Dimensions of Articulation

September 21, 2015

For Friday• There will be a home-brewed transcription exercise that I

am going to post to the course website later today.

• For next week:

• I’m postponing the due date of the homework until Wednesday.

• I’ll give you the specifics next time.

• Where were we?

Vowel Systems before , part 1 Rhotic dialects vary in the number of vowel distinctions

that can be made before .

• System 1: five vowels

fear Coors weary

fare four wary lorry

far sorry

No distinctions between:

Also: no or

‘fur’

Vowel Systems before , part 2 System 2: four vowels

fear weary

fare four, Coors wary lorry

far sorry

• Also missing distinction:

• Only four vowel phonemes:

• /i/ /o/

• /e/ /a/

Vowel Systems before , part 3 (Canadian) System 3: five (?) + three vowels

fear Coors weary

fare four wary lorry, sorry

far

(Canadian) System 4: five (?) + two (?) vowels

fear Coors weary, wary

fare four lorry, sorry

far

Vowel Systems before , part 4 System 5: lots of vowels before

fear Coors weary lurid

fare four Mary lorry

far merry Murray

marry sorry

Canadian Raising• Another characteristic of Canadian English is the “raising” of the first part of the diphthongs and .

• In both cases, [a]

•

•

• “Raising” because low mid

• This happens only in certain sound environments:

• “out” “loud”

• “write” “ride”

• “pipe” “bribe”

• “like”

Canadian Raising(Canadian) Jon (American) Steve

“house”

“howl”

“bike”

“bile”

• For fun: switch Jon’s vowels in “bike” and “bile”

• Also compare:

• (Canadian) Aaron:

• (American) Steve:

• And, lastly, (Canadian?) Amber:

Consonants• To understand the Canadian Raising pattern, it helps to

know more about the way consonants are produced.

• Consonants productions may be characterized along a series of articulatory dimensions.

• The first dimension to consider is: airstream mechanism.

• Most speech sounds use a pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.

• = air is pushed out of the lungs

• it’s possible to produce pulmonic ingressive sounds; give it a try.

Mid-Sagittal Diagram

Dimension 2: Phonation• On the way out of the lungs

• Air passes through the trachea

• Reaches the larynx

• The larynx consists of two “vocal folds” which may be opened and closed. If the vocal folds are:

1. open: air passes cleanly through (voiceless sound)

2. closed: air does not pass through (no sound)

3. lightly brought together: vocal folds vibrate in passing air

(= voiced sound)

Voicing, Schematized

Voiceless (folds open) Voiced (folds together)

Laryngoscopy

Source: http://homepage.mac.com/changcy/endo.htm

Voicing, in Reality

Some Voicing Distinctions• Among English consonants:

Voiceless Voiced Voiceless Voiced

[f] [v] [p] [b]

[t] [d]

[s] [z] [k] [g]

Voicing Allophony Vowels are longer before voiced consonants than voiceless consonants.

Length is denoted with the [:] diacritic.

‘feed’ [fi:d] vs. ‘feet’ [fit]

Note that Canadian Raising occurs before voiceless consonants.

voiceless: ‘out’ ‘write’

voiced: ‘bribe’ ‘ride’

Layers• Canadian Raising occurs when and are followed by a voiceless consonant.

• The voiceless consonant does not need to be at the end of a word.

• Interesting examples:

• ‘rider’

• ‘writer’

• Note: flap is voiced.

• The voiceless consonant which induces Canadian Raising does not need to be voiceless on the phonetic “surface”!

• The technical term for this is phonological opacity.

More Voicing Allophony• Consonants at the ends of words are sometimes devoiced.

• Voicelessness is denoted with the [ ] diacritic.

• ‘lose’ ‘peas’

• Also: ‘languages’ example from homework #1.

• You can sometimes get contrasts in English like:

• ‘peace’ ‘peas’

• /l/ and can be (partially) voiceless in English when they follow an aspirated consonant:

• ‘play’

Aspiration Allophony /p/, /t/, and /k/ are aspirated if:

1. They are at the beginning of a stressed syllable.

2. They are not preceded by /s/.

• Ex:

Dimension 3:Place of Articulation

• After the stream of air passes through the larynx…

• speech sounds may be made by constricting the flow of air through the vocal tract.

• The place where such constrictions are made is known as the place of articulation of the sound.

• Constrictions are made by placing an active articulator against (or near to) a passive articulator.

• Generally:

• active articulator = on the bottom

• passive articulator = on the top

Anatomy Lesson #1

Anatomy Lesson #2