Linguistics Midterm

Sounds of a language: phonetics and phonology 

• Upcoming - Where and how sounds are produced?

• New alphabet 

  • Ex: ff sound - f or ph 

  • Ex 2: Cat v Cereal (c sound is changing) 

  • IPA - international phonetic alphabet

• Phonetics - the study of the sounds of human languages 

  • Articulatory phonetics studies the production of sounds 

  • Acoustic phonetics studies the properties of wound waves 

  • Auditory phonetics studies the perception of sounds 

• How many graphemes are there? 

  • Graphemes - units of writing corresponding to a single sound 

1. Guitar (graphemes = 6 ) (sounds = 5) 

• The classification is based on the articulatory system 

• Linguists classify sounds based on 3 parameters 

1. Place (or point) of articulation 

2. Manner of articulation 

3. Activity of the vocal cords: voiced vs voiceless sounds 

Place of articulation: 

• Bilabial sound - sound articulated by the two lips 

  • buh sound

  • mmm sound

• Voice box activation - activating vocal cords so feel the movement (buzzing) 

  • F, s, p, k 

• Labiodentals - the bottom lip contact with the ridge of the upper teeth 

  • /f/ - ‘fall’, photo 

  • /v/ - very 

• Dentals - the tip of the tongue makes contact (and sometimes slides in between the teeth)

  • /Ɵ/ - ‘think’ 

• Aleolars - the tip of the tongue does not make contact with the teeth with area of gum immediately behind the teeth and before the palate 

  • /l/ - lucky 

  • /s/ - sorry 

• Palatals - the tongue body raises toward the palate 

  • /j/ - young, yesterday 

• Pre-palats (or post-alveolars) - produced in an area between the alveolar ridge and the palate 

  • // - ship, shirley 

  • /3/ - pleasure (juge sound) 

• Retroflex - the tongue curled up and back 

  • /r/ - robert, really 

• Velars - the posterior portion of the tongue makes contact with the velum 

  • /k/ - car 

  • /g/ - go, give 

  • /x/ - hair