Phonetics and phonology at a glance 1: articulatory phonetics

Phonetics is one of the subdisciplines of linguistics which deals with speech sounds
as they are actually realized. More specifically it deals with the following issues:

1. How are speech sounds made? (check out articulatory phonetics)

2. How many different sounds do languages use? (check out sounds of English)
3. How does sound travel through the air? (i.e. the properties of sound waves -
acoustic phonetics)
4. How is it registered by the ears? (i.e. the perception of sounds - auditory
phonetics)
5. How can we measure speech? (various methods of measuring speech)

(questions taken from Fasold and Connor-Linton's textbook)

Uvod u lingvistički studij engleskog jezika

Articulatory phonetics deals with the production of speech sounds. In order to describe
how speech sounds are produced we need to know about the apparatus that we use to
produce speech sounds -- the vocal tract.
Here is a picture of the vocal tract (after J. Laver, Principles of Phonetics, Cambridge
University Press, 1994):
So, what happens when we speak?
Well, we usually push the air out of our lungs. Of course, phoneticians have fancy terms
for this -- the stream of air is pulmonic (i.e. related to the lungs; Latin pulmo 'lung') and
egressive (i.e. going out). Of course, this means that there are other possibilities: it may
be ingressive (going in), and it may not be pulmonary at all (e.g. glottalic, velaric; but we
will not deal with these). The stream of air passes through the vocal folds which are
situated in the larynx. The vocal folds (here are some photos) are folds of tissue in the
larynx. They may be completely spread (for breathing and voiceless sounds), closed (e.g.
when you are getting ready to cough or for some sounds such as the English glottal stop)
and may be vibrating. See the figure below. Also here is a link to a movie of the vocal
folds while vibrating.
Once the air passes the vocal folds it gets to the soft palate and the uvula. The soft palate
determines where the air goes -- to the nasal cavity (producing nasal sounds) or the oral
cavity (producing oral sounds). When the soft palate (also called the velum) is raised the
air goes into the mouth (for most sounds of English). When the soft palate is lowered,
part of the air goes into the nasal cavity (in English this happens for e.g. /n/ and /m/ (and
the rest of the air goes into the mouth). Finally, when passing through the mouth the
airstream is directed in different ways by the tongue and the lips. Here is the picture of
the tongue:
You may do different things to the airstream, and what you can do and how is discussed
in detail in the resource on the articulatory description of the sounds of English.
What is the IPA?
"The IPA is the major as well as the oldest representative organisation for
phoneticians. It was established in 1886 in Paris. 2016 marks the 130th anniversary
of the founding of the IPA, and 2013 marked the 125th anniversary of the first
publication of the International Phonetic Alphabet and the formulation of the
principles. The aim of the IPA is to promote the scientific study of phonetics and the
various practical applications of that science. In furtherance of this aim, the IPA
provides the academic community world-wide with a notational standard for the
phonetic representation of all languages - the International Phonetic Alphabet (also
IPA)."
To find out more about the International Phonetic Association click here.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation based on

the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic Association as a
standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language. (Handbook of the
IPA).
In other words, we can use these internationally recognized symbols for sounds of all
languages throughout the world. The Alphabet enables comparability across
languages, so as to avoid the pitfalls of spelling.

Phonetics and phonology at a glance 2: the sounds of English

The nature of the airstream egressive or ingressive -- going out or in)
The action of the vocal folds (vibrating or not vibrating)
The position of the soft palate (raised or lowered)
The disposition of the various movable organs of the mouth

The sounds of English: articulatory description

Overview
General information
English consonants
English vowels
English diphthongs

General information
The articulatory description of English phonemes basically involves describing what
happens to the stream of air as it passes through the vocal tract (for the description
of the vocal tract see here). In other words we can describe: the position of the vocal
folds (all air needs to pass them on its way out)how the air passes through (freely or
not, i.e. is there an obstruction?)if there is an obstruction - where is it and what kind
of an obstruction is it?

English consonants
(Table 1.1. from Fasold and Connor-Linton - click here)
Voiced vs. voiceless consonants
The vocal folds vibrate for voiced consonants (/b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, /z/, //, /dʒ/, /m/, /n/, /l/,
//, /j/, /w/, /r/, /ð/) , and they do not vibrate for voiceless consonants (/p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, //,
/tʃ/, /f/, /h/, /ð/)
Place of articulation: some examples
Alveolars: /t/, /d/, /n/, /s/, /z/, /l/,

Postalveolar: /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ//d/

Palatal: /j/
Velar: /k/, /g/, /ŋ/ (/w/)
Glottal: /h/
The manner of pronunciation refers to the way in which the obstruction is made. For
instance, it may be complete obstruction with sudden release and then you get
plosives (/p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/). The release may be more gradual, in which case you
get affricates (/t/, /d/). You may make a small opening producing friction -- such
sounds are called fricatives (/s/, /z/, ʃ/, /ʒ/, /f/, /v/, /ð/, /h/. The stream of air may be
directed towards the nasal cavity (by raising of the soft palate), in which case you get
nasal sounds (/m/, /n/, /ŋ/). When you produce approximants, there is a narrowing
between the speech organs but there is no audible friction (this includes /w/, /r/ and
/j/). Finally, English has one lateral approximant /l/, in which there is no audible
friction. The tip of the tongue touches the alveolar ridge, and the air escapes through
the space left on both sides of the tongue.

English vowels
(Table 1.2. from Fasold and Connor-Linton - click here)
Articulatorily, vowels are different than consonants, because there is no obstruction
when we produce them. This means that it makes no sense to describe the manner
of production (it is the same for all of them), and that it is more difficult to describe
them in terms of place. Therefore, what we do is describe them using the Cardinal
Vowel Scale (CVS), a diagram which shows three factors: the degree of tongue
height, the part of the tongue involved and the shape of the lips. You can imagine the
Cardinal Vowel Scale as an idealized cross-section of the mouth, which shows eight
reference points -- cardinal vowels. Cardinal vowels are not vowels of any language,
but serve as the reference point for locating the vowels in a particular language. Here
is a picture of the Cardinal Vowel Scale with the primary set of Cardinal Vowels (i.e.
the first eight):
Front, central and back refer to the part of the tongue involved, and high, mid and low
refer to tongue height. The shape of the lips is unrounded for the first 5 Cardinal
Vowels, and rounded for the last three.
This means that Cardinal Vowel no. 1 /i/ is a high front vowel, produced with the front
part of the tongue in the highest possible position (without making any friction or any
obstruction), and unrounded (actually spread) lips. Remember that Cardinal Vowels
are just reference points, not vowels of actual languages -- but despite that they may
be pronounced. To hear Cardinal Vowels Pronounced click here.

So, how do you use the Cardinal Vowel Scale? Well, you place a vowel of a
language on the scale in relation to a Cardinal Vowel. Here is a representation of the
English RP vowels on the CVS:

To see some words with these vowels and to hear them pronounced follow this link.
Please note that the site uses some symbols that are different than the ones we used
in class.

English diphthongs

In addition to relatively pure vowels which remain the same throughout their duration,
in English there are also diphthongs or gliding vowels. What happens is that the
organs of speech start off at some starting point and move smoothly (i.e. glide)
towards some end point. Diphthongs are also shown on the Cardinal Vowel Scale.

Phonetics and phonology at a glance 3: acoustic and auditory phonetics and

suprasegmentals
Overview
Introduction
Sound waves
Frequency

Sound intensity
Conclusion
Introduction
As we have seen, we can describe speech by talking about the way in which it is
produced, which is the subject matter of articulatory phonetics. Our descriptions may
be based on some objective measurements of the production of speech, for instance,
they may include x-rays of the vocal tract, movements of the tongue etc. Although
this is useful, it may be sometimes difficult to do and unpractical, because it requires
that a person be hooked up to a machine as s/he produces an utterance.
So, the issue is, can we also analyze recorded speech?

Yes, of course – and this is the subject matter of acoustic phonetics. Acoustic
phonetics deals with the properties of sound waves. It is useful because it is the only
objective way of analyzing recorded speech, and may be helpful in explaining e.g.
why certain sounds are confused with others, and may help specify sounds which are
otherwise difficult to describe.

Sound waves
In speech, air particles oscillate around their rest point. As a particle moves it causes
a change in air pressure. These variations in air pressure are called sound waves.
Here is an illustration of what happens (from Crystal 1997: 112):
In other words, what happens is that particle 1 (P1) moves from its "at rest" position
to a position at the time 0 (T0), "bumping" into the particle P2. P2 in turn "bumps into"
P3, etc. etc. In this way a sound wave is created. Alternately, this may be shown as a
waveform, which is a graph of the pressure wave when particles move in this way.
Here is what you can measure:

 amplitude (how far an air particle moves to and fro around its rest point)
 frequency (how fast variations in air pressure occur)
 various correlations between the two, e.g.: intensity

We will not talk about amplitude in great detail. Here are a few facts about frequency
and intensity.

Frequency
A single to-and-fro movement of an air particle is called a cycle. Frequency is the number of
cycles per second, i.e. the rate of the variations in air pressure. It is measured in Hertz (Hz),
and 1 Hz = 1 cycle per second.
Humans can hear frequencies between 20 Hz and 20 000 Hz. The basic frequency at which a
sound vibrates is F0 (‘F nought’). Frequencies important for speech range between 100 Hz
and 4000 Hz.
When we speak the fundamental frequency is determined by the vibrations of the vocal folds
and determines the pitch. Keep in mind that the vocal folds are folds of tissue that are more
like linen flapping in the wind than like a string of a guitar. That means that they produce a
complex tone, that is not as simple and regular as the one seen in the sound wave presented
above. In addition to the fundamental frequency, there are also other frequencies produced
when we speak. The frequencies which are most strongly amplified are called formants. Here
is an illustration of the sound spectrum of /i:/, with F1 and F2 marked:
This graph presents the frequencies which are amplified the most -- they make up F1 and F2.
It is important to remember that these frequencies appear in all voiced sounds of a language
(i.e. whenever vocal folds vibrate, because vocal folds produce them), but they are most easily
identifiable in vowels, and they, in fact, distinguish vowels. So, F1 and F2 actually identify a
particular vowel of a language. You can also hear this -- here are the links to the things we
heard in class (from Ladefoged's site): only F1; only F2; only F3; F1, F2 & F3; full recording.
These recordings illustrate the importance of each frequency in speech.
Formants may also be seen in a different representation called a spectrogram, which shows
time (on the horizontal axis), frequency (on the vertical axis) and intensity (reflected by the
darkness of the line). The following is a spectrogram of /i:/ on which I marked F1 and F2:
Sound intensity refers to various factors (frequency and amplitude) that relate to energy with
which the sound is produced. The unit of intensity is decibel (dB). It is defined in relation to
the reference sound pressure level (=0.0002 dynes (unit of force) per square centimeter). This
means that the intensity of 90 dB is 90 times greater than the reference level. The scale is
logarithmic, which means that an increase in 10 dB is roughly equivalent to doubling of
loudness. Here are some examples:
0 dB = threshold of audibility
30 dB = whispered conversation
50 dB = quiet office
60 dB = conversation at 1 m
75 dB = shouting
120 dB = amplified rock band (threshold of pain!)
130 dB = four-engined jet aircraft at 30 m
Conclusion
So, we have seen here that we can measure various aspects of sound waves. These
measurements can show the differences between various sounds, and we mentioned two
things that can be measured -- frequency and intensity. When we measure frequency of a
sound wave, especially one produced by a vowel, formants are the frequencies that stand out.
We heard the way in which formants contribute to the sound of speech. Apart from hearing
them, we can use various types of illustrations, such as spectrograms and sound spectra. One
other thing that we can measure is the intensity of sound that relates to the energy with which
the sound is produced.