Phonetics 1: Consonants

Phonetics 1: Consonants

Department Information

  • Program Information Sessions & Meet & Greet (Fall 2025):

    • Date: Friday, September 12

    • Purpose: Meet professors, ask program questions, meet fellow students.

    • Program Sessions (11:00 AM - 11:45 AM):

      • Education Studies and Italian Studies Programs: MN 5th floor terrace

      • French Studies and Language Teaching & Learning Programs: MN 5128

      • Linguistics Programs: MN 6128

    • Meet & Greet (12:00 PM - 1:00 PM): MN 4th floor patio

    • Note: Refreshments provided. RSVP encouraged at uoft.me/dls-meet-2025.

Today's Agenda

  • What is phonetics?

  • Introduction to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

  • How are speech sounds produced?

  • Consonants: Place of articulation, Manner of articulation, Voicing.

  • IPA symbols for English consonants.

  • (Brief mention of consonants beyond English).

What is Phonetics?

  • Definition: The scientific study of speech sounds.

  • Subfields:

    • Articulatory phonetics: How speech sounds are produced by the vocal organs.

    • Acoustic phonetics: The physical properties of speech sounds as sound waves.

    • Auditory phonetics: How speech sounds are perceived by the ear and brain.

  • Applications of Phonetics:

    • Language teaching and learning.

    • Speech technology (e.g., voice recognition, synthesis).

    • Speech pathology and audiology (diagnosis and treatment of speech/hearing disorders).

    • Producing written records of the sounds of a language.

Sounds Are Not Letters

  • Key Concept: Sounds are fundamentally different from letters.

  • Pop Quiz Examples:

    • Pop Quiz #1: True or False: Sounds are the same as letters. Answer: False.

    • Pop Quiz #2: How do you pronounce the English pseudoword 'Ghoti'? (This is a famous example demonstrating inconsistencies in English orthography).

      • gh as in enough /f/

      • o as in women /ɪ/

      • ti as in station /ʃ/

      • Therefore, 'Ghoti' could be pronounced fish. (Although the slide actually showed enough/f/, women/I/, station // without explicitly spelling out 'fish', it implies the sound /fɪʃ/).

  • In English (and many other languages):

    • The same symbol (letter) can represent different sounds (e.g., c in city [/s/] vs. cat [/k/]).

    • The same sound can be represented by different symbols (letters) (e.g., city [/sɪti/] vs. sin [/sɪn/]).

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

  • Purpose: A system designed to represent speech sounds unambiguously, with one symbol per sound.

  • Contrast with English letters: While English letters are inconsistent, IPA symbols provide a consistent mapping.

    • Example: city (English letters) -> [sɪti] (IPA phonetic transcription).

How Are Speech Sounds Produced?

  • Vocal Tract: The entire system of air passages involved in speech production.

    • Components: Lungs, trachea, larynx, pharynx, oral cavity, nasal cavity.

    • Lungs: Provide the air source for speech.

    • Trachea (windpipe): Connects the lungs to the larynx.

    • Larynx (voice box): Houses the vocal folds.

    • Vocal folds: Two flaps of tissue within the larynx that can vibrate to produce sound (voicing).

    • Glottis: The space between the vocal folds.

    • Pharynx: The part of the throat behind the mouth and nasal cavity.

    • Oral cavity: The mouth, where the tongue, lips, teeth, and palate play a role.

    • Nasal cavity: The space above the oral cavity, leading to the nostrils.

    • Articulators: The parts of the vocal tract that move to change its shape and produce different sounds (e.g., tongue, lips, velum).

  • Vowels vs. Consonants:

    • Vowels: Produced with a relatively unobstructed airstream through the vocal tract.

    • Consonants: Produced when articulators approach each other, creating constrictions in the vocal tract.

Describing Consonants: Three Key Dimensions

  1. Place of Articulation: Where is the constriction formed in the vocal tract?

  2. Manner of Articulation: What is the nature or type of that constriction?

  3. Voicing: Are the vocal folds vibrating during the production of the sound?

1. Place of Articulation

  • Definition: Refers to which articulators (active and passive) are involved in forming the constriction in the oral tract.

    • Lower articulators = Active: Usually the moving part (e.g., lower lip, tongue).

      • Tongue divisions: tip, blade (corona/front), back (dorsum), root, epiglottis.

    • Upper articulators = Passive: The relatively stationary part (e.g., upper lip, upper teeth, alveolar ridge, postalveolar region, hard palate, velum/soft palate, uvula, pharyngeal wall).

  • Places of Articulation in English (with IPA symbols and examples):

    • 1. Bilabial: Lower lip and upper lip.

      • [p] - pat [pæt] (voiceless bilabial stop)

      • [b] - bat [bæt] (voiced bilabial stop)

      • [m] - mat [mæt] (voiced bilabial nasal)

    • 2. Labiodental: Lower lip and upper teeth.

      • [f] - fox [fɑks] (voiceless labiodental fricative)

      • [v] - van [væn] (voiced labiodental fricative)

    • 3. Interdental: Tongue tip between teeth.

      • [θ] - thought [θɑt] (voiceless interdental fricative)

      • [ð] - them [ðɛm] (voiced interdental fricative)

    • 4. Alveolar: Tongue tip (or blade) and alveolar ridge (just behind the upper front teeth).

      • [t] - talk [tɑk] (voiceless alveolar stop)

      • [d] - dock [dɑk] (voiced alveolar stop)

      • [s] - sock [sɑk] (voiceless alveolar fricative)

      • [z] - zoo [zu] (voiced alveolar fricative)

      • [l] - leg [lɛɡ] (voiced alveolar lateral approximant)

      • [ɹ] - ring [ɹɪŋ] (voiced alveolar approximant)

      • [n] - neat [nit] (voiced alveolar nasal)

    • 5. Postalveolar: Tongue blade and post-alveolar region (area just behind the alveolar ridge).

      • [ʃ] - ship [ʃɪp] (voiceless postalveolar fricative)

      • [ʒ] - beige [beʒ] (voiced postalveolar fricative)

      • [tʃ] - chips [tʃɪps] (voiceless postalveolar affricate)

      • [dʒ] - juice [dʒus] (voiced postalveolar affricate)

    • 6. Palatal: Tongue back (dorsum) and hard palate.

      • [j] - yes [jɛs] (voiced palatal approximant)

    • 7. Velar: Tongue back (dorsum) and velum (soft palate).

      • [k] - cat [kæt] (voiceless velar stop)

      • [ɡ] - go [ɡo] (voiced velar stop)

      • [ŋ] - sing [sɪŋ] (voiced velar nasal)

      • [w] - wasp [wɑsp] (voiced velar approximant, often considered labiovelar due to lip rounding).

    • 8. Glottal: The glottis (space between vocal folds) itself forms the constriction (though it technically doesn't involve active/passive articulators in the same way as other places).

      • [h] - have [hæv] (voiceless glottal fricative)

      • [ʔ] - uh-oh [ʌʔo] (glottal stop)

  • Practice: Place of Articulation (first sound in each pair):

    • sigh, zed -> Alveolar

    • thigh, that -> Interdental

    • shy, child -> Postalveolar

    • tie, die -> Alveolar

    • kite, guy -> Velar

    • five, vie -> Labiodental

    • pie, buy -> Bilabial

2. Manner of Articulation

  • Definition: Describes the nature or degree of constriction created by the articulators.

    • Degrees of constriction:

      • Full closure of oral tract (e.g., tie -> stop).

      • Narrow constriction (e.g., shy -> fricative).

      • Wider constriction (e.g., right -> approximant).

  • Manners of Articulation in English (with IPA symbols and key characteristics):

    • 1. Stops (Oral Stops): Complete closure of the vocal tract, then a sudden release of air.

      • [p, b, t, d, k, ɡ, ʔ]

    • 2. Nasals (Nasal Stops): Complete closure of the vocal tract in the mouth, but the velum is lowered, allowing air to pass through the nasal cavity.

      • [m, n, ŋ]

      • Physiology: For oral stops (e.g., [t]), the velum is raised, blocking airflow to the nasal cavity. For nasals (e.g., [n]), the velum is lowered, allowing airflow through the nasal cavity.

    • 3. Fricatives: Articulators form a very narrow constriction, through which air is forced, creating turbulent, hissing, or buzzing noise.

      • [f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, h]

    • 4. Affricates: A fluid combination of a stop followed immediately by a fricative at the same place of articulation. They are considered single sounds.

      • [tʃ, dʒ]

      • Sometimes written with a ligature ([t͡ʃ]) to emphasize they are one sound.

    • 5. Approximants: Articulators approach each other, but the constriction is wider than for fricatives, not creating turbulent airflow, but still narrowing the vocal tract more than for vowels.

      • [ɹ] (alveolar approximant)

        • English [ɹ] is complex; can be