Week 4 — basic acoustics, consonants, phonemes, allophones, contextual variation, narrow transcription, etc.

differences in sounds of a language that alter meaning are...?

distinctive (contrastive)

distinctive sounds (contrastive)

serve to distinguish words (and morphemes) within the lexicon of the language — sounds that convey a difference in meaning

what is the best diagnostic for distinctiveness (contrast)?

minimal pairs (or minimal sets, if there are more than two members)

minimal pairs

a pair of words that differ by only 1 phoneme (dog/bog)

minimal sets

three or more words with one sound different-no spelling differences (cat, gnat, hat, sat)

difference between two sounds that are distinctive (contrastive) means that they are...?

seperate phonemes

if a sound difference is not distinctive/contrastive, then it is...?

non-distinctive

non-distinctive sound differences

two sounds are different variants in how a certain phoneme is realized (pronounced). there may multiple variants for a particular phoneme

Allophones are...:

the variants of a phoneme

Where do allophones occur?

typically, each allophone occurs only in some specific environment (context)

where are allophones differences recorded?

in (a relatively) narrow transcription

phonemes can be seen as....?

a category (a "type") of sounds

how do language users conceive different sounds from within a category (allophones of a phoneme)

they tend to view them as "the same" and usually have a hard time perceiving differences that are allophonic in their language.

when do we learn the categorization of phonemes?

in infancy and early childhood — we learn to ignore non-phonemic differences

is sound category structure language-specific?

yes

what are phonemes usually enclosed with?

slashes, / /

what are allophones usually enclosed with?

brackets, [ ]

plosives (stops) can either be...?

aspirated or unaspirated

aspiration

a brief period of voicelessness (a lag in the start of voicing) after the oral stop closure is released

english voiceless plosives are...?

aspirated at the beginning of a stressed or word-initial syllable (e.g., pan, atomic, terrific, because) and are otherwise unaspirated (e.g., after /s/ —> span, astonish, etc.).

when are english plosives unreleased ("unexploded")?

at the end of an utterance (before a pause) or enforce another stop (oral or nasal)

what happens to english plosives at the end of a syllable

they are often glottalized (= accompanied by a simultaneous glottal stop).

when do alveolar plosives/stops become flap/tap?

alveolar plosives /t,d/ are realized as a (voiced) alveolar tap between two vowels, if the second one is unstressed — e.g., writing, riding, wrote it, edited it, butter, etc.

does the alveolar nasal /n/ also change when between two vowels, with the second being unstressed?

yes, it retains its nasal quality, but turns into [ ɾ̃ ]

obstruents

these sound types "obstruct" the ability of the airstream to exit the vocal tract to a significant degree

what are the three obstruent sound types?

1. stops/plosives
2. fricatives
3. affricates

are voiced plosives (/b, d, g/) and the affricate /d͡ʒ/ voiced throughout?

no, they are mostly voiceless — become voiceless at the beginning of an utterance, or when following a voiceless consonant (e.g., book, facebook, etc.)

the voiced obstruents (the plosives /b, d, g/, the affricates /d͡ʒ/, and fricatives /v, , z, ʒ/ are typically voiceless throughout most of their duration in what scenarios?

when they occur at the end of an utterance, or when followed by a voiceless consonant —> e.g., it's alive, a cab from, etc.

how are these (contextually, positionally) devoiced obstruents usually transcribed?

by using the voicelessness diacritic

diacritic

specialized phonetic symbol used in narrow transcription to represent both allophonic production as well as suprasegmental features of speech

voicelessness diacritic

transcriptions to represent devoiced obstruents - [b̥, d̥, g̥̥, d͡ʒ̥, v̥, ð̥, z̥, ʒ̥]

when are the approximants [w, l, r, j] voiceless?

after word-initial voiceless stops, or the beginning of a stressed syllable —> e.g., plum, train, quick, etc.

* aspiration of those voiceless stops are also expected in those scenarios *

sonorant

sound made with open passage for airflow (nasals and approximants)

*anything that is not an obstruent*

are vowels technically sonorants?

yes, since they are also technically approximants, however "sonorant" is typically used just to refer to non-obstruent consonants

what are the english sonorants?

/m, n, ŋ, w, l, r, j/

liquid

the cover term for lateral approximants and rhotics (l-like sounds and r-like sounds)

rhotics

sounds related to the phoneme [r]

when do liquids become syllabic [l̩, r̩]?

when between two consonants or between a consonant and the end of a word —> e.g., fiddle, tables, ogre, hammer, etc.

when do nasals become syllabic [m̩, n̩, ŋ̩]?

when between an obstruent and another consonant or between an obstruent and the end of a word —> e.g., hidden, fasten, prism, etc.

syllabic sounds

sounds that can function as the core of a syllable

dental vs. alveolar

the alveolar stops and lateral (/t, d, n, l/) become dental [t̪, d̪, n̪, l̪] when followed by a dental consonant /θ, ð/ —> e.g., eighth (= /eɪtθ/), eat this (= /it ðɪs/), etc.

variation in velars

the velars /k, g, ŋ/ become more front [k̟, g̟, ŋ̟], when followed by a front vowel —> keen vs. coot; risky vs. disco; give vs. guide, etc.

the velarization of /l/

the lateral /l/ is velarized (“dark” —> [ ɫ ]) when followed by a consonant or at the end of a word —> peel, milk, stalled, apple, soul VS. leaf, slice, solo, etc.

or at the end of a syllable

when does /h/ turn into a breathy, voiced [ ɦ ]?

between vowels —> e.g., ahead, the house, etc.

does /h/ get deleted?

sometimes it gets deleted between vowels —> e.g., saw her, find him, etc.

what common process does /n/ sometimes undergo?

/n/ sometimes takes on the same place of articulation as its following consonant —> e.g., pronounced as bilabial [m] in inborn; pronounced as velar [ŋ] in income.

what common process does /t/ sometimes undergo?

/t/ sometimes becomes a glottal stop before a nasal —> button, atmosphere, it must, etc.