Consonants and vowels

1: Consonants

Consonants and vowels

1: Consonants

Phonetics and phonology

Places of articulation

Subclasses: bilabial/labiodental, etc. (see below)

Places of articulation

Subclasses: bilabial/labiodental, etc. (see below)

Places of articulation

:-)))

+ continuant/noncontinuant, lateral, etc.

Manner of articulation

Manner of articulation

the degree of openness of the vocal tract, with the resulting relative loudness of sounds called sonority. The more open the vocal tract (that is, the smaller the degree of obstruction), the more sonorous the sound is.

Voicing

The three-term description of consonants:- place of articulation;- manner of articulation;- voicing.

(shaded cells: sibilants)

(all voiced)

The phonology of English consonants: R-dropping

The phonology of English consonants: R-dropping

new homophones:sore – saw, pour – paw, aren't – aunt, farther – father, fort – fought, source – sauce, more – maw, tuner – tuna, sort – sought, court – caught, spar – spa, career – Korea

Dropping of a consonant word-finally and pre-consonantally

Dropping of a consonant word-finally and pre-consonantally

Dropping of a consonant word-finally and pre-consonantally

Dropping of a consonant word-finally and pre-consonantally

The phonology of English consonants: R-dropping

Linking-R:more exciting, your eyes, (to) err is (human), care about, centre of, tire us, etc.between two sentences: e.g., He doesn't care. I do or There'sa spider. I'm scared.

Intrusive-R:visa application, (the) idea is, (the) Shah of (Persia), schwa insertion, law and (order), Gloria Estefan, (cats) claw at (the furniture), (the giant) panda is (an endangered species), etc.between two sentences: Try that sofa. It's softer or Call Maria. I need her.

Further homophones: e.g., vanilla ice – vanilla rice, Amanda Avon – Amanda Raven, the spa is broken – the spar is broken, put the tuna in the box – put the tuner in the box

saw us

The phonology of English consonants: R-droppingRhotic and non-rhotic accents of English:

The phonology of English consonants: R-droppingRhotic and non-rhotic accents of English:

The phonology of English consonants: L-darkening in RP

Within and across sentences: the pronunciation of word-final /l/ is determined by the following segment:

dark in feel and feel me clear in feel at home dark in spell and spell this word clear in spell it

cf. kill / kill Bill vs. kill you, smile / smile back vs. smile at me

The phonology of English consonants: L-darkening

Marble Arch: syllabic /l/ is always dark!

The phonology of English consonants: aspiration

Two forms of aspiration:

- short h-like sound after /p t k/: pay, tip, keen

- devoicing of sonorant consonant after /p t k/: pray, trip, queen

cf. ray, rip, wean

The phonology of English consonants: aspiration

Aspirated: relatively strong aspiration, no alternative allophone

Unaspirated 1: weaker or no aspiration, alternative allophones:- column (d): tapping/flapping []- column (e): (pre)glottalization/glottal replacement []

Unaspirated 2: no aspiration

Tapping/flapping:

atom = Adam

Tapping/flapping:

latter = ladder

Tapping/flapping:

Gerappa :-)http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=daoo5Of3wR0

The phonology of English consonants: aspiration

The pronunciation of the consonant is determined by its position in the syllable:

ambisyllabicity

© PÁ

The phonology of English consonants: R-dropping revisited

The phonology of English consonants: L-darkening revisited

The phonology of English consonants in the syllable: phonotactics

The phonology of English consonants in the syllable: phonotactics

the Sonority Principle:within syllables, sonority increases towards the vowel, which forms a sonority peak, and then sonority decreases; or, on both sides of syllables, sonority increases towards the vowel

Violations of the Sonority Principle:

Summary of Sonority Principle violations:

The English syllable: phonotactic restrictions (1):

● the centre of the syllable is the sonority peak, which is usually a vowel (or: syllabic consonant, cf. bottle, button)● the peak is the only obligatory constituent: there are syllables with a single vowel and no consonants (e.g., English I/eye // or Hungarian ő '(s)he'), but there are no syllables without a peak (in Hungarian, without a vowel)● the English peak can be preceded by zero to three consonants and followed by zero to four● syllable-initial position: single consonant before the peak: any consonant except //● initial two-member clusters: the Sonority Principle! (e.g., twin, trip, tube, play, pray, puke, quick, cry, clean, cube, fry, fling, dry, Gwen, etc.). One consonant, /s/, can be combined with any of the others except for voiced obstruents and /r/ (e.g., snip, slip, swim, sport, skirt, stink, sphere, etc.) (very often: sonority sequencing violations)● illegal initial clusters: *pn, *ps, *gn, *kn, *pt, *mn (pneumonia, psycho, gnu, knight, pterodactyl, mnemonics); the letter <x> at the beginning of words like Xerox, xylophone and Xanadu does not denote a /ks/ sequence but a single /z/● *tl, *tn, *pw, *fw – homorganic clusters, i.e., their members share the place of articulation

The English syllable: phonotactic restrictions (2):

● initial three-member sequences: always begin with /s/ (strength, spring, square, splash, %stew, etc.) (always violate the Sonority Principle)

● syllable-final position: any single consonant except for /h/ + in non-rhotic accents like RP, /r/● two-member clusters after the peak: e.g., lamp, month, land, mince, help, bulb, elf, %carp, %herb

● the vowel and the following consonant(s) together: the syllable rhyme:● e.g., // can only be followed by coronal consonants (shout, crowd, south, town, etc.)● // can only be followed by alveolars (exploit, void, voice, noise, coin, coil, moist, point)● a long vowel is only possible before a consonant cluster if the cluster is made up of coronals (mind, boost, faint, etc.)● in word-final open syllables (i.e., without a closing consonant) the vowel has to be either long (monophthong or diphthong, e.g., taboo, array, RP near) or unstressed (happy, comma, etc.)

(Next topic: Vowels)