UNIT – 3

PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

Introduction to phonetics and its different branches
Definition of phonetics:

Phonetics is the scientific study of production, transmission and reception of speech sounds.

Description:

Touching upon physiology and physics, phonetics is now a pure science that studies speech
processes including the anatomy, neurology and pathology of speech, as well as the
articulation, description, classification, production and perception of speech sounds.

It looks at speech from three distinct but interdependent view points:

1. It studies the speech organs which produce sounds of languages.

2. It studies waves, the physical from in which sounds are transmitted through the air
from one person to another.

3. And it studies the way in which human beings perceive sounds through the medium
of air.

Phonetics studies the defining characteristics of all human vocal noise and concentrates its
attention to those sounds which occur in the languages of the world.

Phoneticians try to study how the various organs of speech – the lungs, the larynx, the soft
palate, the hard palate, the lip function in the production of speech.

Branches of Phonetics:
Phonetics has the following branches:

 articulatory phonetics
 acoustic
 auditory
 experimental phonetics

Articulatory Phonetics:

It recognises that speech is produced by some kind of sound making apparatus inside the
human body and that specific sound may be related to specific movements of the
apparatus.

It is the study of movement of the speech organs in the articulation of speech.

The movements of the organs of speech – lungs, larynx, soft palate, tongue, teeth and lip
produces speech.

The knowledge of the organs of speech, their relation to each other and the way in which
they are used while speaking provides a sound basis for the classification of sounds of
human languages.
Acoustic Phonetics:

It is the study of physical properties of speech sounds such as frequency and amplitude in
their transmission.

Acoustic phoneticians analyze the speech waves with the help of instruments; they attempt
to describe the physical properties of the stream of sound that issues forth from the mouth
of the speaker.

Auditory Phonetics:

It is the study of hearing and perception of speech sounds.

It studies different auditory impressions of quality, pitch and loudness of sound.

Experimental Phonetics:

Study which deals with the experiments and use of the instruments in the analysis of speech
sounds such as spectrography, palatography etc.

Processes involved in the specification of speech:

Using the traditional approach, speech may be considered to be the product of four
separate processes:

- The air stream process

- The phonation process
- The oro-nasal process
- The articulatory process

Air Stream Process:

It is a voluntary process.
Lungs carry out the process of inhaling and exhaling.
This coming in and out air can be used for speech when required.
Speech is not possible without sounds and sounds are not possible without the air stream.
This process can be ingressive or egressive.

Chamber - thoracic or respiratory chamber.

Organs involved – respiratory muscles, lungs, bronchial tubes and trachea.
Activities of the organs – the respiratory muscles exert pressure on the lungs. The lungs
exhale out air (egressive – air stream) or inhale in the sir (ingressive air stream).

Classification of speech sounds:

Segmental: vowels and consonants.

Supra – segmental: stress, pitch, tone and intonation.

Consonants:

Derived from Greek word ‘Consonateum’ which means the sound produced with the help of
some other sound (vowel).
Latest Definition:

Consonant is a sound which is produced by a stoppage of the breath; i.e. to say the in
production of a consonant, the movement of air form the lungs is partially or fully
obstructed as a result of narrowing or a complete closure of air passage.

Vowels:
Vowels may be defined with an open approximation without any obstruction, partial or
complete, in the air passage. The sound produces are referred to as vocoids in phonetics.

Syllable:

The unit or sections into which words are divided while pronouncing them are called
syllables.
It is a unit of pronunciation consisting of a vowel alone or a vowel with one or more
consonants.
A vowel is the nucleus and the consonant a marginal element in the syllable; i.e. a
consonant is either at the beginning or at the end of a syllable.
A consonant at the end of a syllable is called an arresting consonant and at the beginning of
a syllable is called a releasing consonant.

Example: Pick /pik/- consists of two marginal ( p and k) elements and one nucleus.

School /skul/ - sk represents consonant cluster.

Some words are made up of nucleus alone i.e. a vowel.

Description of Consonants:

A description of consonantal sounds must provide answers to the following questions:

 Is the air stream set in motion by the lungs or by some other means (pulmonary or
non-pulmonary)?
 Is the air stream forced outwards or sucked inwards?
 Do the vocal cords vibrate or not (voiced or voiceless)?
 Is the soft palate lowered or raised? Or does the air pass through the oral cavity or
the nasal cavity?
 At what point or points and between which organs does the closure or narrowing
take place?
 What is the type of closure/narrowing at the point of articulation?

Thus the description of a consonant will include five kinds of information:

 The nature of the air stream mechanism.

 The state of the glottis.
 The position of the soft palate (velum).
 The articulators involved; and
 The nature of the stricture.

Description of consonant sounds:

/p/ in the English word pack:

 The vocal cords are held apart and the sound is voiceless.
 The soft palate is raised and the nasal passage is closed.
 The active articulator is the lower lip.
 The passive articulator is the upper lip.
 There is a stricture of complete closure.
/b/ in the English word back:

 The vocal cords vibrate and the sound produced is voiced.

 The soft palate is raised and the nasal passage is closed.
 The active articulator is the lower lip.
 The passive articulator is the upper lip.
 There is a stricture of complete closure.

/j/ in the English word yet:

 The vocal cords vibrate and the sound is voiced.

 The soft palate is raised.
 The active articulator is the front of the tongue.
 The passive is the hard palate.
 There is a stricture of open approximation. The front of the tongue is brought near
the hard palate but the space between them is sufficient for the sir to pass without
any audible friction.

Classification:

Consonants:

Consonants are classified on the basis of:

- Voicing.
- Place of articulation.
- Manner of articulation.

Voicing:

On the basis of voicing, sound can be classified into voiced and voiceless sounds.
The voiceless sounds in English are b, d, g, v, z, m, n, l, r, w and j.

All the vowels and semi-vowels are voiced, whereas among the consonants, some are
voiced and some are voiceless.

If the vocal cords vibrate when a sound is produces, it is said to be voiced.

The Place of Articulation:

Bilabial: articulated by the two lips. Example: P, m.

Labio-dental: articulated by the lower lip against the upper teeth. Example: v.

Dental: articulated by the tip of the tongue against the upper teeth. Ex. Hindi t, th etc.

Alveolar: articulated by the tip of the blade of the tongue against the teeth ridge. Ex. English
t.

Post-alveolar (retroflex): articulated by the tip of the tongue against the back part of the
teeth ridge. Example: English r (retroflex in Hindi r).

Palatal: articulated by the front of the tongue against the hard palate. Example: c.

Velar: articulated by the back of the tongue against the central and forward part of the soft
palate. Example: the K in pack.

Glottal or laryngeal: articulated in the glottis. Example: “glottal stop”.

The Manner of Articulation:

It describes the type of obstruction caused by the narrowing or closure of the articulators.
These are:

a) Plosive/stop: in the production of a stop, the oral and nasal passages are closed
simultaneously.
The active and passive articulators come in contact with each forming a stricture of
complete closure and preventing the air from escaping through the mouth. The soft
palate is raised and thus the nasal passage is also closed. (This is also known as velic
closure).
The air behind the oral closure is compressed and when the active articulator is
removed from contact with the passive articulator, the air escapes with an explosion.
Stops are also known as mules, explosives, plosives or occlusive. /p/ in pat and /b/ in
bat are the examples of stops.

b) Affricates: if the stop is not held for an appreciable time and released slowly, we get
an affricate rather than a plosive. Example: /ts/ in chair and /dz/ in jail.

c) Nasal: in a nasal contoid, the breath stream is interrupted at some point in the oral
cavity or at the lips, while being allowed to enter the nose.
Thus, a nasal sound is produced by a stricture of complete closure. The soft palate is
lowered and the air passes through the nose. All nasal sounds are voiced. Ex: /m,n/
in English.

d) Trill (or rolled consonants): in the production of trill, the active articulator taps
several times against the passive articulator. The stricture involved can be called a
Stricture of intermittent closure. Ex: /r/ in Scottish red, in Hindi, words like Ram.

e) Flapped: for a flap, the active articulator, the active articulator taps the passive
articulator only once. The /r/ in the English word very, in which the tip of the tongue
strikes the teeth ridge only once.

f) Lateral: laterals are produces by a stricture of complete closure in the centre of the
vocal tract, but the air passes out from either or both sides of the tongue. For
example: /l/ in late.

g) Fricative: formed by narrowing the air passage to such an extent that the air escape
produces audible friction (i.e. some kind of hissing sound). Example: /v/ in vain, /q/
in think, /d/ in them.

h) Semi vowel: is a vowel glide functioning as a consonant i.e., as the C-element in a

syllable structure.
In terms of articulation, semi vowels are like vowels, but they don’t behave like
vowels. Semi vowels are never stable, they can’t be pronounced by themselves. They
are sounds in transition. Ex: /j/ in yet, /w/ in wet. These are also called semi
consonant as well.

i) Fortis and lenis: when we have voiced/voiceless pairs, the two sounds are also
distinguished by the degree of breath force and muscular effort involved in the
articulations. Ex: /s/ is a comparatively strong Fortis and /z/ is a comparatively
weaker lenis.