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