Essentials of Phonetics and Phonology
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Syllabic Consonants and Phonotactics Syllabic Consonants
Syllabic consonants and phonotactics Syllabic consonants Consonants that stand as the peak of the syllable, and perform the functions of vowels, are called syllabic consonants. For example, in words like sudden and saddle, the consonant [d] is followed by either the consonant [n] or [l] without a vowel intervening. The [n] of sadden and the [l] of saddle constitute the centre of the second, unstressed, syllable and are considered to be syllabic peaks. They typically occur in an unstressed syllable immediately following the alveolar consonants, [t, s, z] as well as [d]. Examples of syllabic consonants Cattle [kæțɬ] wrestle [resɬ] Couple [kʌpɬ] knuckle [nʌkɬ] Panel[pæņɬ] petal [petɬ] Parcel [pa:șɬ] pedal [pedɬ] It is not unusual to find two syllabic consonants together. Examples are: national [næʃņɬ] literal [litrɬ] visionary [viʒņri] veteran [vetrņ] Phonotactics Phonotactic constraints determine what sounds can be put together to form the different parts of a syllable in a language. Examples: English onsets /kl/ is okay: “clean” “clamp” /pl/ is okay: “play” “plaque” */tl/ is not okay: *tlay *tlamp. We don’t often have words that begin with /tl/, /dm/, /rk/, etc. in English. However, these combinations can occur in the middle or final positions. So, what is phonotactics? Phonotactics is part of the phonology of a language. Phonotactics restricts the possible sound sequences and syllable structures in a language. Phonotactic constraint refers to any specific restriction To understand phonotactics, one must first understand syllable structure. Permissible language structures Languages differ in permissible syllable structures. Below are some simplified examples. Hawaiian: V, CV Japanese: V, CV, CVC Korean: V, CV, CVC, VCC, CVCC English: V CV CCV CCCV VC CVC CCVC CCCVC VCC CVCC CCVCC CCCVCC VCCC CVCCC CCVCCC CCCVCCC English consonant clusters sequences English allows CC and CCC clusters in onsets and codas, but they are highly restricted. -
Laryngeal Features in German* Michael Jessen Bundeskriminalamt, Wiesbaden Catherine Ringen University of Iowa
Phonology 19 (2002) 189–218. f 2002 Cambridge University Press DOI: 10.1017/S0952675702004311 Printed in the United Kingdom Laryngeal features in German* Michael Jessen Bundeskriminalamt, Wiesbaden Catherine Ringen University of Iowa It is well known that initially and when preceded by a word that ends with a voiceless sound, German so-called ‘voiced’ stops are usually voiceless, that intervocalically both voiced and voiceless stops occur and that syllable-final (obstruent) stops are voiceless. Such a distribution is consistent with an analysis in which the contrast is one of [voice] and syllable-final stops are devoiced. It is also consistent with the view that in German the contrast is between stops that are [spread glottis] and those that are not. On such a view, the intervocalic voiced stops arise because of passive voicing of the non-[spread glottis] stops. The purpose of this paper is to present experimental results that support the view that German has underlying [spread glottis] stops, not [voice] stops. 1 Introduction In spite of the fact that voiced (obstruent) stops in German (and many other Germanic languages) are markedly different from voiced stops in languages like Spanish, Russian and Hungarian, all of these languages are usually claimed to have stops that contrast in voicing. For example, Wurzel (1970), Rubach (1990), Hall (1993) and Wiese (1996) assume that German has underlying voiced stops in their different accounts of Ger- man syllable-final devoicing in various rule-based frameworks. Similarly, Lombardi (1999) assumes that German has underlying voiced obstruents in her optimality-theoretic (OT) account of syllable-final laryngeal neutralisation and assimilation in obstruent clusters. -
Learning About Phonology and Orthography
EFFECTIVE LITERACY PRACTICES MODULE REFERENCE GUIDE Learning About Phonology and Orthography Module Focus Learning about the relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language (often referred to as letter-sound associations, graphophonics, sound- symbol relationships) Definitions phonology: study of speech sounds in a language orthography: study of the system of written language (spelling) continuous text: a complete text or substantive part of a complete text What Children Children need to learn to work out how their spoken language relates to messages in print. Have to Learn They need to learn (Clay, 2002, 2006, p. 112) • to hear sounds buried in words • to visually discriminate the symbols we use in print • to link single symbols and clusters of symbols with the sounds they represent • that there are many exceptions and alternatives in our English system of putting sounds into print Children also begin to work on relationships among things they already know, often long before the teacher attends to those relationships. For example, children discover that • it is more efficient to work with larger chunks • sometimes it is more efficient to work with relationships (like some word or word part I know) • often it is more efficient to use a vague sense of a rule How Children Writing Learn About • Building a known writing vocabulary Phonology and • Analyzing words by hearing and recording sounds in words Orthography • Using known words and word parts to solve new unknown words • Noticing and learning about exceptions in English orthography Reading • Building a known reading vocabulary • Using known words and word parts to get to unknown words • Taking words apart while reading Manipulating Words and Word Parts • Using magnetic letters to manipulate and explore words and word parts Key Points Through reading and writing continuous text, children learn about sound-symbol relation- for Teachers ships, they take on known reading and writing vocabularies, and they can use what they know about words to generate new learning. -
Part 1: Introduction to The
PREVIEW OF THE IPA HANDBOOK Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet PARTI Introduction to the IPA 1. What is the International Phonetic Alphabet? The aim of the International Phonetic Association is to promote the scientific study of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. For both these it is necessary to have a consistent way of representing the sounds of language in written form. From its foundation in 1886 the Association has been concerned to develop a system of notation which would be convenient to use, but comprehensive enough to cope with the wide variety of sounds found in the languages of the world; and to encourage the use of thjs notation as widely as possible among those concerned with language. The system is generally known as the International Phonetic Alphabet. Both the Association and its Alphabet are widely referred to by the abbreviation IPA, but here 'IPA' will be used only for the Alphabet. The IPA is based on the Roman alphabet, which has the advantage of being widely familiar, but also includes letters and additional symbols from a variety of other sources. These additions are necessary because the variety of sounds in languages is much greater than the number of letters in the Roman alphabet. The use of sequences of phonetic symbols to represent speech is known as transcription. The IPA can be used for many different purposes. For instance, it can be used as a way to show pronunciation in a dictionary, to record a language in linguistic fieldwork, to form the basis of a writing system for a language, or to annotate acoustic and other displays in the analysis of speech. -
SSC: the Science of Talking
SSC: The Science of Talking (for year 1 students of medicine) Week 3: Sounds of the World’s Languages (vowels and consonants) Michael Ashby, Senior Lecturer in Phonetics, UCL PLIN1101 Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology A Lecture 4 page 1 Vowel Description Essential reading: Ashby & Maidment, Chapter 5 4.1 Aim: To introduce the basics of vowel description and the main characteristics of the vowels of RP English. 4.2 Definition of vowel: Vowels are produced without any major obstruction of the airflow; the intra-oral pressure stays low, and vowels are therefore sonorant sounds. Vowels are normally voiced. Vowels are articulated by raising some part of the tongue body (that is the front or the back of the tongue notnot the tip or blade) towards the roof of the oral cavity (see Figure 1). 4.3 Front vowels are produced by raising the front of the tongue towards the hard palate. Back vowels are produced by raising the back of the tongue towards the soft palate. Central vowels are produced by raising the centre part of the tongue towards the junction of the hard and soft palates. 4.4 The height of a vowel refers to the degree of raising of the relevant part of the tongue. If the tongue is raised so as to be close to the roof of the oral cavity then a close or high vowel is produced. If the tongue is only slightly raised, so that there is a wide gap between its highest point and the roof of the oral cavity, then an open or lowlowlow vowel results. -
An Acoustic Account of the Allophonic Realization of /T/ Amber King St
Linguistic Portfolios Volume 1 Article 12 2012 An Acoustic Account of the Allophonic Realization of /T/ Amber King St. Cloud State University Ettien Koffi St. Cloud State University Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/stcloud_ling Part of the Applied Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation King, Amber and Koffi, Ettien (2012) "An Acoustic Account of the Allophonic Realization of /T/," Linguistic Portfolios: Vol. 1 , Article 12. Available at: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/stcloud_ling/vol1/iss1/12 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by theRepository at St. Cloud State. It has been accepted for inclusion in Linguistic Portfolios by an authorized editor of theRepository at St. Cloud State. For more information, please contact [email protected]. King and Koffi: An Acoustic Account of the Allophonic Realization of /T/ AN ACOUSTIC ACCOUNT OF THE ALLOPHONIC REALIZATIONS OF /T/ AMBER KING AND ETTIEN KOFFI 1.0 Introduction This paper is a laboratory phonology account of the different pronunciations of the phoneme /t/. Laboratory phonology is a relatively new analytical tool that is being used to validate and verify claims made by phonologists about the pronunciation of sounds. It is customary for phonologists to predict on the basis of auditory impressions and intuition alone that allophones exist for such and such phonemes. An allophone is defined as different realizations of the same phoneme based on the environments in which it occurs. For instance, it has been proposed that the phoneme /t/ has anywhere from four to eight allophones in General American English (GAE). To verify this claim Amber, one of the co-author of this paper recorded herself saying the words <still>, <Tim>, <kit>, <bitter>, <kitten>, <winter>, <fruition>, <furniture>, and <listen>. -
CONSONANT CLUSTER PHONOTACTICS: a PERCEPTUAL APPROACH by MARIE-HÉLÈNE CÔTÉ B.Sc. Sciences Économiques, Université De Montr
CONSONANT CLUSTER PHONOTACTICS: A PERCEPTUAL APPROACH by MARIE-HÉLÈNE CÔTÉ B.Sc. Sciences économiques, Université de Montréal (1987) Diplôme Relations Internationales, Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (1990) D.E.A. Démographie économique, Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (1991) M.A. Linguistique, Université de Montréal (1995) Submitted to the department of Linguistics and Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY À ma mère et à mon bébé, at the qui nous ont quittés À Marielle et Émile, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY qui nous sont arrivés À Jean-Pierre, qui est toujours là September 2000 © 2000 Marie-Hélène Côté. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to M.I.T. the permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Signature of author_________________________________________________ Department of Linguistics and Philosophy August 25, 2000 Certified by_______________________________________________________ Professor Michael Kenstowicz Thesis supervisor Accepted by______________________________________________________ Alec Marantz Chairman, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy CONSONANT CLUSTER PHONOTACTICS: A PERCEPTUAL APPROACH NOTES ON THE PRESENT VERSION by The present version, finished in July 2001, differs slightly from the official one, deposited in September 2000. The acknowledgments were finally added. The MARIE-HÉLÈNE CÔTÉ formatting was changed and the presentation generally improved. Several typos were corrected, and the references were updated, when papers originally cited as manuscripts were subsequently published. A couple of references were also added, as Submitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy well as short conclusions to chapters 3, 4, and 5, which for the most part summarize on September 5, 2000, in partial fulfillment of the requirements the chapter in question. -
Ohne Lös SS 11 Slides III NN
Semester Outline Introduction to English Phonology and Phonetics 1. Phonetics and phonology: basics (& introducing transcription) 2. English consonants Dr. Nadja Nesselhauf 3. English vowels 4. Beyond the phoneme (connected speech, suprasegmentals etc.) 5. Accents of English English Vowels: Outline Phonetic Classification of Vowels Phonetic criteria for the classification of vowels: 1. Classification of vowels - tongue shape (tongue height = closeness/openness + part of tongue which is highest = frontness/backness) 2. English monophthongs - lip shape (rounded vs. unrounded or spread vs. neutral vs. round) - constancy of tongue/(lip)-shape (diphthongs vs. 3. English diphthongs monophthongs) - position of velum (oral vs. nasal vowels) - duration (long vs. short) 1 Classification of Vowels: Classification of Vowels: Extreme Vowels Extreme Vowels [i]: [u]: extremely extremely front and back and close close Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 59 Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 59 Classification of Vowels: Classification of Vowels: Extreme Vowels Extreme Vowels [a]: [@]: extremely extremely front and back and open open Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 60 Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 60 2 Classification of Vowels: Classification of Vowels: Vowel Diagram Cardinal Vowels (D. Jones) “si” “gut” “thé” “Rose” “même” “Sonne” “la” “pas” Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 61 Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 61 Classification of Vowels: Cardinal Vowels (D. Jones) Vowels in the IPA chart Source: Collins/Mees 2003, 61 Daniel Jones pronouncing the cardinal vowels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UIAe4p2I74 3 Alternative Vowel Chart Vowels - a Continuum… (Primary Cardinal Vowels) George Bernard Shaw: Pygmalion (Preface: “there are touches of [Henry] Sweet in the play”): HIGGINS: Tired of listening to sounds? PICKERING: Yes. It‘s a fearful strain. -
On Syncope in Old English
In: Dieter Kastovsky and Aleksander Szwedek (eds) Linguistics across historical and geographical boundaries. In honour of Jacek Fisiak on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter, 1986, 359-66. On syncope in Old English Raymond Hickey University of Bonn Abstract. Syncope in Old English is seen to be a rule which is determined by syllable structure but furthermore to be governed by a set of restricting conditions which refer to the world-class status of the forms which may act as input to the syncope rule, and also to the inflectional or derivational nature of the suffix which are added also to the precise phonological structure of those forms which undergo syncope. A phonological rule in a language which does not operate globally is always of particular interest as the conditions which restrict its application can frequently be recognized and formulized, at the same time throwing light on the nature of conditions which can in principle apply in a language’s phonology. In Old English a syncope rule existed which clearly related to the syllable structure of the forms it did not operate on but which was also subject to a set of restricting conditions which lie outside the domain of the syllable. The examination of this syncope rule and the conditions pertaining to it is the subject of this contribution. It is first of all necessary to distinguish syncope from another phonological process with which it might be confused. This is epenthesis, which appears to have been quite widespread in late West Saxon, as can be seen in the following forms. -
Velar Segments in Old English and Old Irish
In: Jacek Fisiak (ed.) Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Historical Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1985, 267-79. Velar segments in Old English and Old Irish Raymond Hickey University of Bonn The purpose of this paper is to look at a section of the phoneme inventories of the oldest attested stage of English and Irish, velar segments, to see how they are manifested phonetically and to consider how they relate to each other on the phonological level. The reason I have chosen to look at two languages is that it is precisely when one compares two language systems that one notices that structural differences between languages on one level will be correlated by differences on other levels demonstrating their interrelatedness. Furthermore it is necessary to view segments on a given level in relation to other segments. The group under consideration here is just one of several groups. Velar segments viewed within the phonological system of both Old English and Old Irish cor relate with three other major groups, defined by place of articulation: palatals, dentals, and labials. The relationship between these groups is not the same in each language for reasons which are morphological: in Old Irish changes in grammatical category are frequently indicated by palatalizing a final non-palatal segment (labial, dental, or velar). The same function in Old English is fulfilled by suffixes and /or prefixes. This has meant that for Old English the phonetically natural and lower-level alternation of velar elements with palatal elements in a palatal environ ment was to be found whereas in Old Irish this alternation had been denaturalized and had lost its automatic character. -
Armenian Alphabet Confusing Letters
Armenian Alphabet: Help to Distinguish the “Look-Alike” (confusing) 12 of the 38 Letters of the Armenian Alphabet 6. B b z zebra 27. A a j jet (ch) church 17. ^ 6 dz (adze) (ts) cats 25. C c ch church 19. ch unaspirated ch/j (j) jet Q q • 14. ts unaspirated ts/dz (dz) adze ) 0 • 21. & 7 h hot initial y Maya medial y final in monosyllable except verbs silent final elsewhere 35. W w p piano 36. @ 2 k kid 34. U u v violin 31. t step unaspirated t/d (d) dance K k • 38. ~ ` f fantastic ARMENIAN ALPHABET First created in the 5th c. by Mesrop Mashtots. Eastern Armenian Dialect Transliteration. (Western Dialect, when different, follows in parentheses). 1. a father 14. ts unaspirated ts/dz (dz) adze G g ) 0 • 2. E e b boy (p) piano 15. k skip unaspirated k/g (g) go I i • 3. D d g go (k) kid 16. L l h hot 4. X x d dance (t) ten 17. ^ 6 dz (adze) (ts) cats 5. F f ye yet initial e pen medial 18. * 8 gh Parisian French Paris e pen initial ft, fh, fh2, fr you are 19. ch unaspirated ch/j (j) jet Q q • y yawn before vowel 20. T t m meet 6. B b z zebra 21. h hot initial 7. e pen & 7 + = y Maya medial 8. O o u focus y final in monosyllable except verbs silent final elsewhere 9. P p t ten 22. H h n nut 10. -
Comparative Analysis of American English and Mexican Spanish Consonants for Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training*
REVISTA SIGNOS. ESTUDIOS DE LINGÜÍSTICA ISSN 0718-0934 © 2017 PUCV, Chile DOI: 10.4067/S0718-09342017000200195 50(94) 195-216 Comparative analysis of American English and Mexican Spanish consonants for Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training* Análisis comparativo de las consonantes del inglés americano y español mexicano para la enseñanza de la pronunciación del inglés asistida por computadora Olga Kolesnikova INSTITUTO POLITÉCNICO NACIONAL MÉXICO [email protected] Recibido: 17-X-2014 / Aceptado: 30-VIII-2016 Abstract The objective of this work is two-fold. Firstly, we aim at detecting similarities and differences between the consonant systems of two languages, namely, American English and Mexican Spanish. To achieve this, we perform a theoretic comparative analysis of consonants of the two languages at the level of both phonemes and allophones. Secondly, a possible practical usage of our results is considered; therefore, as an example of an application, we consider computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) for teaching American English pronunciation to Mexican Spanish speakers. In particular, we took advantage of the results of our analysis to define some hypothetic error patterns which can be used as a starting point for diagnosing possible mispronunciations, their posterior verification, and adjustment taking into account the principles of phonotactics and empirical phonetic analysis of the English learners’ speech. The latter will result in error rules to be applied in a CAPT system for error identification and generation of appropriate corrective feedback. An adequate choice of correcting techniques will improve English pronunciation acquisition and help learners to develop less accented speech. Also, similarities found between the two consonant systems make it possible to organize and present the pronunciation teaching material using a stress-free method of helping learners to adjust their speech organs to new sounds building on the phonetic habits of their first language.