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Articulatory Phonetics Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Universität Tübingen Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft Phonetics k Phonology Articulatory Phonetics (Hall, Kapitel 1.1 – 1.5; Clark & Yallop, Chapter 2 & 3, 4.1; Ladefoged, Chapter 9) Christian Ebert [email protected] Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels vowels are produced without forming any particular obstruction in the oral tract they hence are closer to clean sounds/tones than to noises (as consonants are) instead of building a constriction, the shape of the resonating cavities (in particular: the oral cavity) and hence the resulting sound's character is changed the tongue is the most important organ in shaping the oral cavity further importance have the lips, which can be rounded or unrounded hence vowels must be classified differently from consonants Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels cardinal vowels to describe the position of the tongue within the oral cavity one takes the highest point of the dorsum as a point of reference the tongue's position can hence be described along two dimensions the horizontal dimension tells us whether the reference point is in the front or in the back of the oral cavity the vertical dimension (tongue height) tells us whether the reference point is high or in the low Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels cardinal vowels the extreme positions of the tongue are those where further movement would lead to a constriction (ð high consonantal sound) low these positions are the reference points w.r.t. which all other vowels need to be front back described aus: Karl-Heinz Wagner, Skript zur Phonetik und Phonologie Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels cardinal vowels schematically the extreme positions yield the following diagram of the vowel space (ger. Vokaltrapez) hence the highest point of the tongue can be located somewhere within this space during vowel production the british phonetician Daniel Jones (1881-1967) had the idea to create an abstract set of vowels located within such a vowel space that could be regarded as reference points the abstract set of vowels are called cardinal vowels Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels cardinal vowels the eight primary cardinal vowels are defined by introducing four additional positions, two at the back and two at the front, at two new height levels equidistant from the extreme points front central back high (close) mid-high (half-close) mid-low (half-open) low (open) depending on the tongue position the corresponding vowel is called a front/central/back and high (closed)/mid-high (half-closed)/ mid-low (half-closed)/low (open) vowel Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels cardinal vowels the corresponding IPA symbols are i u as follows the vowels [u o O] are e o rounded (i.e. they are produced E O with rounded lips) a A the vowels [i e E a A] are unrounded (i.e. they are produced with unrounded lips) beat ger. gut the following sounds from English and German ger. See ger. Lot come close to the bet hawk cardinal vowels ger. Ball hard Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels cardinal vowels the missing counterparts of the i y M u primary cardinal vowels are the secondary cardinal vowels e 2 7 o E 9 V O this exhausts all possible combinations of four heights, two horizontalpositions a & A Q and two ways of lip rounding for instance, [M] is a unrounded high (closed) back vowel, while [9] is a rounded mid-low (half-closed) front vowel examples: Englisch: [V] luck [Q] rod German: [y:] müde [2:] Möbel [9] möchte Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels further vowels four tongue height levels are not enough to adequately describe the vowel sounds of the worlds languages therefore, three further levels have been introduced for the following vowels: [I Y U] (ger. mit, müssen, muss) between high and mid-high [I Y] are front vowels, [U] is a back vowel, [I] is a rounded vowel, [Y U] are unrounded vowels [{ 6] (man, ger. Mutter [mUt6]) between low and mid-low [{] is a unrounded front vowel, [6] a unrounded central vowel [@] (the so-called schwa) is an unrounded central vowel between mid-high and mid-low Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels further vowels the schwa [@] is produced with the tongue in completely neutral position (hence the other German name Neutralvokal) occurs in German and English as follows: Bitte, lieben, geheim about, China, simpler [BE] in German the sound [6] is called vokalisiertes 'R' since it constitutes and alternative way of articulating a consonantal rhotic, e.g. at the end of a syllable after a vowel [6] [R] weiter – weitere Tor – Tore leer – leeren Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels further vowels the completed vowel diagram looks as follows front central back closed i y M u high I Y U half-closed (close-mid) e 2 7 o mid-high @ half-open E 9 V O mid-low (open-mid) { 6 open a & A Q low at each position marked with there is a further pair of vowels (see IPA table for details). Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels IPA table Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels reminder: the cardinal vowels and the vowels in the IPA diagram are abstract reference points not derived from a particular language for comparison: the chart on the right shows some English vowels as articulated in the British Received Pronunciation from Clark & Yallop (1995), p. 28 Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels advanced tongue root the two dimensions of tongue position + the aspect of lip rounding is not enough to describe all vowel sounds of the world's languages in Akan (spoken in Ghana) for instance, vowels differ in the size of the pharynx if the root of the tongue is drawn forward and the larynx is lowered, the vowel is called an advanced tongue root (or +ATR) vowel, otherwise it is a -ATR vowel the IPA provides two diacritical symbols to deal with ±ATR: advanced tongue root retracted tongue root Introductionto General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Vowels advanced tongue root tongue advanced ChristianEbert from Ladefoged (2006), p. 223 Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels nasal vowels all vowels that have so far been looked at are articulated with the velum raised (i.e. the passage to the nasal cavity closed) vowels might also be nasalized, i.e. produced with a lowered velum yielding nasal vowels nasalization is indicated by the diacritical symbol ~ in the IPA there are quite some nasal vowels in French that can also be found in the German loanwords [E~] bassin (Bassin) [O~] balcon (Balkon) [9~] parfum (Parfüm) Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels semivowels reminder: semivowels (or glides) are consonantal sounds (more precisely: approximants) with vocalic quality vowels (usually) form the peak of a syllable (more on this in the session on the phonology of the syllable); they are syllabic seg.ment consonants (usually) don't form the peak of a syllable, but rather the periphery; they are non-syllabic (exceptions are e.g. [l] and [n] as in shuttle [S.tl] the syllabic status of a consonant is indicated by the diacritic ) Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels semivowels semivowels can hence be regarded as non-syllabic vocalic sounds since they also do not serve as peak of syllables syllabic non-syllabic ls e ls w e o w v vocalic sounds o i- v m se ts n a n so non-vocalic sounds n co some semivowels and their corresponding vowels: [j] (as in you; [i]) [w] (as in water; [u]) [] (as in french lui; [y]) [] (in Japanese; []) Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels length vowels also differ w.r.t. their length long vowels are marked by a diacritical : in the IPA [i:] ihn – vital [i] [e:] Mehl – Mechanik [e] [o:] oben – Moral [o] [E:] Mädchen – Bett [E] [a:] Kahn – kann [a] in German some vowels only occur in their short form [I] Pille [Y] Küsse [U] uns [O] normal Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels length and tenseness/laxness there is a correspondence between the length of a vowel and its tenseness/laxness a vowel is called tense if the muscles of the tongue are relatively contracted during articulation, otherwise it's called lax the tense vowels thus include [i y e 2 u o], while the lax vowels comprise [I Y E 9 a U O @ 6] across the languages of the world there seems to be a close relationship of the form tense ó long resp. lax ó short this is only an observation that seems to hold in general and there are exceptions Introduction to General Linguistics - Phonetics & Phonology winter term 2010/2011 Christian Ebert Vowels length and tenseness/laxness in German, tense vowels are long in general — f bieten — bitten [i:] [I] 2 3 . S Hüte — Hütte [y:] — [Y] , e i g o l Beet — Bett [e:] — [E] o n o h P Höhle — Hölle — [2:] [9] e i d n i spuken — spucken [u:] — [U] g n u r Schoten — Schotten [o:] — [O] h ü f n i E : s in particular, stressed tense vowels are always long r e m a R before the position bearing the main stress of the word, tense .
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