phonetics manual

8/7/2019 phonetics manual

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Phonetics

Phonetics is the study of the sounds of language. These sounds are called phonemes. There are literally

hundreds of them used in different languages. Even a single language like English requires us to

distinguish about 40! The key word here is distinguish. We actually make much finer discriminations

among sounds, but English only requires 40. The other discriminations are what lets us detect the

differences in accents and dialects, identify individuals, and differentiate tiny nuances of speech that

indicate things beyond the obvious meanings of the words.

The Vocal Tract

In order to study the sounds of language, we first need to study the vocal tract. Speech starts with the

lungs, which push air out and pull it in. The original purpose was, of course, to get oxygen and eliminate

carbon dioxide. But it is also essential for speech. There are phonemes that are little more than

breathing: the h for example.

Next, we have the larynx, or voice box. It sits at the juncture of the trachea or windpipe coming up from

the lungs and the esophagous coming up from the stomach. In the larynx, we have an opening called

the glottis, an epiglottis which covers the glottis when we are swallowing, and the vocal cords. The

vocal cords consist of two flaps of mucous membrane stretched across the glottis, as in this photograph:

The vocal cords can be tightened and loosened and can vibrate when air is forced past them, creating

sound. Some phonemes use that sound, and are called voiced. Examples include the vowels (a, e, i, o,and u, for example) and some of the consonants (m, l, and r, for example). Other phonemes do not

involve the vocal cords, such as the consonants h, t, or s, and so are called unvoiced.

The area above the glottis is called the pharynx, or upper throat. It can be tightened to make phryngeal

consonants. English doesnt have any of these, but they sound like when you try to get a piece of food

back up out of your throat.



At the top of the throat is the opening to the nasal passages (called the nasopharynx, in case you are

interested). When we allow air to pass into the nose while speaking, the sounds we make are called

nasal. Examples include m, n, and the ng sound of sing.

Much of the action during speech occurs in the mouth, of course, especially involving the interaction of

the tongue with the roof of the mouth. The roof of the mouth has several specific areas: At the very

back, just before the nasal passage, is that little bag called the uvula. Its major function seems to be

moisturizing the air and making certain sounds called, obviously, uvular. The best known is the kind of r

pronounced in the back of the mouth by some French and German speakers. Uvular, pharyngeal, and

glottal sounds are often refered to as gutterals.

Next, we have the soft palate, called the velum. If you turn your tongue back as far as it will go and

press up, you can feel how soft it is. When you say k or g, you are using the velum, so they are called

velar consonants.

Further forward is the hard palate. Quite a few consonants are made using the hard palate, such as s,

sh, n, and l, and are called palatals. Just behind the teeth is the dental ridge or alveolus. Here is where

many of us make our ts and ds -- alveolar consonants.

At the very outer edge of the mouth we have the teeth and the lips. Dental consonants are made by

touching the tongue to the teeth. In English, we make the two th sounds like this. Note that one of

these is voiced (the th in the) and one is unvoiced (the th in thin).

At the lips we can make several sounds as well. The simplest, perhaps, are the bilabial sounds, made by

holding the lips together and then releasing the sound, such as p and b, or by keeping them together

and releasing the air through the nose, making the bilabial nasal m. We can also use the upper teeth

with the lower lip, for labiodental sounds. This is how we make an f, for example.

Incidentally, we also have two names for the parts of the tongue used with these various parts of the

mouth: The front edge is called the corona, and the back is called the dorsum. Sounds like t, th, and s

are made with the corona, while k, g, and ng are made with the dorsum.



Consonants



Consonants are sounds which involve full or partial blocking of airflow. In English, the consonants are p,

b, t, d, ch, j, k, g, f, v, th, dh, s, z, sh, zh, m, n, ng, l, r, w, and y. They are classified in a number of

different ways, depending on the vocal tract details we just discussed.

1. Stops, also known as plosives. The air is blocked for a moment, then released. In English, they are p,

b, t, d, k, and g.

a. Bilabial plosives: p (unvoiced) and b (voiced)

b. Alveolar plosives: t (unvoiced) and d (voiced)

c. Velar plosives: k (unvoiced) and g (voiced)

In other languages, we find labiodental, palatal, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal plosives as well, and

retroflex plosives, which involve reaching back to the palate with the corona of the tongue.

In many languages, plosives may be followed by aspiration, that is, by a breathy sound like an h. InChinese, for example, there is a distinction between a p pronounced crisply and an aspirated p. We use

both in English (pit vs poo), but it isnt a distinction that separates one meaning from another.

2. Fricatives involve a slightly resisted flow of air. In English, these include f, v, th, dh, s, z, sh, zh, and h.

a. Labiodental fricatives: f (unvoiced) and v (voiced)

b. Dental fricatives: th (as in thin -- unvoiced) and dh (as in the -- voiced)

c. Alveolar fricatives: s (unvoiced) and z (voiced)

d. Palatal fricatives: sh (unvoiced) and zh (like the s in vision -- voiced)

e. Glottal fricative: h (unvoiced)

3. Affricates are sounds that involve a plosive followed immediately by a fricative at the same

location. In English, we have ch (unvoiced) and j (voiced). Many consider these as blends: t-sh and d-

zh.

4. Nasals are sounds made with air passing through the nose. In English, these are m, n, and ng.

a. Bilabial nasal: m

b. Alveolar nasal: n

c. Velar nasal: ng

5. Liquids are sounds with very little air resistance. In English, we have l and r, which are both alveolar,

but differ in the shape of the tongue. For l, we touch the tip to the ridge of the teeth and let the air go

around both sides. For the r, we almost block the air on both sides and let it through at the top. Note

that there are many variations of l and r in other languages and even within English itself!



6. Semivowels are sounds that are, as the name implies, very nearly vowels. In English, we have w and

y, which you can see are a lot like vowels such as oo and ee, but with the lips almost closed for w (a

bilabial) and the tongue almost touching the palate for y (a palatal). They are also called glides, since

they normally glide into or out of vowel positions (as in woo, yeah, ow, and oy).

Vowels

There are about 14 vowels in English. They are the ones found in these words: beet, bit, bait, bet, bat,

car, pot (in British English), bought, boat, book, boot, bird, but, and the a in ago. There are also three

diphthongs or double vowels: bite, cow, and boy. Diphthongs involve off-glides.: You can hear the y inbite and boy, and the w in cow. Actually, the sounds in bait and boat are also diphthongs (with y and w

off-glides, respectively), but the first parts of the diphthongs are different from the nearby sounds in bet

and bought.

Vowels are classified in three dimensions:

1. The height of the tongue in the mouth -- low, mid, or high

high are beet, bit, boot, and book

mid are bait, bet, but, boat, bought, bird and a in ago

low are bat, car, and british pot

2. How far forward or backward in the mouth the tongue rises -- front, center, or back

front are beet, bit, bait, bet, and bat

center are but, bird, and a in ago

back are boot, book, boat, bought, and british pot

3. How rounded or unrounded the lips are

the front vowels are unrounded

the center and back vowels are rounded

There is one more dimension that doesnt have much to do with English, but is essential in many



languages, and that is vowel length. Vowels can be short or long, and it is just a matter of how long you

continue the sound. The closest we get in English is that the vowel in beet is longer (as well as higher)

than the vowel in bit. The same goes for boot and book, and for caught and the British pot.

IPA

Over the years, linguists have developed a complex chart of phonemes for transcribing the sounds of all

languages around the world. It is called the International Phonetic Alphabet, and much of it is in the

charts below. If you get question marks or little squares, that means your computer isn't equipt with

unicode, in which case you will have to look elsewhere for charts like this.

Consonants

bilabial labio-

dental

dental alveolar retroflex palato-

alveolar

palatal velar uvular glottal

Plosives uv. p t c k q

v. b d g

fricatives uv. f s ç x h

v. v ð z

Nasals

m n

semivowels uv.



v. w j

rolled/

trilled r

tapped/

flapped

Laterals l L

lateral

-fricatives

uv.

v.

Vowels

front central back

high i y u

middle e ø o

low æ a

Vowel length is marked with a colon after the vowel, e.g. i:



Nasal vowels are shown by placing a tilde over the vowel, e.g. ã

Stress and Tones

In many languages around the world, including English, words are differentiated by means of stress.

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phonetics manual