Sunusi Aminu

 
Eng 112

Department of English
FCE, Kano.
Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology

T
he terms phonetics and phonology are used interchangeably to refer to the study of phonemes.
The terms, however, differ significantly in some respects. The concept phonetics, put simply,
refers to the study of and analyses of phonemes as these relate to all human languages. Given, a
sound like /b/ is studied as a phoneme that appears in languages like Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo; that
is, its production, and the physical properties it shares with other /b/ variants present in other
languages.
Phonetics is concerned with how much sounds are produced(articulated)in the
vocal tract(a field of study known as articulatory phonetics), as well as with the
physical properties of speech sounds waves generated by the larynx and the vocal
tract. º
The term phonology, on the other hand, is “often used to refer to the abstract principles that
govern the distribution of sounds in a languageӼ. The primary concern here is the application of
phonemic rules in particular language like English. Therefore, a particular sound like /b/is
analyzed just it is used in English as particular language. In sum, the below is a brief tabulated
distinction between phonetics and phonology.

 
Phonetics Phonology

It is broad and deals with all It is specific, narrow and deals with all
sounds human being can produce. available sounds in a particular
 language.
It deals with physical properties of It deals with abstract principles that
speech sounds. govern the use of sounds.

Sounds are the primary concern. Sounds and supra segmental are all
important.

The anatomy of human organs of speech in pictorial form

 

1-nasal cavity

2-lips

3-teeth

4-aveolar ridge

5-hard palate

6-velum (soft palate)

7-uvula

8-apex (tip) of tongue

9-blade (front) of tongue

 10-dorsum (back) of tongue

11-oral cavity

12-pharynx

13-epiglottis

14-larynx

15-vocal cords

16-trachea

17-esophagus

The organs of speech

These are the parts of the human body that come into contact to produce what is generally called
the human language. Among these organs are the lips, the tongue, the teeth, the palates, the
alveolar ride, the pharynx, the larynx, the vocal cords/folds, the glottis, and the nasal cavity.
Alveolar​ ridge lies, according Peter Roach, “​between the top front teeth and the hard palate”².
In other words, the alveolar ridge refers to the rough surface area immediately behind the upper
teeth covered with ridge-like little bumps which can be felt with the tip of the tongue. The
alveolar ridge is active in the production of sounds such as (t d l r n s z k g ƞ).
Glottis​ refers to the small opening between the vocal cords through which the air stream can
have free flow. “​The long opening between the vocal cords at the upper part of a vertebrate's
windpipe larynx.” ³
Larynx​ is ​“a structure of muscles and cartilage located at the upper end of the trachea.”º​ Or as
another source put it “​hollow chamber in which the voice is produced, at the front or upper part
of the windpipe of mammals, frogs, and toads; it is also called the voice box. In mammals it
leads from the lower portion of the pharynx to the trachea and is situated in front of or ventral to
the esophagus, behind the skin and connective tissue of the throat.”¹
Lips​ are two muscular organs used primarily for holding food in the mouth, word-formation
during speech or facial expressions like smiling, yawning, frowning etc to display emotions or
state. In other words,​ “the lips, which form the mouth’s muscular opening, are an especially
familiar part of the body for humans.”¹​ During speech, the lips can be brought together and
produce sounds like/p b m w/, brought into contact with the teeth to produce/f v/; or rounded to
produce/u: /.
Nasal Cavity ​is an opening that starts from the roof the mouth and leads through to the nose. Put
simply, the nasal cavity refers to ​“​either of the two open spaces, located between the floor of the
cranium and the roof of the mouth that form the inner nose.” ³​ Most nasalized sounds (m n ƞ) are
produced in this place.
Palates ​refer to the roof of the mouth and the velar or the softer part of the inner roof of the
mouth. ​ “​Palate​, roof of the mouth, separating the mouth from the nasal cavities. The palate
consists of two portions: the hard palate in front and the soft palate behind. . The hard palate is
formed of periosteum, a bony plate covered by mucous membrane, and arches over to meet the
gums in front and on either side. The soft palate is a movable fold of mucous membrane
enclosing muscular fibers”¹. T ​ he palates are useful in producing sounds like (k g j ƞ).
Pharynx ​“​is a tube which begins just above the larynx. It is 7cm long in women and 8cm in men,
at its top end it is divided into two , part being the back of the mouth and the other being the
beginning of the way through the nasal cavity.”²​ This long tube is considered an organ of speech
because it through it the airstream passes out from the lungs. It helps in shaping the air to give it
definition I accordance with the wish of the speaker.
Teeth​ refer to the hard white objects in the mouth used for biting and chewing food. ​“Teeth,
hard, bony structures in the mouths of humans and animals used primarily to chew food, but also
for gnawing, digging, fighting, and catching and killing prey.”¹​ In addition to the earlier
mentioned functions the tongue plays a key role in sound production in human language like (θ
ð).
Tongue​ is a muscular flexible organ which ​“extends from the hyoid bone at the back of the
mouth upward and forward to the lips”¹​ plays a vital role in tasting, chewing and swallowing of
food in addition to shaping the airstream from the lungs to produce different sounds such as the
vowels and some consonants. The tongue has five parts, namely, the tip (this lies under the velar
or the soft palate); the blade (lies under the soft palate); the front (lies under the hard palate); the
back (lies under the soft palate when the tongue is at rest); and the root.
Vocal Cords (folds)​ are “​bands of elastic tissue in the larynx which can vibrate, causing voice,
can allow free passage of the air, for voiceless sounds and can completely stop the air-flow,
giving the glottal stop.”³​ It is clear from this that the vocal cords are flexible tissues that look
like the lips and which open or close to let the air pass through the opening thus giving way to a
small opening called the glottis.
Place of Articulation
When talking about or describing English sounds, the term ​place of articulation​ is nearly always
used (especially when consonants are being described). This concept is often used to mean those
organs of speech involved in the production and shaping of the air stream that give rise to the
sounds so that they become intelligible or meaningful to the listener. In other words, the place of
articulation refers to the part of the body or organ involved in the production of the sounds. The
terms commonly used are ​bilabials, labiodentals, dentals, palato-alveolar, velars, glottal, and
alveolars.
Alveolars ​are the sounds formed when the front part of the tongue is raised and placed on the
alveolar ridge before letting the air stream pass (​t d l r n s z​).
Bilabials ​are the sounds produced when the upper and the lower lips(bi- two; labia-lips) are
brought into contact allowing the air stream out with some form of explosion in the process as in
the case of “​p​”, “​b​”, “​m​”, and “​w​”.
Dentals ​are formed when the tip of the tongue, the lower front teeth and the upper front teeth
come into contact thus letting air through a narrow opening (​θ ð​).
Glottal ​involves a constriction of the glottis and allowing air to pass through an open mouth. In
other words, the glottal phoneme is produced without any active role from either the mouth or
the tongue (​h​).
Labiodentals ​ are those sounds that are made when the upper teeth are brought into contact
lower lip (​f v​).
Palato-alveolar​ sounds are produced when the tongue moves towards the roof of the mouth
(hard palate) very close to the alveolar ridge (​ʃ ʤ ʧ ʒ​).
Velar​ “​are sounds produced with the back of the tongue against the velum.” ⁴ ​Put simply, the
velaric sounds (​k g ƞ​) are produced with back of the tongue raised up and pressed against the soft
palate.
Manner of Articulation
The manner of articulation refers to the way the sounds are articulated within the vocal tract. A
fine instance of this can be seen in the case of consonant sounds. These are the sounds whose
formation usually involve obstruction or stoppage of the air-stream at some points in the vocal
tract whether total or partial as the case may be.
1. Affricates​ are the phonemes whose manner of production involves gradual release of the
trapped air; “​an affricate is a single but complex sound, beginning as a stop but releasing
secondarily into a fricative.”​ ​⁴​ The sounds that fall within this category are (​ʤ ʧ​) as in
church/ ​ʧ ɜ:​ ​ʧ​/ and judge/ ​ʤ ᴧ ʤ​/. Other examples of affricates are: ​jo​ ke, c​ ho​ ke, sing​ e​,
bin​ge,​ c​ h​an​ge​, mer​ge​,​ j​ail,
2. Approximant​ these are sounds created in the same place vowels are produced, that is, the
position of the tongue is raised to that of vowel production. ​“​In the set of sounds called the
approximants, the articulation of each is strongly influenced by the following vowel sound.
Indeed, the sounds [w ​ ]​ and [​y​] are sometimes called ‘semi-vowels’​ ​or ‘glides’​ ​, because
they are typically produced with the tongue moving, or ‘gliding’​ ​, to or from the position
of a nearby vowel.​ ​”⁴
3. Fricatives​ are produced when the air build-up is partially obstructed and released
gradually so the flow results in a frictional noise (​f v θ​ ​ð​ ​s z ʒ​ ​ʃ​ ​h​). ​“Fricatives are sounds
produced when the airflow is forced through a narrow opening in the vocal tract so that
noise produced by friction is created.Ӽ
4. Laterals​ are the sounds produced when the air is obstructed partially by the articulators
and later allowed to pass at some point of contact (​l​). ​“In the articulation of English /l​ ​/, the
tongue blade is raised and the apex makes contact with the alveolar ridge.Ӽ
5. Nasals​ are sounds produced by lowering the soft palate so that the trapped air stream
passes through the nasal cavity (​m n ƞ​). ​“The basic characteristic of a nasal is that the air
escapes through the nose.”²
6. Plosives​ are sounds produced with complete trapping of the airstream at some point by the
articulators with an explosion. ​“Of the sounds we have already mentioned, the set[p​ ]​ , [​b​],
[​t]​ , [​d​], [​k​], [​g​] are produced by some form of complete ‘stopping’​ ​of the airstream (very
briefly) and then letting it go abruptly.”⁴
A tabular distribution of consonants based on place and manner of articulation

 
Place
of
Articu
lation
B Labio Dent Alve Palat Pala Vela glott
il denta al olar o-alv tal r al
ls eolar
a
b
ia
l
 M Plo pb td kg
a sive
n s
n
e
r
o
f
a
rt
ic
u
la
ti
o
n
Fri fv θð sz ʒʃ h
cati
ves
Aff ʤʧ
rica
tes
Nas m n ƞ
als
Lat l
eral
Ap w r j
pro
xim
ant
s

Phonation
Phonation is a term used to describe the degree of vibration of the vocal folds in phoneme
production. A sound, especially consonant, is described as Fortis or lenis; that is voiceless or
voiced due to the type of phonation has. “​Voice, or phonation, is the sound produced by the
expiration of air through vibrating vocal cords.”²​ Hence, English consonants can once again be
grouped into two broad categories thus:

Lenis (voiced)​ ​Fortis (voiceless)

● b​ ​p​
 ● d​ t​ ​
● g k
● v f
● z s
● - h
● ʤ ʧ
● ʒ ʃ
● ð θ

The vowels
A Vowel is sound produced by passage of the airstream through the vocal tract with little
audible friction. There are at least 12 pure vowels in English (​æ e ə ɒ ᴧ i i: Ɔ​ ​: u u: ɜ: ɑ :​). These
vowels fall under two groups, that is, the long and the short vowels. The long vowels tend to be
represented with a sign: in front of them while the short vowels do not have this sign. ​“A speech
sound produced by the passage of air through the vocal tract, with relatively little obstruction.”¹
The vowels are classified into two categories ​the pure vowels and the diphthongs.​ The former
refer to the 12 simple vowel sounds like/​ æ e ə ɒ ᴧ i i: Ɔ​ ​: u u: ɜ: ɑ: /​ found commonly in words
like the ones given below.
/​ æ​/ as in p​ac​k, b​ac​k, l​ac​k
/​ e​/ as in p​e​t, m​e​t, d​ea​d
/​ ə​/ as in ​a​bout, lett​er​, fam​ou​s
/​ ɒ​/ as in p​o​t, c​ou​gh, wh​a​t
/​ ᴧ​/ as in r​ou​gh, l​o​ve, c​u​rrent
/​ I​/ as in f​i​t, b​i​t, b​e​lief
/​ I:​ / as in f​ee​t, r​ea​d, s​ea​l
/Ɔ​:​ / as in f​or​k, w​ar​d, c​augh​t
/​ U​ / ​as in b​oo​k, p​u​t, w​oul​d
/​ U:​ / ​as in L​u​ke, p​oo​l, sh​oe​d
/​ ɜ:​ as in d​er​mis, f​ir​m, m​ur​der
/​ ɑ:​ / as in p​a​ss, p​ar​k, p​er​ched
The pure vowels are further grouped into ​the front, the back and the central vowels.​ The front
ones are those whose production involved the raising of the front of the tongue towards the roof
of the mouth. The back vowels, however, are produced with the back of the tongue raised near
the soft palate. While the central are produced with the middle of the tongue raised close to the
hard palate.
The diphthongs are the vowels whose production involves a smooth glide from one vowel to
another, but which is regarded as a single sound. Examples of diphthongs include:
/​iə​/ as in f​ear​, h​ere​, t​ie​r
/​uə​/ as in t​our​, s​ure​, p​oor​
/​əu​/ as in h​o​me, g​o​, l​ow
/​eə​/ as in ​air​, b​ear​, f​are
/​Ɔ​i​/ as in t​oy​, b​oil​, c​oil
/​ɑi​/ as in h​igh​, sk​y​, ​eye
/​ɑu​/ as in h​ow, ​f​ow​l, t​ow
/​ei​/ as in d​ay​, w​ay​, l​aid
NB: Vowel sequences can occur in certain situations like ​tire/​ ​tɑiə​/​, coward​/​kɑuəd​/,
greyer​/​greiə​/ etc, despite these complexities they are still considered diphthongs.
Introduction to Phonemic Transcription
Due to the numerous inconsistencies in modern English orthography, that a single letter can
stand for different sounds(for instance, ​k​ is represented by ​k​ as in ​ki​ te, ​ck​ as in ki​ck​, ​ch​ as in
ch​oir, ​q​ as in ​qu​ ick and ​c​ as in ​cu​ t), the need to invent a definite, generally acceptable mode of
representing English sounds was devised. This system is called the transcription. Linguist
proposed two system of transcribing words the ​phonetic and phonemic.​ The former refers to a
broad way of representing the sounds while phonemic uses narrow procedure. Hence, in
transcribing English words, we make use of the phonemic not the phonetic system.
Under the phonemic transcription, the above problem can easily be tackled thus: the various
representatives of ​k​ are unified under the phoneme /​k​/. So the ​k,​ c​ k,​ c​ h,​ q​ ,​ a​ nd ​k​ are represented
by that single phoneme. Granted, these sounds would automatically look like /​kɑit​/, /​kik​/,
/​kwɑiə​/, /​kwik​/, /​kᴧt​/
Stress
In English, some parts of a word are given more prominence in terms of pitch and quality than
the others. In other words, some syllables are pronounced with an extra effort or force than the
rest. When this thing occurs it is said that that syllable is stressed. Stress is simply the ​“greater
effort on a syllable or syllables in a word or longer utterance than on the other syllables.”³
But before we go into detailed account of what a stress is all about, let’s briefly examine the term
syllable. A syllable is the minimum unit a word can get or be divided into and which must
comprise a vowel sound with or without a consonant. A fine example of a syllable is in the word
go​ — a simple word consisting of a vowel and a consonant. Also, it should be noted that a word
can have one or many syllables e.g. ​on, re.turn, na.t.u.ral, dic.tion.a.ry​ etc (each dot represents a
syllable). When a word contains one syllable it is called a ​monosyllabic word​ — a ​disyllabic,
two; ​polysyllabic​, three or more.
A stress can fall on the first, second or even the last syllable (monosyllabic words usually have
their stress at the beginning) and phonologists use different methods of representations to
indicate the stressed syllables. For instance, the WAEC and NECO use capitalization to indicate
stressed syllables whiles dictionaries like the Longman and Oxford use a small mark(​'​) to
indicate stress(​ə'wei​, ​a'bɑut​, ​di'rɑiv​, ​di'​s​ɑid​, ​sᴧ'kes​).
The words category of words commonly stressed in English fall within the class of ​nouns, verbs
(especially lexical verbs), adverbs, and adjectives​ other functional words like preposition,
conjunction, interjection and so on are usually not stressed except for emphasis.
Word stress can affect the class of a word, that is, it can change from a noun to a verb and vice
versa. Take a look at the below examples:
Verb​ ​Noun

Pre​'​sent ​'​present
Con​'​tent ​'​content
Pro​'​duce ​'​produce
Sur​'​vey ​'​survey
Re​'​cord ​'​record
Sentence Stress
When speaking English speakers tend to rush over those words said not contain stress at all.
They only give prominence to those words that normally stressed. For example, ​'​John is ​'​here
has two words that are stressed so it the tendency of the English speaker to make the ​is i​ n the
sentence sound as if it were part of the name ​John​. In the case of emphatic stress, however, the
speaker may stress the words that are not normally stressed like ​conjunction, ​ preposition etc to
give more prominence to that certain aspect of the sentences to show how important that aspect
really is to them. This is usually called emphatic stress:
● '​He killed the goat.
● He​'​ killed the goat.
● He killed ​'​the goat.
● He killed the ​'​goat.

References
ºAdrian Akmajian, Richard A. Demers, Ann K. Farmer, Robert M. Harnish (2008). ​Linguistics:
An Introduction to Language and Communication (5​th​ Ed.).​ Prentice-Hall of India Private
Limited, New Delhi.
¹Klima, Edward S. "Phonetics." Microsoft® Student 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft
Corporation, 2008.
²Peter Roach (1997) ​English Phonetics and Phonology (2​nd​ Ed.). C​ ambridge University Press,
United Kingdom.
³J. D. O’Connor (2000) ​Better English Pronunciation (Low Price Ed.). ​Cambridge University
Press, United Kingdom.
⁴George Yule (2007). ​The Study of English (2​nd​ Ed.). ​Cambridge University Press, United
Kingdom.