Introduction to General Linguistics
Hubert Truckenbrodt
Phonology 1:
Consonants: Articulation and transcription
Important things you will learn in this section:
• A first idea about what phonology and phonetics are about.
• Important elements of our internal biological arrangement that we use in articulation.
• How the consonants of English and German are articulated.
• How the consonants of English and German are transcribed.
1 Orientation
Remember that the writing system is viewed as secondary in cognitive linguistics, and that spoken
language is our primary competence of our mother language. Languages work very well without a
writing system, and there are still many languages today that do not have a writing system. Dialects,
also, are seen as languages that are just a little bit different from other linguistic systems, often
allowing mutual understanding. Dialects, too, often don't have a writing system, but are systems of
communication that work just as well as any written language for the purposes of oral exchange.
Phonetics and phonology are both about the pronunciation of spoken language. Phonology
studies the sound systems of individual languages. It also compares these across languages, to arrive
at theories about universal aspects of language that are then seen as part of universal grammar, our
innate linguistic competence. These universals provide the frame for those aspects of individual
languages that are learned as part of our linguistic competence.
phonology [G. Phonologie]: the study of the sound systems of languages, and of the general or
universal properties displayed by these systems.
Notice that language, if we think of it as a cognitive ability of native speakers, connects in two ways
to the real world. One of these concerns the message conveyed: We saw in semantics that we typically
(though not always) speak about things in the real world. So the message we convey is about the real
world. Another connection to the real world, however, comes from the code in which we convey our
messages: When we pronounce a word or sentence, of course we pronounce this in the real world (in
the obvious sense that our pronunciation is a real event, taking place in the same real world). Our
pronunciation is transmitted through the air by making the air vibrate in certain ways. These
vibrations in the air travel from someone speaking to someone listening. The listener in turn receives
these vibrations of the air in her ear, processes them further from there, and recovers the message
from them that the speaker intends to convey. These events also take place in the real world. They are
shown in the following picture, which also includes a feedback link by which the speaker monitors
her own pronunciation.
p. 1, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
From:
Denes/Pinson:
"The speech
chain.", p.5.
These are the aspects of the pronunciation that phonetics in concerned with.
phonetics [G. Phonetik]: the study of the physical and physiological aspects of human sound
production and perception; generally divided into articulatory, acoustic, and auditory
branches.
Phonetics is generally divided into three branches, corresponding to three important aspects of this
picture.
Articulatory phonetics is the study of how the speech sounds are produced, or articulated, by
the vocal organs of the human anatomy. Phoneticians have created many experimental techniques for
studying this. These include things like plastic palates with electrodes in the mouth of test persons,
with cables out of the mouth etc., to find out where the tongue makes contact with the roof of the
mouth during articulation; or a little hose with a tiny video-camera in front, inserted through the nose
of a speaker, to film what happens further inside (in the larynx) during pronunciation. Even if we
don't do any of these things at the SfS in Tübingen, it may be good to know that high ethical standards
are usually applied when such techniques are applied to test persons.
Acoustic phonetics is the study of how the information generated by the articulation is present
in the vibrations of the air that transmits them: the sound waves. This is usually done with computer
programs that analyze these properties. These programs extract information from the sound waves in
ways that is generally comparable to the way our ear extracts this information when we listen to
language. The computer programs visualize these properties on a screen, and allow phoneticians to
measure them. This is useful for studying properties of the articulation, which are often very precisely
reflected in these properties of the vibrating air. It is also useful for understanding how the listener
perceives language, since these air vibrations/sound waves are the input to the perception process.
Auditory phonetics, or perceptual phonetics, is the study of how the listener recovers the
speech sounds and the words from the sound waves that reach the ear of the listener. Beyond the first
processing in the ear, the further processing is neurological (related to electric impulses in the nerves)
and much of it is in the brain. (So it's useful that our ears are attached to our head, rather than, say, to
our feet :). There are now more and more studies that have some success in studying aspects of this
neurological processing with techniques that pick up reflexes of these electrical impulses from outside
of the head (neurolinguistics). However, a large part of what we know about human speech perception
comes from experiments that present artificially generated, and controlled, sounds (sound waves) to
the ear of test persons, and that then ask the test persons what they perceive. These are perception
experiments. An important result of such studies is that speech perception does not directly recover
such information as 'this is the sound [a], and this is the sound [n]'. Instead, the process seems to
involve recovering the articulatory movements that gave rise to the signal that is processed. This
information is then used to identify the sounds and words that have given rise to the signal.
p. 2, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
articulatory phonetics [G. artikulatorische Phonetik]: the study of how the speech sounds are
made ('articulated') by the vocal organs.
acoustic phonetics [G. akustische Phonetik]: the study of the physical properties of speech sound,
as transmitted between mouth and ear; usually conducted with the help of computer programs
that analyze speech recordings and visualize their properties.
auditory phonetics, also perceptual phonetics [G. auditive Phonetik]: the study of the perceptual
responses to speech sounds, as mediated by ear, auditory nerve, and brain.
In this class, the phonetics we will be doing is limited to basic aspects of the articulation.
In this section, we begin with the articulation of consonants. Consonants are defined in
linguistics as those speech sounds that are produced with a significant constriction of the airflow in
the oral tract. For example, when you say a [p], your two lips come together to form such a
constriction. Try this now. On the other hand, when you form a vowel like [u], your lips and your
tongue are positioned in a particular way, but the air comes out freely from your mouth. Try this also.
Thus, there is no significant obstruction of the airflow in the case of the vowel [u].
consonant [G. Konsonant]: speech sound produced with a significant constriction of the airflow in
the oral tract.
vowel [G. Vokal]: speech sound produced without a significant constriction of the airflow in the oral
cavity.
As you learn about the articulation of different consonant sounds, it will be useful to learn, at
the same time, about a writing system for sounds. Writing sounds is also called transcribing, or
making a transcription. For example, in the word 'thing', the first two letters 'th' of the writing
correspond to only a single sound. We write this sound as [T]. Similarly, the last two letters of the
orthography (= writing) of 'thing', namely 'ng', are also just a single sound. This sound is written as
[N]. The full transcription of 'thing' is [TIN]. The transcription of the word 'thief', on the other hand, is
[Tif]. You can see two different symbols for 'i(e)' used in the transcriptions of these two words. They
correspond to two similar, but nevertheless distinct vowels of English. It is important to keep these
two 'i'-sounds apart, since the little distinction between them can distinguish words. For example, 'eel'
is pronounced [il], while 'ill' is pronounced [Il]. Despite the writing, the [l] at the end of the two
words has the same length in the pronunciation. The difference is with the quality (and length) of the
'i'-sound in the two cases. These examples are intended to show you that it is useful to have a system
for recording the exact pronunciation, as a tool for theories about sounds in phonetics and in
phonology.
transcription [G. Lautschrift, Transkription, phonetische Umschrift]: A method of writing down the
pronunciation of a speech sound, word or utterance in a systematic and consistent way.
You may know transcriptions from when you learned a foreign language, and/or from using
dictionaries that include the pronunciation of the words with each entry.
2 The vocal tract
In this section, you will learn to understand some of our internal anatomy that is crucial for the
production of speech, and some first aspects of this production. You will also learn some terminology
in this connection.
During articulation, the lungs produce a steady level of air pressure pushing outward. When
we speak, we produce the sounds using the outward flow of air that results from this constant
pressure. Try saying a long sentence without taking a breath. You will see that you can go a while
before you need to breath again. Compare this with normal breathing out: it is very fast by
comparison. You can also try to breathe out very slowly, perhaps so slowly that it takes you as long as
p. 3, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
saying the long sentence. You will see that this is not easy. Our lungs do a 'special thing' when
providing air for speaking, quite different from when we breathe normally.
Where does the air go when it comes up from the lungs?
Let us try the following thought-experiment, with an hypothetical human design that is not
the way we are built, but helpful for understanding the way we are built. In our face, we have a
mouth, and a nose. The mouth is made with teeth for chewing food, and with a tongue to push the
food around during chewing. The nose is good for breathing, as the air is filtered in the nasal cavity.
In our upper body, we have a stomach and a lunge. So, the hypothetical design I want you to consider
simply takes these parts and connects them in a simple way: The mouth is directly connected by a
pipe to the stomach. This is the path of the food we eat. The nose is directly connected by a pipe to the
lungs. This is the path for the air we breathe.
It is easy to see why this hypothetical design cannot be the way we are built. Most
importantly, we can breathe not only through the nose, but also through the mouth. If we were like the
hypothetical design, we might die if we had a cold and our nose is clogged: we could not breathe
through the mouth instead. In the hypothetical design, we could also not speak. The sounds we
produce crucially depend on the maneuvers of the tongue and lips in our mouth, and on the fact that
we perform them over the outgoing stream of air that comes from the lungs. But if the lungs were
connected to the nose only, this would not be possible.
In the actual human design, the way we are really built, there is a pipe that leads to the lungs,
called trachea [G. Luftröhre], and a pipe that leads to the stomach, called esophagus [G.
Speiseröhre]. We can learn from the result of our thought experiment that the trachea must somehow
connect to both mouth and nose, because we can breathe through either mouth or nose. But since we
can then both breathe and eat through the mouth, the mouth must be connected both to the trachea (to
the lungs, for breathing) and to the esophagus (to the stomach, for eating). So trachea and esophagus
must come together where they reach the mouth or (the way it really is:) before they reach the mouth.
The way we are really built is shown in Figure 2. Take a moment to find the trachea and the
esophagus. Then identify the point where they come together. This is in the neck, at the height where
the 'Adam's apple' is at the front of the neck. We will see shortly that this point (at which these two
channels come together) is quite important in the process of speech articulation. For now, however,
notice that there is also a point at which the channel through the mouth, and the channel through the
nose, are separated. This is at the point of the 'soft palate' in Figure 2. Air which comes up from the
lungs and moves 'leftward' at that point will flow out of the mouth, and air that moves 'upward' at that
point will flow through the nose. This point, and the soft palate, are also important in the articulation
of sounds, as we will see shortly.
p. 4, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
Figure 2
From:
Denes/Pinson: "The speech
chain.", p.49
Before considering the role of these parts in articulation, I want you to learn some more about the
internal space we are talking about.
First, the Adam's apple at the front of the neck is the front part of the larynx [G. Kehlkopf].
This front part of the larynx sticks out of the neck most noticeably with adult men, though many
people can feel it with their fingers. Try this now. In Figure 2, you can see an arrow pointing to the
thyroid cartilage. This is the cartilage that sticks out and forms the Adam's apple; you can also see the
cricoid cartilage (below) and the arytenoid cartilage (behind the thyroid). These together are the
cartilages that form the larynx (together with lots of muscles and other soft tissue connecting them).
[Cartilage is the kind or material your ears are made of [G. Knorpel]]. The larynx is a construction
that sits on top of the trachea. It looks a bit complicated in Figure 2 (and is a lot more complicated in
reality). To begin with, it is enough to know that the larynx is what we feel as the Adam's apple, and
that it sits on top of the trachea, where the air comes up from the lungs.
The whole of the air passages above the larynx is called the vocal tract. It is divided into the
nasal tract (the air passage above the soft palate, within the nose), and the oral tract (the remaining
air passage between larynx and lips).
vocal tract [G. Ansatzrohr, Vokaltrakt]: the whole of the air passage above the larynx; it can be
divided into nasal tract (the air passage above the soft palate, within the nose), and oral tract
(the mouth and pharyngeal areas).
An additional distinction is often made in terms of cavities. [Notice that cavity is a polysemous word
in English: it refers to a hole in a tooth, but also more generally to a hollow space, as in its use here.]
The oral tract can be divided into the oral cavity (the area of the mouth) and the pharyngeal cavity
p. 5, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
(upward from the larynx to where the nasal tract begins). The pharynx is the tubular cavity which
constitutes the throat above the larynx. The nasal tract is also called nasal cavity.
pharynx [G. Rachenraum, Pharynx]: the tubular cavity which constitutes the throat above the larynx.
[G. Der schlauchförmige Hohlraum, der den Rachen oberhalb des Kehlkopfes ausmacht.]
The following little picture may help you keep the terminology of tracts and cavities straight. To
repeat: the vocal tract (which is the space for airflow above the larynx) consists of the oral tract and
the nasal tract. The oral tract, in turn, consists of the oral cavity and the pharyngeal cavity. With this
little picture, you may want to go back to Figure 2 and make sure you can approximately identify each
tract and each cavity.
Terminology: the space above the larynx:
vocal tract
5
oral tract
4
oral cavity
(mouth area)
|
pharyngeal cavity
(pharynx, up to X)
nasal tract
nasal cavity
(inside nose, upward from X)
X: point of contact between soft palate and back wall of pharynx.
(see more below on contact between the soft palate and the
back wall of the pharynx.)
3 The larynx: non-speech and speech functions
The non-speech function of the larynx is related to the following 'design-problem' of the way we are
made: If both air and food pass through the pharyngeal cavity, how do we achieve that the food ends
up in the stomach, and the air in the lungs, rather than the other way around?
The short answer is: The trachea and the esophagus each have a way of closing at the top.
A longer answer follows. In the esophagus, closing off at the top is a 'passive' mechanism.
The upper end of the esophagus is built in such a way that it is normally closed. At its upper end, the
two opposite walls of the esophagus are up against each other in their normal position. When food is
pressed in this direction, it is pressed through this passive closure and enters into the esophagus.
When you consciously swallow air and 'burp' it up again, you are moving air below this closure of the
esophagus. The burping sound is made when the air is pressed back up out of the esophagus, passes
again through this closure at the upper end of the esophagus, and sets the closure in vibration.
The upper end of the trachea is protected by an 'active' mechanism, which is the primary nonspeech function of the larynx. Recall that the larynx sits on top of the trachea. When we breathe, the
larynx is open, and air passes freely through the larynx into the lungs and back out. When we eat
food, the act of swallowing is the act of closing off the trachea and pressing the food into the
esophagus. In this process, the larynx is the key player. The larynx closes in two ways to prevent food
from entering the trachea. One involves the epiglottis, which you can see in Figure 2. It is a spoonshaped cartilage (which you see from the side), and you can think of it like the top/cover of a pot, and
the larynx as the pot (though a pot with the bottom open in the direction of the trachea). Now you may
think that the top comes down to cover the pot and prevent the food from going into the larynx and
trachea. And this would be almost correct, except here, the pot (larynx) raises up into its top/cover, so
that this epiglottis top/cover passively closes off the top part of the larynx. This 'raising and closing of
the pot' is part of the process of swallowing. If you feel your Adam's apple with your finger, and
swallow, you can feel how dramatic the raising of the larynx is during swallowing. Try this now. The
larynx also closes off in a second way: Internal to the larynx, there are the vocal folds. These are two
symmetrical muscular tissues that are connected to the edges of the larynx-"pot". When the two vocal
folds come together in the middle, they form a horizontal shield together that covers the entire area of
p. 6, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
the larynx-"pot", and nothing can pass through. The vocal folds are often also called vocal cords. The
vocal cords are also relevant to other bodily processes. For example, when we cough, the vocal cords
are first closed and high air-pressure is built up below them by the lungs. Then the vocal cords
suddenly open, which releases a puff of cough. Try coughing now, to get a feeling that something is
happening in your larynx. Consider also hiccups. These are caused by irritations of the diaphragm at
the bottom of the lungs, which, when irritated, cause the lungs to suddenly suck in air very quickly.
This sucking in of air, however, is then immediately stopped by a closing of the vocal cords, which
produces the 'hick' of the hiccup. Make an artificial hick-up now, to get a sense of how the inward
airflow is suddenly stopped in your larynx. These are the vocal folds, or vocal cords.
larynx [G. Kehlkopf, Larynx]: part of the human anatomy on top of the trachea [G. Luftröhre]; the
larynx is most noticeable in the adult male neck, where it 'sticks out' as what is known as the
Adam's apple [G. Adamsapfel]. The main non-speech function of the larynx is to close off the
trachea and the lungs in the process of swallowing food. The speech-functions of the larynx
are taken on by the vocal cords (see separate definition), which are inside of the larynx. These
functions include the production of the voicing of sounds, and the production of [h] and of the
glottal stop [?].
The vocal cords in the larynx are also important in speech production. They produce the voicing of
voiced sounds. For example, the initial sound [s] in 'sea', [si], is voiceless, while the initial sound [z]
in 'zebra', [zibr´], is voiced. These two sounds [s] and [z] are otherwise articulated identically. The
distinction in voicing between them is produced by the vocal folds. Figure 3 shows you schematic
pictures of the positions of the vocal folds in the two cases. Imagine you are looking at the larynx
from the top. The tip you see at the top of the pictures is the thyroid cartilage that is the Adam's apple,
the one that may stick out of the neck a bit. So you see that the larynx-"pot" is not entirely round. In
Figure 3 on the left, you see a triangle in the middle of the picture. This is the space between the vocal
folds. This space between the vocal folds is also called the glottis. In this picture, imagine that the
vocal folds cover the area from the glottis to the edges of the larynx-"pot". The position of the vocal
folds in this picture on the left is the position during a voiceless sound like [s]: the vocal folds are far
apart, and air can pass through them (through the glottis) freely. In the picture in Figure 3 on the right,
you have an indication of what happens during voiced sounds. Here the vocal folds are held together.
If nothing else was happening, the larynx would thus be closed. However, as said above, the lungs
push up a stream of air during speech. The vocal folds (which are held slack here) start to vibrate in
this stream of air. The mechanics of this vibration are similar to when you hold your lips loosely
together and blow air out of your mouth forcefully, producing a hammering sound like pppp.
Basically, the vibrations arise from the elasticity of the vocal folds (or lips) and from the force of the
air pushing against this elastic and loose closure. This vibration of the vocal folds is what we perceive
as voicing, such as in the sound [z]. The vibration is schematically drawn in Figure 3 on the right.
Figure 3
From: Péturson/Neppert:
Elementarbuch der Phonetik, S.73f
Left: glottis during voiceless
sounds.
Right: glottis during voicing.
There are a number of different ways in which one can get a feeling for the voicing of sounds. Say
'zebra' with a very long [z] at the beginning: [zzzzzzibr´]. While you do this, hold a finger to your
larynx and see if you can feel the vibration of the larynx. Then say 'sea' with a very long [s]: [ssssssi].
You should be able to feel with your finger that there is no similar vibration of the larynx during [s].
When people sing, or speak with high vs. low voice, they change the speed of vibration of the
vocal cords. Fast vibration makes for a high voice, and slow vibration makes for a low voice. Try this
p. 7, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
with [n] first. This is a voiced sound. You can sing on [n] in a low voice, and in a high voice. Next, try
this with [s]. If you make a voiceless [s], you will notice that there is no way of singing on this in a
high voice or in a low voice. This is because the vocal cords are not vibrating during [s]. Therefore,
they also cannot vibrate fast (for a high voice) or slow (for a low voice). They just aren't vibrating.
Now contrast this with [z]. It may not be as simple as singing on [n], but you should be able to notice
that it is possible to sing on [z] in a low voice, and in a high voice. Since this sound is voiced, the
voice can be high (vibrations fast) or low (vibrations slow).
During speech production, we make noises of different kind. The noise produced by saying
[n] comes entirely from the vibrations of the vocal folds. The noise receives its particular [n]-quality
from the way the air passages in the vocal tract are shaped during this sound. Similarly, all vowels in
English and German are voiced. The noise produced with any vowel also comes from the vibrations
of the vocal cords, and receives its particular quality for each different vowel from the way the tongue
and the lips are positioned during the vowel. A different kind of noise is produced in [s], which does
not depend on the vibrations of the larynx. This sound, after all, is voiceless, but makes some noise
nevertheless. However, much of the strength, or force of our voices during speech comes from the
vibrations of the vocal folds during articulation. You can get a sense of this by saying a few words
aloud first, and then whispering them. What you do when you whisper is this: your vocal cords do not
vibrate. Instead, they are positioned so as to produce a weak kind of hissing. Otherwise, everything
else is the same between whispering and saying things normally. When you compare whispering to
speaking normally, you can see how a lot of the noise produced by speaking really comes from the
vibrations of the vocal cords, which is absent during whispering. Try this now.
This is true even more when you shout to someone far away. When you shout, you produce
more forceful voicing with the vocal cords. Can you shout while whispering? A little bit, but it doesn't
carry very far.
vocal cords, also vocal folds [G. Stimmbänder]: two muscular folds inside of the larynx. They are
attached to particular cartilages [G. Knorpel] of the larynx, and can be positioned, and can also be
made stiff or slack. When they vibrate, they produce what we call voicing. In that case, they are
held together, and are slack. The air pushing through them from the lungs sets them in vibration.
glottis [G. Glottis]: the area between the two vocal cords.
4 The soft palate and the airflow through the nose
After having discussed the larynx, where trachea and esophagus come together, let us turn to the point
where the channel through the nose separates from the channel through the mouth. We saw earlier
that this is the position of the soft palate. The soft palate is muscular tissue and can be moved.
Importantly for speech articulation: It can be raised in such a way that it closes off the nasal tract. This
is shown in Figure 4. The picture on the left shows the soft palate in a position in which it is not
raised. Here the air that comes up from the lungs through the larynx (with or without vibration of the
vocal cords) and can pass through the nasal tract. The picture on the right shows the soft palate in a
position in which it is raised. Here the air cannot flow through the nasal tract. In this case, the air that
is pushed up by the lungs may or may not escape through the mouth (the oral cavity), depending on
the position of the lips and the tongue in the mouth.
To get a bit of a feeling for the two different positions of the soft palate, say the sequence
[dndndndn...]. During this sequence, your tongue is closing off the airflow in the mouth entirely, and
the tongue does this in the same position for [d] and for [n]. So the tongue doesn't move. However,
the soft palate moves: During [n] the soft palate is not raised, so the air comes out of your nose;
during [d], the soft palate is raised, and the air cannot come out of your nose. The only thing that
moves during the sequence is the soft palate, alternately closing off nasal airflow and making nasal
airflow possible again. Can you feel this in the back of your mouth? If you are like me, you can't feel
it much. Perhaps this little exercise is really for showing how it is difficult to have a good feeling for
the soft palate. However, this is as close as we can get.
p. 8, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
Figure 4
From:
Denes/
Pinson: "The
speech
chain.",
p.59, 65
5 The articulation of [t, n, s, z]: the role of the soft palate and the larynx
In this section, we will consider the articulation of the sounds [t, n, s, z]. This will give us an
understanding of the airflow in three important classes of sounds: the plosive sounds like [t], the
nasals like [n], and the fricatives like [s] and [z]. In the section following this one, we are then
prepared to understand different kind of plosives, nasals, and fricatives.
For most consonants, an understanding of their articulation involves three things:
• Do the vocal folds in the larynx vibrate or not? (I.e. is the sound voiced or not?)
• Is the soft palate raised or not (I.e. is nasal airflow possible?)
• Place of articulation: What do tongue and lips do in the oral cavity?
The sounds [t, n, s, z] all involve the same place of articulation: The front part of the tongue
moves up to an area behind the upper teeth. Take a moment to feel the area behind your upper front
teeth with your tongue. You will notice that there is a short 'horizontal' area immediately behind the
teeth, and then a 'ridge' (perhaps with a little bump) before the upper part of your mouth suddenly
becomes much higher. This 'ridge' is called the alveolar ridge [G. Zahndamm]. During the
articulation of [t, n, s, z], the front part of the tongue makes a constriction at the alveolar ridge. (This
is the kind of constriction that we said is typical for consonants, as opposed to vowels.)
Even though these four sounds involve the same place of articulation in the oral cavity, they
are clearly distinguished. The following table shows you how.
manner of articulation and voicing of [t, n, s, z]:
[t]
oral airflow
allowed at
alveolar ridge
no
nasal airflow
allowed by
soft palate
no
[n]
no
[s]
yes, with force;
(fricative sound)
yes, with force;
(fricative sound)
yes
(nasal sound)
no
[z]
no
=> EFFECT
vocal cords in
larynx
airflow stopped in mouth
and nose; pressure build-up
until [t] is released
air comes out of nose;
no airflow through mouth
air is pressed through
narrow constriction at
alveolar ridge; -> noise
do not vibrate
(voiceless)
vibrate
(voiced)
do not vibrate
(voiceless)
vibrate
(voiced)
The second column indicates whether there is oral airflow, the third column whether there is nasal
airflow, and the fourth column what the combined effect is. (Ignore the last column for now.) For [t],
there is a short time during which the tongue closes off the airflow completely at the alveolar ridge, so
there is no oral airflow. At the same time, the soft palate is raised and closes off the nasal airflow. So
p. 9, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
there is also no nasal airflow. The effect is that, for a short time (the time of closure), there is no
airflow through either mouth or nose. Since the lungs push up air, however, air-pressure builds up in
the oral tract. At some point, then, the closure of the tongue in the mouth is released, and air comes
out with a small puff. For this puff to be produced, it is important that both oral and nasal airflow are
stopped for a short time, so air-pressure builds up in the oral tract. Notice that the crucial part of [t]
(and other plosive sounds like it) is considered to be the part of closure, during which there is no
airflow. Other plosive sounds work similarly, though the constriction in the mouth (oral cavity) is
made at different positions, as we will see.
For [n], the table shows that there is similarly no oral airflow. Here, too, the tongue also
closes off the airflow entirely at the alveolar ridge. However, the soft palate is not raised, and so nasal
airflow is possible: The air comes out freely through the nose. You can convince yourself that this is
correct: While saying a long [n], first press your hand against your mouth to make sure no air can
come out of the mouth. The [n] may sound slightly modified, but you can still continue it. Oral
airflow is not involved with [n]. Then, while saying another long [n], use your hand to hold your nose
closed. The [n] immediately stops. This shows that nasal airflow is crucial in the production of [n]. It
also shows that there is no oral airflow. Otherwise, this sound would somehow continue when you
close your nose with your hand.
What, then, of [s]? The airflow with this sounds is the inverse of the airflow with [n]. With
[s], the soft palate is raised, so there is no airflow through the nose. At the same time, the tongue does
not completely stop the airflow at the alveolar ridge. The tongue is nevertheless very close to the
alveolar ridge, leaving only the smallest opening. Air is pressed through this opening (with the force
of the lungs), which makes the hissing sound of [s]. For a serious hissing sound to come about, it is
important that the soft palate is raised and closes off the nasal airflow. Otherwise the air could freely
leave through the nose, and the air-pressure for making the hissing sound would not be available in
the oral tract.
As discussed earlier, [z] is like [s] in all respects except for voicing. So columns 2, 3, and 4 of
the table above are the same for [s] and [z]. Voicing is shown in the rightmost column of the table. [s]
is voiceless, [z] is voiced; [n] also is voiced; we saw this earlier when I wrote that [n] can easily be
used to sing on. [t], on the other hand, is voiceless. Notice also that, just as there is a voiced
counterpart of [s], namely [z], there is also a voiced counterpart of [t], namely [d]. You can get a
feeling for this distinction between [t] and [d] in the following way. Try say [edede...] with your
finger on your larynx (Adam's apple) to feel the voicing. It is possible to say this sequence without
interrupting the voicing. On the other hand, when you say [etete...], you have to interrupt the voicing
during the short times in which there is a complete closure for the occurrences of the [t].
6 Places of articulation
Let us then turn to different places of articulation in the mouth. With all places of articulation, we can
isolate a moving part, and a part that it moves to in order to make the constriction. The moving part is
called the active articulator, and the part that it moves to is called the passive articulator. All active
articulators are in the lower jaw [G. Unterkiefer], while all passive articulators are in the upper jaw
[G. Oberkiefer]. This is related to the fact that the lower jaw can move, while the upper jaw is
unmovably mounted with the skull [G. Schädel]. The active articulators (lower lip, and different parts
of the tongue) do not entirely do their movements on their own; instead, these movements are often
accompanied and strengthened by movements of the lower jaw. For example, when you say
[dadada...] and look into a mirror, you will see how the lower jaw lowers for the [a], and raises back
up when the tongue makes its constriction with the [d]. You can also see the lower jaw moving when
you look at someone else speaking.
The left picture of Figure 5 shows you the different active articulators and their names.
Relevant here are the lower lip, the tip and blade of the tongue (together, these form the front part of
the tongue, or corona), and the body (or back) of the tongue, which is also called the dorsum. On the
right of Figure 5 you see the passive articulators. The consonants are often named with reference to
the passive articulators, and the corresponding names are indicated in this picture of the passive
articulators. Sounds articulated at the upper lip are called labial, at the upper teeth: dental; at the
alveolar ridge: alveolar; in the area behind that: post-alveolar or palato-alveolar; at the hard palate:
p. 10, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
palatal; at the soft palate = velum: velar. Hanging off at the end of the soft palate is the uvula [G.
Zäpfchen]. Sounds articulated there are uvular.
Figure 5. Active articulators (left) and passive articulators (right).
From: Ladefoged/Maddieson: The sounds of the world's languages, p.12f
The following table shows you the active and passive articulators (first two rows), and the names for
sounds that are created when a particular active articulator makes a constriction with a particular
passive articulator (third row). Below that are the sounds produced by these articulators, separated
into the classes of plosives (such as [t] above), nasals (such as [n] above), and fricatives (such as [s]
and [z] above). The first row of plosives are voiceless, the second row is voiced. Likewise with the
fricatives. The nasals are all voiced.
Active
articulator ->
Passive
articulator ->
lower lip
Names of the
sounds ->
bilabial
[voiceless]
plosives
[voiced]
nasals
[voiced]
[voiceless]
fricatives
[voiced]
upper
lip
tip/blade of the tongue (corona)
upper teeth
labiodental
alveolar
ridge
dental
alveolar
palatoalveolar
region
palatoalveolar
body of tongue
(dorsum)
hard
soft
palate
palate
(velum)
palatal
velar
p
b
t
d
k
g
m
S
N
x
Z
f
T
n
s
v
D
z
C
Notice first that the gray column in the middle displays the sounds we have already discussed: [t, d, n,
s, z]. Here the front part of the tongue (corona) makes contact with the alveolar ridge. These are the
alveolar sounds. For each of these sounds, the other sounds in the same (horizontal) row share their
airflow- and voicing properties, but the constriction in the oral cavity is formed with different active
and/or passive articulators. Thus, [p] (voiceless) and [b] (voiced) are like [t] (voiceless) and [d]
(voiced) in that nasal airflow is blocked by a raised soft palate, and oral airflow is blocked for a short
time by a complete closure; air-pressure is built up during this closure, which is then released. In the
case of [p] and [b], however, this closure in the oral cavity is not formed with the tongue, but with the
lower lip against the upper lip. These sounds are bilabial. [m] is a corresponding bilabial nasal, with
the lips sealing off oral airflow, but with nasal airflow allowed by the soft palate (not raised). A third
series of plosives and nasals is formed further back in the mouth, with the body of the tongue closing
p. 11, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
off the airflow at the velum. The nasal sound that we find here is transcribed [N]. This is the sound at
the end of 'king', or 'sing'.
All fricatives involve pressing the air through a narrow constriction. Among the fricatives in
the table, English, but not German, has the sounds [T] (voiceless) and [D] (voiced). These are also
often called interdental, since the tip of the tongue is between upper and lower teeth. When we fit
them into the general schema of active articulators in the lower jaw, and passive ones in the upper
jaw, the contact to the upper teeth is the crucial one. This makes sense: whey you say these sounds
with your mouth wider open, you see that the closeness to the upper teeth is crucial in forming the
constriction. Word-initial [D] is found in English function words like 'the', 'this', 'those', 'that', while
word-initial [T] is found in lexical words like 'theatre', 'think', or 'thank'. On the other hand, the
fricatives [C] and [x] are found in German, but not in English. [C] is also called ich-Laut in German,
since it occurs in the word "ich", [IC], and [x] is also called ach-Laut, since it occurs in the word
"ach", [ax]. The sound [C] is formed against the hard palate, with a part of the tongue that includes the
body of the tongue. [x] is formed at a point further back, at the velum, where [k] also makes its
constriction. (In a more detailed description, this is a bit more complicated for [x], though we will
ignore these details here.)
Notice that the table allows you to read off the description and name of each sound: for example,
[p] is a voiceless bilabial plosive, as you can put together from the attributes in the third row, and in the first
column of the table. Similarly, the ich-Laut [C] is a voiceless palatal fricative.
Examples of words with each sound in the table are shown here.
sound
p
b
t
d
k
g
English example
pin
bin
tune
dune
clue
glue
German example
packen
backen
Tier
dir
Kasse
Gasse
m
n
N
man
nature
think
Mann
Natur
blank
f
v
T
D
s
z
S
Z
C
x
free
vase
theory
these
kiss
zoo
she
pleasure
-
frei
Vase
küssen
Eisen
schön
Garage
leicht
Bach
7 Additional consonants of English and/or German
affricates: [pf], [ts], [tS], [dZ]
Affricates consist of two parts at the same place of articulation. (The second part of their transcription
reflects the place of articulation of the entire affricate). There is nevertheless evidence that these are single
sounds (though will not get to it in this class).
The manner of articulation of the stop part is as for stops, and the manner of articulation of the fricative
part is as for fricatives. There are voiced and voiceless affricates.
p. 12, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
liquids: [l, r]:
• [l] is a voiced alveolar lateral sound. It is articulated with the tip of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, but
one or both sides of the tongue let the air pass through on the side. The opening is fairly wide, so there is
no fricative noise. [l] is not a fricative, therefore.
• [r] is a voiced rhotic sound. If you take 'Intro to phonetics and phonology', you will learn that different
[r]-sounds (rhotics) can be distinguished, and that English and German, as well as different German
dialects, use different [r] sounds, which are also transcribed differently. Here, however, we will simplify a
bit, and use [r] for both English and German.
glottal sounds: [h, ?]
Only the vocal cords are involved in the production of [h] and [?]. Airflow is usually allowed through the
oral tract; however, the position of the articulators in the oral tract is irrelevant, and whether the velum is
raised or not is also irrelevant.
• [h] is produced by spreading apart the vocal cords.
• [?] is produced by a closure and following opening of the vocal cords.
examples: English: [?]o-[?]oh
German: [?]Oma, [?]Arbeit, Be[?]ate, Beatrice, The[?]ater, theatralisch,
Examples:
sound
pf
ts
tS
dZ
l
r
h
English example
church
jury
linger
ring
here
German example
Pfanne
Ziege
Tschibo
Dschungel
Lampe
Ring
hier
Classes of consonants summed up:
• plosives (oral stops)
• fricatives
• affricates
• nasals (nasal stops)
• liquids
• glottal sounds
[p, b, ...]
[f, v, ...]
[pf, tS, ...]
[m, n, N]
[l, r]
[h, ?]
Problem set
1. For each of the following sounds, specify the active and the passive articulator:
[k], [m], [d], [D], [x], [S]
2. For each of the following sounds, describe the manner of articulation (this does not include voicing): Is
the velum raised or not? Is the oral constriction complete? Is there airflow through the mouth or through
the nose or does the airflow completely stop for a short time?
[k], [m], [x]
p. 13, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription
3. a. For each of the following sounds, write down whether they are voiced or voiceless.
[g], [m], [n], [S], [Z], [s], [z], [x], [T]
b. What happens during voicing in the larynx? (1 sentence is enough, if it is correct.)
4. Name the following sounds:
Example: [d] is a voiced alveolar plosive.
Now you: [s], [tS], [g], [l], [n]
5. Transcribe the consonants in the pronunciation (not spelling!) of the following English words (you may
write '_' for where a vowel is pronounced; look up the pronunciation in a dictionary if you are not sure;
however, you must use the transcription symbols we are using here, in case your dictionary uses different
ones):
Example: sing
[s_N]
Now you: knife, king, judge, chocolate, psychology
p. 14, Intro Ling, Phonology 1: Consonants – Articulation and transcription