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Phonetics and Phonology - Timková (timkova_notes.doc)

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                         INTRODUCTION TO PHONETICS

                                   MID-TERM NOTES

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Phonetics – study of sound in human language, which is further subdivided into:

1)   Articulatory – process of movements of articulatory organs to produce sound
2) Auditory – physical nature of speak signs (more about physics)
3)   Acustic – how ear and brain receives speech signal

Phonology – study individual sounds of particular language, how to use it in context, how sounds behave by influencing by other sounds, function of sounds, selection and patterns of sound in single language

Accent – several ways in which the language can be pronounced by people from different geographical places, social classes, ages and educational background.

Dialect – covers variation in grammar and vocubulary

Variety – all aspects, pronounciation, grammar, vocubulary (regional, social variation)

RP – received pronounciation –variety of pronounciation in British Isles, prestigue accent, connected with monarchy, model of pure English. Also called BBC English, Oxford or Qeen´s English.

Non –Regional Pronounciation (NRP)

1. without social connotation (does not refer to any social class like RP vs monarchy)
2. neutral type of modern English
3. the present day variation is from educated middle and young generation

Phonemes (44),

Consonants (24),

Vowels (20) - Short (7), Long (5), Dipthtongs (8)

Happy  vowel – / happi / - linked with duration of pronunciation, in this case i is not long as long i and not so short as short i.

R – rotic (AmE), non-rotic (BrE), thrilled (SVK)

Minimal pair – pair of words which differ in one sound only and have different meaning

Estuary English

4. term firsty revealed by David Rosewarne (1984), it is English used by everyday people, compromise between RP and popular London slang Cockney. Estuary may become in the future new language used for learning English.
5. Basic phonetics : L-glottalisation (shelf, middle), T –glottal stop (football)

Speech Production

1) Respiration   2) Phonation   3) Modification

Respiration

-basic precondition for production of speech is expelled air stream (egressive).

1) Lungs – initiator of air stream located in rib cage

2) Bronchi – bronchus (priedušky)

3) Trachea – wind pipe

4) Larynx – (hrtan) – vocal cords located here, made up of 4 cartillages and muscles

Phonation – activity of the larynx (voice box), production of sounds by vibrating vocal folds to side in larynx.

Glottis – opening between vocal folds. During breathing the glottis is open. During the phase of phonation the arythenoid cartillages are held closer together.

Basic phonation position – established by closing the glottis, Closed together, air stucked in glottal space. The compressed air overcomes elasticity and glottis are opening. Then air is moved from sub-glottal space to supraglottal cavities.When this activity is repeated is causes vocal folds vibration.

A states of vocal folds

1. wide apart – normal breathing, for sounds we do not need voice
2. narrow glottis – small opening, voiceless glottal fricative, H
3. vocal fold vibration – edges of folds are touching together or nearly touching – vowels
4. tightly closed – firmly pressed, no space between glottis, airstream released explosively, glottal stops

Supraglottal cavities – vocal tract ends in the mouth, from larynx airstream goes to pharynx, oral cavity or nasal cavity.

Pharynx –not variable in shapes, variabled by rising the soft palate, also container of volume o fair, which can be set of vibration of vocal cords. From pharynx air goes to oral cavity.

Articulators:

Passive – larynx, pharynx, root of the mouth (support activity of active articulatory organs), maxilla (upper jaw), teeth (upper, lower), alveolar ridge, hard palate, upper lip (more passive than lower lip)

Active – tongue (tip, blade, front, back), mandibolla, lower lip, soft palate

Articulation:

(narrow)Activity of the speech organs in oral cavity, including also phonation where activity of vocal folds plays important role.

(broader)Coordinated activity of all precomponents (respiration, phonation, modification) which are interrelated in the production of sounds.

Lips – upper is passive, lower is active, could be rounded (o), spread (e), neutral (a)

Nasal cavity – resonance is primary function. Nasality is modification in terms of nasal cavity. Nasal cavity participates throught soft palate:

1. raised – prevent air straem from passing trought nasal cavity (oral sounds)
2. lowered – allow to pass air stream into nasal cavity (nasal sounds, m,n )

Acustic aspect of speech production

-voice come into assistance with vocal fold vibration

-periodic vibration – tone

-aperiodic vibration – noise (šum)

Vowels – tones, Consonants – tones, but also some of them noises

TONE –has 3 basic qualities pitch (výška tónu), intensity, timber (zafarbenie)

Auditory aspect of speech production

6. aspect of perception – ear (collect, transmit, analyze) – outer, inter, inner
7. speech sound is percieved in 4 categories: pitch, loudness, quality, length

Classification of sounds based on 3 stages

1) production   2) transmission   3) reception

Phonetically :

1. Vowel – type of sound depending largely on very slight variation of tongue positions. Tone of free cavity.
2. Consonant – most easily described in terms of coarticulation, contact and movements of two articulatory organs. Noise at the place of obstruction.

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                                   INRODUCTION TO PHONOLOGY

8. about sounds and their features
9. basic unit of phonology – pohneme

Phoneme – def: phonic complex (articulatory, acustic, auditory), complex of phonic features which enable the language user to differentiate a certain sound on the basis of complex of features for all the other sounds as an independent, nor interchangable unit capable of distinction in the meaning of words.

-also phonemes are abstract units based on generalisations of the basis of any language characteristic of certain type of sounds. Each sound realization has different time and conditions.

10. mutual structural relation of the individual members
11. mutual relation between two phonemes which is based on similarity and difference is called phonological opposition.

Features of phonemes:

1. releveant features – presence of these feature enable the phonemes to distinguish meaning, these features are called distinctive features
2. irrelevant feature – not capable of distinguishing meaning, they are just allophones – variants of phonemes

Subsystem of English consonantal pohneme - CONSONANTS

Articulatory point of view – consonat is type of blockage, obstruction in the air stream by contact made by articulatory organs.

1. Place of Articulation
2. Manner of Articulation (spôsob)
3. Acustic impression (akustický dojem)
4. Position of soft palate

1. place of articulation – bilabial, labiodental, labial, dental, alveolar, palato-alveolar, post – alveolar, palatal, velar, glottal
2. manner of articulation – plosive, fricative, affricate, nasal, lateral, approximant

MANNER of Articulation – Stricture type

Stricture –kind of narrowing of vocal tract that effects airstream

1. Complete Closure – forms an obstruction that blockes air stream
2. Close approximation – form narrowing giving rise to friction
3. Open approximation – forms no obstruction, but change shape of vocal tract, thus eltering nature of resonance.

Passive articulator is the target of the articulation, point to the words in which active articulator is directed.

1. COMPLETE CLOSURE – (stops, nasals, thrills and taps)

1. STOPS (occlusives) – complete closure of vocal tract which block the airstream, that´s why we are call it stops. Soft palate raised, no escape o fair trough nose, that´s why they are called oral consonants.

Compressed air can be released:

1. part quickly – release the air in explosive force (plosion-ptkbdg)
2. part relatively slowly – use homoorganic friction (same place of articulation) (affrication, č, dž) – semi occlusives

2. NASALS – soft palate is lowered, allowing air to escape through nose, nasals are normally voiced (m, n velar n)
3. THRILLS AND TAPS

Tap – single rapid percussive movement

Trills – alveolar and uvular, more percussive movements

1. Alveolar – tip of the tongue touches alveolar ridge
2. Uvular – when uvula strikes the back of the tongue

2. CLOSE APPROXIMATION

Fricatives – when articulators are close to each other, but do not make complete closure. The air stream then passes trough narrowing and producing audible hiss like friction. (f,v,s,z,th,d,š,ž,h)

3. OPEN APPROXIMATION

Centrals – (approximants) – no audible friction, no obstruction (w,j,r -semivowels)

Laterals – (l) – airstream escapes from both sides of tongue.

Phonological opposition (by structural linguists)

12. Tension – energy of articulation
13. voice
14. continuants
15. compactness
16. stridency
17. nasality

fortis – stronger, voiceless – p,t,k,s,f,š,č,th,h

lenis – weaker, voiced  - b,d,g,z,v,ž,dž,d

Fortis

1. articulation is stronger and more energetive
2. more muscular effort and greater breath pulse
3. articulation is voiceless
4. ptk when innitial in a stress syllable have a strong aspiration
5. vowels before fortis consonants are shorter
6. fortis syllable could be glottal stop

Lenis

18. articulation is weaker, less muscular effect and less breath force
19. articulation may have voice
20. b,d,g, are unaspirated
21. before lenis consonants are full vowels
22. no glottal stop

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PLOSIVES – 6 plosives (ptkbdg), plosives has plosion in articulation and we are distinguishing some stages from their production until releasing:

1. Closure phase – articulators form the closure
2. Hold phase – compression, compressed air is stopped
3. Release phase – when the stricture gives way and air is allowed out
4. Post – release phase – acustic efect, the effect on the following soud

Other theory :

1. approach phase – articulators come together (active to pasive) and form the stricture
2. hold phase – the air stream is compressed behind the closure (stricture)
3. release phase - compressed air is released in two ways :

1. rapidly – released with plosion (plosives)
2. slowly – with friction (affrication)

VOT – voice onset time – time when voicing is coming into being, could be deleyed because of aspiration (ptk)

Aspiration – occurs when fortis plosives are innitial in a stressed syllable (ptk)

     – com ´petitor – there is aspiration in stressed syllable, starting with  (ptk)

     -  ´competent – no aspiration, cause there is no stressed syllable starting on ptk

Cluster – group of consonants

23. when innitial cluster is with s (spoon, school), in this case aspiration is absent

GRE – Glottal Reinforcement (glottalisation, pre-glottalisation)

24. typical feature of plosives and stops
25. english syllable final fortis stops are accompanied by reinforcing glottal stop at or before the whole stage
26. this is one of the most significant markers of final fortis stops in English.
27. e.g.(football)
28. when fortis consonant is followed after vowel, this vowel is shortened

NASALS – (m,n velar n)

29. air escapes through nasal cavity
30. velar n is an independent phoneme, which is capable of distinguishing meaning (in slovak it is only allophone), it never occurs in the innitial position, but in the medial position it is quite frequent
31. spelling groups –

nk – k is always pronounced (link, ink, rank)

ng -  sometimes pronounced without g and sometimes with g

1. withhout g – if it occurs on the boundary of two morphemes (singer)
2. with g – (finger) – we can´t divide into morphemes

32. comparative and superlative forms are exception  to this rule. In spite of morphological boundaries, g is usually pronounced (long –longer -longest)

LATERALS – lateral approximant l, we are distinguishing 3 groups of alophones of l in English

1. clear l – articulated in front part of the oral cavity and resembles a vowel when the front part of the tongue is raised, before vowel and also before j
2. dark l – opposite of clear l, articulated in the back part of the oral cavity with the back of the tongue raised, it occurs after vowel, before consonant or after a consonant (meal)
3. devoiced l – it happen after fortis plosives ptk in a stressed syllable (plain, claim), because the vowel in influenced after the l  (first part of vowel is loosing their voicing)

VOWELS – all vowels are voiced sounds, formed by no obstruction in the air flow, articulators do not touch each other, there is a considerable space between, all vowels are approximants, the most important articulator in vowel production is tongue.

33. vowels are typically voiced, no fortis vs lenis contrast
34. criteria of describing vowels physical and non-physical variables

Physical variables –

1. tongue shape
2. lip shape
3. tongue and or lip shape held constant or undergo change (pure vowel or diphtong)
4. position of soft palate

Non – physical variables –

1) duration – duration of sound

TONGUE SHAPE

35. tongue hight – how close the tongue is to the roof of the mouth
36. when the tongue is lower, the oral cavity decreases and opens in size
37. if the upper part of the tongue is close to the roof of the mouth, then sounds are called close vowels
38. if oral cavity is open with the tongue far away from the roof of the mouth, then sounds are called open vowels
39. cardinal vowel scheme – invented in 1917 by Daniel Jones

Upper vowel limit – beyond this point can´t reach palate

Lower vowel limit – limit beyond which tongue cannot be depressed

VOWELS –pure vowels (steady-state vowels) and diphtongs

20 vocalic sounds – 7 relatively short vowels, 5 relatively long, 3 closing diphtongs ending in i, 2 closing diphtongs ending with u, 3 centring diphtongs ending in schwa

Glide – movement from one vowel to the second one

Steady State Vowel – no glide, no movement from one vowel to second one, we can divide them into checked and free.

1. Checked – relatively short pure vowels
2. Free – relatively long pure vowels
3. Free diphtong – regarded also relatively long

Checked – cannot occur in word final stressed open syllable position (tea –tí, cant be ti), they are definitely shorter than free vowels

Schwa – is separate pohneme, do not appear in a checked or free vowel clasification

Open syllable – ends with a vowel

Closed syllable – ends with a consonant

Closing Diphtongs –

Backing – when the second component is (u), glide to back vowel

Fronting – when the second component is (I), glide to front vowel

Centing Diphtong – glide to central position, ending component is schwa

                                                THE SYLLABLE

Syllable – unit in language

40. minimal syllable – consist of one phoneme
41. combination of phoneme within syllable is called phonotactics
42. each syllable has to have a vowel (nucleus)
43. syllable consist of     onset + nucleus + coda
44. there are syllables which have zero onset and zero coda
45. maximum onset consonants in syllable in English is 3
46. maximum coda consonants in syllable in English is 4
47. consonant cluster – 2 or more consonants

Structure of syllable :

ONSET :

1. pre – initial : s
2. initial – any consonant
3. post initial : l, r, w, j

NUCLEUS :

1. vowel

CODA :

1. pre – final – s,l, m,n velar n
2. final – any consonant
3. post – final – s, z, t, d, th
4. post – final – s, z, t, d, th
5. post – final – s, z, t, d, th

final coda consonant – if only one consonant in coda

Aspects of connected speech

Rhytm – stressed time rhytm (English), syllable timed rhytm (Slovak)