PHONETICS
See also “Phonology,” “Spelling”
& “Writing Systems”
by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen
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The Tongue: Our Strongest Muscle
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ARTICULATORY PHONETICS (Callary 120)
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PLACE OF ARTICULATION
BILABIALS
LABIO-DENTALS
INTERDENTALS
ALVEOLARS
PALATALS
VELARS
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MANNER OF ARTICULATION
STOPS
FRICATIVES
AFFRICATES
NASALS (NASALIZING)
VOICING
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MANNER OF ARTICULATION
EXERCISE
TALKING SOFTLY: Everyone in the class should talk
softly as they say something.
WHISPERING: Everyone in the class should whisper
as they say something.
NOTE: In talking softly all of the vowels and most of
the consonants are voiced, but in whispering none
of the vowels or consonants are voiced. When you
talk softly in church rather than whispering, your
voice will carry throughout the church.
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NASALIZATION: The velic in the back of the
throat opens and closes the nasal cavity to
allow nasalization or not.
Everyone in the class should keep the velic
open as they say something so that all of the
sounds will be nasalized.
NOTE: If the velic is defective, or if the palate is
defective, then many sounds become
nasalized that should not be nasalized. This
is why people with a detective palate must
have an artificial palate installed.
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DENALIZATION: Everyone in the class should keep the velic
closed as they say something so that none of the sounds will be
nasalized.
NOTE: People with adenoid problems, or with colds in their noses
sound denasalized.
Now everyone in the class should hold their nose as they say
something. Is the resulting sound a nasal sound, or a
denasalized sound? Explain.
QUESTION: Are the nasal sounds in English stops or
continuants?
ANSWER: From the point of view of the mouth, they are stops;
however, from the point of view of the nose, they are
continuants.
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CHANGE OF PITCH: The “voice box” is also called the
“larynx.”
As air passes through the larynx it can be cut off
(voiceless), or it can be allowed through (voiceless).
If the air is allowed through, but the vocal folds are held
close together the result is a high pitch; if they are
held close together the result is a low pitch.
Pitch can be heard only in voiced continuants.
All of our vowels, and most of our consonants are
voiced continuants.
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CONTRAST THE SOUNDS & SPELLINGS OF
THE FOLLOWING WORDS
psycho-socks
though-thought
easy-essay
pneumonia-new
gnew-new
knew-new
Thomas-tank
phone-peas
rough-through
bleached-blackened
cheese-cow
which-who
wash-sugar
singer-finger
gem-get
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REGIONAL DIALECTS
CONTRAST THE FOLLOWING
cot-caught
merry-marry-Mary
mourning-morning
pin-pen
witch-which
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REGIONAL DIALECTS
PRONOUNCE THE FOLLOWING
calf
lot
schedule
creek
Mrs.
spoon
either
near
tomatoes
greasy
outhouse
wash
hog
roof
with
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IDENTIFY THE SOUND
IDENTIFY THE FEATURES
Your teacher will give you three features, and
you will give the unique sound that these
three features identify.
Your teacher will give you a sound, and you
will give the three or more features that will
uniquely identify the sound.
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POINTS OF ARTICULATION
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PHONETIC ALPHABET FOR ENGLISH
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PHONETIC SYMBOLS
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AMERICAN VOWELS
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PUNS
Richard Lederer in the introduction to his Get Thee to a Punnery said
that puns are “a three-ring circus of words: words clowning, words
teetering on tightropes, words swinging from tent-tops, words
thrusting their heads into the mouth of lions.”
Tony Tanner said that a pun is like an adulterous bed in which two
meanings that should be separated are coupled together.
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Debra Fried defined puns as the weird accidents,
amazing flukes and lucky hits that the one-armed
bandit of language dishes up.
This last example is a case of once-removed
personification, since a “one-armed bandit” is itself a
personified reference to a gambling machine.
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SIGN LANGUAGE
ARTICULATION
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SIGN LANGUAGE
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SILENT CONSONANTS
For each of the following words with a silent consonant,
think of a related word in which the consonant is
pronounced. This is not possible for all words.
autumn, bough, corps, debt, ghost, gnaw, hole, island,
knot, lamb, mnemonic, pneumonia, psychology,
pterodacty, resign, sword, write
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SPELLING OF LONG VOWELS
Short vowel sounds are easy to spell in English: “bit,”
“bet,” “bat,” “but,” “bot” (a horse fly)
But long vowels in English are chaotic in their spelling.
We might add a “silent” e, or write more than one
vowel letter, etc.
Furthermore, our sound system has changed
drastically, but our writing system has not, so on
first blush, the English spelling system appears to
be chaotic.
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spelling inconsistencies
I take it you already know
of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Some may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
So now you are ready, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
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Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead, it’s said like bed, not bead;
For goodness’ sake, don’t call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat.
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.)
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
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“THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER”
by Lewis Carroll
Write the following in phonetic script:
The time has come the walrus said to talk of many
things,
Of shoes and ships and seeling wax, of cabbages and
kings,
and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have
wings.
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SIMILARITY
THEORY
In this series of jokes, the puns of the first joke
represents total similarity (or identity), and the
puns in each joke from then on becomes less and
less similar. In the last joke, the punning words
are so dissimilar that it is a stretch to figure them
out at all.
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FORM-MEANING CORRESPONDENCES
Antonyms (woman-man)
Heteronyms (bow-bow)
Homographs (bank-bank [NOTE: These are also Homophones)
Homonoids (sex and violins = saxon violence)
Homonyms (to-too-two)
Hyponyms (metaphor-metaphor)
Metanalysis (un naperon => an apron)
Polysemes (ring-ring)
Synonyms (dog-hound)
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IDENTITY
Jorge Borges wrote a parody of Cervantes's Don
Quixote. The parody used all of the same words, the
same phrases and the same sentences as were in
Cervantes’s original.
Borges claimed that his parody was much richer than
the original because it contained all of the meaning
of the original, plus it had all of the meaning of the
parody.
In addition, the parody had the benefit of many years of
literary criticism to add to its richness.
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POLYSEMY
POLYSEMY: When a single word has two
different senses.
Q: What did one tonsil say to the other?
A: You'd better get dressed. The doctor's
taking us out tonight.
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HOMOGRAPHY
HOMOGRAPHY: When two different
words are pronounced and spelled the
same.
Q: Why can't the leopard escape from the
zoo?
A: Because he is always spotted.
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HOMOPHONY
HOMOPHONY: When two different words
are pronounced the same but are
spelled differently:
Q: What's black and white and red/read
all over?
A: A newspaper.
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HOMONOIDISM
HOMONOIDISM: When words are similar but
not the same in sound and spelling:
1st: Knock Knock
2nd: Who's there?
1st: Eskimos, Christians, and Italians
2nd: Eskimos, Christians, and Italians who?
1st: Eskimos, Christians, and Italians no lies.
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METANALYSIS
METANALYSIS: An inaccurate
understanding of where one word or
phrase ends and the next one begins
Q: Why does a Frenchman have only one
egg for breakfast?
A: Because one egg is an oeuf.
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Phonetics Web Site:
Kleptomaniac (Johnny Carson & JackWebb):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhLLU0H34ms
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