VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF HANOL THU Vien [EIGN LANGUAGE UNIVERSITY HA CAM TAM M.A ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY (A COURSE BOOK FOR STUDENTS OF THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT) ‘THU VIEN DA HOC THUY SAN WN 2000003766 NAM 2004TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 WHATIS PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY? 2. PHONETICS AND LINGUISTICS... CHAPTER 1 SPEECH ORGANS.. Lt Overvinw., ee 1.20 = AIRSTREAM MECHANISM 1.3 THEVOCAL CORDS- VOICED AND VOICELESS SOUNDS 1A THPSOFT PALATE - NASAL. VS. ORAT. SOUNDS: CHAPTER 2 DESCRIPTION AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPEECH SOUNDS 2.1 PHONEITC DESCRIPTION we 2.2 VOWEI. AND CONSONANT... 2.0 TR CUNSONANTAT SOUNDS, 231 PLACES OF ARTICULATION. 2.3.2 MANNERS OF ARTICULATION 24 Tir Vowel 24.1 THRCARDINAL VOWEL SCALE. 24.2 THECLASSIFICATION OF VOWEL TYPE ARTICULATION 2.5 SUPRASEGMENTALS CHAPTER 3 THE ENGLISH SOUNDS | Lis 3.1 INTRODUCTION .. 15 3.2 FORTIS AND LENS... 15 3.3 THE ENGLISH CONSONANTS eee 6 JA STOP CONSONANTS (PLOSIVES) 16 3220 PRICATIVES. — 18 3390 APERICATES. vo 344. NASALS. 2 335 LATERAL é 2 326 APPRONIMANTS, é 2 3.4 VARIATIONS OF THE PLOSIVES creer . 2 341 INCOMPLETE PLOSION ; STOP + STOP. c 23 342 NANAL PLOSION. STOP | NASAL. sone DM 13 LATERAL PLOSION: STOP 4 LATERAL. 2s S$ ENGLISH VOWETS.... Orca 6 NGI ISH DIPIITHIONGS.... ara creo 2 2.7 THEPHONEME AND TRANSCRIPTION. oo.ssnnenn = 1529 CHAPTER 4 ENGLISH WORDS AND SENTENCES... 1.87 4.1 WORD STRESS sssnentasnnnnnannimnnnernnnannien oe v7 4.2 STRESSINSIMPLE WORDS... c a é a7 43° LRVEISOF Stress 38 44 PLACEMENT OF STRESS WITMN THIF wore = 39 4.5 COMPLEX WORD-BIRESS 0 : fee e x0 46 — CoMPOUND woRDS... 40 4.7 WORD-CLASS PAIRS " ALR WRAK FORMS AND STRONG FORMS a CHAPTER 5 ASPECTS OF CONNECTED SPEECH. AT 5.1 Ruy ee a7 $2 ASSIMILATION AT 54 FLIston. AR 54_LINKING.... 1g 55 RULES TOR ENGLISIT ACLOrHONES... 4”CHAPTER 6 INTONATION.... 6.1 WIIAT IS INTONATION?... : 6.2 FORM AND FUNCTION IN INTONATION... 6.3 “THE THREE )EVELS OF TONE 6.4 | SOMEEUNCTIONSOF ENGLISH TONES 6.5" EYETPNE UNIT.$.7¢. 65.1 "TONE UNIT STRUCTURE... 6.3.2 © TONE UNIT BOUNDARIES. CHAPTER 7 FUNCTIONS OF INTONATION ...... 7. THE ATTITUDINAL FUNCTION OF INTONATION. 7.2 ‘Hi ACCENTUAL. FUNCTION OF INTONATION .. 7.3 THEGRAMMATICAL FUNCTION OF INTONATION. 7-4 THE DISCOURSE FUNCTION OF INTONATION APPENDIX ENGLISH BASIC TUNES. ‘TUNE SHIATES .. THE FALLING TUNE .. THE HIGH RISING TUNE. OW RISING TUNE E FALLING-RISING TUNE How To USE IH TUNES 6.1 THE FALLING TUNE, 6.0 THE HIGH RISING TUNE. 63° THRUSE OF LOW RISING TUNE. 6.4 THE USE OF THE FALL-RISE TUNE. BIBLIOGRAPHY GLOSSARY. iiPREFACE ‘This English phonetics and phonology is based on a series of lectures given to senior students at the Foreign Language University, the Vietnam National University, Hanoi. In pteparing for this course book I had two purposes . The first purpose of the course is to explain how English is pronounced ‘in the accent normally chosen asthe standard for people Jearning the English spoken in Britain (the accent that has been chosen for the students of our university for many years). The second purpose is to present the English pronunciation in the context of general theory about speech sounds and how they are used in language, thus this course book is called phonetics and phonology The theoretical material in the present course is necessary for anyone who needs to understand the principles regulating the use of sounds spoken in English. 1 also kept in mind that students at the University do not have ready access to materials to meet this demand. Therefore, 1 have taken the opportunity to include some exercises at the end of each chapter: these are not meant to give a comprehensive test on the material in the chapter, but to give a little useful practical follow-up. Also, | hdve assumed the intermediate level of language proficiency on the part of the students. This course book contains 7 chapters dealing with the fundamentals in the English phonetics And phonology. ‘The first chapter is mainly concerned with the speech organs and the functions of some major organs. The second chapter deals with the general description of linguistic sounds in general. After this preliminary contact with the general idea about how sounds are classified, the third chapter looks at the English consonants and vowels. As the English sounds have been introduced, the rest of the course book goes on to look at larger units of speech such as phonological rules. In connection with this, aspects of speech like stress (which could be roughly described as the relative strength of a syllable) and intonation (the use of the pitch and the voice to convey meaning) will also be considered. “The appendix provides examples regarding the basic English tunes and the meaning probably conveyed through them for reference. — The information and exercises provided in the appendix can be used as guides for students in order to raise their awareness of an important but too delicate aspect of language use. I hope that this course book can be of some value and interest to those majoring in languages and students from other foreign language institutions as well. 1 thank Dr. Nguyen Hoa, Dean of English department of UFL, VNU for his encouragement and for his invaluable comments on the book itiI very much warit to thank Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong, MA, from the Certre of Research and. Method for Quality Control, who read through the draft and made, many constructive comments that went toward improving. it. My thanks ajso go to my colleagues in the Linguistics section..of the English Department for, giving precious comments and suggestions. The comments and. criticisms of the above people have much improved the draft versions of this book. Helpful cotments have also been, made, by. Dr. Hoang Van Van, Deputy Dean of the English Department of Toreign Language University, Vietnam. National, University, )Dr,' Vo Dai; Quang, of, the Linguistics section, English Department: ° BH & I do not wish to claim thé originality of the ideas’ presented in this book. In fact, .1 owe to Gimson, Roach and o'Cornner, Yallop and some other scholars the ideas for the content of the book. Errors are unavoidable, | welcome all comments and criticisris that’¢an help improve the book. : fod HA CAM TAMM.A ENGLISH DEPARTMENT a FOREIGN LANGUAGE UNIVERSTIY > o : . HANO} NATIONAL UNIVERSITY 1INTRODUCTION 1 WHAT I8 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY? When we hear a language we do not know, it sounds like gibberish We do not know where one word ends and another begins. And even if we did we would not understand the meaning: In using language to speak or: understand, the sounds produced or heard are related by the language system to certain meanings. Anyone who knows a language knows what sounds are in the language and how they are "strung" together and what these different sound sequences mean. Although there may be some sounds in one language that are not, in another, all the languages of the world together comprise a limited set of sounds. ie The study of speech sounds utilised by all human languages to represent meanings is called phonetics. To describe these speech sounds one has to decide what an “individual sound" is and how one sound differs from another. To analyse speech into pieces one cannot.stdrt with merely the acoustic physical signal, or even with the movements of the vocal organs used to produce speech. Where would the breaks come? The difficulties iri such an attempt would be further complicated because no two speakers ever say the "same thing” identically. In fact, the same speaker never says the "same thing” twice in exactly the same way. Yet speakers understand each other because they know the same language. One's knowledge of a language determines when physically different sounds are judged to be the same, because we know which aspects or properties of the signal are important and which are not. The phonetic propérties that distinguish one sound, say [b] in. English from |d] remain fairly invariant or constant across all speakers and times. The process by which we use our linguistic knowlédge to produce a meaningful utterance is a very complicated one. It can be viewed as chain of events starting with an "idea" or message in the brain of the speaker and ending with a similar message in the brain of the hearer. Speech sounds can be described at any stage in this chain of even The study of the physical properties of the sounds themselves i called acoustic phonetics. The study of the way listeners perceive these sounds is called auditory phonetics. articulatory phonetics is the study of how the vocal tract produces the sounds of language, which we will be primarily concerned with. phonology is the study of the sound patterns found in human 1language; it is also the term used to refer to the kind of knowledge that speakers have about the sound patterns of their particular language. Everyone wiiu knows a language knawé-(usconsciously. of course) its’ phonology. Despite the infinite variations, which occur when we speak, all. speakers of ‘a tanguage. agree. that certain Utterances are’the "same" and others are "different". Phonology: tells us why this is the case. i Phe fea As mentioned above, we find that’ the same relatively. small set -of phonetic properties characterises all Auman speech sounds, that the” same classes of these sounds are utilised in langurges spoken from the Aictic Circle to the Cape of Good ‘Hope, and that the same kinds of reguldr patterns of speech sounds occurs all over the world. ‘When you learn a language you learn which’speech ‘sounds occur in. your language and how they pattern according to regular rules: Phonology is concerned with this kind of linguistic knowledge. The phonology of a language is then the ‘system and patterns’ of the speech ‘sounds. Thus, the word phonology is used’ in two ways, either as'the study of sound patterns or as the sound /patterng’ ofa language. In this textbook phonology will reprégent the sound patterns of English.. ~ This course book is intended to provide students! with a systematic knowledge ‘of the English’-phonetics and ‘phonology.’ Thus, sthe document will incliade ithree -main” parts: part one deals: with articulatory phonetics, ‘part two:with phonology and. part three with aspects in connécted speech including intonation. . 2. PHONETICS‘AND LINGUISTICB This course book is primarily concerned: with the-sound system of English and it is proper, as we have seen, that phonetic. and phonemic analysis should occupy an important place in the study of any ‘language: In deed, when it is a question ofa language which is being subjected for the first time to scientific analysis, it is necessary that some statement of the sound system should be made at the very outset, so that a notation can be devised for-the recording of the language in a written‘form. Nevertheless, it should be remembered that phonetic analysis constitutes but. one step in’ a’ linguistic investigation. : : A complete description of the current state of a language must provide information on several interrelated levels: 5 . ‘ “ : ar Phonology: concrete phonetic characteristics (articulatory, auditory, acoustic) of the sounds used in the language; the functional, phonemic behaviour of these sounds for distinctive purposes; the cortibinatory possibilities (syllabic structure) of the phonemes: ‘the nature and use of such prosodic features as pitch, stress and length. A study of the phonic substance of the language may be 2accompanied by a description of the written form of the language (graphology). Lexis: the total number of word forms, which exist. Grammar: the system of rules governing the structure of phrases, ciauses and sentences consisting of words contained in the lexicon. Semaniics: the relation of meaning to the signs and. symbols of language. Other aspects of language which would require investigation include the variation of the same language in different regions and social classes (dialectology); the influence of context and style upon the form and substance of language; the behaviour of human beings in their production and perception of the language (pgycholinguistics); the interaction of the language and the society in which it is spoken (sociolinguistics); the ianguage and their users (pragmatics).CHAPTER 1 SPEECII ORGANS This chapter is about how speech sounds are produced. Speech is sometimes treated almost mystically, as if it is impossible to be precise about sounds. It is true that speech is extraordinarily complex and that there are still aspects of it which remain unclear, even after extensive research. But it is also possible to make: quite precise statements about how the organs of speech function and about how speech sounds are produced. Thus the questions to be addressed in this chapter are: What are the main organs that are used in speech? How do they function? And how can we characterise the sounds that make up speech? By the end of this chapter, 'you should have a good general idea of hhow most of the sounds are made, aiid some fami ti te and symbols commonly used to identify and refer to speech sounds. 11 OVERVIEW Speech: sounds are created by modifying the volume and direction of a flow of air using various parts of human respiratory system. We need to consider the state of these parts in order to be able to describe and classify the sounds of human languages, Figure 1: the Vocal organs Oral cevity Nogat cavity Upa-lablat a Upper lip 8b Lower tip 4 Teath-dental 5 Alveolar tidgo - alveolar 6 Palate - palatal 7 Velum- velar 8 Uvula-uvular 9 10 ens Phatynx~ pharyngeal Tongue tip 11 Tongue blade 12 Tongue front 19. Tongue body 14 Tongue back 15 Tongue root1.2 - AIRSTREAM MECHANISM Speech is a very complex phenomenon, but the means of producing it can be thought of in quite simple terms as an apparatus. We can start with the airflow itself - where is it initiated and which direction is it travelling in? The major initiator is the lung and the most common direction is for the air to flow out from the lungs through the trachea (windpipe), larynx (in the Adam's apple) and the vocal tract. ‘Thus, the most significant parts of this apparatus ate the lungs, the vocal cords (in the larynx), and the oral cavity including the hard palate,'soft palate, the tongue, the lips and the nesal cavity. Al! human lahguages involve’ this type of air stream mechanism, known as ‘pulmonic egressive' (from the Jungs outwards) and, for many including English, it is the sole air. stream mechanism employed for speech sounds. A number. of language also employ other possibilities; the air may be moving inwards (an ingressive air stream mechaniam), the flow itself may begin at the velum (soft palate) or the glottis (the space between the vocal cofds) - velaric and giottaiic air streams respectively. In fact, this apparatus can produce a much greater variety of sounds than is found in any one language. However, in the following account we will ignore some kind of sounds that do not occur in normal speech but focus on complex functioning of the vocal apparatus, including fine muscular control of various organs. 13 THE VOCAL CORDS - VOICED AND VOICELESS SOUNDS We will now explore the way in which the vocal cords function in speech production. You may find it helpful to refer to figure 1 while working through the following account. The air stream from the lungs moves up through the trachea, or windpipe and arrives first at the LARYNX. The larynx contains {wo small bands of elastic tissue, which.can be thought of as two flat strips of rubber, lying opposite to each other across the air passage The inner edges of the vocal cords can be moved towards each other so that they meet and completely cover the top of the windpipe, or they can be drawn apart so that there is a gap between them (known as the glottis) through which the air can pass freely: this is their usual position when we breathe quietly in and out. When the vocal cords are brought together tightly no air can pass through them and if the lungs are pushing air from below, this air is compressed. If the vocal cords are then opened suddenly the compressed air bursts out with sort of coughing noise. This 5holding back of the compressed aif followed by a sudden release is eviled the glottal stop, and what you feel as the air bursts out is the vocal cords springing apart. If the voca! cords are brought together quite geniiy, the air from the, lungs will be able to force them apart for a moment, but then they will fall back together into the closed, position; then the air will force them apart again, and they will clos< again, and so on. This is a very rapid process and may take place as many as 800 times per second. It is obviously not possible to hear each individual ‘click’ of the cpening vocal cords, and what we do hear is a musical note. The height of the note depends on the speed of opening and closing of the vocal cords; if they open’and close very quickly the note will be high, if they open, and close slowly the note will be tow. The note, whether high or low, produced by the rapid opening and closing of the yocal cords is called voice. The sound produced with this note is’ yoiced. In a voiced sound, .ike rapid opening and closing of the vocal cords is a kind of vibration. By controlling the airflow and adjusting the tension of the vocal cords, ' we are able to vary the rate at which the cards vibrate, and this vibration is perceived as variation in piteh, is which, are made with the vocal cords drawn part so, thal can pass out freely between them and there is no vibration are voiceless. The difference between voiced arid voiceless can be used. to distinguish between what are otherwise similar sounds. However, not all the voiced sounds of English have similar, voiceless sounds, and even when there are pairs of similar sounds,which are voiced and voiceless this may not be the only difference between them, as we shall see later. . . 1.4 ‘THE BOFT FALATE - NABAL V8, ORAL. BOUNDS In Figure 2-1 you notice that the roof of the mouth is divided into the hard palate and the soft palate, or velum. The hard palate is the bony structure at the front of the mouth. You can feel this hard palate with your finger. As you move your finger back you can feel the section of the palate where the flesh becomes soft and is movable. ‘This soft, movable part is called the velum. Hanging down from the end of the soft palate, or velum, is the uvular which you can see in a mirror if you open your mouth wide and say “aaah.” ‘The soft palate can move: it can be raised so that it makes a firm contact with the back wall of the pharynx,’and this stops the breath from going up into the nasal cavity and forces it to go into the mouth only. The sounds produced with the air going out through the mouth are oral sounds. The soft palate can be lowered. In this lowered position, the soft palate allows the breath to pass behind it and up into the nasal cavity and out through the nose. Thus, sounds produced with the air Going out through the nasal cavity are cailed nasai sounds. Apart from this lowering and raising of the soft palate, the whole 6of the palate, including the soft palate is used by the tongue to interfere with ‘the air stream for different acoustic qualities for different sounds. The seven articulators described and mentioned above are the main ones used in speech, but there are other things to remember. Firstly, the larynx could also be described as an articulator - a very complex and independent one. Secondly, the jaws are sometimes called articulators; certainly we' move the lower jaw a lot in speaking. But the jaws are not articulators in the same way as the others, because they cannot themselves make contact with other articulators Finally, although there is practically nothing that we can do with the nose and the nasal cavity, they are a very important part of our equipment for making sounds (what is sometimes called our vocal apparatus), ‘particularly nasal consonants such as m,n. Again, we cannot really describe the nose and the nasal cavity as articulators in the same sense as above. Exercises 1. List the articulators of the speech organs. 2. Give the term corresponding to the definition given: - the top, curved-horizontal airspace of the vocal tract + a short flat stretch just above and behind the upper teeth = back, vertical airspace of the vocal tract between the uvula and the larynx . - the hard, bony, surface of the roof of the mouth - ‘non-bony ‘roof part of the roof of the mouth behind the hard palate, also called the velum. - ‘the two, bands or folds strung front to back inside the larynx - end of the tongue blade - airspace between uvula and the larynx - bottom part of the tongue forming front wall cf pharynx 3. State the functions of the vocal cords and the soft palate in the articulation of speech sounds. 4. How do the vocal cords act when you pronounce ff each of the following sounds: Ip, fds, eb] 5. How does the soft palate move when you pronounce each of the following sounds: [p,d,n,9,h,a,m,k] 6. Which of the following sounds are nasal? Explain your choice. tm, j, w,n, fv., CHAPTER 2 DESCRIPTION AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPEECH SOUNDS 2.1 PHONETIC DESCRIPTION We have considered briefly the mechanism which produces speech sounds. It is now important to formulate a method of description, and classification of the sound types which occur in speech and more particularly, in English. We, have seen that a speech sound has at least three stages available for investigation — the - production, transmission, and reception stages. A complete description of a sound should, therefore, include information concerning-all three stages. Nevertheless, to provide all the information in respect of all phases entails a lengthy «description, much of which may be irrelevant to our purpose. At the moment, the most convenient’ and brief descriptive technique relies either on articulatory criteria or on auditory judgments, or on combination of both. Thus, those sounds which are commonly. known as ‘consonants’ are most easily describe mainly in terms of their articulation, whereas ‘vowel’ sound require for their description a predominance of auditory impressions. 2.2 VOWELS AND CONSONANTS When vowels and consonants are defined phonetically, the criterion of distinction is generally one of stricture, i.e. the articulation of vowels is not accompanied by any closure or narrowing in the vocal tract which would prevent the escape of the air stream through the mouth or give rise to audible friction; all other sounds (necessitating a closure or a narrowing which involves friction) are consonants. Such a definition entails difficulty with such sounds as Southern British |r], which is traditionally consonant but which are more characteristically vowel-like in the terms of the definition; the difficulty has sometimes been avoided by calling such sounds semi- vowels or semi-consonants. ey From the practical phonetic standpoint, it is convenient to distinguish two types of speech sound, simply because the majority of sounds may be described and classified most appropriately according to one of the two techniques: 1. The type of sound which is most easily described in terms of articulation, since we can generally feel the contacts and movements involved. Such sounds may be ‘produced with or without vocal cords vibration (voice) and very often have a ‘noise’ component in the acoustic sense; these sounds fall generally into the traditional category of consonants and will be known here as the consonantal type.2. The type of sound, depending largely on very slight variations of tongue position, which is most easily described in terms of auditory relationships, since there are not contacts of strictures which we can fell with any precision. Such sounds are generally voiced, having no noise component ani generally fall into the traditional category of vowels and will be known here as the vowel type. ; 2.3. THE CONSONANTAL SOUNDS Most speech sounds, and all normal English sounds, are made with eeressive lung air. At any point of articulation, a consonantal articulation may be voiceless or voiced. 2.3.1 PLACES OF ARTICULATION ‘The chief points of articulation, with special reference to the sounds of English, are the following: Bilabial: the (~9 lips are the primary articutators, e.g. p, b, m Labio-dental: the lower lip articulates with the upper teeth, e.g. f, v Dental: the tongue tip and rims articulate with the upper teeth, ¢-8. 6,6 . Alveolar: the blade, or tip and blade, of the tongue articulates with the alveolar ridge, e.g. t, d, I, n, 8, 2. Palato-alveolar: the blade, or the tip and blade, of the tongue articulates with the alveolar ridge and there is at the same time a raising of the front or the tongue towards the hard palate, e.g. J. 5 4. 3 Pala‘al: The front of the tongue articulates with the hard palate, e.g. j -Velar:-the back of the tongue artictilates with the soft palate, e.g. k. 8 0. 2.3.2. MANNERS OF ARTICULATION The obstruction made by the organs may be total, intermittent, partial, or may merely constitute a narrowing sufficient to cause friction. The chief types of ‘sulation, in decreasing degrees of closure, are as f-"-ws: Plosive\ A complete closure at some point in the vocal tract, behind which the air pressure builds up and can be released explosively, ©.8, pbtdks Affricate: A complete closure at some point in the mouth, behind which the air pressure builds up; the separation of the organs is slow compared with that of a plosive, so that friction is a characteristic second element of the sound, e.g. tJ, d3 Nasal: A complete closure at some point in the mouth but the soft palate being lowered, the air escapes through the nose. ‘These 9‘4 sounds are continuants and have no noise component, eg. m,n, 9 Lateral: A partial closure is made at some point in the mouth, the air-streatn being allowed to escape on one or both sides of the contact, e6. 1 Fricative: ‘Two organs approximate to such an extent that the air stream passes through them with friction, e.g. f, v, 6, ®, s, and z, f 3. Approximants: are usually included in the consonantal category on functional grounds, but from the point of view of phonetic description they are more properly treated as vowel glide, e.g. w, j, r 24 ‘THE VOWEL ‘This category-of sounds is normally made with a voiced egressive air stream, without any closure or narrowing such as would result in the noise component characteristic of many consonantal sound: moreover, the escape of the air is characteristically accomplished in an unimpeded way over the central line of the _— We are now f th: the ‘act ngeal and nasal cavities. As we have,seen, the movable organs mainly responsible for shaping these resonators are the soft palate, lips, and tongue. A description of vowel sounds must, therefore, note: 1. the kind of aperture formed by the lips; 2. degrees of lip spreading or rounding; 3. the part of the tongue which is raised and the degree of raising ‘The lip position can be easily described by visual or tactile means Ilowever, the movements of the tongue, which so largely determine the shape of the mouth and pharyngeal cavities, may be so minute that it is impossible to assess them by any simple means in terms of positions; moreover, there being normally no contact of the tongue with the roof of the mouth, no help is given by any tactile sensation. A vowel description will usually, therefore, be based mainly on auditory judgments of sound relationships, together with some articulatory information, espécially as regards the position of the lips. 2.4.1 TINE CARDINAL VOWEL SCALE It is clear that a finer and more independent system of description is needed at the auditory and articulatory levels. ‘The most satisfactory scheme is that devised by Daniel Jones and known as the Cardinal Vowel system. The basis of the system is physiological, i.e. the two qualities upon which all the others were ‘hinged’ were produced with the tongue in certain easily felt positions: the f of the tony raised as close as possible to the palate without friction being produced, for the cardinal vowel {i}; and the whole of the tongue as low as possible in the mouth, with very slight raising at the 10extreme back, for the cardinal vowel [a]. Starting from the [i] position, the front of the tongue was lowered gradually, the lips remaining spread or neutrally open and the soft palate raised. The lowering of tongue was halted at three points at which the vowel qualities seemed, from an auditory standpoint, to be equi-distant. The tongue positions of these qual‘ties were X-rayed and were found to be fairly equi-distant from a spatial point of view. The symbols [e, €, a] were assigned to these vowel values. The same procedure was applied to. vowel qualities depending on the height of the back of the tongue, this raising the back of the tongue from the [a] position. Again, three: auditory equi-distant points were established from the lowest to the highest position; the corresponding tongue positions were photographed and the spatial relationships confirmed as for the front vowels. These values were given the symbols |, 0, 4]. Thus a scale of eight primary cardinal vowels was set up, denoted by the following-numbers of symbols: 1. [iJ; 2: fe]; 3- fel;.4. fals 5. lal; 6. [0 J; 7. lol; 8. ful. ies are unrelated to Such a scale is uscful because {a} the vow particular values in languages, though many may-occur in various languages, and (b) the set is recorded, so that reference may always be made to standard, in variable scale. Thus, a vowel quality might be described as being, for instance, similar to that of cardinal 6. [>] and cardinal 7. [o], but somewhat centralized. Moreover, it is possible to give a visual representation of these vowel relationships on a chart which is based on the cardinal vowel tongue positions. The simplified diagram shown in Fig. 1 ‘is obtained by plotting the highest point of tongue raising for each-of the primary cardinal vowels and joining the points together. The internal triangle, corresponding to the region of central or []-type vowel sounds, is made by dividing the top line into three approximately equal sections and drawing lines parallel to the two sides, so that they meet near the base of the figure. It must be understood that this diagram is a highly conventionalized one which shows, above all, quality relationships. Though it is possible to produce a sound of the cardinal 7 [0] type without the lip- tongue relationship suggested. But, on the whole, it may be assumed that a certain auditorily identified vowel quality will be produced by an articulation of the kind presupposed by the cardinal vowel diagram. ' Fig. 2 The primary Cardinal Vowels (i ~ u(8) (ae \ 27) Qe 9 (6) "1 (4) ~~ a (5)2.4.2: THE CLASSIFICATION, OF VOWRL TYPE ARFICULATION In Aescribing Vowel sounds, we have taken into‘account especially the positions of the lips, tofigue, and soft” palate. "A system: of classification should include afl thrée factors. “However, as in the case ‘of vowels, it ‘is, in fact, diffictilt to incorporate ‘all factors in a two-dimensional chart and: it is found most convenient to base clas’ification on the torigue’ position. In‘ this textbook’ we combine our’ ‘¢lassificatory’ chart with the descriptive: figure, naffiing those vowels in whiéh thé nigity raising is made-by the front of the tongue towards the hard palate front vowel, these if which the back ‘ofthe tongue ts raised’ towards*the soft palate. back: vowwels,and those in which the ¢enter is raised towards the juncture of the hart-and soft palate central’ vowels. Instead of the threefold vertical division-as © regards ‘degreé of raising, it is customary ‘to ‘refer to four regions corresponding to the four cardinal degrees of raising; the, the {i - u] level is known as the close region; the [e — o] level as haif-open, and the [a - aj levei'as open (see Fig. 2) Fig. 3 Classification labels combined with the Cardinal Vowel Diagram- On a chart like this type, the factors of lip and soft palate positions have to be indicated jseparately: A vowel.in the general region of cardinal 2 [ ¢ | would, therefore, be classified briefly as an oral, front, unrounded, half-close vowel. Very often, when it is a question simply of identifying the significant vowel unite in terme of the system of a particular language, such a brief classificatory label will serve as an adequate description. 3 2.8 BUPRASEGMENTALS: In addition to the individual consonants and:vowels (segments, or segmentals), there are properties of utterances that span more than one segment, usually. referred to as suprasegmentals, or prosody. Suprasegmental means ‘above the segtient.’ These properties 4 :include variations in loudness, duration and pitch, as well as variation in the degree of energy or effort put into the articulation of each sound. These generally function to make some elements more prominent than others. ' For example, vowels are generally more prominent than consonants. a syllable is a string of segments in which one of the segments (usually a vowel) is more prominent than the others. For example, the word cat has one syllable, adult has two, and oasis has three. If there is no vowel, a consnnant may be prominent; as in the second syllable of words like “littld, children, button” etc. Syllables in turn can vary in prominence. Variations in loudness, duration, and effort together produce differences in stress: one syllable appears stronger than others in the same word. In some languages such stress differences can distinguish one word from another. For example, in English, the noun “CONvict” is stressed on the first syllable, while the verb “to conVICT” is stressed on the second syllable (here the stress is indicated by capitalizing). Variations in duration, and to some extent loudness, also produce differences in rhythm, Languages sound different one from another in part because of their characteristic rhythms. Variations in the pitch of the voice give rise to an overall melody for an utterance. In some languages, the pitch of the voice is specified for each vowel in each word; a tone is such a pitch specification. Ina tone language, a sequencé of consonants and vowels will have different meanings depending on the pitch of the voice used to speak that sequence. English is not a tone language but most languages of Africa and Southeast Asia, and some American languages, are tone languages. Finally, in all languages, tone or not, pitch of the voice is also used to convey things about whole utterances, and this is called intonation. In English, some kinds of questions are characterised by rising melody at the end and some with a falling at the end. Generally, the amount and kind of variation in the overall prosody of an utterance conveys information about the speaker’s attitude towards the utteranceExercise: Give the term corresponding to the definition given: ois le: both lips = ‘bilabial. : oaeie Blade to ridge above upper teeth: , a torigtte’ back to abit! palate \ make noise it gap °° 7 Mh Pidsives and fricative as'a group. eo ‘ vocal cord vibration *! g . 2 front of the tongue and the mouth roof ip of the tongue and the ppet front teeth Based én your own espérience of English p pronunciation, provide English ‘symbol tvkose definition is ‘given; pronounce: it,;.and ‘compare your pronunciation with your friend’s: Example: voiced alveolat plosive = * {d] Voiceless velar plosive 2 ay bilabial nasal : voiced ‘labiddentat fricative’ as flveolar fateral’ apptoxtinant glottal plosive voiced postalveolar fricative Voicéless glottal fricative’ Voiced dental fricative voiceless dental fricative 3 - 3.') Give the term corresponding to the definition given: Made with the,lips’ pulled together and forward made with the tongue maximally low made with the tongue meximally high ie made with the tongue in an intermediate position in the front-back dimension. 4. Based on your éiperience of English, provide the symbol whose definition is given and then pronounce it; High (close) front unrounded vowel J lower high front unrounded vowel Gite high mid (close-mid).back unrounded vowel ‘ high back rounded vowel , higher low front unrounded vowel high front rounded vowel lower mid front unrounded vowel high central rounded vowel lower high back rounded vowel Note: (If you cannot do all these exercises, do not worry, you can have the answers in the following chapter. But it is important that you should try.) Aa