LING 201 McGill

bilabial

both lips

/p/ /b/ /m/ /w/

labiodental

lower lip and upper teeth

interdental

tip of tongue between teeth

alveolar

tip or blade approaches or touches the alveolar ridge

palatal

blade or front of tongues approaches/touches the hard palate

velar

back of tongue approaches/touches soft palate/velum

glottal

constricted at glottis

stop

complete closure of articulators

nasal

velum lowered forcing air through nasal cavity

fricatives

/f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /h/, turbulent airflow

affricate

a consonant characterized as having both a fricative and a stop manner of production

liquids

l, r

glide

same as vowel but precedes or follows a true vowel

tense vowels

more muscle tension, less centralized, longer

phoneme

-any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another, for example p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat.

-sound that contrast words

allophone

surface variant of phoneme determined by context

ex /t/, /t aspirated/

assimilation

one sound acquires qualities from a neighbor (place/manner/voicing)

lip rounding

-consonants rounded before round vowel

-assimilation in place of articulation

fronting of alveolars

alveolars become dental before interdental

vowel nasalization

-When a vowel sound is directed through the nose because it is articulated immediately before a nasal consonant

-team

Devoicing of approximants

liquids and glides devoiced following voiceless stops

-dry vs try

aspiration

word initial voiceless stops with puff of air

deletion

segments deletes in fast speech

broad transcription

words in terms of phonemes and stress

narrow transcription

words as phonemes with stress and allophonic detail

creaky voice

vocal folds are compressed and flat

vibrate slowly and irregularly

doesnt distinguish sounds in english

Lungs

breathing

airflow for sound

larynx

keeps food out of lungs

creates vocal fold vibration

tongue

moves food around

changes shape of vocal tract to filter sound

lips

eating, swimming (keeps right or wrong things out)

helps shape vocal tract

larynx is _______ than in other primates

lower!

descended larynx specialized for speech in adult humans

but much easier to choke!!

Three major sound classes

vowels

consonants

glides

articulatory differences

consonants: substantial constriction in vocal tract

vowels: less constriction

aerodynamic differences

consonants: no airflow or turbulent airflow

vowels: laminal airflow

consonants are described by their:

voicing

place of articulation

manner of articulation

manner of articulation

how it is pronounced

left hand side of ipa chart

voiced

when vocal folds/cords are brought together and air is passed through, they vibrate

voiceless

when they are held apart, air passes through freely, no vibration

place of articulation

different speech sounds: move structures of the vocal tract into different configurations

place of articulation is the point of constriction in the articulation of a consonant

manner of articulation

how the sound s creates

- degree or nature of the constriction

-the type/shape of resonator

-different ways of being a consonant

- eg stops, fricatives, etc

stops

aka plosives

complete constriction, blocked oral airflow, short turbulent release

approach (onset)

hold (closure)

release

aspiration

voiceless stops in english are often aspirated (release of stop closure followed by a burst of air)

superscript h

fricatives

small opening

turbulent airflow

affricates

can be understood as a stop + a fricative in fast succession

stop with slower release

always use a tie bar

fricative and affricate categories

sibilants (stridents)

-particularly noisy

-airstream goes through a narrow channel and hits the teeth

non-sibilant

-quieter

obstruents

stops, fricatives, affricates

-obstructed airflow because blocked or highly constricted

sonorants

all non-obstruent sounds

produced with continuous, non turbulent airflow

louder, more sonorous, resonance

includes liquids, approximants, glides, nasals, vowels

glides

further constricting a vowel

w, j

nasals

oral stop + diverted airflow to another resonator (nasal cavity)

m, n, n(with little tail)

approximants, laterals

dramatically changing the oral cavity resonator

r, l

approximants

-liquids and glides

-liquids: diverse set of l and r sounds of the worlds languages

nasals

oral stop

lowered velum, air escaping through the nose

oral vs nasal air flow

oral sounds: the velum is raised, sound passes through the oral cavity

nasal sounds: the velum is lowered, sound passes through the nasal cavity as well

glides

also approximants

short, non-syllabic vowels

if glides were syllabic, they would be vowels

sonorants

nasals

liquids

glides

vowels

vowels (articulatory vs acoustic)

articulatory:

-more open vocal tract (than consonants)

-voiced, sonorants

-articulated with tongue body

acoustic:

-louder than consonants because of characteristic resonant frequencies

monophthongs

aka simple vowels

position of the articula

dipthongs

sequence of vowel and glide or glide and vowel

articulation involves a noticeable change

eg. [aj]

oral vowels

velum is raised

airflow/sound is only through the oral cavity

nasal vowels

velum is lowered

airflow/sound is through both oral and nasal cavities

tense vowels

greater vocal tract constriction

longer

wider distribution

lax vowels

less vocal tract constriction

shorter

restricted distribution

vowels- referring to position of tongue body

height

backness

rounding

vowels - referring to position of lips

tenseness

vowel chart is organized according to ----

where in the mouth the tongue is

acoustics descriptions are:::

objective

easy to produce

more directly related to what we hear than articulatory descriptions

still related to articulation: shape of vocal tract determines the acoustic structure of vowels

dialectal variation

english dialects differ a lot in how vowels are pronounced

coarticulation intro

-spoken language comes out in a continuous stream which we hear as individual sounds

-physically each utterance is a continuum of sound

but perceived as a sequence of discrete units

anticipatory coarticulation

we start to produce the next sound while we're still producing the last one

eg. anticipatory nasal coarticulation- vowels before nasals in english

carry-over coarticulation

sounds are affected by preceding sounds

anticipatory nasal coarticulation

vowels before nasals

the lowering of the velum for the nasal overlaps in time with the articulation of the vowel

over time, these patterns can become phonologized and can lead to language change

ex. french nasal vowels

voicing coarticulation

[z] in shes nice vs shes tall

[z] becomes voiceless before [t]

lingual coarticulation

[k] in caught vs key

[k] in key is fronted before [i]

labial coarticulation

[s] in see vs sue

[s] in sue is rounded before [u]

we can make detailed observations about the exact pronunciation using

diacritics

reduction

when articulatory targets of speech sounds are not reached

massive reduction in casual speech

suprasegmentals

phonetic and phonological phenomena are overlaid on segments

-stress

-tone and intonation

-length

syllable

speech until typically larger than a single sound and smaller than a word

usually composed of no more than one vowel and zero or more consonants

stress

stress vowels tend to be louder and longer than unstressed

stressed syllables may carry an intonational accent involving a pitch target or movement

some words have more than one stressed syllable

tone

tone languages use pitch to signal differences in world meaning

low mid high level tones

intonation

linguistic use of pitch contrasts to convey post-lexical meanings

patch accents

tones associated to stressed syllables, often transcribed with a star

boundary tones

tones associated with the edges of utterances

often transcribed with a percent symbol

neutral assertion tone

fall from final high accent to low boundary tone at the end of the intonational phrase

yes-no question tune

rise from final low accent to high boundary tone

length

indicated by the use of a colon

vowels and consonantal contrast involving duration

phonetics

studies the speech sounds found in human languages, focusing on their articulation, acoustics, and perception

phonology

each language selects some of the possible sounds studied in phonetics, and arranges them into a specific system of contrasts and patterns

SOUND SYSTEMS

minimal pairs

test for phonological contrast

switching one for the other can change the meaning of the word categorically

/f/ and /v/ are contrastive in english so they are different phonemes (feel and veal)

phonemes

symbolic categories

difference between phonemes can distinguish words (minimal pairs, near minimal pairs)

between slashes

allophones

sound categories

variants of phonemes

a difference between allophones does not affect meaning

complementary distribution

allophonic variation that is predictable from context

/l/ devoiced after voiceless stops

free variation

allophones of the same phoneme can occur in the same phonetic environment

how do we choose what symbols to use in phonemic translation?

use the most frequent allophone

complementary distribution

allophonic variation that is predictable from context

/l/-->[ldevoiced] after voiceless stops

/l/--> [l with little squiggle] at the end of the word

/l/--> [l] elsewhere

assimilation

two adjacent segments become more similar

in english, palatalizarion before /j/, such as please becoming pleasure

coalescence

two segments merge into one

lenition

weakening of a sound

/t/ and /t/ --> [r flap] between a stressed and an unstressed vowel (ex. atomic vs atom)

fortition

strengthening of a sound

/t/ ---> [t aspihated] at the beginning of stressed syllables (ex. atomic (fortition) vs atom (lenition))

deletion

a segment is deleted