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Functional vs formal
PHONETICSLanguage & Mind
Summer 2011
Fundamental properties
The Speech Chain (Denes & Pinson ‘73) Brain thought: encoded in language Message sent through nerves to vocal apparatus Muscles & organs are positioned and set in
motion Sound is produced Sound is converted into electrical signals Signals travel along auditory nerves to brain Impulses are decoded = thought
(final 3 = feedback loop) (middle 3 = articulatory, acoustic & auditory)
Phones (reasonable approximations)
The sounds of human languages.
Based on notion that we can isolate various (aspects of) sounds of our language and influenced by our writing systems which exemplify/ substantiate such an inclination.
However, NB evidence from spectography.
Likewise, note practicality of representation of sound for study (as well as for communication).
Vocal Tract
Lungs - egressive/ingressive pulmonic airstream; latter is rare (cf. Scand)
Larynx – vocal folds(cords); +/-voice distinction
Oral cavity - majority of sound modification takes place here via tongue, lips, & jaw
Nasal cavity – used by lowering velum/soft palate;
Types of phones
Consonants: Described relative to where the airstream is
impeded a) places of articulation (across top row) b) manner of articulation (down first column)
Also note +/- voice
Consonants: places of artic.
Labial (lips) Bilabial (m,b,p); labio-dental (f,v)
Dental (tongue to upper teeth) <th>
Alveolar (front of tongue to ridge behind teeth) (t,d,n,r,s,z,l)
Palatal (large hard region of roof of mouth) Alveo-palatal (cf. jungle, child,shield)
Velar (behind hard palate: soft palate/velum) (k,g, <ng>)
… places of articulation
Uvular (appendage hanging down at the back of the velum) Rare: cf. Parisian uvular trill
Pharyngeal (the chamber behind the back of the tongue above the larynx) Made by pulling root of tongue back to narrow
pharynx: cf. Arabic, Danish Glottal (constriction of glottis/opening
between vocal folds Cf. ‘hot’ & Cockney dialect of London
7 manners of articulation
Stops, nasals, fricatives, affricates, laterals, rhotics, & glides.
Manners of articulation
Stops (‘plosives’) Has complete closure or blockage of airstream E.g. p,b,t,d,k,g English stops may have aspiration; they may be released or
unreleased. Nasals
Made by lowering velum and thus permit air to flow through the nose
E.g. m,n, ‘ng’ Fricatives
Incomplete closure Point of friction – from glottis to lips E.g. f,v,s,z,’sh’, ‘zh’, ‘th’, h
Affricates Combines a stop & a fricative
E.g. ‘ch’ & ‘dj’ (like church & jungle) Laterals
Sides of tongue are lowered at point of articulation & air passes on both sides of central closure
E.g. l Rhotics
Used for a variety of ‘r-like’ sounds: Tap/flap (Scots,Jp), trills (Sp <apical> & Fr/Ger <uvular>)
approximants (most English dialects) Glides (semi-vowel = has least constriction)
One articulator glides toward another E.g. j & w
Vowels of S.A.E.
Vowels
Made w/o interruption to passage of air Use vocal tract as resonating chamber for
an airstream vibrating from the action of the vocal folds
Cavities above the glottis act like the chamber of a wind instrument
Described by tongue’s position: high, mid, low; front, central, back; & lips’ roundedness
Nasal vowels when velum is lowered (‘man’)
More features
Airstream mechanisms Glottalic: with vocal folds closed and raising
the larynx (ejectives) or lowering it (implosives)
Velaric : made by forming a closure b/w the tip of the tongue & the alveolar ridge and the back of the tongue & the velum – the tongue is then drawn downward and the contact between the tongue and alveolar ridge is released (‘tsk, tsk’ or kiss, i.e. clicks)
More features
Coarticulation
Diphthongs
Syllables
Prosodies (suprasegmentals): dispersed phonetic properties
Pitch – frequency of vibration of vocal folds Tone - distinguishes between words (Chin, Viet.) Intonation – modulates meaning, e.g. re:
grammatical structure and speaker’s emotions
Stress – increase of lung energy gives: greater intensity, loudness, & often a higher pitch N/V (e.g. present, conduct, produce…)
unstressed syllables often become ‘schwa’
Phonology
Number of phones in English is infinite. Most differences are imperceptible.
some differences we ignore
Phonology = those differences that we ignore. how some sounds pattern together investigates the sound differences that are
linguistically relevant in a language
Phonemes & Allophones
Cf. the bilabial stops in ban, pan, & span Each of the three are phonetically different. However, we (Eng speakers) think of the
second 2 as ‘the same’ Speakers of e.g. Nyulnyulan see all 3 as ‘the
same’ Speakers of e.g. Thai see them as different
We cannot get a new word by substituting the [p] in pan for that in span. The aspiration in pan is not ‘different enough’ to change the meaning in span.
Phonemes & Allophones
The [p] sound in pan, span & nap all differ phonetically (the last being ‘unreleased’) There is no meaningful difference if we
substitute one for the other; they are non-contrastive
In English, the three [p] phones (sounds) are allophones, belonging the to phoneme /p/
In Thai, the first two p sounds are separate phonemes: if you say one instead of the other, you get a different word
phonEMIC vs. phonETIC
Emic - Etic distinction has been taken up by anthropologists and by others in the social and behavioral sciences to refer to two different kinds of data concerning human behavior.
In particular, they are used in cultural anthropology to refer to kinds of fieldwork done and viewpoints obtained.
Emic
a description of behavior or a belief in terms meaningful (consciously or unconsciously) to the actor
i.e., an emic account comes from a person within the culture. Almost anything from within a culture can provide an emic account.
Etic
An etic account is a description of a behavior or belief by an observer, in terms that can be applied to other cultures;
i.e. an etic account is 'culturally neutral‘ and thus considered ‘universal’ (just like the IPA phones, which is the study of phonetics)
Noncontrastiveness
Allophones never contrast – that’s what it means Although the t sound in tab, stab & bat are
phonetically different, you can’t get a new word by replacing one t for another.
Why? 2 reasons: Free variation: e.g. English rhotic (r sound) Complementary distribution: cf. span-pan, sip-
sin
A phoneme’s allophones
The various phonetic realizations (i.e. the individual sonic substances) of a phoneme are its allophones.
Some of these allophones are conditioned by their surrounding phonetic environment. E.g. /m/ (is realized as a labio-dental before a
labio-fricative dental) & /g/ (is advanced, or labialized, or unreleased in various contexts)
Identifying phones
1. Look for suspicious pairs Phonetically similar phones
2. Examine their distribution: A. See if the contrast (occur in same environment)
If so, they are separate phonemes like /p/ & /b/ in English
B. See if they are in complementary distribution Like the allophones of /p/ (e.g. aspirated [p] only occurs word initially
and before a stressed vowel.
C. See if they’re in free variation Like the English rhotic
If B or C, the phones are allophones of the same phoneme
Identifying phones
Look for minimal pairs – pairs of different words that differ only in one phone (which gives us the two phones we are investigating)
If such a pair is found, we know that the two phones occur in the same phonetic environment (as different words), and therefore contrast (and therefore are different phonemes, not allophones of the same phoneme)
E.g. ‘bit’ and ‘pit’ vary by only one sound AND the vary in meaning – their phonetic difference is significant