Phonetics and Phonology Phonetics and Phonology

Prepared by Zhian Fadhil Asaad

What is ArticulationWhat is Articulation??

• Is the general term in Phonetics for the physiological movement involved in modifying an airflow to produce the various types of speech sounds, using the Vocal Tract above the Larynx.

• In phonetics and phonology, articulation is the movement of the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs (the articulators) in order to make speech sounds.

Sounds are classified in terms of their Place and Manner of Articulation in the vocal apparatus (the articulatory apparatus).

Types of ArticulationTypes of Articulation::

• Several types of Articulation can be distinguished. Most sounds are produced with a single point of articulation.

Sounds may be produced involving:• Two points of articulation (Co articulation) in which case two

articulatory possibilities emerge( the two points of articulation both contribute equally to the identity of the sound (double articulation or co ordinate co articulation)).

• One point of articulation may be the dominate one (the primary (co) articulation, the other having a lesser degree of stricture (the secondary (co) articulation). examples of secondary articulation are: PALATALIZATION, VELARIZATION,FARYNGEALIZATION AND LABIALIZATION .

(David Crystal.2003,p:33-34)

Human vocal tractHuman vocal tract

The places of articulation used in English The places of articulation used in English areare::

• Bilabial: Both lips come together, as in p, b or m.

• Labiodentals: Lower lip contacts upper teeth, as in f or v.

• Dental: Tongue tip or tongue blade (part just behind the tip) contacts upper teeth, as in the two th sounds (e.g.. thin vs.. this).

• Alveolar: Tongue tip contacts the alveolar ridge (the gums just behind the teeth), as in t, d, n, or l; or tongue blade contacts the alveolar ridge, as in s or z.

• Post alveolar: Tongue blade contacts the post alveolar region behind the alveolar ridge, as in sh, ch, zh, or j; or tongue tip contacts the post alveolar region, as in r.

• Palatal: Middle of tongue approaches or contacts the hard palate, as in y.

• Labiovelar: Back of tongue approaches the soft palate and lips also come close to each other, as in w

• Laryngeal: No obstruction anywhere but in the vocal cords down in the throat, as in h.

• The place of articulation is clearest for consonants, where there is generally a significant amount of obstruction. For vowels, part of the tongue moves closer to the roof of the mouth, but there is still enough of a gap that it is difficult to precisely specify the location of maximum obstruction. As a result, vowels are normally described by height and front ness of the tongue (as well as amount of rounding of the lips) rather than by a specific place of articulation.

• Velar: Back of tongue contacts the soft palate (or "velum"), as in k, g or ng.

Places of articulation passive & active1. Exo-labial, 2. Endo-labial, 3. Dental, 4. Alveolar, 5. Post-alveolar, 6. Pre-palatal, 7. Palatal, 8. Velar, 9. Uvular, 10. Pharyngeal, 11. Glottal, 12. Epiglottal, 13. Radical, 14. Postero-dorsal, 15. Antero-dorsal, 16. Laminal, 17. Apical, 18. Sub-apical

Manner of articulationManner of articulation"Manner of articulation" refers in general to

characteristics of the speech organs other than the location of the obstructions). describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound. There are multiple parameters involved here, and different types of each. The manners of articulation used in English are:

• 1. Degree of stricture: How much blockage occurs at the primary articulation (the place of greatest obstruction). The types in English are:

• Stop: Complete blockage followed by sudden release, as in t, d, p, b, k, g. The blockage of air causes air pressure to build up; when released, the air bursts out, giving these sounds their characteristic sharp quality.

• Fricative: Incomplete blockage but still close enough to cause significant airflow turbulence, as in f, v, s, z, sh, zh and both th sounds. The turbulence causes the characteristic noisiness of fricatives.

• Affricate: Complete blockage followed by a gradual release, resulting in a combination of stop + fricative, as in ch and j.

• Approximant: Incomplete blockage and far enough apart that airflow is smooth, as in r, y, w, and h.

• 2. Alternative air flow: The air travels a path other than down the center of the mouth:

• Nasal: Complete blockage of air out the mouth but air can freely flow out the nose, as in m, n, ng.

• Lateral: Complete blockage of air by the center of the tongue but air can flow out the sides of the tongue, as in l.

• 3. Dynamic movement of the tongue:• Flap: Very brief complete blockage of air, in a way

that doesn't cause any pressure buildup or release burst, as in the American English pronunciation of t and d between vowels.

• Trill: Multiple brief complete blockages in a row, caused by the active articulator (e.g. the tongue) vibrating. A trilled r is well known in Spanish and also occurs as the normal pronunciation of r by some Scottish English speakers.

• Approximants, nasals, laterals, flaps, and trills are often grouped together as sonorant or resonates (which also includes vowels); all of them have in common the fact that there is smooth airflow throughout the consonant, and they are nearly always voiced 

Manner of articulation

What is The International What is The International Phonetic AlphabetPhonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet . It was devised by the International Phonetic Association as a standardized representation of the sounds of oral language. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, linguists, Speech-Language Pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators, and translators.

IPA is designed toIPA is designed to::

•Represent only those qualities of speech that are distinctive in oral language: phonemes, intonations,and separation of words and syllables.

•Represent additional qualities of speech such as tooth gnashing, lisping, and sounds made with a cleft palate, an extended set of symbols called the Extensions to the IPA may be used .

• IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two basic types, letters and diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter t may be transcribed ⟨ ⟩in IPA with a single letter, [t], or with a letter plus diacritics, [tF ʰ], depending on how precise one wishes to be. Often, slashes are used to signal broad or phonemic transcription; thus, /t/ is less specific than, and could refer to, either [tF ʰ] or [t] depending on the context and language.

The general principle of the IPA : is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound speech segment )although this practice is not followed if the sound itself is complex).This means that it does not normally use combinations of letters to represent single sounds, the way English does with sh , th and ng , or ⟨ ⟩ ⟨ ⟩ ⟨ ⟩single letters to represent multiple sounds the way x ⟨ ⟩represents /ks/ or /ɡz/ in English. There are no letters that have context-dependent sound values, as c does in ⟨ ⟩English and several other European languages, and finally, the IPA does not usually have separate letters for two sounds if no known language makes a distinction between them, a property known as "selectiveness.Among the symbols of the IPA, 107 letters represent consonants and vowels, 31diacritics are used to modify these, and 19 additional signs indicate suprasegmentl qualities such as length, tone, stress, and intonation.www.en.wikipedia.org/.../International_ Phonetic_Alphabe

The Production of Speech SoundThe Production of Speech Sound

How can we produce speech? It must be said that speech does not start in the lungs. It starts in the brain and it is, then, studied by Psycholinguistics. After the creation of the message and the lexico-grammatical structure in our mind, we need a representation of the sound sequence and a number of commands which will be executed by our speech organs to produce the utterance. So, we need a phonetic plan of and a motor plan (Belinchón, Igoay Rivière, 1994: 590) After this metal operations we come to the physical production of sounds. Speech, then, is produced by an air stream from the lungs, which goes through the trachea and the oral and nasal cavities.

It involves four processes: Initiation,

phonation, oro-nasal process and articulation.

The initiation process is the moment when the air is expelled from the lungs. In English, speech sounds are the result of “a pulmonic egressive air stream”. (Giegerich, 1992) although that is not the case in all languages

ingressive sounds). The phonation process occurs at the larynx. The larynx has two horizontal folds of tissue in the passage of air; they are the vocal folds. The gap between these folds is called the glottis.

The glottis can be closed, Then, no air can pass,or it can have a narrow opening which can make the vocal folds vibrate producing the “voiced sounds”. Finally, it can be wide open, as in normal breathing, and, thus, the vibration of the vocal folds is reduced, producing the “voiceless sounds”. After it has gone through the larynx and the pharynx, the air can go into the nasal or the oral cavity. The velum is the part responsible for that selection, Through the oro-nasal process we can differentiate between the nasal consonants (/m/, /n/, / ŋ/) and other sounds.

Finally, the articulation process is the most obvious one: it takes place in the mouth and it is the process through which we can differentiate most speech sounds. In the mouth we can distinguish between the oral cavity, which acts as a resonator, and the articulators, which can be active or passive: upper and lower lips, upper and lower teeth, tongue (tip, blade, front, back) and roof of the mouth (alveolar ridge, palate and velum). So, speech sounds are distinguished from one another in terms of the place where and the manner how they are articulated.(Fernando Trujillo, English Phonetics and Phonology)

Vowel and ConsonantVowel and Consonant Vowels are sounds in which there is no obstruction to the flow of air as it passes from the larynx to the lip.It is a sound in which there is a continuous vibration of the vocal cords and the air stream is allowed to escape from the mouth in an unobstructed manner, without any interruption.The International Phonetic Alphabet identifies seven different vowel heights:•close vowel (high vowel)•near-close vowel•close-mid vowel•mid vowel•open-mid vowel•near-open vowel•open vowel (low vowel)

How do we distinguish the different vowelsounds?Vowel sounds can be distinguished from each other by WHICH PART of the tongue is involved (front, central, back) and by HOW HIGH the tongue is when the sound is produced (high, mid, low)

IPA Symbols for vowel phonemesIPA Symbols for vowel phonemes

i: /bi:/ bee I /bIt/ bit e /pen/ pen

ʌ /bʌs/ bus æ /mæn/ man

Ɔ /pƆt/ pot Ɔ: /spƆ:t/ sport u /ful/ full

U: /nU:n/ noon a: /ka:/ car ə /əbaut/ about

З: /bЗ:d/ bird aI /baI/ buy aU /kaU/ cow

eI /peI/ pay eə /heə/ hair Iə /fIə/ fear

əU /rəUd/ road ƆI /bƆI/ boy Uə /pUə/ poor

Semi VowelSemi Vowel

In phonetics and  phonology: a semivowel (or glide) is a sound, such as English /w/ or /j/, that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Semivowels, by definition, contrast with vowels by being non-syllabic. In addition, they are usually shorter than vowels.

ConsonantConsonant

"A consonant is a sound made by a partial or complete closure of the vocal tract." There are 21 consonant letters in the written alphabet (B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y, Z), and there are 24 consonant sounds in most English accents. . . . Because of the erratic history of English spelling there is no neat one-to-one correlation between letters and sounds.")David Crystal,2003)In a phonetic description, “we distinguish vowels from consonants in terms of how they are articulated in the vocal tract, and the associated patterns of acoustic energy”.(David Crystal, 2006)

References References

• (David Crystal.2003,A Dictionary of Linguistics & Phonetics,5th ed., UK, Blackwell.• David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press, 2003• (David Crystal, How Language Works. Overlook Press, 2006) •Peter Roach,2000,English Phonetics and Phonology, 3rd ed, UK, Cambridge.

•en.wikipedia.org/.../International_ Phonetic_Alphabe.

•Fernando Trujillo, English Phonetics and Phonology)