The sounds of language

1
The sounds of language
Inglese 1 - 13 nov 2007
2

• I take it you already know
• Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
• Others may stumble but not you
• On hiccough, thorough, lough and through.
• Well done! And now you wish, perhaps, to learn of
  less familiar traps?
• Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
• That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
• And dead its said like bed, not bead
• For good ness sake dont call it deed!
• Watch out for meat and great and threat
• (they rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
  

3
What is phonetics?

• A. System for teaching reading writing
• B. System for teaching pronunciation
• C. Transcription system indicating pronunciation
  of words in dictionary
• D. Branch of physics that studies the acoustic
  properties of sounds
• E. Branch of linguistics that studies the
• sounds used in language
• F. Something else

4
Phonetics

• It is the study of the way humans make, transmit
  and receive speech sounds. It is divided into
  three main branches
• articulatory phonetics is the study of the way
  the vocal organs are used to produce speech
  sounds.
• acoustic phonetics is the study of physical
  properties of speech sounds.
• auditory phonetics is the study of the way people
  perceive speech sounds.

5

• Voiced consonants are produced with the vocal
  cords drawn together, creating a vibration
  effect ???, ???, ???, ???, ???, ???, ???,
  ????.
• Unvoiced consonants are produced with the vocal
  cords spread apart, therefore there is no
  vibration of the vocal cords
• ???, ???, ???, ???, ???, ???, ???.

6
In phonetics consonants are classified
considering

• The place of articulation
• (what part of the mouth we use)
• The manner of articulation
• (how we use this part of the mouth)

7
uvula
pharynx
8
Place of articulation

• Bilabial (both lips) ???,???,???.
• Labio-dental (lower lip and upper teeth) ?f?,?v?.
• Dental (tongue between the teeth) ? ??, ???.
• Alveolar (blade of the tongue close to the
  alveolar ridge) ???,???,???,???,???,???,????,????.
  
• Post-alveolar (tip of the tongue close to just
  behing the alveolar ridge) ???.
• Retroflex (tongue tip curled back to just behind
  the alveolar ridge) ??? for some accents
• Palato alveolar (blade of the tongue close to the
  alveolar ridge) ???,???,????, ????.
• Velar (back of the tongue against the soft
  palate) ???, ???, ???.
• Glottal (using the space between the vocal cords
  to make audible friction) ???

9
Manner of articulation

• Plosive - complete closure of the vocal tract
  ???,???,???,???,???,???.
• Nasal and affricative - complete closure at the
  point of the mouth ???, ???, ???, ????,????.
• Flap - single tap made by the tongue tip against
  the alveolar ridge ??????
• Lateral - closure made by the blade of the tongue
  against the alveolar ridge ???
• Fricative - 2 vocal organs create a friction by
  coming very close ?f?,?v?, /??, ??? ???,???,
  ???,??? ???

10
(No Transcript)
11
The glottal stop

• The glottal stop, represented by the symbol ???,
  occurs when the space between the vocal cords
  (the glottis) is closed completely, very briefly
  and then released.
• Try it by saying Oh oh!
• Typical of urban accents of BrE and GenAm where
  often /t/ between vowels is replaced by a ???in
  words like Peerson (Peterson). (also bottle,
  butter, etc)
• In RP a /t/ is produced as a glottal stop before
  consonats, eccept l, (hot day /???????

12
The flap

• American speakers sometimes pronounce the word
  butter in a way that is closed to budder.
• Many Americans tend to flap the t and d
  consonants between vowels so the following words
  sound the same
• latter and ladder, writer and rider, metal and
  medal, Plato and play dough.

13
The vowel

• There are 5 vowel symbols in written language and
  20 vowel phonemes in most accents of English (12
  single sounds and 8 diphthong sounds).
• In order to write these phonemes extra symbols
  are necessary
• for example ???, ???, ???

14
Vowel properties

• From a phonetic point of view vowels have the
  following features
• the vibration of the vocal cords (they are
  voiced)
• their distintive sounds depend on the shaping of
  the mouth
• no part of the mouth is closed
• none of the mouth organs come so close to
  generate friction.

15
The schwa ???

• Schwa is the most common vowel sound in English,
  the unstressed vowel in many unstressed
  syllables
• like the 'a' in about ????????and sofa ????????
• like the 'e' in taken ?????????and the ???? (if
  before a consonant)
• like the 'i' in pencil ?????????
• like the 'o' in eloquent ?????????? and convince
  ??????????
• like the 'u' in circus ??????????
• like the 'y' in sibyl ????????

16
Types of vowels

• Monophthongs (or pure vowels) are vowels that are
  perceived as single sounds.
• Diphthongs are vowels that are perceived as two
  vowel qualities as in
• time ????, boy????, road????, near????
• Triphthonghs are vowels perceived as three vowel
  qualities as in
• player ???????, fire??????, royal???????

17
(No Transcript)
18
The sound patterns of language

• G. Yule, The Study of Language, chapter 6

19
Phonology

• It is the study of the sound system of a
  language.
• A phoneme is the linguistic utterance of a single
  sound segment. A phoneme is the single sound also
  called segment.
• Phonemes are usually enclosed in slanted brackets
  - / / - Infact these are used when a sound is
  discussed phonologicaly.

20
Phones and allophones

• A phone is a variation of sound.
• When we have a set of phones that are all
  versions of one phoneme we refer to them as
  allophones.
• An allophone is a phonetic variant of a phoneme
  in a particular language.
• Examples (English) 
• p and pH are allophones of the phoneme /p/.
• t and tH are allophones of the phoneme /t/.

21
Examples of allophones

• The sound ??h? in the word why is changing
  gradually into ???. Therefore the sounds of wear
  and where have become the same. (some American
  and British dialects like the Scottish one still
  maintain this distinction, though).

22
Minimal pairs

• When 2 words such as pet and pat are identical in
  form except for a contrast in one phoneme,
  occurring in the same position, the words are
  described as minimal pairs in the phonology of
  English.
• Fan-van, bet-bat, site-side, etc.
• Big-pig-rig-fig-dig-wig is a minimal set.

23
Phonotactics

• Phonotactics is concerned with how sounds are
  distributed or where they can occur in a word
  (beginning, middle, end).

24
syllables

• Sounds are organinized into larger segments
  called syllables.
• One syllable can consist of.
• ????? CVC
• ?????? CCVC
• ??????? CCCVC
• ????????? consists of 2 syllables (CCV-CVC)
• A syllable has to have a vowel and could consist
  of just one vowel.

25
Consonant clusters

• A consonant cluster is a set of more than one
  consonant meeting in a syllable.
• In syllables with 3 initial consonants the 1 one
  is usually an unvoiced sibilant ??? like in
  ??????? spread, /?????? spring, ????????
  stretch.
• ??? cannot occur in 2 place in an initial
  cluster. E.g. we have ??????? spike but ????????
  psyche
• whenever several consonats occur together at the
  end of a word then the last one is frequently
  left out especially when the following word
  begins with a consonant. e.g. West Side /wesaid/.

26
Co-articulation

• The process of producing one sound almost at the
  same time as the next is called co-articulation.
  Co-articulation effects can be of the following
  types
• Assimilation when the pronunciation of one sound
  becomes similar to the one of the following sound
  we have assimilation between the sounds. e.g.
  have to (must) /?????? where the /v/ of have has
  become /f/ due to the influence of /t/.
• Elision In the case of preceding and following
  nasals, the ?d? sound in you and me, amd
  friendship has disappeared.

27
Morphophonemic alternations

• When we consider the inflections s (third person
  singular) and ed (past form) we call
  morphophonemic alternations the different
  pronunciations they can have, according to
  different word spelling.
• Pronunciation of s /-??/ when the word ends in
  a fricative /?,?,?,?,??,??/ like bushes /??????
  /-z/ when the word ends in lenis or vowels like
  boys /????? /-s/ when it ends in any fortis or
  voiceless phoneme like bikes /?????/

28
Morphophonemic alternations

• The morpheme d is realised as
• /-??/ when the word ends in /t, d/ e.g. wanted
  /???????, hated /???????
• /-d/ when the word ends in any lenis or voiced
  phoneme. e.g. allowed /??????
• /-s/ when it ends in any fortis or voiceless
  phoneme. e.g. licked /?????.

29
Morphophonemic alternations

• Words of Latin origin ending in the sound /-ik/
  (e.g. public, historic, etc) change the final
  sound from /k/ to /s/ when a suffix with i or e
  is added.
• Publicity, historicity, etc.