Phonetics: The Sounds of Language

Phonetics is concerned with describing the speech sounds that occur in the languages of the world. We want to know what these sounds are, how they fall into patterns, and how they change in different circumstances… The first job of the phoneticians is … to try to find out

what people are doing when they are talking and when they are listening to speechPeter Ladefoged, A Course in Phonetics, 1982, 2nd Edition

How sounds are strung together Sounds of all languages of the world

together constitute a limited set of sounds that the human vocal tract can produce.

We will study speech sounds, how they are produced, and how they may be characterized.

Phonetics

Phonetics– the study of speech sounds Know what an individual sound is, how each

sound differs from all others. E.g. KEY POUT E.g. How many sounds are there in the word

cat? /c/,/a/,/t/. Yet it is heard as one continuous sound.

Spelling and sounds are not synonymous E.g. Not and Knot, how many sounds in both words? How about the word psycho?

Sound Segments

Although the sounds we produce and hear are continuous, speech is divisible into units.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

Grade A gray day; It’s hard to recognize speech It’s hard to wreck a nice beach; the sun’s rays meet The sons raise meet.

Not segmenting our words into individual sounds gives the illusion that foreign language speakers run their words together.

Sound Segments (cont.)

Our knowledge of a language determines when we judge physically different sounds to be the same; we know which aspects or properties of the signal are linguistically important and which are not. E.g. How (cough) are you? Listener will ignore the cough.

Not linguistically significant– speaking slowly, quickly, “nasal twang”, personal styles of speaking, pitch or tempo differences.

Identity of Speech Sounds

Making sounds that are not speech sounds in our language. E.g. English speakers can make clicking sounds tsk,tsk,tsk, although it is not part of the English sound system.

Yet click are speech sounds in Xhosa, Zulu, Sosotho, and Khoikhoi—languages spoken in South Africa.

/th/ is a speech sound in English but not in French.

Identity of Speech Sounds (cont,)

The way we use our linguistic knowledge to produce a meaningful utterance is complicated.

It is a chain of events that starts with an idea or message in the speaker’s brain or mind and ends with a similar message in the hearer’s brain.

The language faculty forms the message in words and transmits it by nerve signals to the organs of speech, which produce the physical sounds.

The study of the physical properties of the sounds themselves is acoustic phonetics. Auditory phonetics—the way listeners perceive the sound. Articulatory phonetics—how the vocal tract produces sounds of language.

Identity of Speech Sounds (cont.)

Autumn: A time For Reflection. Autumn… I wonder why the “N” is silent.

The sounds of words are not represented systematically in orthography.

Did he believe that Caesar could see the people seize the seas?

e, ei,ae,ee,eo,ei,ea. Do they represent the same sounds?

Spelling and Speech

The silly amoeba stole the key to the machine. y,oe,ey, and i (same sounds as the previous

sentence) My father wanted many a village dame badly. The letter a represents the several sounds. Thus, each distinct sound must have a distinct

symbol to represent it; and each symbol must represent one and only one distinct sound. Thus the birth of phonetic alphabet.

Spelling and Speech

Spelling of fish (ghoti). Gh (enough); O as in women and the ti like the sound in nation. (George Bernard Shaw)

Several letters may represent a single sound: ---To, too, two, through, threw, clue, shoe

A single letter may represent different sounds:

--dame, dad, father, call, village, many

The Phonetic Alphabet

A combination of letters may represent a single sound:

-- shoot character Thomas physicsSome letters have no sound at all in certain

words:--mnemonic, autumn, resign, ghost

The Phonetic Alphabet

Vocal track consists of: a. glottis—the opening between the vocal

cords and is located in the b. larynx—also called voice box c. pharynx—the tubular part of the throat

above the larynx d. mouth—also called the oral cavity e. nasal cavity—nose and the plumbing

that connects to the throat.

Articulatory Phonetics

Analogy of vocal tract as the drum (vessel of air), changes shape different sounds are produced.

There are four air stream mechanism;pulmonic egressive (most common),ejective, ingressive and implosives.

Pulmonic—air that comes from the lungs Egressive—pushed out air Ejective-- Rare air stream mechanism, e.g. “p” sound makes a distinctive pop. Ingressive—sound made by sucking air into the mouth

to make clicks (tsk,tsk) Implosives—air drawn from the mouth into the throat.

(American Indians, Africa, India and Pakistan)

Articulatory Phonetics

The sounds of all languages fall into 2 classes: consonants and vowels

In phonetics, consonants and vowels are sounds not the letters that refer to them.

Places of articulation Different consonant sounds result according to

the place of articulation, where in the vocal tract the airflow restriction occurs.

Movement of the tongue and lips—articulators—cause the restriction, reshaping of the oral cavity in various ways that result in consonant production

Consonants

Bilabials [p] [b] [m]—both lips are together. Labiodentals [f][v]-touching the bottom lip to the

upper teeth. Interdentals [ ] [ ] –th –inserts the tip of the tongue

between the upper and the lower teeth. Alveolars [t] [d] [n][s] [z][l] [r]—raising the front

part of the tongue to the alveolar ridge do, two, new, sue, zoo lateral [l]-tip of tongue rises to the alveolar ridge,

leaving the rest of the tongue down, permitting the air to escape laterally over its sides. “la”, “ta la la”

Places of Articulation

[r]-curling the tip of the tongue back behind the alveolar ridge; retroflex sound. May also be an alveolar trill—produced by the tongue vibrating against the roof of the mouth.

Place of articulation (cont.)