Phonetics Final

In your own words, explain how the /t/ sound is created, including where and how the articulators constrict the vocal tract, and how that creates the unique consonant sound.

/t/ is a stop consonant which means there is a complete, brief closure of the vocal tract. The tongue stops airflow and it builds up against the alveolar ridge.

In your own words, briefly explain the difference between obstruent and sonorant consonants. 

Obstruent consonants obstruct the vocal tract including stops, fricatives, and affricates. On the other hand, the airflow of sonorant consonants is continuous through the vocal tract.

In your own words, briefly explain why the position of the soft palate/velum is important for the production of all fricative and stop sounds

The position of the velum is important for the production of all fricative and stop sounds because the velum’s position controls whether air can flow into the nasal cavity. We wouldn't be able to build up the air pressure necessary to produce said sounds if the velum didn't move up and down.

True or False: The /r/ sound is known as the "lateral" liquid.

False

Briefly describe how the /m/ consonant is formed, including where and how the vocal tract is constricted, and how that creates the sound.

/m/ is a nasal consonant which means the oral cavity is completely closed off, while the velopharyngeal port is open. The upper and lower lips are closed and the sound resonates through the nasal cavity.

True or False: When producing a glide consonant, the articulators move from a more open posture to a more constricted posture. 

False

***Select the words below that begin with voiceless obstruent consonants:

• Pistachio

• Therefore

• Kangaroo

• Throughout

• Growing

• Shocking

• Mountain

• Language

• Pistachio

• Kangaroo

• Throughout

• Shocking

Stop Consonants

There is complete, brief closure of the vocal tract.

Nasal Consonants

The oral cavity is completely closed off, while the velopharyngeal port is open.

Fricative Consonants

There is enough of an opening for airflow to continue through the vocal tract, but that opening is so small that the airflow becomes turbulent.

Glide Consonants

The articulators make a smooth transition from a constricted posture to a more open one, generally without creating turbulent airflow.

Liquid Consonants

The vocal tract is only slightly more constricted than would be the case for vowels. Otherwise, this group of consonants has little in common.

In your own words, briefly describe how the liquid phoneme /l/ is created, including positions of the articulators and path of airflow.

The /l/ phoneme is a liquid consonant which means the vocal tract is only slightly more constricted in comparison to other vowels. The tongue is against the alveolar ridge and air flows on the sides of the tongue.

Select all the words below that contain the /r/ consonant.

• Carrot

• Termite

• Further

• Frog

• Treats

• Father

• Heard

• Alarm

Carrot

Frog

Treats

Alarm

True or False: The low back vowels of English are sometimes easy to confuse. The main articulatory differences between / ɔ / and / ɑ / are that / ɑ / is a rounded vowel, while / ɔ / requires a lower jaw position.

False

What’s the difference between a simple sound wave and a complex one?

• A single wave with a single frequency will produce a pure tone

• Complex waves are made up of multiple waves at different frequencies

Fundamental frequency

The lowest frequency in a complex wave, also F0 or first harmonic

Formant

a concentration of acoustic energy around a particular frequency in the speech sound wave

How are formants created?

When sound passes through a particular cavity, the shape of that cavity causes certain frequencies in a complex sound wave to be louder than others. Those frequencies are formants.

Why are formants important to vowel production/perception?

Formants are important to vowel production/perception because they help us distinguish one vowel sound from another.

/ɝ/ or /ɚ/?

• Thursday

• Survive

• Lobster

• Rehearse

• Thursday /ɝ/

• Survive /ɚ/

• Lobster /ɚ/

• Rehearse /ɝ/

/ʌ/ or /ə/?

• Pizza

• Nothing

• Question

• Enough

• Pizza /ə/

• Nothing /ʌ/

• Question /ə/

• Enough /ʌ/

How does stop articulation work?

1. Airflow through the vt is closed off completely (for a brief period of time) 

2. The velum is a raised position 

3. Air pressure builds up during the closure --> “stop gap” 

4. Impounded air is released all at once, creating loud, sudden sound --> “stop burst” 

What is the alveolar tap? What is a word that might contain one?

a very fast stop-like sound that can replace /t/ or /d/ in intervocalic position 

ex) butter, letter, better

How is fricative articulation different than stop articulation?

Fricative articulation:

• Created by turbulence in the vocal tract, known as frication 

• The vocal tract is almost entirely closed off 

• The velum is raised 

• Air is forced through the narrow constriction, creating turbulent airflow 

• Turbulent flow gives rise to random pressure variations that we hear as a random, hiss-like, noisy waveform 

Why do we refer to /ð/ and /θ/ as both “dental” and “interdental”
fricatives?

We refer to /θ/ and /ð/ as both “dental” and “interdental” fricatives because they are created by turbulent outgoing air between the tongue and upper incisors (either with the tongue tip protruding between, or approximated to the back of the teeth) 

What do we mean when we describe affricates as “blend” sounds?

When we describe affricates as “blend” sounds, we mean it has a blending of stop and fricative characteristics: sounds in whose articulation the airstream is stopped as for a plosive and then released slowly and partially with friction.

Describe how affricates are created.

• The vocal tract is closed off completely 

• Pressure builds up behind the point of closure 

• The pressure is released, but the vt does not completely open 

• Released air moves through the narrow opening, creating frication 

How does nasal articulation work?

• A sound whose articulation depends on resonance created as air passes through the nasal cavity 

• Vocal folds are vibrating 

• Airflow through the oral cavity is blocked 

• The velum is lowered 

• Airflow through the nasal cavity (and remaining unblocked oral cavity) sets up a resonance pattern 

In what way are nasals comparable to stop sounds? In what way are
they comparable to vowels?

• Nasals and vowels are voiced 

• Continuous airflow

Nasalization

When the velopharyngeal port is open during a sound that does not require it

What do we mean when we call glides and liquids “vowel like”
consonants?

• There are vowel phoneme versions of the /r/ sound, namely /ɚ/ and /ɝ/ 

• Syllabic /l/ - the /l/ sound functions as the nucleus of a syllable, as in the words “little” or “bottle” 

• This entire class of sounds is sometimes called “Approximants”, because the articulators approach each other, but not closely enough the create turbulent airflow 

How does glide articulation work?

This consonant has a similar tongue position to high-front vowels, except that the tongue is flattened and more towards the palate. Constricted to open, no turbulence

What are two ways to create an /r/ consonant sound?

1) Retroflex: the tip of the tongue is raised and curled back towards the alveolar ridge or hard palate

2) Rhotacized/Rhotic: the tongue tip stays down while the body of the tongue bunches up toward the roof of the mouth

Why is /l/ called the lateral liquid?

• Airflow is continuous laterally (around the sides of the tongue)

• The tongue contacts the alveolar ridge, stopping airflow – but only at the midline of the oral cavity

In your own words, what do we mean by the term “suprasegmental
features”?

Properties of an utterance which don’t belong to any single speech sound (segment) such as stress, pitch, or rhythm

Span across multiple speech sounds, syllables, or words

What are 2 ways stress/rhythm can affect how we interpret meaning?

1) Putting the stress on the incorrect syllable can make a word difficult to understand. Even if the word is understandable, it will still sound “off” to the listener

2) “Lexical stress” - changing the stressed syllable of a word also changes the meaning of the word, and makes the difference between noun and verb pairs 

In this context, what do we mean by “tone”?

Tone = the use of pitch (high, low, rising, or falling) at the syllable or word level to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning

What are 2 ways that increasing rate can affect speech sounds?

1) Reduction in the articulatory movements for a given sound (undershoot)

2) Reduction of vowels

Label the parts of the following syllables (onset, nucleus, coda):

• Crash

• True

• Act

• Thread

• Sky

• End

onset + nucleus + coda

• Crash —> cr+a+sh, rhyme —> ash

• True —> tr+ue+__, rhyme —> ue

• Act —> __+a+ct, rhyme —> act

• Thread —> thr+ea+d, rhyme —> ead

• Sky —> s+ky+__, rhyme —> y

• End —> __+en+d, rhyme —> end

Onset

consonant or set of consonants before the nucleus 

Nucleus

aka peak: the central, most sonorous, and loudest part of a syllable

Coda

consonant or set of consonants after the nucleus 

Rhyme/rime

nucleus + coda

What is coarticulation? Why does it happen?

Articulation of individual speech sounds is influenced by neighboring speech sounds. It occurs because the lips, tongue, and jaw prepare for upcoming sounds while still finishing current ones, making speech faster, smoother, and less choppy.

What is the difference between anticipatory and retentive
coarticulation?

Anticipatory:

• Articulatory feature of a phoneme is present prior to its production 

• The feature is “anticipated” and appears in a previous sound 

• /si/ vs /su/ = see vs sue 

Retentive:

• Articulatory feature of a phoneme is present after its production 

• The feature is “retained” and affects the next sound 

• /bit/ vs /but/ = beet vs boot

A speaker produces the /z/ in “shoes” /ʃuz/ with lip rounding. Is this
an example of retentive or anticipatory coarticulation? How do you
know?

Anticipatory because the liprounding feature is anticipated and appears in a previous sound

What are 2 differences between broad and narrow transcription?

Broad:

• Each symbol represents a phoneme, but detail beyond that is not recorded 

• Symbols are placed within slashes // 

Narrow:

• Records sounds with as many details about their production as possible (or as many as necessary) 

• Symbols are placed within brackets [] 

• Can be particularly critical for describing disordered speech

Why is it important to know the positions of the diacritics as well as their
symbols?

They are necessary for precise narrow transcription of specific, altered sounds and show exactly how that sound is produced. 

Placement—such as directly above, below, or to the side of a symbol—modifies specific articulatory features like nasality, voicing, or tongue height, which are necessary for precise narrow transcription

Describe the articulatory changes (i.e. “what
has to happen in the mouth”) that produce a Dentalized sound

tongue touching upper incisors

Describe the articulatory changes (i.e. “what
has to happen in the mouth”) that produce a Lateralized sound

tongue touching alveolar ridge, airflow is going around the tongue 

Describe the articulatory changes (i.e. “what
has to happen in the mouth”) that produce an Unreleased stop

no aspiration burst/no release, no opening of the lips 

Describe the articulatory changes (i.e. “what
has to happen in the mouth”) that produce a Frictionalized stop

near perfect closure and tiny aperture where turbulent air can flow 

Describe the articulatory changes (i.e. “what
has to happen in the mouth”) that produce a Derhoticized sound

tongue is curled up for regular /r/ or er, tongue is in the same place but relaxed for derhoticized 

When we describe a production as a “retracted” vowel, what do we mean? Why is it difficult to say exactly how a “retracted” vowel will sound?

When we describe a production as a “retracted” vowel, the tongue is too far back in the oral cavity. It is difficult to say exactly how a “retracted” vowel will sound because it describes a shift in tongue position rather than a fixed sound.

[ɛ̞], a lowered epsilon, will sound like a
combination of /ɛ̞/ and _____.

/æ/ (ash)

/ɑ/ and /ɔ/

/ɑ/ is lower jaw position, /ɔ/ is rounded lip

Phonemic diphthongs

• cannot be reduced to monophthongs without drastically changing the sounds 

• /a͡ʊ/, /ɔ͡ɪ/, /a͡ɪ/ 

Nonphonemic diphthongs

• can be reduced to monophthongs under some conditions 

• /o͡ʊ/ and /e͡ɪ/ 

Suprasegmental features: Rhythm

Distribution of stress across syllables 

• Pitch declination – utterances tend to start big (higher fundamental freq. High intensity, large tongue/jaw movements) and then get smallers 

• Contrastive stress – emphasis on a disagreed upon word “Turn left” 

• Lexical stress – way to tell words apart – IMport vs imPORT 

Suprasegmental features: Intonation

Contour of rising and falling pitch 

• English has a number of intonation patterns which add meaning to the utterance: question, statement, surprise disbelief, sarcasm 

Suprasegmental features: Tempo

Changes to the pace of speech 

Pause – silences of at least 200 ms 

• Functions to make boundaries between units 

• Indicates hesitation (looking for a word) 

• Increases listener anticipation “All of a sudden...” 

• Internal word pauses can also affect meaning 

Speaking rate – as rate increases, the durations of the components of speech get smaller 

• Undershoot (due to rate) - reduction in the articulatory movements for a given sound 

• Reduction of vowels 

• Increased coarticulation 

Suprasegmental features: Syllables

Difficult to define (but fairly easy to count) 

A unit of pronunciation with loosely specified internal structure: 

• Contains some kind of sonorous components that surround the nucleus 

• Onset – consonant or set of consonants before the nucleus 

• Coda – consonant or set of consonants after the nucleus 

• Nucleus + Coda = “rhyme” or “rime” 

Symbol for diacritics used with consonants: Lateralization

slight sad face under the letter

Symbol for diacritics used with consonants: Palatalization

little j superscript or under the letter

Symbol for diacritics used with consonants: Dentalization

bracket under letter, almost like a tooth or braces

Partial voicing

When a voiceless consonant becomes somewhat voiced 

• Connected speech, when a voiceless consonant follows a voiced one in a cluster, or follows a vowel 

Partial devoicing

When a voiced consonant takes on characteristics of voiceless consonant 

• Very last consonant in a word, as the vocal folds stop vibrating 

Diacritics marking changes in stop consonants: Aspirated stop

• Aspiration/aspirated stop: extra burst of airflow is present at a stop release 

• Aspiration in typically-aspirated stops is not noted with diacritics, unless the aspiration is excessive 

• Ex: Pie 

Aspirated stop symbol

h in the top right corner of [p/letter] 

Diacritics marking changes in stop consonants: Unreleased stop

• Not only is there no aspirations burst, there is no release 

• Typically occur at the end of an utterance 

• Ex: top 

Unreleased stop symbol

right angled 7 in the top right corner of [p/letter] 

Diacritics marking changes in stop consonants: Frictionalized stop

A deviation in stop release creates frication or fricative-like airflow 

• Turbulent 

Frictionalized stop symbol

x in the bottom right corner of [letter] 

Partial voicing symbol

wide v below letter

Partial devoicing symbol

tiny open circle/o under letter

Retracted tongue placement

tongue is too far back in the oral cavity

symbol --> T on its left side, tail facing right 

Advanced tongue placement

tongue is too far forward in the oral cavity

symbol --> T on its right ride, tail facing left 

Raised tongue placement

tongue is too high up in the oral cavity

symbol --> upside down T 

Lowered tongue placement

tongue too is low in the oral cavity

symbol --> right-side up T 

Nasalized vowel

Lowered and muffled 

Symbol --> tilde over letter 

Denasalized vowel

Higher and a little bit strangled 

Symbol --> strike-through tilde over letter 

Like a cartoon nerd talking

Nasal emission

An excessive puff of air through the nasal cavity during articulation of a speech sound 

Symbol --> tilde with dots in the curves

Lengthened sound symbol

:

Shortened sound symbol

>

Timing: ways to mark stress

1) ˈsʌbˌskrɪpt

primary stress: small vertical mark superscript before syllable

secondary: small vertical mark subscript before syllable

2) numbers (1,2, etc) placed above syllable