Chapter 2: What is Phonetics?

Palatal sounds

made with the body of the tongue near the center of the hard portion of the roof of the mouth.

Labiodental consonants

made with the lower lip against the upper front teeth.

Bilabial consonants

made by bringing both lips close together.

Affricates

made by briefly stopping airstream completely and then releasing the articulators slightly so that frication noise is produced.

Glottal sounds

produced when air is constricted at the larynx.

High vowel

pronounced with the tongue body close to the roof of the mouth.

Liquids

formed with slightly more constriction than glides, and their quality changes depending on where they occur in a word.

Mid vowel

produced with an intermediate tongue height.

Segments

the discrete units of the speech stream that can be divided into consonants and vowels.

Approximants

involve constriction of the vocal tract, but the constrictions are not narrow enough to block the vocal tract or cause turbulence.

Low vowel

pronounced with the jaw opened and the tongue body away from the roof of the mouth.

Suprasegmental

applies to entire strings of consonants and vowels (such as stress, tone, and intonation)

Tone

the pitch at which the syllables in a word are pronounced.

syllables

All ________ have a rhyme, but onsets are optional in some languages.

Onset

any consonants that occur before the rhyme.

Pitch accents

usually involve a change in a fundamental frequency in the middle of an utterance.

Fricatives

made by forming a nearly complete obstruction of the vocal tract.

Flap

involves the complete obstruction of the oral cavity, however, it is much faster than that of a stop.

Velar consonants

produced with the back part of the tongue body raised near the velum, also known as the soft palate.

Consonants

produced with a constriction somewhere in the vocal tract that impedes airflow.

Phonetics

the study of the minimal units that make up language (sounds of speech- the consonants, vowels, melodies, and rhythms)

Monophthongs

simple vowels composed of a single configuration of the vocal tract.

Glides

made with only a slight closure of the articulators, and they require some movement of the articulators during production.

Larynx

contains the vocal folds and glottis; located in the throat at the Adams apple.

Nucleus

the vocalic part of the rhyme.

Co

________- articulation- the influence of one sound on a neighboring sound.

Stops

made by obstructing the airstream completely in the oral cavity.

Segmental features

the voicing, place, and manner of articulation.

Rhyme

consists of the vowel and any consonants that come after it.

Articulation

the motion or positioning of some part of the vocal tract with respect to some other part of the vocal tract in the production of a speech sound.

Vowels

have at most only a slight narrowing and allow air to flow freely through the oral cavity.

Coda

consists of any final consonants.

IPA

symbols only represent the sounds of language.

Front vowel

pronounced by pushing the body of the tongue forward.

Phrase tones

affect the overall meaning of an utterance at the end of an utterance, and group words into phrases.

Articulatory phonetics

the study of the production of speech sounds.

sounds sounds

Voiced ________ made with the vocal folds vibrating.

Alveolar sounds

made with the tongue tip at or near the front of the upper alveolar ridge.

Nasals

produced by relaxing the velum and lowering it, thus opening the nasal passage to the vocal tract.

Vocal tract

located above the larynx, which is composed of the oral and nasal cavities.

Intonation contours

________ are marked by pitch accents and phrase tones.

Voiceless sounds sounds

made without such vibration.

Stress

the level of prominence of a syllable.

Intonation

the pattern of pitch movements across a stretch of speech.

Tense vowels

have more extreme positions of the tongue and /or the lips.

Impressionistic phonetic transcription

a method of writing down speech sounds in order to capture what is said and how it is pronounced.

Subglottal system

part of the respiratory system located below the larynx.

Diphthongs

complex vowels composed of a sequence of two different configurations.

Auditory phonetics

the study of the perception of speech sounds.

Post-alveolar sounds

made with the front of the tongue just behind the alveolar ridge, right at the front of the hard palate.

Phonetics

the study of the minimal units that make up language (sounds of speech the consonants, vowels, melodies, and rhythms)