Basic concepts of Phonetics

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2. Objectives:
• Explore the relationship between sound and
spelling
• Become familiar with International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA )
• Understand the nature of consonants and
vowels
• Learn where particular sounds occur (physical
aspects of the human vocal tract)
• How sounds change when different sounds
surround them
• Yule: Chapter 3,The Sounds of Language
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3. Phonetics
 Acoustic phonetics – the physical
properties of speech as sound waves in
the air
 Auditory phonetics – the study of the
perception of speech sounds, via the ear
 Articulatory phonetics – the study of
how speech sounds are made, or
‘articulated’
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4. Articulatory Phonetics
 Deals with the way in which speech sounds are
produced, what parts of the mouth and in what
sorts of configurations
 Phoneticians’ techniques – x-ray photography,
palatography (to observe contact btwn the
tongue and the roof of the mouth)
 Most basic tool – impressionistic phonetic
transcription: e.g. tomato
Webster’s: tə-mā-tō tə-mä-tō
Gershwin: tomato tomahto
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5. SEAGH
5
CHEF?
sure dead laugh
Imagine a word spelled as
But pronounced as
How would one come to this spelling?

6. Describing Language Sounds
• The sounds of spoken English often do not
match up with the letters of written English.
• One solution to describe the sounds of a
language is to produce a separate alphabet with
symbols that represent sound  phonetic
alphabet
• These symbols represent both the consonant
and vowel sounds of language
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7. A “Good” Phonetic Alphabet:
Characteristics
1. Each symbol should represent only one sound (phone)
– e.g. <c>: [k] in cat and [s] in cymbal
2. If 2 sounds can distinguish one word from another,
they should be represented by different symbols
– e.g. <th>: they vs. thigh
Good phonetic transcription  unambiguously convey the
important aspects of the pronunciation of a given set of
sounds, using a written system of symbols.
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8. A “Good” Phonetic Alphabet:
Characteristics
3. If 2 sounds are very similar and
their differences arise only from
the context they’re in, those
similarities should be represented
 [k] sounds in keep and cool (place
where they’re articulated are
dependent on the following vowel)
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9. The English Alphabet
 The English alphabet has 26 letters but
there are over 40 different speech
sounds:
 5 vowel and 21 consonant letters of the
alphabet
 About 20 vowel sounds and 24 consonant
sounds (depending on dialect)
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10. A “Good” Phonetic Alphabet:
Not English
 Same sound spelled using different letters:
sea, see, scene, receive, thief, amoeba,
machine
 Same letters can stand for different sounds: -
sign, pleasure, resign
- dough, through, rough,
cough, fought, drought
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11. A “Good” Phonetic Alphabet:
Not English
 Single sound spelled by a combination of
letters: lock, that, book
 Single letter represents a combination of
sounds: exit, use
 Sometimes letters stand for no sound at
all: know, doubt, though
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12. Transcription
 the conversion of spoken words into written
words
 the process of matching the sounds of human
speech to special written symbols
 using a set of exact rules, so that these
sounds can be reproduced later.
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13. Transcription
• There are two kinds of transcription
– Narrow transcription:
– seeks to document every possible detail of the
segment
– very often, these details are not discernible to
the native speaker
– Broad transcription:
– specifies the segments that are contrastive in
the language
– far fewer sounds are documented
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14. Transcription
• A transcription system for these purposes must be different
from traditional writing systems
– Some features of a good phonetic transcription system:
– Universal: no preference given to any existing spelling
system
– Interpretable: other linguists should be able to interpret it
– Transparent: one-to-one correspondence between sounds
and symbols
– Comprehensive: symbols for all the sounds in human
language
– The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is the best
attempt so far (chart uploaded in Bb)
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15. The Organs of Speech
(Yule, page 27)
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16. English Sounds
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•All English words are made from combinations
of consonants and vowels
•Every English segment can be uniquely
described in three or four words
•[p] is the voiceless (bi-)labial (oral) stop
•[e] is the upper-mid front vowel
•[n] is the alveolar nasal (stop)

17. Voiced and Voiceless Sounds
 Inside the larynx are the vocal cords
 One position: voiceless
 Vocal cords are open, the air from the lungs
passes between them unimpeded. e.g. /s/
 Another position: voiced
 When the vocal cords are drawn together, the air
from the lungs repeatedly pushes them apart as it
passes through, creating a vibration effect. e.g. /z/
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18. Consonants
• Consonants are generally produced with greater
constriction within the vocal tract.
• Description of consonants
– Voicing: describes the state of the larynx
– Place of Articulation: describes the location of
the obstruction or constriction
– Manner of Articulation: describes the type of
constriction and the passage of airflow
– e.g. /s/ voiceless alveolar fricative
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19. English Sounds: Consonants
• Place
 Bilabial
 Labiodental
 Dental
 Alveolar
 Palatals
 Velar
 Glottal
(Yule pgs. 28-31)
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• Manner
 Stop
 Fricative
 Affricate
 Nasals
 Liquids
 Glides
 Glottal stops and
flaps
(Yule pgs. 31-33)

20. IPA Consonants
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21. English Consonants
Yule, pg. 30

22. English Sounds: Vowels
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•Exercise: Hold your jaw lightly, now say he,
who, and ha. Did your jaw move for ha?
•Vowels don’t have a consonant-like point of
articulation or manner of articulation. The
three standard descriptors for consonants
(place, manner, voicing) aren’t helpful when we
want to describe vowels.

23. English Sounds: Vowels
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•There are 4 main ways in which speakers can change the
shape of the vocal tract and thus change vowel quality.
Raising of lowering the body of the tongue
Advancing or retracting the body of the tongue
Rounding or not rounding the lips
 A tense or lax gesture of the tongue body
•Manner: all vowels are articulated in the same way,
with the tongue raising or lowering to the target position
•All vowels (in English) are voiced

24. IPA Vowels
Yule, pg.34
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25. Vowel Space
(Height x Backness Space)
 The space is typically quadrilateral in
shape. (quadra = four; lateral = side)
 It is also (and primarily) an auditory
space.
 We hear vowels as similar or different
from each other depending on their
proximity in this space.
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26. Monophthongs of English
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seat
set
sat
You will find that you open
your mouth a little wider as
you change from [i] to [Ɛ] to
[æ]
These varying degrees of
openness correspond to
different degrees of tongue
height

27. Monophthongs of English
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28. Monophthongs of English
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beat
boot
Beat: the body of the
tongue is raised and
pushed forward so
it’s just under the
hard palate.
Boot: made by
raising the body of
the tongue in the
back of the mouth,
toward the velum

29. Monophthongs of English
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Front: tongue is moved
forward or advanced for
all front monophthongs
Back: tongue is
retracted or pulled back
for the back
monophthongs

30. Lip Rounding
 Vowel quality
also depends on
lip position
 [u] in two  lips
are rounded
 [i] in tea  lips
are unrounded
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Diphthongs: Complex vowel sounds because they
are two-part vowel sounds, consisting of a transition
from one vowel to the other in the same syllable
Try saying eye very slowly. How do you make this
vowel sound?
1. Your tongue starts out in the low back position for
[α]
2. Then your tongue moves toward the front position
for [I]
Diphthongs of English

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Examples:
buy
bay
bow
oh
Diphthongs of English

33. Homework
 Do Study Questions Chapter 3; Read Chapter
4.
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34. References
 Yule, 2010
 Fromkin, et. al., 2009
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