Mid-term 1 in English Phonetics and Phonology (1)

Phonetics and Phonology . Mid- term 1. Terminology.
Testi tuleb kindlasti see tabel!
Nasal , Bilabial: m
Nasal, Alveolar : n
Nasal Velar : ŋ
Plosive , Bilabial: p; b
Plosive, Alveolar: t; d
Plosive, Velar: k; ɡ
Affricate, Post-Alveolar: tʃ; dʒ
Fricative, Labio- dental : f; v
Fricative, Dental: θ; ð
Fricative, Alveolar: s; z
Fricative, Post-Alveolar: ʃ; ʒ
Fricative, Velar: x
Fricative, Glottal: h
Approximant, Alveolar ja Post-Alveolar: ɹ
Approximant, Palatal: j
Approximant, Velar: w
Lateral , Alveolar: l
Phonetics and Phonology.
Mid-term 1.
Phonetics – the general study of the characteristics of speech sounds:

• how they may be “strung” together to form meaningful units
  
• how they are produced
  

It studies :

• how to describe the speech sounds in the languages of the world
  
• what these sounds are
  
• how they fall into patterns
  
• how they change in different circumstances
  

Acoustic phonetics – the study of the physical properties of the sounds themselves.
Auditory phonetics – the study of the way listeners perceive these sounds.
Articulatory phonetics – the study of how the vocal tract produces the sounds of language .
Phonology maybe used by actors, teachers, computer engineers etc.
Phonology – the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language.
It studies:

• the abstract or mental aspect of the sounds in a language
  
• the actual physical articulation of speech sounds
  

The phoneme .
Phoneme – is a meaning distinguishing sound in a language; it functions contrastively/ the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language.
When there is a contrast in identical environment we must be dealing with separate phonemes - when we replace one sound with another , we get another word with another meaning, therefore that sound must be a phoneme.
There are small shades of sounds that don’t distinguish meaning – phones . The different phones that are the realisations of the same phoneme are called allophones. Allophones - are the actual pronunciations of phonemes in different environments.
Complementary distribution – phonetic units that never occur in the same environment are said to be in complementary distribution. For example, clear/l/ and dark /l/.
NB! The sounds we produce and hear are continuous : we move our organs of speech continuously and produce a continuous signal – still it is possible to divide speech into units, which is called segmentation.
The sounds of languages can be produced by:

• pushing air out of the lungs through the vocal tract (pulmonic, egressive)
  
• sucking the air into the mouth (ingressive)
  

NB! Without air we cannot produce sound.
There are two classes of sounds:

• consonants
  
• vowels
  

Consonants are produced with some restriction or closure in the vocal tract that impedes the flow of air from the lungs.
Vowels are produced so that the airstream is relatively unobstructed.
NB! Any speech sound will always exhibit two components in some form or other :

• An activity that initiates a flow of air (i.e. initiation, lungs as initiators)
  
• An activity that modulates or articulates the air- stream , thus generating a specific type of sound
  

Vowel and Consonant
The difference between vowel and consonant is:

• in the way they are produced (phonetics)
  
• in their distribution, i.e. the different contexts and positions in which particular sounds can occur (phonology)
  

NB! Vowels can stand alone – they can be produced without consonants before or after them. Consonants require at least a “little bit” of vowel sound.
Vowels are classified according to their phonetical quality :

• how high is the tongue
  
• what part of the tongue is involved
  
• the position of the lips
  

Tongue height can be varied from close to open :

• the tongue can be high in the mouth – it is close to the palate (close)
  
• the tongue can be mid in the mouth – mid, but closer to the palate (close-mid)/ mid, but lower from the palate (open-mid)
  
• the tongue can be low in the mouth – it is low from the palate (open)
  

The involved part of the tongue can be: front – central – back .
The position of the lips can be:

• spread
  
• neutral
  
• rounded
  

The vocalic quadrilateral:
Testi tuleb kindlasti see tabel!
Cardinal vowels - a set of reference vowels used by phoneticians in describing the sounds of languages. Other vowels are placed on the vowel chart using these cardinal vowels as landmarks . Cardinal vowels are: [i]; [e]; [ɛ]; [a]; [ɑ]; [ɔ]; [o]; [u]
Six short vowels are:
ᴂ as in cat
e as in bed
ı as in bit
ᴧ as in cut
ʊ as in put
ɒ as in pot
Five long vowels are:
i:
u:
ᴈ:
ᴐ:
ɑ:
Short and long vowels differ phonetically:

• in quality
  
• in length (the duration of articulation)
  

Comparing English and Estonian vowels: both languages have short and long vowels, but English vowels also differ in quality, thus they are marked by different symbols . In Estonian to mark long vowels the symbols for short vowels are just doubled – they differ only in length.
Diphthongs .
Diphthong - is a double vowel sound which includes a glide from one vowel sound to another. In English diphthongs the first vowel sound is more intense than the last vowel sound, in Estonian the other way around .
Centring diphthongs end with a central vowel, the glide is towards ə.
Closing diphthongs end with a closed vowel, the glide is towards ı and ʊ.
English vowels:

• a vowel is longest in an open syllable and in monosyllabic words (sea, speed )
  
• a vowel is next longest in a syllable closed with a voiced consonant and in two-syllable words ( seed , speedy)
  
• a vowel is shortest in a syllable closed with an unvoiced consonant and in words with more than two syllables (seat; speedily).
  

Stop Consonants (Plosives).
A stop (or plosive) - is a consonant articulation which stops the airflow in the vocal tract completely , the air cannot escape through the mouth. When the articulators come apart, the airstream will be released in a small burst of sound.
Aspiration – a period of voicelessness after the release of an articulation, e.g. pie [pʰaı]
NB! K, p, t are unvoiced/aspirated consonants and g, b, d are unaspirated/voiced consonants. These unvoiced stops are completely unaspirated (spy, sty, sky), because stop is immediately following word-initial s.
Fricatives, Affricates, Nasals .
Fricatives - narrowing the distance between two articulators so that the airstream is partially obstructed and a turbulent airflow is produced (i.e. friction). Fricatives may be voiced or voiceless.
Consonants can be classified by:

• place of articulation( bilabial /p/; /b/; /m/ ; labiodental /f/; /v/; alveolar /t/; /d/; /n/; velar /k/; /g/
  
• manner of articulation – refers to variation in the way the airstream is affected ( blocked vs.partially blocked; vocal folds are vibrating or no vibration).
  

Affricate – a stop followed by a homorganic fricative (phonological)/ a stop plus a fricative (phonetics). These are the only sequences that can occur at both the beginning and the end of words in English.
Homorganic means that the plosive and the following fricative must be made with the same articulators.
Nasals – in case of nasals, the air escapes through the nasal cavity, because oral cavity is completely closed at some point.
M, n, ᵑ
Within a word containing letters „ng“ in the spelling, ᵑ occurs without the following g if it occurs at the end of the morpheme, if it occurs in the middle of a morpheme it has a following g (finger vs. sing /er). Exceptions are comparatives and superlatives.
A lateral consonant – l – while producing it, the air escapes along the sides of the tongue.
A post-alveolar approximant – r.
Approximant – the articulators approach each other but do not get sufficiently close to each other to produce a „complete“ consonant such as a plosive, nasal or fricative.
J and W – are phonetically like vowels but phonologically like consonants. J is a palatal and w is a bilabial approximant.