4

5. IPA charts: US English
p. 36 in Ladefoged for English 5

6. A few book and other notes
US English consonants
[r] in Ladefoged should be [ɹ]
Affricates and [w] missing from IPA chart
US English vowels
[ɚ] not [ɝ] (discussed on p.42)

7. What do you transcribe? Related to types of speech
(Re)Citation style
Connected speech
Related to amount of detail
Broad transcription (= phonemic transcription)
describing sounds that create different meanings
minimal pairs: bid vs bad; bit vs kit; not mitten vs mitten
Q: what about cot and caught?
Remember: spelling is irrelevant ph=f; k=c; gh=f
Sounds without distinct meanings are called allophones
Narrow transcription (= detailed transcription)
Stress markings and diacritics

8. What are you looking at? Phonology or phonetics?
'field'
Broad transcription: [fild]
Narrow transcription: [fiʷd]
Impressionistic transcription

9. How to describe consonants
Parameters (in order)
voicing
place
lateral?
nasal?
manner

10. How to describe English vowel sounds
Parameters (in order)
Height
Frontness
Rounding
Tenseness (if applicable)
Diphthongs
Dialect issues

11. All vowels (canonical)

12. AmEngl Vowel Chart (Canonical Placement)
beat [i]
boot [u]
bit [ɪ]
father [ɚ]
book [ʊ]
bait [e]
sofa [ə]
boat [o]
bet [ɛ]
but [ʌ]
caught [ɔ]
bat [æ]
father [a]
cot [ɑ]
Beware: There is considerable variation in English.

13. Some vowel mnemonics English height (descending):
front: 'green mints may melt fast'
back: 'nude cooks wrote bawdy logs'
English lip rounding:
green vs nude
mint vs cook
may vs wrote
melt vs bawdy

14. Central Vowels in English
[ə] and [ʌ] are both considered “mid central unrounded vowels”, and the tense/lax distinction is not applicable.
[ʌ] is used in stressed syllables and stressed one-syllable words:
cup, rug, above
[ə] is used in unstressed syllables, unstressed one-syllable words like ‘the’ [ðə]:
sofa, above, the house
Use [ɚ] for unstressed syllables ending in [ɹ]:
father 14

15. Diphthongs
A diphthong is a combination of vowels. The tongue moves from one vowel position (i.e. “target”) to another.
The final segment of a diphthong is often written as an ‘off-glide’ approximant
English diphthongs:
[aɪ] or [aj] pie, rye, lied
[aʊ] or [aw] cow, how, round
[ɔɪ] or [ɔj] boy, coin, boil
[oʊ] or [ow] cold
[eɪ] or [ej] say
(also: [ij], [uw]) keel, mood
Decide exactly how to write these (and low vowel a) and make sure it matches on handout and on here; Ended here 1/22/09 15