Phonetics: The Sounds of Language

CONSONANT SOUNDS

Three ways of approaching phonetics: Articulatory Phonetics:

Physiological mechanism of speech production. Acoustic Phonetics:

The physical properties of sound waves. Auditory Phonetics:

Perception of the sounds by the brain.

Phonetics of languages

You can make a lot of noises with your mouth, but only some of these are used in speech.

Almost every language uses a different set of these possible sounds.

We will mostly focus on English sounds for now.

Tomato or Tomahto?

http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS244&q=gershwin+let%27s+call+the+whole+thing+off&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=lv-aSqeSD82pnAfu-6WWCA&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4#q=+let%27s+call+the+whole+thing+off&hl=en&emb=0

Differences in pronunciation

Tomato/Tomahto Do you say pin/pen in the same way? Do you say push or poosh? How do you say ‘car’? How about ‘dawn’?

How do you best symbolize the different pronunciation?

There are lots of conventions used. (see p. 41)

How well does the English alphabet represent sounds?

5 problems with English spelling The same sound can be represented by different letters: sea, see, scene,

receive, thief, ameoba, machine

One letter can represent several different sounds: fish, light; chart, character

Two sounds may be represented by a single letter: I; use; judge

Two letters may be used to indicate a single sound: ship, three, leisure, enough

Some letters represent no sound at all: base, knight, psychology

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) The IPA is consistent, unambiguous, and

there is always a one-to-one sound to symbol correspondence.

IPA has been developing since 1888 These symbols can be used to transcribe the

sounds of any language. The system represents each sound of human

speech with a single symbol. The symbol is enclosed in brackets [ ].

IPA, continued

IPA website http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ipa/ipachart.html To use a symbol to describe what someone says, we put

the symbols in square brackets “[ ]”. You will need to be able to:

identify the number of sounds in a word transcribe English words using IPA translate from IPA into English spelling

See page 43 for examples of symbols

Articulation of sound

Articulation is the motion or positioning of some part of the vocal tract with respect to some other vocal tract surface in the production of a speech sound

English uses a pulmonic (=lung) egressive (=blowing out) air stream mechanism.

Vowels are usually the nucleus of the syllable and consonants are usually the onset (start) or coda (end) of the syllable.

To describe articulation for consonants: Is the sound voiced or voiceless? (action of the

vocal folds) Where is the airstream constricted? (place of

articulation) How is the airstream constricted? (manner of

articulation) Descriptions are in the order of

Voicing+Place+Manner

Places of Articulation

Bilabial [p], [b], [m]

Labiodental

Interdental

Alveolar [t], [d], [s], [z], [], [r], [n]

[], []

[f], [v]

Places of Articulation Palatal [], [], [t], [d], []

Velar

Glottal [h]

[k], [g], [N], [w]

Places of Articulation

Manner of Articulation Plosive (Stop): Complete and momentary

closure of airflow through the vocal tract. [p], [t], [k], [b], [d], [g]

Nasal: The airflow passes through the nasal passages. [n], [m], []

Fricative: Continuous airflow through the mouth. [f], [], [s], [], [h], [v], [], [z], []

Manner of Articulation Affricate: The stop articulation is released and

the tongue moves rapidly away. [t], [d]

Liquid: Air escapes through the mouth along the lowered sides of the tongue. [], [r]

Glide: semi-consonants. [ j ], [w]

The consonant chart

See page 53 for the consonant chart

Some practice

1) Voiced bilabial stop2) Voiceless labiodental fricative3) Voiced bilabial nasal4) Voiceless velar stop5) Describe [n]6) Describe [w]7) Describe [g]8) Describe [m]