‘Universal’ Articulatory Phonetics

Consonants and vowels are conventionally described using different vocabulary, but the principal in both cases is basically what happens where. Our survey of the sounds of the world’s languages begins by considering consonant place of articulation (Ladefoged 139-147).

In consonants the what is called the manner of articulation and the where the place of articulation.

* Many thanks to Ian Maddieson who shared his teaching materials with me. These slides are adapted from his with minor changes.

English term Latin Adjective Terminologylips labia labial teeth denti dental teeth roots alveoli alveolar palate palatum palatal velum velum (palatini) velar uvula uvula uvular pharynx pharynx pharyngeal

Places are mostly named by using an adjective derived from the Latin name for the passive articulator - the location on the upper (or back) surface of the oral tract where the most significant narrowing of the vocal tract occurs.

The tongue and its parts

English term Latin Adjective Terminology tongue lingua lingual tip apex apical blade lamina laminal front ------ anterior back dorsum dorsal root radix radical

We also need names for the active articulators involved, such as the lower lip and the different parts of the tongue.

Additional names can be made by combining two labels, specifying the tongue shape, or adding other modifiers.

linguo-labial tongue blade and upper lip labio-dental lower lip and upper teeth dentialveolar covering both teeth and alveolar ridge post-alveolar behind the alveolar ridge palato-alveolar between the alveoli and palate retroflex tongue tip curled back toward palate

(‘bent back’)

Review of ‘manner’

Manner of articulation describes the ‘what’, especially the degree of narrowing in the oral tract (the degree of stricture). However, manner labels also specify the escape channel, the initiating source of the airflow involved, and certain acoustic or perceptual characteristics.

Escape channel is either oral or nasal (or both - nasalized segments), and when it is oral it can be central or lateral.

The initiatory power is pulmonic air flowing out from the lungs for the great majority of speech

The degree of stricture can be complete closure, producing stops and nasals. Pulmonic stops made with outward-flowing air are called plosives.

Stop places of articulation

1. Bilabial. Almost all languages have pulmonic stops produced by closing the two lips together; these are called bilabial (to emphasize that both lips are involved)

English ‘pad’ and ‘bad’ begin with bilabial plosives which contrast in laryngeal setting

2. Linguo-labial refers to an articulation involving the tongue tip or blade and the upper lip. Linguo-labial stops are rare, but occur in Vao and V’enen Taut (Austronesian languages of Vanuatu) and a few other languages.

-- Linguo-labial closure shown in frames from video-tape of Vao /nan£d£ak/ “bow” (for shooting arrows) showing movement from vowel position to medial consonant

note upper lip moving down and back to meet advancing tongue

3. Labio-dental stops would be those made by closing the lower lip against the upper teeth.

Labio-dental fricatives ([f, v]) are found in a large number of languages but it is not clear if labio-dental stops occur.

They are said to be used in a few of the Bantu languages of eastern and southern Africa, e.g. in Tsonga

Many people cannot make a good closure between lower lip and upper teeth because of gaps or irregularities in the teeth which allows air to leak (note that German has a voiceless affricate in which the fricative portion is labio-dental, e.g. in ‘pfeifen’ /pfeif´n/ “to whistle”, but the stop portion of this affricate is bilabial not labio-dental).

4. Coronal Stops All languages (as far as we know) use some stops or nasals made by closing the tongue tip or blade against a location on the upper surface of the mouth. All the various articulatory positions involving the tongue tip or blade are often usefully grouped together as ‘coronal’

English ‘tad’ and ‘dad’ begin with alveolar plosives which contrast in laryngeal setting.

Many languages have more complex sets of coronal stops, with differences of the location of contact on the upper surface of the mouth (dental, alveolar, post-alveolar) and of the part of the tongue making the contact (tip or blade) as well as the shape of the tongue’s profile (flat, domed, tip turned up, etc).

Coronal stops (continued).

Coronal stops in which the contact is made by the tip of the tongue are apical; those made with the blade of the tongue are laminal

English coronal stops are typically apical alveolar in articulation, but may vary - especially as there is no contrast between more than one set of coronals

Quite a few languages distinguish between coronal stops made at different places of articulation and/or with differences in the tongue shape used.

Tongue tip and blade articulations are easily studied using palatography. Contrast medium is painted on tongue, a word spoken, and then the pattern of transfer to the upper surface of the vocal tract photographed

Broad contact all along inside surface of upper teeth and beyond. Photographs courtesy of Victoria B. Anderson

Western Arrernte (w. of Alice Springs, N.T., central Australia) laminal dental /t5/

W. Arrernte laminal post-alveolar /t=/

Broad contact well behind the upper teeth in the mid-line (partially on teeth in the region of the molars)

Narrow contact just behind the upper teeth in the mid-line (again, partially on teeth in the region of the molars)

W. Arrernte apical alveolar /t/

Relatively narrow contact well behind the upper teeth in the mid-line. Some smearing of contact pattern probably indicates movement of the point of contact during the closure

W. Arrernte apical post-alveolar /ˇ/ (‘retroflex’)

“Retroflex” consonants in languages of India (based on x-ray photography)

Indo-Aryan Dravidian

Apical Sub-apical Sub-laminal Post-alveolar Post-alveolar Post-alveolar

Hindi

Voiceless Voiceless Voicedunaspirated aspirated

(Laminal) Dental t5al t5Hal d5al beat plate lentil

(Apical) Post-alveolar ˇal ˇHal Íal postpone wood shop branch

5. Dorsal stops. Articulatory positions involving the tongue body (front or back) are often classed together as ‘dorsal’

Most languages use stops made by closing the back of the tongue against the velum. English ‘curl’ and ‘girl’ begin with velar plosives which contrast in laryngeal setting

A smaller number of languages make use of closures of the front of the tongue against the hard palate, or of the back of the tongue against the uvula.

Velar stop in Ewe (Niger-Congo, Ghana and Togo)

(movement of sensor on back of tongue tracked in two dimensions using electromagnetic articulography)

In producing /aka/ “charcoal” the tongue moves up and back to the point of contact, then slides forward - the releasing location is further forward than the closing location

Front

Velar stops in Ewe (movement of same point on the tongue in different vowel contexts)

The tongue body is considerably further forward for /eke/ than for /aka/.

Movement toward and away from velar closure takes place almost 1 cm further to the front in /e/ context than in /a/ context

Front

akaeke

Velar stops in Ewe

Contact for /k/ in context of vowel /e/ is at the boundary between the velum and the palate

[aka]

[eke]

Approximate position of the roof of the mouth

UvulaVelum

Palate

Palatal stops are not common in the world’s languages, but occur, for example, in Hungarian (simplified tracing from x-ray film, from K. Bolla)

Voiced palatal stop occurs in /Ôa˘r/ gyár “factory”

Uvular stops occur in many American languages, and in Semitic and Caucasian languages.

Example: Velar and uvular stops in Bagwalal (N.E. Caucasian, Dagestan, Russia)

[tSakar] “Chakar” (name) [tSaqan] “pebble, little stone”

More examples: from Egyptian Arabic

[qalb] “heart” [kalb] “dog” [jaRaqaan] “jaundice”

6. Pharyngeal stops. The root of the tongue and/or the epiglottis can be pulled back to make a closure against the back wall of the pharynx.

Pharyngeal stops are rare in the world’s languages.

Examples from Amis (Austronesian, Taiwan)

[pi˚iw] “cripple” [tutu˚] “ladle”

7. Glottal stops are made (in principle) by closing the vocal folds firmly together, stopping the flow of air through the larynx. They are rather unlike other stops, since the larynx cannot be in any other configuration (e.g. for voicing).

Glottal stops occur as ordinary members of the consonant inventories of many languages, e.g. Arabic, Hawaiian, Navajo. But they also often occur in predictable positions, e.g. to separate two vowels in different words or morphemes, and therefore are not considered contrastive in these cases, e.g. in French or German

In ordinary speech the closure of the vocal folds is often incomplete, and the ‘glottal stop’ is only represented by a tightening of the vocal folds and a slowing down of their rate of vibration.

Glottal stops

Examples from Hawaiian [?a?a] “dare” [ka?a] “to roll” [ha?a] “to dance”

Other examples [sa?ala] “asked” Egyptian Arabic[?çr] “light” Hebrew[ta?sir8] “impression” Farsi

Basic symbols for representing stops: voiceless on left, voiced on right

Bilabial p bDental t5 d5Alveolar t dPost-alveolar t= d=Retroflex ˇ ÍPalatal c ÔVelar k gUvular q GPharyngeal ˚Glottal ?

Nasals

The closure positions used in stops are also used for nasal consonants. Air is allowed to flow out through the nasal passage by lowering the velum. The oral cavity forms a side cavity.

Since pharyngeal and glottal closures are formed below the velo-pharyngeal port there can be no nasal consonants at these places

Nasal consonants are most often - but not always - voiced. Voiceless nasals are marked with the voiceless diacritic, e.g. [m8 n8]

Basic symbols for representing nasals

Bilabial mDental n5Alveolar nPost-alveolar n=Retroflex ˜Palatal ¯Velar NUvular !Pharyngeal -- not possibleGlottal -- not possible

Malayalam (Dravidian, Kerala, India) has a large number of contrasting places among nasals - in some dialects there are six

Bilabial m kåmmi “shortage”Dental n5 pån5n5i “pig” Alveolar n kånni “virgin”Post-alveolar ˜ k嘘i “link (in chain)”Palatal ¯ k寯i “boiled rice”Velar N kuNNi “crushed”

Velar nasals.

Many well-known languages with velar nasals (e.g. English, German, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Hindi) don’t permit them in word- or syllable-initial position although other nasals occur there.

Many speakers of these languages find great difficulty in producing an initial velar nasal.

Examples of initial nasals in Thai [na#̆ n] “long time” [ma#̆ n] “demon” [Na#̆ n] “dare”

Uvular nasals are quite rare. One place they are found is in syllable-final position in Japanese.

This nasal could be regarded as a variant of the syllable-initial /n/, but most Japanese scholars prefer to analyze it as a distinct segment since it is the only consonant that can occur word- finally and it counts as a

‘mora’ (a unit of speech timing).

Each of the three words below has two moras. [ba!] “turn” (as in a game) [»nani] “what” [»mazµ] “first”

Voiceless nasals

Nasal consonants are most often - but not always - voiced. Voiceless nasals are marked with the voiceless diacritic, e.g. [m8], [n8].

Compare the following examples from Burmese.

Voiced Voiceless Alveolar [ na&̆ ] [ n8a&̆ ]

“pain” “nose”Palatal [ ¯a&̆ ] [ 8̄a&̆ ] “right” “considerate”