Phonetics


Introduction

Phonetics

Generally, Phonetics refers to the study of sound production of human speech – its articulatory and acoustic property of the human production of sound that intends to use in the process of communication. In relation to the object of study, the closest branch of Linguistics is Phonology which deals with the sound patterns, articulatory gestures and perceptual representation.
In Applied Linguistics, Phonetics is considered to be one of the major focuses of the study since aberration in language occurs in studying the Second Language (SL).

As previously discussed, mother tongue is learned without any effort and the mind is conditioned to learn the First Language (FL) even at the time of the infant’s conception. Learning another language will then be a challenge for both adults and young ones alike. Accent, syllabification, stresses, emphasis and other elocution factors of the mother tongue influences the study of SL and therefore needs to be corrected at first instance in learning and re-learning the SL.
Reviewing Phonetics in Applied Linguistics aims to correct the FL influences and strengthen the communication skills of the language learner.

In the Philippine setting, vowel sounds are produced in five ways (i.e. [a, e, i, o, u]) and there are consonants that are interchanged in production - some of these are [s] vs. [z], [p] vs. [f], [b] vs. [v], etc.

Sound Production

Most sounds in speech are produced by passing a stream of air from the lungs through one or more resonators belonging to the phonetic apparatus.
The principal resonators are (see figure 1.1 below):
  • the pharyngeal cavity;
  • the oral cavity;
  • the labial cavity;
  • the nasal cavity.

    figure 1.1

    The presence or absence of obstructions in the course of the airstream modifies the nature of the sound produced. By classifying the different types of obstructions that are possible, articulatory phonetics distinguishes the sound classes described below.

    For a small number of articulations, the airstream does not originate in the lungs, but rather from outside. The "ingressive" airstream mechanism produces sound through inhalation. A speech sound can also be generated from a difference in pressure of the air inside and outside a resonator. In the case of the oral cavity, this pressure difference can be created without using the lungs at all (producing clicks, for example).



      
    figure 1.2 diagram of the speech organs

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    Consonants and Vowels

    The distinction between consonants and vowels is made in the following manner:
  •  if the air, once out of the glottis, is allowed to pass freely through the resonators, the sound is a vowel;
  •  if the air, once out of the glottis, is obstructed, partially or totally, in one or more places, the sound is a consonant.
Before proceeding, it should be noted that the line between vowels and consonants cannot be clearly drawn; a continuum exists between the two extremes. There are also intermediate instances, such as the semi-vowels and the (frictionless) spirants

       _______________________Voice: voiced/voiceless, voice onset time





 


http://www.indiana.edu/~gasser/L503/vot.gif

 

  • Place of articulation
    • Bilabial, labiodental
    • Interdental, dental, alveolar
    • Palato-alveolar, palatal, retroflex
      American symbol for palatal fricatives and nasal
    • Velar, uvular, pharyngeal, glottal
    • Multiple places of articulation, secondary articulation (labialization, palatalization, velarization):

    •  

 

Place of Articulation and Manner of Articulation

The distinction between manner of articulation and place of articulation is particularly important for the classification of consonants.
The manner of articulation is defined by a number of factors:
  • whether there is vibration of the vocal cords (voiced vs. voiceless);
  • whether there is obstruction of the airstream at any point above the glottis (consonant vs. vowel);
  • whether the airstream passes through the nasal cavity in addition to the oral cavity (nasal vs. oral);
  • whether the airstream passes through the middle of the oral cavity or along the side(s) (non-lateral vs. lateral).
The place of articulation is the point where the airstream is obstructed. In general, the place of articulation is simply that point on the palate where the tongue is placed to block the stream of air.
The place of articulation can be any of the following:
  • the lips (labials and bilabials),
  • the teeth (dentals),
  • the lips and teeth (labio-dentals -- here the tongue is not directly involved),
  • the alveolar ridge (that part of the gums behind the upper front teeth -- alveolar articulations),
  • the hard palate (given its large size, one can distinguish between palato-alveolars, palatals and palato-velars),
  • the soft palate (or velum -- velar articulations),
  • the uvula (uvulars),
  • the pharynx (pharyngeals),
  • the glottis (glottals).







    • Glottalization---ejectives, implosives
    • Clicks
               ________________________________________________

    Vowels

    IPA symbols for simple vowels: 

     

    • Shape and orientation of tongue
      • Tongue body advanced or retracted
        Front         vowels Central vowels Back vowels
      • Tongue body raised or lowered: high, mid, low vowels
    • Lip rounding
      American symbols for front rounded vowels
    • Tenseness of gesture:
      in English, tense: [i, e, u, o], lax: others
    • Nasalization, retroflex:
    • Voicelessness:
    • Diphthongs: [aw, aj/ay, oj/oy, ej/ey, ow], etc. 

     

    Phonetic features and natural classes

  • Phonetic features
  • Natural class: all segments sharing one or more features
  • Additional features:
    labial, coronal (dental, alveolar, and palato-alveolar consonants are [+cor]),
    sibilant ( are [+sib]), obstruent (stops, fricatives, and affricates are [+obs]),
    sonorant ([-obs], that is, vowels, approximants, liquids, English nasals) 
  •  

    Suprasegmental features

  • Segmental and suprasegmental features
  • Length of consonants and vowels
  • Relative timing and rhythm
  • Intonation
  • Tone
  • Stress
  • (Pitch accent)
  • Transcribing suprasegmental features

  •  

    Syllables

  • Syllables and stress, accent, tone
  • Sonority: the extent to which a segment can be the peak of a syllable
  • Syllabic structure: onset, rime: peak (nucleus), coda
  • Syllabic consonants:
  • The psychological reality of segments and syllables

  •  

    Phonetic transcription

  • Narrow and broad transcription
    • Stop aspiration and release in English
    • Flapped /t/ in North American English
    • Lengthened and nasalized vowels in English
  • English phones
  • English dialects (accents) and the phonetic realization of phones
  • Transcription practice
    1. education
    2. rhythm
    3. thank you: a. General American, b. one possible Texas dialect
    4. about: a. GenAm, b. Canadian, c. Trinidadian
    5. Tuesday: a. Received Pronunciation, b. GenAm
    6. drawing board: a. GenAm, b. one possible BrEng dialect
    7. take it apart: a. GenAm, b. broad AustrEng
    8. hablar
    9. razão
    10. jurer
    11. brown: one amazing Southern US pronunciation

  •  

    Acoustic phonetics

  • Periodic vibration and aperiodic turbulence (noise)
  • Sound waves: simple and complex
  • Fundamental frequency and harmonics
  • Source (vocal fold vibration), filter (vocal tract), and and formant frequencies
  • Three ways of displaying sounds: waveform (amplitude vs. time), spectrum (amplitude vs. frequency), spectrogram (frequency vs. time, with amplitude indicated by darkness)
  • Formants and vowel and consonant identification
  • Fricatives and noise

  •  Voice

    A sound is described as voiceless when the vocal cords do not vibrate during its articulation. If the vocal cords do vibrate, the sound is called voiced. The vocal cords are folds of muscle located at the level of the glottis (in fact, the glottis is nothing other than the space between the vocal cords).
    The vocal cords vibrate when they are closed to obstruct the airflow through the glottis (see Manner of Articulation above): they vibrate under the pressure of the air being forced through them by the lungs.
    The voiced/voiceless opposition is mainly useful for the classification of consonants (voiceless vowels being very rare in the languages of the world).
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    Nasality

    The top of the pharynx is like a crossroads. The airstream can exit the pharynx either of two ways, depending on the position of the soft palate:
  • if the soft palate is lowered, a portion of the air will pass through the nasal cavity (the remainder finding its way through the oral cavity);
  • if the soft palate is raised, access to the nasal cavity is cut off, and the air can only pass through the oral cavity.
The sounds produced via the first method are called nasal; those produced the other way, oral. The nasal/oral opposition concerns vowels as well as consonants.


figure1.3  nasals and orals 
The nasal/oral opposition concerns vowels as well as consonants.
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