SOUNDS : PHONETICS AND PONOLOGY

SOUNDS : PHONETICS AND PONOLOGY

1. The Definition of Phonetic and Phonology

                         

n  Phonetics:

            The study of speech sounds; how they are produced in the vocal tract (articulatory phonetics), how they are transmitted through the air (acoustic phonetics), and how they are perceived by the listener (auditory phonetics).

n  Phonology:

            The study of the sound system of language; how the particular sounds used in each language form an integrated system for encoding information and how such systems differ from one language to another.

As phonetics and phonology both deal with sounds, and as English spelling and English pronunciation are two very different things, it is important that you keep in mind that

we are not interested in letters here, but in sounds. The orthographic spelling of a word will be given in italics, e.g. please, and the phonetic transcription between square brackets [pli:z]. Thus the word please consists of three consonants, [p,l,z], and one vowel, [i:]. And sounds considered from the phonological point of view are put between slashes. We will use the symbols in figure (1).

2. Lists of Symbol

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

The IPA is a system for representing phonetic sound with symbols.

The IPA help us to pronounce a word correctly.

New word : Lamb

Look in the dictionary :

                                    1. you learn that it is a baby sheep

                                    2. look the IPA transcription : /læm/

If you understand IPA symbols, you will know the correct pronouncation.

/læm/	Simbol	Sound (in Read)
	l	Leg
	æ	Cat
	m	Mother

Consonants (Voiceless and Voiced Pairs)

These sounds are in pairs

The sounds for each pair (example “p” and “b”) are produced in the same place in the mouth with tongue in the same potition.

The sound of the voiceless consonant (“p”) comes from the mouth only.

The sound of the voiced consonan (b”) comes from the voice (troat).

Voiceless			Voiced Pairs
IPA	Examples		IPA	Examples
p	Apple, stop	↔	b	Bad, beer
t	Tree, want	↔	d	Door, food
ʧ	Chair, teacher	↔	ʤ	Joke, lounge
k	Cat, walk	↔	g	Green, dog
f	Fish, if	↔	v	Vote, five
ɵ	Thing, both	↔	ð	They, mother
s	Stop, fast	↔	z	Zoo, noise
ʃ	She, fish	↔	ʒ	Pleasure, vision

Other Consonants

IPA	Examples
m	Man, money
n	Never, ten
ŋ	Sing, drink
h	High, hot
l	Low, pull
r	Red,tree
w	Why, want
j	Yes, yellow

2. Vowels

Long Vowel(s)

IPA	Exmples
i:	Tree, green
u:	Shoe, food
a:	Arm, car
ɔ:	Door, four
ɜ:ʳ	Girl, prefer

NB : Usually, in England, that ʳ (symbol) of ɜ:ʳ , ʳ is not a sound. It means that we pronounce the final “r” sound only if the next word stars with a vowel.

Example : “Prefer” = / prɪ'fɜ:ʳ/

-          “I prefer apples.” (we pronounce the final “r” sound)

-          “I prefer pears.” (we not pronounce the final “r” sound)

Short Vowel(s)

IPA	Examples
ɪ	Sit, fish
ʊ	Pull, good
ʌ	Mug, duck
ɒ	Hot, stop
ǝ	Amount, cinema
e	Red, dead
æ	Cat, fat
ɚ	Mother
ɝ	Girl

Dipthongs

Dipthong is the sound of 2 vowels in 1 syllable

IPA	Examples
ɪǝʳ	Ear, bear
ʊǝʳ	Pure, tourist
aɪ	My, five
ɔɪ	Boy, choice
ǝʊ	Go, joke
eǝʳ	There, chair
aʊ	Now, lounge
eɪ	They, say
oʊ	Nose

NB : In America, Nose can be pronounced = /noʊse/

But in the other, can be pronounced = / nɒse/

In England, ʳ We pronounce the final “r” sound only if the next word star withn a vowel.

3. The Speech Organs

All the organs shown on figure (2) contribute to the production of speech. All the sounds of English are made using air on its way out from the lungs. The lungs pull in and push out air, helped by the diaphragm. The air goes out via the trachea, where the first obstruction it meets is the larynx, which it has to pass through. Inside the larynx the air passes by the vocal folds, which, if they vibrate, make the sound voiced. Afterwards the air goes up through the pharynx, and escapes via either the oral or the nasal cavity.

4. Places of Articulation.

As we saw above [p,t,k] are all voiceless, so there must be another way to distinguish (membedakan) between them, otherwise we would not be able to tell try apart from pry or cry, or pick from tick or kick . Apart from the behaviour of the vocal folds, sounds can also be distinguished as to where in the oral cavity they are articulated (i.e. where in the mouth there is most obstruction when they are pronounced)

Figure (3): places of articulation.

-          Bilabial sounds are produced when the lips are brought together. Examples are [p], which is voiceless, as in pay or [b] and [m] which are voiced, as in bay, may.

-          Labiodental sounds are made when the lower lip is raised towards the upper front teeth. Examples are [f] safe (voiceless) and [v] save (voiced).

-          Dental sounds are produced by touching the upper front teeth with the tip of the tongue. Examples are [ɵ] oath (voiceless) and [ð] clothe (voiced).

-          Alveolar sounds are made by raising the tip of the tongue towards the ridge that is right behind the upper front teeth, called the alveolar ridge. Examples are [ t,s ] too,sue, both voiceless, and [d,z,n,l,r ] do, zoo, nook, look, rook, all voiced.

-          Palatoalveolar sounds are made by raising the blade of the tongue towards the part of the palate just behind the alveolar ridge. Examples [ʃ, ʧ] pressure, batch (voiceless) and [ʒ, ʤ] pleasure, badge (voiced).

-          Palatal sounds are very similar to palatoalveolar ones, they are just produced further back towards the velum. The only palatal sound in English is [ j] as in yes, yellow, beauty, new and it is voiced.

-          Velar sounds are made by raising the back of the tongue towards the soft palate, called the velum. Examples [k] back, voiceless, and [g, ŋ] both voiced bag, bang. [w] is a velar which is accompanied with lip rounding.

-          Glottal sounds are produced when the air passes through the glottis as it is narrowed: [h] as in high.

-           

5. Manners of Articulation.

We can now distinguish between English consonants from two points of view, that of voicing, and that of place. We can see that [b] and [t] are different in both respects, [b] is voiced and bilabial, and [t] is voiceless and alveolar. [p] differs from [b] only in being voiceless, as both are bilabial, and [p] differs from [t] only in being bilabial, as both are voiceless.

There are still pairs of sounds where we cannot yet describe the difference of one from the other, e.g. [b,m] bend, mend as both are voiced and bilabial, and [t,s] ton, son which both are voiceless and alveolar. As the examples show, we can however tell the words apart, and this is because the sounds are different in a way we have not yet discussed, and that is with respect to their manner of articulation.

The manner of articulation has to do with the kind of obstruction the air meets on its way out, after it has passed the vocal folds. It may meet a complete closure (plosives), an almost complete closure (fricatives), or a smaller degree of closure (approximants), or the air might escape in more exceptional ways, around the sides of the tongue (laterals), or through the nasal cavity (nasals).

Plosives are sounds in which there is a complete closure in the mouth, so that the air is blocked for a fraction of a second and then released with a small burst of sound, called a plosion (it sounds like a very small explosion). Plosives may be bilabial [p,b] park, bark, alveolar [t,d] tar, dark or velar [k,g] car, guard. There is a fourth kind of plosive, the glottal stop. The word football can be pronounced without interruption in the middle as in [fʊtb:l.

Fricatives have a closure which is not quite complete. This means that the air is not blocked at any point, and therefore there is no plosion. On the other hand the obstruction is big enough for the air to make a noise when it passes through it, because of the friction. This effect is similar to the wind whistling around the corner of a house. Fricatives may be labiodental [f,v] wife, wives, dental [ө,ð] breath, breathe, alveolar [s,z] sink, zinc, palato alveolar [ʃ,ӡ] nation, evasion, or glottal [h] help. [h] is a glottal fricative. As it has no closure anywhere else, and as all air passes between the vocal folds, this means that [h] is like aspiration unaccompanied by any obstruction.

Affricates are a combination of a plosive and a fricative (sometimes they are called "affricated plosives"). They begin like a plosive, with a complete closure, but instead of a plosion, they have a very slow release, moving backwards to a place where a friction can be heard (palatoalveolar). The two English affricates are both palatoalveolar, [tʃ] which is voiceless, chin, rich, and [dӡ] which is voiced, gin, ridge. The way an affricate resembles a plosive followed by a fricative is mirrored in the symbols. Both consist of a plosive symbol followed by a fricative one: [ t+ʃ], [d+ӡ].

Nasals resemble plosives, except that there is a complete closure in the mouth, but as the velum is lowered the air can escape through the nasal cavity. Though most sounds are produced with the velum raised, the normal position for the velum is lowered, as this is the position for breathing (your velum is probably lowered right now when you are reading this). The three English nasals are all voiced, and [m] is bilabial, ram, [n] is alveolar, ran, and [ŋ] velar, rang. In the section on places, the dotted line on the pictures of bilabial, alveolar, and velar articulations illustrate the three nasals.

Laterals are sounds where the air escapes around the sides of the tongue. There is only one lateral in English, [l], a voiced alveolar lateral. It occurs in two versions, the so called "clear l" before vowels, light, long, and the "dark l" in other cases, milk, ball. Words like little, lateral have one of each type. "Dark l" may be written with the symbol [1]. "Clear l" is pronounced with the top of the tongue raised, whereas for "dark l " it is the back of the tongue which is raised. Here again, as with aspirated and unaspirated voiceless plosives, even though "clear l" and "dark l" are phonetically different, they cannot be said to be different sounds from the point of view of how they function in the sound system. If you produce a "dark l" where usually you have a "clear l", for example at the beginning of the word long, your pronunciation will sound odd but nobody will understand a different word.

Approximants are sounds where the tongue only approaches the roof of the mouth, so that there is not enough obstruction to create any friction. English has three approximants, which are all voiced. [r] is alveolar, right, brown, sometimes called post-alveolar, because it is slightly further back that the other alveolar sounds [t,d,s,l]. [j] is a palatal approximant, use, youth, and [w] is a velar approximant, why, twin, square. [w] always has lip-rounding as well, and therefore it is sometimes called labio-velar.

[r] only occurs before vowels in southern British English, whereas other accents, e.g. Scottish, Irish, and most American ones, also can have it after vowels. Therefore those accents can make a distinction between e.g. saw and sore, which are pronounced exactly alike in southern British English.

6. Phonemes and allophones

Phoname

-          A phoname is a single “unit” of sound that has meaning in language.

-          slashes enclose phonemes: e.g  /t/

-          Recognized by speakers as separate sounds

-          Phonemes are the separate sounds of a language

Allophone

-          An allophone is phonetic variant of  a phoneme in particular language.

-          square brackets enclose allophones: e.g [t]

-          Speakers hear them as the same sound

-          That means allophones of a single phoneme appear in complementary distribution.

Example : Try saying these two words: car and keys

-          Phonetically: [kʰα: cʰi:z]

-          [kʰ] and [cʰ] are allophonesof

-          the / k / is phoneme.

Allophonic rule :

-          /t/ → [tʰ] word-initally and in front of stressed syllables

e.g : table, treat, attend, until, attack

-          /t/ → [ɾ] intervocalically, when second vowel is unstressed

e.g : better, Betty, butter, cutie, buttocks

-          /t/ → [tʹ] word-finally

e.g : set, right, pit

-          /t/ → [t] elsewhere

e.g : stop, street, Batic

7. Minimal Pairs

Minimal pairs is part of pair words that differ in a single phoname. Some examples are :

Vowel Sounds

• Minimal Pairs /ɪ/ and /i:/          (sit and seat)
• Minimal Pairs /e/ and /ɪ/          (desk and disk)
• Minimal Pairs /e/ and /eɪ/         (wet and wait)

Consonant Sounds

• Minimal Pairs /b/ and /v/         (berry and very)
• Minimal Pairs /b/ and /p/         (buy and pie)
• Minimal Pairs /ʧ/ and /t/          (catch and cat)

Initial Consonant Sounds

• Minimal Pairs initial /f/ and /p/            (fast and past)
• Minimal Pairs initial /k/ and /g/           (came and game)
• Minimal Pairs initial /t/ and /d/            (two and do)

Final Consonant Sounds

• Minimal Pairs final /k/ and /g/             (back and bag)
• Minimal Pairs final /m/ and /n/            (am and an)
• Minimal Pairs final /t/ and /d/             (hat and had)