Chapter 2 Speech Sounds

Speech and writing are two media for language. Speech is prior to writing, so speech is more basic

than writing. Speech sounds: the limited range of sounds which

are produced by humans, meaningful in human communication and which linguists are only concerned with.

Introduction

• As human beings we are capable of making all kinds of sounds, but only some of these sounds have become units in the language system.

• We can analyze speech sounds from various perspectives and the two major areas of study are phonetics and phonology.

Pronounce the two words speak and stop, trying to find the difference in the manner of pronouncing /p/.

• Phonetics studies how speech sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived.

Speaker--------------Air-------------Hearer

Thus, phonetics can be classified into:

• Articulatory Phonetics: the study of the production of speech sounds.

• Acoustic Phonetics: the study of the physical properties of speech sounds.

• Perceptual/Auditory Phonetics: the perception of speech sounds.

How speech sounds are made

Speech/Vocal Organs

Position of the vocal folds: voiceless

• When the vocal folds are apart, the air can pass through easily and the sound produced is said to be VOICELESS. Consonants [p, s, t] are produced in this way.

• When the vocal folds are closed together, the airstream causes them to vibrate against each other and the resultant is said to be VOICED. Consonants [b, z, d] are voiced consonants.

• When the vocal folds are totally closed, no air can pass between them. The result of this gesture is the glottal stop [ ].

Position of the vocal folds: voicing (initial & the widest aperture)

Position of the vocal folds: glottal stop

• International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), a widely used standardized and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription. The basic principle of the IPA is using one letter selected from major European languages to represent a sound.

The IPA

The IPA• In 1886, the Phonetic Teachers’ Association was

inaugurated by a small group of language teachers in France who had found the practice of phonetics useful in their teaching and wished to popularize their methods.

• It was changed to its present title of the International Phonetic Association (IPA) in 1897.

• One of the first activities of the Association was to produce a journal in which the contents were printed entirely in phonetic transcription. – The idea of establishing a phonetic alphabet was first

proposed by the Danish grammarian and phonetician Otto Jespersen (1860-1943) in 1886.

– the first version of the International Phonetic Alphabet (the IPA chart) was published in August 1888.

The IPA

• IPA provides it users with another set of symbols called diacritics.

• The DIACRITICS are additional symbols or marks used together with the consonants and vowels symbols to indicate nuances of changes in pronunciation.

The IPA

• Its main principles were that there should be a separate letter for each distinctive sound, and that the same symbol should be used for that sound in any language in which it appears.

• The alphabet was to consist of as many Roman alphabet letters as possible, using new letters and diacritics only when absolutely necessary.

• These principles continue to be followed today.

The IPA

Consonants and vowels • Consonants are produced ‘by a closure in the

vocal tract, or by a narrowing which is so marked that air cannot escape without producing audible friction’.

• By contrast, a vowel is produced without such ‘stricture’ so that ‘air escapes in a relatively unimpeded way through the mouth or nose’.

• The distinction between vowels and consonants lies in the obstruction of airstream.

• As there is no obstruction of air in the production of vowels, the description of the consonants and vowels cannot be done along the same lines.

Consonants and vowels

Consonants

• The category of consonants at least two articulators are involved.

• For example, the initial sound in bad involves both lips and its final segment involves the blade (or the tip) of the tongue and the alveolar ridge.

• The categories of consonant are established on the basis of two most important factors:

(a) The actual relationship between the articulators and thus the way in which the air passes through certain parts of the vocal tract --- the Manner of Articulation.

(b) Where in the vocal tract there is approximation, narrowing, or the obstruction of air --- the Place of Articulation.

• The manner of articulation refers to ways in which articulation can be accomplished:

• the articulators may close off the oral tract for an instant or a relatively long period;

• they may narrow the space considerably; or • they may simply modify the shape of the tract by

approaching each other.

Consonants

In terms of manner of articulation• Stops ( 塞音 ) : air stream first obstructed and then released,

[p] [b], [t] [d], and [k] [g]• Fricatives( 擦音 ): partial obstruction and local friction,

• Affricates( 塞擦音 ): first complete obstruction, then frication with partial obstruction,

• Liquids( 流音 ): airflow first obstructed then allowed to escape between the tongue and the roof of the mouth,

• Nasals( 鼻音 ): air allowed to pass the nose, • Glides( 滑音 ): very narrow passage between the lips and causi

ng slight noise from the local obstruction,

• The place of articulation refers to the point where a consonant is made.

• Practically consonants may be produced at any place between the lips and the vocal folds.

• Eleven places of articulation are distinguished on the IPA chart.

Consonants

• Bilabial( 双唇音 ): lips brought together to cause obstruction, [p] [b] [m] [w]

• Labiodental( 唇齿音 ): the lower lip is brought into contact with the upper teeth, [f] [v]

• Dental( 齿音 ): between the tip of the tongue and the upper teeth, • Alveolar( 齿龈音 ): the tip of the tongue is brought into contact w

ith the upper teeth-ridge, [t] [d] [s] [z] [n] [l] [r]• Palatal( 上腭音 ): obstruction between the back of the tongue an

d the hard palate, • Velar( 软腭音 ): back of tongue brought into contact with the soft

palate, • Glottal( 喉音 ): vocal cords are brought together, [h]

In terms of place of articulation

Vowels • Cardinal Vowels, as exhibited by the vowel diagram in

the IPA chart, are a set of vowel qualities arbitrarily defined, fixed and unchanging, intended to provide a frame of reference for the description of the actual vowels of existing languages.

Jones: An Outline of English Phonetics (1918)

Black: IPARed: English

• The problematic area is that the initial sound in hot gives little turbulence, depending on how forcefully it is said, and in yet and wet the initial segments are obviously vowels.

• To get out of this problem, the usual solution is to say that these segments are neither vowels nor consonants but midway between the two categories. For this purpose, the term ‘semi-vowel’ is often used.

• Languages also frequently make use of a distinction between vowels where the quality remains constant throughout the articulation and those where there is an audible change of quality.

• The former are known as pure or monophthong vowels and the latter, vowel glides.

• If a single movement of the tongue is involved, the glides are called diphthongs.

• Diphthongal glides in English can be heard in such words as way [wei], tide [taid], how , toy , and toe .

• A double movement produces a triphthong, which is ‘a glide from one vowel to another and then to a third, all produced rapidly and without interruption’.

• They are really diphthongs followed by the schwa , found in English words like wire and tower .

Thus• The consonants of English can be described in the

following manner:

• [p]  voiceless bilabial stop• [b]  voiced bilabial stop• [s]   voiceless alveolar fricative• [z]   voiced alveolar fricative

English vowels

• The description of English vowels needs to fulfill four basic requirements:

• the height of tongue raising (high, mid, low);• the position of the highest part of the tongue (front, central,

back);• the length or tenseness of the vowel (tense vs. lax or long vs.

short), and • lip-rounding (rounded vs. unrounded).

Thus• The following English vowels can be described in

this way:• [] high front tense unrounded vowel• [] high back lax rounded vowel• mid central lax unrounded vowel• low back lax rounded vowel

• Which of the following will be possible English words, though they are not real English.

mbood, sleak, coofp, sproke, worpz, frall, ktleem, fluke, bsarn

What is different when the sentences are reading in two different intonations?

• 1) ---Mary!

① ---Yes. ↘ ② ---Yes? ↗

• 2) Thanks a lot. ↗ ↘① ② Then think over when to use falling tone, rising,

falling-rising, rising-falling?

From phonetics to phonology• Speech is a continuous process, so the vocal

organs do not move from one sound segment to the next in a series of separate steps. Rather, sounds continually show the influence of their neighbors.

• For example, map, lamb.

Phonology is the study of the sound patterns and sound systems of languages.

It aims to ‘discover the principles that govern the way sounds are organized in languages, and to explain the variations that occur’.

Phonology

• In phonology we normally begin by analyzing an individual language, say English, in order to determine its phonological structure, i.e. which sound units are used and how they are put together.

• Then we compare the properties of sound systems in different languages in order to make hypotheses about the rules that underlie the use of sounds in them, and ultimately we aim to discover the rules that underlie the sound patterns of all languages.

Phonology

Phonetics: of a general nature, all speech sounds in all human languages.

Phonology: how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning. e.g. clear [l] and dark [ł] , same entity, but phoneticians only interested in the difference, phonology functions as distinguishing between words and meanings

Phonology

Coarticulation• When such simultaneous or overlapping articulations

are involved, we call the process coarticulation. – If the sound becomes more like the following sound, as in

the case of lamb, it is known as anticipatory coarticulation. – If the sound shows the influence of the preceding sound, it

is perseverative coarticulation, as is the case of map.

• The fact that the vowel [] in lamb has some quality of the following nasal is a phenomenon as NASALIZATION.

• To indicate that a vowel is nasalized, a curved line is added to the top of the symbol [], as [ ].

• [p] is aspirated in peak and unaspirated in speak. – This aspirated voiceless bilabial stop is thus indicated by

the diacritic h, as [ph], whereas the unaspirated counterpart is transcribed as [p].

Coarticulation

Broad and narrow transcriptions

• Broad transcription: letter-symbols only, used in dictionaries and textbooks for general purposes.

• Narrow transcription: letter-symbols with diacritics, representing more fine details, used by phoneticians.

Phone: phonetic unit or segment, e.g. [p] in “spit” [pʰ] in “pit”

Phoneme: a phonological unit, it is an abstract unit, put in slashes, /p/

Allophone: different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the allophones of the phoneme, e.g. clear [l] and dark [ł] are the allophones of the phoneme /l/

Phone, phoneme, and allophone

Phonemic contrast: as two distinctive phonemes, /p/ and /b/ in [pit] and [bit].

Complementary distribution: allophones of the same phoneme occurring in different phonetic environments, e.g. clear [l] and dark [ł].

Minimal pair: Two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, pill and bill, till and kill, kill and dill.

Phonemic contrast, complementary distribution, and minimal pair

Phonological processes---Assimilation

• Nasalization, dentalization, and velarization are all instances of assimilation, a process by which one sound takes on some or all the characteristics of a neighboring sound.

• If a following sound is influencing a preceding sound, we call it regressive assimilation; the converse process, in which a preceding sound is influencing a following sound, is known as progressive assimilation.

Phonological processes---Assimilation

English Fricative Devoicing

• /v/ [f] /z/ [s] etc.• voiced fricative voiceless / ____ voiceless

• Nasalization rule:[-nasal] [+nasal] / ____ [+nasal]

• Dentalization rule:[-dental] [dental] / ____ [dental]

• Velarization rule:[-velar] [+velar] / ____ [+velar]

Phonological processes---Assimilation

Epenthesis• a hotel, a boy, a use, a wagon, a big man, a yellow

rug, a white house• an apple, an honor, an orange curtain, an old lady • Epenthesis (Insertion) Rule:

Plurals in English

• a. The [] appears after voiceless sounds.• b. The [] appears after voiced sounds. • c. The [] appears after sibilants.

• // [] / [–voice, C] _____ (Devoicing) [] / [+sibilant] _____ [] (Epenthesis)

Rule ordering

Distinctive features

• The idea of Distinctive Features was first developed by Roman Jacobson (1896-1982) in the 1940s as a means of working out a set of phonological contrasts or oppositions to capture particular aspects of language sounds.

• Since then several versions have been suggested.

• Some of the major distinctions include [consonantal], [sonorant], [nasal] and [voiced].

• The feature [consonantal] can distinguish between consonants and vowels, so all consonants are [+consonantal] and all vowels [–consonantal].

Distinctive features

• [sonorant] distinguishes between what we call obstruents (stops, fricatives and affricates) and sonorants (all other consonants and vowels), with obstruents being [–sonorant] and others [+sonorant].

• [nasal] and [voiced] of course distinguish nasal (including nasalized) sounds and voiced sounds respectively.

Distinctive features

• These are known as binary features because we can group them into two categories: one with this feature and the other without.

• Binary features have two values or specifications denoted by ‘ + ’ and ‘ – ’ so voiced obstruents are marked [+voiced] and voiceless obstruents are marked [–voiced].

Distinctive features

• The place features are not binary features – they are divided up into four values:

• [PLACE: Labial], • [PLACE: Coronal], • [PLACE: Dorsal], • [PLACE: Radical], • which are often written in shorthand forms as [La

bial]p, [Coronal]p, [Dorsal]p, and [Radical]p.

Distinctive features

• A useful feature for consonants not found here is [±spread] (for ‘spread glottis’), which distinguishes between ‘aspirated’ and ‘unaspirated’ voiceless obstruents.

• Aspirated sounds are [+spread] and unaspirated sounds are [–spread].

• Now we can represent the rule that governs the unaspiration of /p/ after [s] in terms of features:

Distinctive features

• This is a more general rule, which also applies to /t/ and /k/. It means that /p, t, k/ ([–voiced, –cont]) are all unaspirated ([–spread]) after [s] and aspirated ([+spread]) in all other positions.

Past tense forms in English

• stopped, walked, coughed, kissed, leashed, reached• stabbed, wagged, achieved, buzzed, soothed, bridged• steamed, stunned, pulled• played, flowed, studied• wanted, located, decided, guided

• The regular past tense form in English is pronounced as [t] when the word ends with a voiceless consonant, [d] when it ends with a voiced sound, and [id] when it ends with [t] or [d].

Suprasegmentals • Suprasegmental features are those aspects of speech

that involve more than single sound segments. • The principal suprasegmentals are: • Syllable• Stress• Tone• Intonation

The syllable structure Syllable

Onset Rime

Nucleus Coda

k r æ k t

• Open syllable: bar, tie• Closed syllable: bard, tied

• English Syllable: (((C)C)C)V((((C)C)C)C)• Chinese syllable: (C)V(C)

• Maximal Onset Principle (MOP)• When there is a choice as to where to place a

consonant, it is put into the onset rather than the coda.

Stress • Stress refers to the degree of force used in

producing a syllable. In transcription, a raised vertical line [ ′] is often used just before the syllable it relates to.

• A basic distinction is made between stressed and unstressed syllables, the former being more prominent than the latter, which means that stress is a relative notion.

• At the word level, it only applies to words with at least two syllables.

• At the sentence level, a monosyllabic word may be said to be stressed relative to other words in the sentence.

Stress

Verb• conVICT• inSULT• proDUCE• reBEL

Noun• CONvict• INsult• PROduce• REbel

V vs. N

• BLACKboard

• BLACKbird

• black BOARD

• black BIRD

Compound Phrase

Compound vs. Phrase

Primary vs. Secondary Stress• 、 epiphe‵nomenal• un 、 satis‵factory• di 、 scrimi‵nation• 、 standardi‵zation• co 、 mmuni‵cation• in 、 dustriali‵zation

Sentence Stress• John bought a red bicycle.• JOHN bought a red bicycle.• John BOUGHT a red bicycle.• John bought a RED bicycle.• John bought a red BICYCLE.

Intonation • Intonation involves the occurrence of recurring

fall-rise patterns, each of which is used with a set of relatively consistent meanings, either on single words or on groups of words of varying length.

• For example, the fall-rise tone in English typically involves the meaning of a contrast within a limited set of items stated explicitly or implicitly.

Examples• (Isn’t her name Mary?) No / Jenny• The old man didn’t come / whereas the young man / did

come and actually enjoyed himself I didn’t do it

Tone

Sequential rules: rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language, blik but not lbki; there are rules governing the combination of three consonants clustering together; phonological patterning is language specific, e.g. [lbk] not as initial in English and standard Chinese, but can occur in Vietnamese, Shanghai dialect and Cantonese.

Some rules in phonology

Assimilation rules: when a sound is pronounced, the feature of the consonant which follows it is copied, vowels may be nasalized in bean, green, and team; and in incorrect [n] becomes []; assimilation reflected in spelling: impossible for inpossible

Deletion rules: the sound is deleted when it occurs before a final nasal consonant, e.g. sign, design, and paradigm

Some rules in phonology