Ling 205 - Phonetics

Dr. Robert Kirchner

Introductory lecture

Go over syllabus

● Course description and goals

● Prerequisite

● Text

● Website

● Grading

● Miscellaneous

Dr. Peter Ladefoged, teaching Prof. Higgins (Rex Harrison) phonetic symbols, on the set of My Fair Lady,circa 1960.

Personal

● I'm from Baltimore, Maryland (born in NY).

● PhD in phonology from UCLA (1998), at UofA since 1999.

● My primary research interest is computer modelling of human speech processing.

What about you?

● Name

● Where are you from?

● What languages do you speak?

● Why are you in this class? What do you hope to get out of it?

● Anything else you want me to know about you?

The complexity of speech processing:

“You never say the same word twice”(apologies to Heraclitus)

Branches of phonetics

● Articulatory – how sounds are made in the vocal tract

● Acoustic – physical properties of speech soundwaves

● Perceptual – experimental study of which acoustic cues hearers pay most attention to for a given phonetic contrast (towards end of this course).

Representing speech

● Spelling (bad!)● IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) (much

better)● Phonetic description, e.g. 'voiceless dental

fricative' (what IPA is trying to indicate)● Recorded signals, visually displayable as

waveforms and spectrograms (go to Praat).

4 anatomical “processes” of speech

● Respiratory process: lungs, rib cage, diaphragm, abdomen

● Laryngeal process: trachea, larynx, vocal folds

● Articulatory process: pharyngeal, oral cavities (including lips, tongue, cheeks and jaw)

● Oro-nasal process: velopharyngeal port and nasal cavity

(cross-section vs. top-down view)

The Laryngeal Process

Laryngeal System - detailed viewImages from Shriberg, L.D. & Kent, R.D. (1995). Clinical Phonetics (2nd Edition). Allyn & Bacon. pp. 15-16.

Week 1

Supralaryngeal: Articulatory§ The parts of the vocal tract used to make sounds are

called articulators.

Parts of the vocal tracttrachea

Airstream mechanisms

● Pulmonic egressive (and ingressive)

● Glottalic egressive (ejectives) and ingressive (implosives)

● Velaric ingressive (clicks)

Voiced vs. Voiceless: feel the buzz

● fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff vs. vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

● ssssssssssssssss vs. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

● thththththththththis vs. ththththththththistle

● other laryngeal settings:

● breathy/murmur

● creaky/laryngealized

Week 1

Supralaryngeal: Oro-nasal

• The velopharyngeal port can open and close controlling the flow of air so that it exits either the oral or nasal cavaties

Week 1

Manner of articulation

● Plosive (stop)

● Fricative

● Trill, tap

● Approximant

● Vowel

Week 1

Place of articulation

● Bilabial

● Labiodental

● Dental

● Alveolar

● Post-alveolar

● Palatal

● Velar

● Uvular

● Pharyngeal

● Glottal

Vowels

● Tongue body height

● Tongue body advancement/retraction

● Lip rounding