Phonetics and

Phonology
Ling. 501
April 15, 2009
I. Background
• PHONOLOGY study of the
system or pattern of speech
sounds used in a particular
language or in language in
general.
• PHONETICS study of speech
sound and how are they
produced.
Branches of Phonetics

•Auditory
•Articulatory
•Acoustics
•Experimental
•Auditory- examines
how speech sounds are
perceived by the
human ear.
•Articulatory- explores
how the human vocal
apparatus produces
sounds.
•Acoustics-studies the
sound waves produced
by the human vocal
apparatus.
•Experimental- physical
science that collects
measurable data about
the articulatory, acoustic,
and auditory properties of
vocal sounds.
•PHONEMICS study of
the sounds of speech in
their primary function
II. PHYSIOLOGY OF SPEECH
PRODUCTION
Speech Organs and
Processes
1.Initiation Process
2.Phonation Process
3.Oro-Nasal Process
4.Articulation Process
•Initiation Process-
getting the air moving
Phonation Process-
production of voice
1.Close glottis-glottal stop
2.Narrow glottis-voiced sounds
3.Open glottis-voiceless sounds
• Oro-Nasal Process-
escape of air
–Raised Velum-oral
sounds
–Lowered Velum-nasal
sounds
Articulation Process-
changes in the shape and
size of resonating cavities
a. Resonators
b. Articulators
c. Point of Articulation
III. Consonants
A. Place of articulation
• Bilabial: between the lips
• Labiodental: between the lower lip and
the upper teeth
• Linguolabial consonant: between the
front of the tongue and the upper lip
• Dental: between the front of the tongue
and the top teeth
• Alveolar consonant: between the front of
the tongue and the ridge behind the
gums (the alveolus)
• Postalveolar consonant: between the front
of the tongue and the space behind the
alveolar ridge
• Retroflex: in "true" retroflexes, the tongue
curls back so the underside touches the
palate
• Palatal: between the middle of the tongue
and the hard palate
• Velar: between the back of the tongue
and the soft palate (the velum)
• Uvular: between the back of the tongue
and the uvula (which hangs down in the
back of the mouth)
• Pharyngeal: between the root of
the tongue and the back of the
throat (the pharynx)
• Epiglotto-pharyngeal: between the
epiglottis and the back of the throat
• Epiglottal: between the aryepiglottic
folds and the epiglottis
• Glottal: at the glottis
B. Manner of articulation
• Plosive, or oral stop, where there is
complete occlusion (blockage) of both
the oral and nasal cavities of the vocal
tract, and therefore no air flow.
• Nasal stop, usually shortened to
nasal, where there is complete
occlusion of the oral cavity, and the air
passes instead through the nose.
• Fricative, sometimes called spirant,
where there is continuous frication
(turbulent and noisy airflow) at the
place of articulation.
• Affricate, which begins like a plosive,
but this releases into a fricative rather
than having a separate release of its
own.
• Flap, often called a tap, is a momentary
closure of the oral cavity. The "tt" of "utter"
and the "dd" of "udder" are pronounced as
a flap in North American English.
• Trill, in which the articulator (usually the
tip of the tongue) is held in place, and the
airstream causes it to vibrate. The double
"r" of Spanish "perro" is a trill.
• Approximant, where there is very little
obstruction.
C. Voicing

•Voiced
•Voiceless
D. Consonant Chart
IV. Vowels
Vowel comes from
the Latin word
vocalis, meaning
"speaking“.
•The importance of
vowels in distinguishing
one word from another
varies from language to
language.
A. Definition:
• A speech sound, such as (ē) or
(ĭ), created by the relatively free
passage of breath through the
larynx and oral cavity, usually
forming the most prominent and
central sound of a syllable.
B. Classification

•Monopthongs
•Diphthongs
•Tripthongs
1. Monopthong is simple or
pure vowel sound in which
the speech organs remain
in the same position
throughout the duration of
the vowel’s articulation.
• 2. Diphthong is vowel
sound that glides from
one quality to another.
• Ex. ear, poor, noise, pay
• 3. Triphthong is a vowel
sound that glides
successively through three
qualities.
• Ex. Uruguay, hour,
C. Articulatory features
•Determines the vowel’s
quality
•Daniel Jones –
developed Cardinal
vowel system
Common/Major Parameters
• Vowel height
• Frontness or
advancement
3. Lip Roundedness
Other parameters or secondary
dimensions

• Tenseness: Tense vs.. Lax

• Nasality
• Length/Duration/Quantity
• Phonation
1. Tongue Height
•Vowel height is named
for the vertical position of
the tongue relative to
either the roof of the
mouth or the aperture of
the jaw.
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)
• /i/
• ARTICULATORY DESCRIPTION
• • Front of tongue raised below
• and behind front close position
• • Lips spread
• • Tongue tense
• • Tongue rims firmly contact
• upper molars
• sheet
• /e/
• ARTICULATORY DESCRIPTION
• • Front tongue raised between
• close-mid and open-mid position
• • Lips loosely spread, slightly wider
• apart
• • Tongue more tense than /i/
• • Tongue rims lightly contact
• upper molars
• bed
• /æ/
• ARTICULATORY DESCRIPTION
• • Mouth more open than /e/
• • Front tongue raised
• above open position
• • Lips neutrally open
• • Tongue rims slightly contact
• back upper molars
• bad
2. Vowel Advancement
• Vowel advancement is
named for the position of the
tongue during the
articulation of a vowel
relative to the back of the
mouth .
Vowel Tongue Position
3. Lip Roundedness
• refers to
the amount
of rounding
in the lips
during the
articulation
of a vowel.
4. Tenseness: Tense vs. Lax
is used to describe the opposition
of tense vowels as in leap, suit vs.
lax vowels as in lip, soot. This
opposition has traditionally been
thought to be a result of greater
muscular tension, though phonetic
experiments have repeatedly failed
to show this.
5. Nasality
• Nasalization refers to whether some of
the air escapes through the nose. In
nasal vowels, the velum is lowered, and
some air travels through the nasal
cavity as well as the mouth. An oral
vowel is a vowel in which all air escapes
through the mouth.
• French, Polish and Portuguese contrast
nasal and oral vowels.
6. Length/Duration/Quantity
• Any vowel can be spoken at any
duration, but some vowels are
typically longer than others.
This is called the vowel’s
inherent duration or typical
duration.
7. Phonation

• Voicing describes
whether the vocal cords
are vibrating during the
articulation of a vowel.
• Test
Tongue root retraction
• Advanced tongue root (ATR) is a
feature common across much of
Africa. The contrast between
advanced and retracted tongue root
resembles the tense/lax contrast
acoustically, but they are articulated
differently. ATR vowels involve
noticeable tension in the vocal tract.
Secondary narrowings in the
vocal tract
• Pharyngealized vowels occur in
some languages; Sedang uses
this contrast, as do the
Tungusic languages.
Pharyngealisation is similar in
articulation to retracted tongue
root, but is acoustically distinct.
Rhotic vowels

• Rhotic vowels are the "R-

colored vowels" of English
and a few other languages.
V. Prosodic Features
Prosodic Features

Prosodic features (sometimes known

as suprasegmental phonology) are
those aspects of speech which go
beyond phonemes and deal with the
auditory qualities of sound.
• Length is the duration of a vowel or
consonant sound as it is articulated. It
is indicated in phonetic transcription by
the use of a colon [:] (IPA [:]) placed
after the long segment.
• Pitch is the auditory property of a sound
that enables us to place it on a scale
that ranges from low to high. It
depends on how fast the vocal cords
vibrate; the faster they vibrate, the
higher the pitch.
• Stress is the relative intensity
with which a syllable is uttered.
It refers to the sound difference
achieved by pronouncing one
syllable more forcefully than
another.
• Tone is a pitch or change in pitch of the
voice that serves to distinguish words in
tonal languages. Example of this is
Mandarin Chinese.
• Intonation is the pitch movement in
spoken utterances that is not related to
differences in word meaning. It is the
rising or falling pitch of voice when
somebody utters or says a word or
syllable.
• Juncture or pause is a break between
words, the break between one spoken
word and another. It is the transition
between speech sounds which make a
phonological boundary or a word or
sentences.
• Volume or loudness is used to indicate
stress and generally, to show emotions
such as fear or anger.
VI. Phonemes and Allophones
PHONEMICS
• It is a study of the sounds of speech in
their primary function, which is to make
vocal signs that refer to different things
sound different.
• It is the branch of linguistics involved in
the classification and analysis of the
phonemes of a language.
Phonemes
• They refer to the sound of a spoken
utterance.
• Phoneme is a distinguishing speech
sound that distinguishes one word from
another, e.g. the sounds “d” and “t” in
the words “bid” and “bit”.
• It is the smallest phonetic unit.
Allophones
• These are phonetically similar sounds
that make up a single phoneme, or may
be said to be sub-members of a single
phoneme.
Subconscious phonological knowledge

Native speakers of a particular language

typically treat certain sounds as being the
same, even when they are phonetically
different, e.g.,
the [l] in lay and play
the [t] in top and stop
But other sounds are considered to be
distinct:
the [l] and the [r] in light and right
the [p] and the [b] in pan and ban
Phonemes vs. allophones
•Phonologists explain the difference by
invoking a distinction between phonemes and
allophones.
•A phoneme is a meaning- distinguishing
sound, whereas an allophone is a phonetic
variant of a particular phoneme.
•As we should expect, native speakers treat
different phonemes as distinct sounds, but
treat allophones as the same sound.
Minimal pairs
To know if two sounds are two separate
phonemes, or are simply phonetic variants of
the same phoneme, we use minimal pairs.
A minimal pair is a set of two words that
have the same sounds in all positions except
one. If, as a result of the difference of these
two sounds, a difference in meaning occurs,
then the two sounds are phonemes. If, by
contrast, no difference in meaning occurs,
then the two sounds must be allophones of
the same phoneme.
• When two sounds can be used to
differentiate words, they are said to
different phonemes.
/l/ vs. /r/ in “low” and “row”
/k/ vs. /b/ in “cat” and “bat”
• Phonemes are written between
slashes.
The concept of phoneme and allophony: “Same but
different”
Aspirated vs. unaspirated stops in English
pill spill till still kill skill
PHONETIC FACT: There is a burst or puff of air after the /p/ in
pill, till, and kill, that is absent in spill, still, and skill.
Aspiration: The period between the release of the closure of a
consonant and the start of the vocal cord activity for the vowel
that comes after it. This period is usually felt as a puff of air.
pill [phIl] spill [spIl]
till [thIl] still [stIl]
kill [khIl] skill [skIl]
Aspiration Rule in English: Aspiration occurs on all voiceless
stops occurring as the first sound in a stressed syllable.
Although aspirated stops and unaspirated stops are physically different ,
we consider both to be the same sound.
For English, aspiration is not employed to create a meaning difference.
VII. Phonetic/Phonemic Transcription
Phonemic Transcription
It is recording all and only the
variations between sounds that cause a
difference in meaning.
 International Phonetic Alphabet
Created by International Phonetic Association (active since 1896),
collaborative effort by all the major phoneticians around the world

Periodically revised and updated, most recent update in 2005;

published as:
 “Handbook of the International Phonetic Association”
by IPA,
Cambridge Univ. Press, ISBN: 0521637511.

IPA – International Phonetic Alphabet is largely used by phoneticians,

by dictionaries and phonetic resources

For more details on IPA: http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ and to

listen to sounds from languages:
http://phonetics.ucla.edu/index/sounds.html
• Describes the phonemes that cover all the world languages:
– Consonants
– Vowels
– Other Symbols
– Diacritics
– Suprasegmental
– Tones and Word Accent

• IPA is used by phoneticians for broad and narrow transcriptions

• IPA is used in many dictionaries

• In transcribing, remember these:

– “Real” words are comprised of sounds, not letters.
– Our goal is to transcribe SOUNDS.
– Don’t be misled by SPELLING.
Broad and Narrow Phonetic transcription
Broad phonetic transcription: captures the basic sounds;
What the speaker intended to say; roughly equivalent to a
phonemic transcription: relatively small number of basic
categories
Narrow phonetic transcription: captures the precise
pronunciation; represents additional detail; what the
speaker actually said; makes use of the full resources of the
IPA; roughly allophonic: often includes extra diacritic marks

•Notational convention:
Slashes / / for phonemic transcription
Square brackets [ ] for phonetic transcripton.
 (Narrow) Phonetic transcriptions

• Make use
of IPA
diacritics
• To more
accurately
reflect
precise
details of
articulation.
 Suprasegmentals and Tones
• Suprasegmentals
– Aspects of speech that involve more
than single phonemes
– The principal features are stress,
length, tone and intonation

• Tones and Word Accents

– Pitch variations that affect the
meaning of word
• i.e. /ma/ in Chinese Mandarin may mean
“mother”, “hemp”, “horse”, or “scold”, by
changing tone from “high level”, “low
level”, “rising”, and “going”
VIII. Implications for Teaching