Phonetics and Phonology Flashcards

Phonology & Phonetics

Core Concepts

• Phonology: The study of the mental representation of speech sounds and how sounds are categorized.
• Phonetics: The study of the physical properties of speech sounds and how speech sounds are produced.

Articulation of Speech Sounds

• Speech sounds are created by shaping airflow using the vocal tract and articulators (lips, tongue, velum).
• Vowels: Air flows freely.
• Consonants: Airflow is blocked or restricted.

Dimensions of Articulation (Consonants)

1. Voicing: Whether vocal cords vibrate or not.
2. Place of Articulation: Where airflow is obstructed.
3. Manner of Articulation: How airflow is obstructed.

Key Articulators

• Lips
• Teeth
• Alveolar ridge (behind upper front teeth)
• Hard palate
• Velum (soft part of the roof of the mouth)
• Glottis (space between vocal folds)

Voicing

• Voiced sounds: Vocal cords vibrate.
• Voiceless sounds: Vocal cords do not vibrate.

Place of Articulation

• Describes where the airflow is blocked.
• Examples:
  • Bilabial
  • Alveolar
  • Alveopalatal
  • Velar

Manner of Articulation

• Describes how the airflow is blocked.
• Examples:
  • Stops
  • Fricatives

Articulation Details

Stops

• Consonant sounds made by completely stopping airflow, then releasing it suddenly.

Fricatives

• Sounds made by narrowing the airflow, forcing it through a tight space, creating friction (hissing or buzzing).

Specific Places of Articulation

• Bilabial: Airflow obstructed at the lips.
• Alveolar: Place of articulation is the alveolar ridge (behind the teeth).
• Velar: Place of articulation is the velum (soft tissue at the back of the roof of the mouth).
• Alveopalatal: Tongue is near the hard palate.

Phonemes vs. Allophones

Phoneme

• An abstract mental representation of a distinctive sound in a language.
• Smallest unit that makes a difference in meaning.
• Examples:
  • /t/ in "tan" vs. /d/ in "dan" are minimal pairs.
  • /t/ in "tom" vs. (t(h) am) (tam) are not minimal pairs.
• Exist abstractly in the mind

Allophone

• The set of predictable phonetic variants of a phoneme.
• Are physical realizations of the same phoneme.

Voice Onset Time (VOT)

• Time between release of burst and onset of vocal fold vibration.
• The boundary in English between voiced and voiceless sounds is approximately 20-30 ms of VOT.