introling 3 - phonetics phonology 1

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ng 3 - Phonetics / Phonology 1 http://docs.google.com/PresentationView?docID=dgq7mbwx_63djvg4w...

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Introduction to EnglishLinguistics (Part 1)Cornelius Puschmann, M.A.

introling.ynada.com

Topics covered in the next three sessions

1. The sounds of English (phonetics)

2. Sounds and their meaning (phonology)

3. Applying phonetics and phonology


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The sounds of English

Session 3, Phonetics/Phonology

Contents of this session

A few things we'll look at today:What are phonetics and phonology about?1.How do humans produce speech sounds?2.How can speech sounds be accurately described?3.Phonetic transcription4.


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Why should we care?

Why phonetics and phonology are importantIf we want to accurately describe human language we need toknow the technical terms for describing its sounds

1.

English spelling often gives us no useful information about how aword is pronounced

2.

Frequently other areas of language (grammar, lexicon) areaffected by how words sound when spoken in sequence

3.

When comparing how different people use language (corporateexecutives vs. blue-collar workers, African Americans vs. AsianAmericans vs. Caucasian Americans, males vs. females, youngpeople vs. old people etc) differences in speech often play animportant role

4.

What are phonetics and phonology about?

phon = Greek "sound, voice"

Both phonetics and phonology are concerned with speech sounds , i.e.with the noises that humans produce to communicate.

The key difference between the two fields is thatphonetics is about the concrete, physical dimension of soundsphonology is about their abstract function in a language.


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A quick comparison

Phoneticslanguage use (= parole )

language-independentformconcretephone []= any sound "as it is"

Phonologylanguage as a system(= langue )language-dependentfunctionabstractphoneme // = a sound that distinguishesmeaning in a language

(taken from Kortmann p. 20)

Questions in phonetics and phonology

PhoneticsWhat kinds of speech sounds are there?What physical organs are required to produce speech sounds?How exactly is a certain sound produced?How can a sound be accurately represented?

PhonologyWhat sounds in a language differentiate meaning?What role do stress, rhythm and pitch play?How are sounds put together in connected speech?


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Phones, phonemes and allophones

If we are talking about a sound in its meaning-distinguishing role ina language, we are talking about a phoneme .

How do we know whether something is meaning-distinguishing?Example:

h ouse - m ouse H and m distinguish meaning, because exchanging one sound for theother gives us a different word. This means that /h/ and /m/ arephonemes in English and that they form a minimal pair .

Phones, phonemes and allophones

There are many examples in English where a noticeably differentsound does not produce a different meaning.Example:

d a nce - d a nceImagine the first word is pronounced British, as in "dAHnce", whilethe second word is pronounced American, a bit like "dAEnce".

The difference between [ ] and [] marks separate varieties of English ("British" vs. American) but it does not distinguish meaning.

In English, the two sounds are therefore allophones (variants) of thesame phoneme.


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Evolution of the human vocal tract (taken from W.T. Fitch, The Evolution of Speech )

Dual function of articulatory organs

The human vocal tract has evolved in a specific way that allows us toproduce sounds more efficiently than other primates. However, all of our articulatory organs still have dual functions (survival and speech).


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The human vocal tract

Basic types of speech sounds

voiced vs voiceless : if the air stream makes the vocal cords vibratethen a sound is voiced , otherwise it is voiceless .

vowelsair flows freely through the upper vocal tractalways voiced

examples: ant, end, India, orange, uncle

consonantsthe air stream through the glottis is partly or completelyblockedcan be voiceless or voicedvoiceless: car, path, f an, seavoiced: garden, barn, van, zebra


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Place and manner of articulation

PlaceWhere in the vocal tract is a speech sound articulated?E.g. behind the lips, behind the teeth, at the roof of the mouth

Manner How is a speech sound articulated?E.g. by building air pressure and then suddenly releasing it, by slowlyreleasing air, by rolling (or trilling)

This allows us to describe the final sound of the word English / l / as a voiceless palato-alveolar (place) fricative (manner).

Example for the articulation of the voiceless plosives [p], [t] and [k]


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What's in a sound

1. Voiced or voiceless?

2. Place of articulation?

3. Manner of articulation?

f ish?

What's in a sound




f ish?

voiceless

labiodental (lips + teeth)

fricative


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What's in a sound




sing ?

What's in a sound




sing ?

voiced

velar

nasal


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What's in a sound




banana?

What's in a sound




banana?

voiced

bilabial

plosive


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Place and manner of articulation of consonants ( Wikipedia , cf. also Kortmann p. 28)

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

developed by the International Phonetic Associationlast revised in 2005based on Latin alphabet107 letters to represent speech sounds across languageswidely used for transcribing languagessee http://dictionary.reference.com/ for one of many resourcesthat give you the transcription of a word along with its spelling


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Examples for sound descriptions

/k/

car, k indergarden , tra ck

/ /

th ing, tee th

/ /

ri n ger, si n g

Examples for sound descriptions

/k/ voiceless velar plosive car, k indergarden , tra ck

/ / voiceless dental fricative th ing, tee th

/ / voiced velar nasalri n ger, si n g


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Examples for transcriptions

/ /

/ f /

/ ru/

/ lgwd /

/prnnsie n/

/ ptio /

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