Chapter 2
Phonetics
Phonetics: the study of the speech sounds that occur in all
human languages to represent meanings
I.
Sound Segment
A.
Speech utterances can be segmented into
individual units.
B. According to an ancient Hindu myth, Indra may
be the first phonetician.
C. We do not pause between words even though we
sometimes have that illusion.
Example 1: The two-year-old child of one of the
authors of this book says the sentence “I’m
holding on” as “I’m holding down”.
Example 2: “A napron” became “an apron”.
D. If you have a language you have no difficulty
segmenting the continuous sounds.
II.
Identity of Speech Sounds
A. Our linguistic knowledge our mental
grammar, makes it possible to ignore
nonlinguistic differences in speech. We are
capable of making many sounds that
intuitively we know are no speech sounds in
our language.
Example: The clicking sounds like “tsk” are not
part of English sound system, but they are
speech sounds of the languages spoken in the
southern Africa.
B. The process by which we use our
linguistic knowledge to produce a
meaningful utterance is a very
complicated one.
C. 1.Acoustic phonetics: the study of the
physical properties sound themselves
2.Auditory phonetics: the study of the
way listeners perceive the speech
sounds
3.Articulatory phonetics: the study of
how the vocal tract produces the
sounds of language
III. Spelling and Speech
A. The sounds in a language often are
represented by spelling rather
unsystematically.
B. The Phonetic Alphabet
The discrepancy between spelling and
sounds gave rise to a movement of
“spelling reformers” called orthoepists.
They wanted revise the alphabet so that
one letter would correspond to one
sound and one sound to one letter.
C. The efforts and contribution of George
Bernard Shaw to the phonetic alphabet.
D. In 1888 the interest in the scientific
description of speech sounds led the
International Phonetic Association (IPA) to
develop a phonetic alphabet to symbolize
the sounds found in all languages.
E. A phonetic alphabet should include enough
symbols to represent “crucial” linguistic
differences. At the same time it should not,
and cannot, include noncrucial differences.
Articulatory Phonetics
I. Airstream Mechanisms
A.pulmonic sounds: speech sounds are
produced by pushing lung are out of the
body through the mouth and sometimes
through the nose. Lung air is used.
B. egressive sounds: the air is pushed out.
C. implosives sounds: the air is sucked in
instead of flowing out; produced by a
glottalic airstream mechanism. ( occur in
the languages of the American Indians
and throughout Africa, India, and Pakistan.)
D. clicks sounds: the air is sucked in;
produced by a velaric airstream
mechanism.( occur in the Southern
Babtu languages.)
E. ejectives sounds: the air in the mouth
is pushed out produced by a glottalic
airstream mechanism. ( found in many
American Indian as well as African
and Caucasian languages.)
II. Voiced and Voiceless Sounds
A.
B.
voiceless: the vocal cords are apart, the airstream
is not obstructee at the glottis and it passes
freely into the supraglottal cavities.
voiced: the vocal cords are together, the
airstream forces its way through and causes
them to vibrate.
C. The voiced/voiceless distinction is a very
important one in English. It is this phonetic
feature or property that distinguishes between
word pairs:
rope/robe
fate/fade
rack/rag
III. Nasal and Oral Sounds
A. oral sounds: the velum is raised all the way
to touch the back of the throat the passage
through the nose is cut off; the nasal passage
is blocked in this way, the air can escape only
through the mouth.
B. nasal sounds: the velum is lowered, air escapes
through the nose as well as the mouth
C. The phonetic features or properties permit the
classification of all speech sounds into four
classes: voiced, voiceless, nasal, oral.
One sound may belong to more than one class.
IV.
A.
Places of Articulation
Labials
1. bilabials: [p], [b],[m] are articulated by bringing
both lips together.
2. labiodental: [f],[v] are articulated by touching the
bottom lip to the upper teeth.
B. Interdentals: the th in the words thin and then, the
tip
of the tongue is inserted between the upper and
lower teeth.
C. Alveolars: to articulate a [d], [n], [t], [s],or [z], the
tongue is aised to the bony tooth ridge; [t] and [s]
are voiceless alveolar sounds, [d] and [z] are voiced,
D.
Velars: produced by raising the back of the tongue
to the soft palate or velum, as the initial and final
sounds of the words kick, gig, and the final sounds
of the words back, bag, and bang.
E.
Palatals: the front part of the tongue is raised to a
point on the hard palate just behind the alveolar
ridge, as the voiceless patatal sound begins the
words shoe, sure and ends the words rush, push.
F.
Coronals: the alveolar and palatal sounds are
grouped together as coronal, sharing the common
property of being articulated by raising the tongue
blade toward the hard palate.
Manners of Articulation
The voiced/voiceless and oral/nasal
features do not refer to the movement or
position of the tongue, teeth, or lips. Rather
they reflect the way the airstream is affected
as it travels from the lungs up and out of the
mouth and nose. Such features or phonetic
properties have traditionally been referred to
as manners of articulation or simply manner
features.
I. Stops and Continuants
Sounds that are stopped completely in the oral
cavity for a brief period are called stops, and the
stream of air continues without complete
interruption through the mouth opening are called
continuants.
[p],[b],[m]--are bilabial stops, with the airstream
stopped at the mouth by the complete
closure of the lips.
[t],[d],[n]—are alveolar stops; the airstream is
stopped by the tongue making a
complete closure at the alveolar ridge
[k],[g],[]--are velar stops with the complete closure
at the velum.
II.
Aspirated and Unaspirated Sounds
In English when we pronounce the word pit, there
is a brief period of voicelessness immediately after
the [p] sound is released. That is, after the lips come
apart the vocal cords remain open for a very short
time. Such sounds are called aspirated because an
extra puff of air is produced. When we pronounce the
[p] in spit, however, the vocal cords start vibrating as
soon as the lips are opened. Such sounds are called
unaspirated.
Aspirated sounds are indicated by following the
phonetic symbol with a raised H as in the following
examples:
pate
[ph et]
spate
[spet]
tale
[th el]
stale
[stel]
kale
[kh el]
scal
[skel]
III. Fricatives
If you put your hand in front of your mouth
and produce an [s],[z],[f],[v],[],[],[š],or[ž]sound,
you will feel the air coming out of your mouth. The
passage in the mouth through which the air must
pass is very narrow, causing friction. Such sounds
are called fricatives.
[f] [v] --labiodental fricatives
[s] [z] --alveolar fricatives
[š] [ž] --palatal fricatives
[] [] -- interdental fricatives
IV. Affricates
Some sounds are produced by a stop
closure followed immediately by a slow
release of the closure characteristic of a
fricative. These sounds are called affricates.
[tš] =[t]=[š]
[dž]=[d]=[ž]
V. Liquids
In the production of the sounds [l] and [r], there
is some obstruction of the airstream in the mouth, but
not enough to cause any real constriction or friction.
These sounds are called liquids.
[l] is a lateral liquid, the tongue is raised to the
alveolar ridge, but the sides of the tongue are down
permitting the air to escape laterally over the sides of
the tongue.
[r] is produced in a variety of ways. Many
English speakers produce [r] by curling the tip of the
tongue back behind the alveolar ridge. Such sounds
are called retroflex sounds.
VI. Glides
In articulating [j] or [w], the tongue
moves rapidly in gliding fashion either
toward or away from a neighboring vowel,
hence the term glide.
[j]-- palatal glide
[w]--labio-velar glide
[h]-- glide, somtimes classified as a
voiceless glottal fricative.
VOWELS
When we pronounce vowels our oral cavities are
open without any contact points and the airstream flows
out freely. As for the quality of vowels, it’s determined
by our tongues raised or lowered and our lips spread or
pursed. Vowels aren’t like consonants.--they carry pitch
and loudness and can be pronounced alone. In addition,
for many of the beginning students, it’s more difficult to
distinguish their articulatory features from each other
by many different schemes.
Because vowels are produced without any
articulators touching or even coming close together.
The writer said “ Only when you watch an x-ray
movie of someone’s talking you’ll find why vowels
have traditionally been classified.” According to
what he watched in such a movie, he put three
questions:
1. How high is the tongue?
2. What part of the tongue is involved; that is ,
what part is raised or lowered?
3. What is the position of the lips?
And then he discussed the distinguishing
features and others, such as diphthongs and
nasalization below.
(I) Tongue positions
We can exam how vowels are produced with some parts of the
relative not absolute.
front
(Height)
High
Back
Rounded
/u/ (boot)
(beet)/i/
(bit)//
/U/ (put)
(bait)/e/
/o/ (boat)
(Rosa) //
(butt) //
(bet) //
Low
(bat)/æ/
// (bore)
// (bah)
Front vowels
/i/
a high front vowel
/I/ a lower-high front vowel
/e/
a higher-mid front vowel
Back vowels
/u/ a high back vowel
/U/ a lower-high back vowel
/o/ a higher-mid back vowel
//
a lower-mid front vowel
//
a lower-mid back vowel
/æ/
a low front vowel
//
a low back vowel
Schwa vowels
// a unstressed mid-central vowel
// a stressed mid-central vowel
(II) Lip rounding
All the back English vowels are
pronounced with the lips rounded or pursed
except //. On the contrary, non-back vowels
are unrounded. However, it’s not true of all
languages. French and Swedish languages
have front- and back-rounded vowels.
Mandarin, Japanese and the Cameroonian
languages have high back unrounded vowels.
EX. 中文一字[四]的發音含有類似英文
boot 的母音但唇形卻是non-rounded spread
lips;而[速]則是high back-rounded lips.
(III) Diphthongs
They are described as a sequence of
two sounds—vowel + glide.
EX. bite aj  a vowel + j glide
rye
bout aw  a vowel + w glide
brow
boy  j   vowel + j glide
soil
(VI) Nasalization Of Vowels
In English, nasal vowels occur before or
after nasal consonants.
(eg.Hint hint, bean bin, camp kmp,
bone brn ) However, the languages like
Southern Min, nasalized vowels may occur
when no nasal consonant is adjacent.
EX: pi ” compare ”
pĩ ” not round ”
PROSODIC SUPRASEGMENTAL
FEATURES
Such features as length, pitch, and the
complex feature stress and how they are used
in various languages to distinguish the
meaning of words and sentences are often
referred as prosodic or suprasegmental
features.
1. Long vowels in English are produced with
greater tension of the tongue muscles than
their short counterparts and therefore also
referred to as tense vowels.
2. In some languages there are vowels and
/or consonants that differ phonetically from
each other only by duration , Therefore, it is
customary to transcribe this difference either
by doubling the symbol or by the use of a
diacritic “ colon” after the segment, as for
example [aa] or [a:]. [bb] or [b:]/
3. What are tone languages ? Give one example.
Languages that use the pitch of individual
vowels or syllables to contrast meanings of
words are called tone languages. Take one
word in Nupe
(a language spoke in Nigeria) for example.
[naa] [‵] L low tone “ a nickname “
[naa] [ - ] M mid tone “ rice paddy “
[naa] [′] H high tone “ young maternal
uncle or aunt “
[naa] [ ^ ] HL falling tone “ face ”
[naa] [  ] LH rising tone “ thick ”
4. What is contour tones ? And register tones ?
Which tone of the language belongs to the
contour tones ?
Tones that “ glide “ are called contour tones;
tones that do not are called level or register
tones. The contour tones of Thai are
represented by using for a falling tone a high
tone followed by a low tone, and a rising tone is
a low followed by a high.
NOTE : In a tone language it is not the absolute
pitch of the syllables that is important but
the relations among the pitches of
different syllables.
5. What are downdrift languages ?
The lowering of the pitch is called
downdrift.Many tone languages in Africa are
downdrift languages.—high tone is lower in
pitch than the preceding similarly marked tone.
Therefore, whether the tone is “ high “ or
“ low “ in relation to the other pitches, but not
the specific pitch of that tone.
6. Let’s read the following sentence in Twi,
we’ll find the relative pitch, rather than the
absolute pitch, important.
“ Kofi searches for a little food for his friend’s
child. “
h

LH

L
ádu
h
  
H H L
á
k
 
L HL

LHL
m

L

H
7
6
h
á
5
4
3
k
á
h
du
2
1
7.
m
Languages that are not tone languages, such as English, are
called intonation languages.
DIACRITICS
Diacritic marks on vowel nasalization,
prosodic features, and tone can be used to
modify the basic phonetic symbols. ( see
p.207 - at the upper part of the page )
Phonetics is the science of speech sounds.
It aims to provide the set of features or
properties that can be used to describe and
distinguish all the sounds used in human.
The discrepancy between spelling and
sounds in English and other languages
motivated the development of phonetic
alphabets in which one letter corresponds to
one sound The major phonetic alphabet in use
is that of the International Phonetic
Association (IPA).
All human speech sounds fall into classes according
to their phonetic properties of features. During the
production of voiced sounds the vocal cords are
together and vibrating whereas in voiceless sounds the
vocal cords or glottis is open and non-vibrating.
Voiceless sounds may also be aspirated or unaspirated.
Classes of sounds which differ according to their
manner of articulation also include oral and nasal
sounds, continuants or stops. Non-sonorant continuants
are fricatives; the class of sonorant continuants include,
vowels, glides, and liquids.
Vowels form the nucleus of syllables and are
therefore syllabic. They differ according to the position
of the tongue and lips: high, mid, or low tongue; front
or back of the tongue; rounded or unrounded lips.
Length pitch and loudness are prosodic or
suprasegmental features which also differentiate
sounds. The vowels in English may be long or short,
stressed or untressed. In many languages the pitch of
the vowel or syllable is linguistically significant in
distinguishing the meaning of words. Such language
are called tone languages as opposed to intonation
languages in which pitch is never used to contrast
words.
Diacritics to specify such properties as
nasalization, length, voicelessness, syllabicity, stress,
tone, or rounding may be combined with the phonetic
symbols for more detailed phonetic transcriptions.