Homework I Linguistics I, Fall 2011

NAME: ____Martina Juričková_____

HOMEWORK I
Due Tuesday 25th October at 16,30 (in class), No late submissions accepted!

FOLLOW ALL INSTRUCTIONS VERY CAREFULLY !!

 HWs are to be typed (into this file), printed out, stapled, and handed in in person at the
beginning of the Tuesday class. Only exercises requiring IPA symbols may be filled in
with pen/pencil
 If the IPA symbols don’t show up in your MS Word file, consult the pdf file.
 Recall the policy on academic integrity stated in the syllabus. You are expected to work
on the HW alone, cheating will not be tolerated.
 I strongly suggest you try to do HW first as if it was a test. Revise all material first, then
do all the exercises, and only after that check your answers with the help of external
material. It should give you a useful preparation and assessment of your abilities for the
tests.
 Attempt to answer all questions, those with Ex. 2 are listed within the instructions.

1. Short-answer questions (minimum half a page each)

a. Describe all necessary actions for producing sound [u] (breathing, phonation,
articulation)
b. Describe in as much detail as possible all the articulatory actions while
producing the word clamp.
c. Is there a difference (phonetic or phonological) between [ts] in the Slovak word
pec and English word pets? Explain.

A) As always when I want to say something I need to take a breath at first. The diaphragm__ __
lowers and intercostal muscles make the rib cage bigger, so the lungs can take in more air. The_
air is able to get to lungs thanks to the imbalance of pressure out and in the lungs. It gets from__
out, where the pressure is higher, into the lungs where the pressure has lowered when the rib___
cage became bigger. Only when the air is in one is able to start speaking. We can speak only___
when the air is flowing out of our throat.____ ________________________________________
We can make sounds when our vocal folds are vibrating. They can vibrate thanks to the_______
imbalance of air under and above them. The air which is going out from the lungs cumulates___
under the vocal folds and it makes an overpressure there. This forces the vocal folds to open._ _
When they are opened the air flows out and the pressure gets in balance. When the pressure is__
equal on both sides, the vocal folds close again. But as the new air is coming from the lungs, the
pressure under the vocal folds gets bigger and the process is still repeating. When the vocal folds
open and close again and again, they vibrate and make sound. This happens very fast, they open_
and close several hundred times per second._________________________________________ _
To make the sound [u] the lips must be rounded and pouted. The back of the tongue is raised__ _
while the tip lies down behind the teeth. The velum is raised too in order to disallow the air to _
escape through the nasal cavity.____________________________________________________

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Homework I Linguistics I, Fall 2011

B) From the silent closed position the lips get spread, but they are not very opened (they are____
rather almost closed). The tongue moves back in the mouth cavity. The velum is raised and stops
the air to flow through the nose. The back of the tongue raises and it touches the velum and___ _
makes a closure, so the air cannot flow through the mouth cavity. The vocal folds are opened and
do not vibrate yet. When the tongue releases the air is able to flow through the mouth cavity____
between the tongue and the velum, so it makes the sound of [k]. Then the tongue moves forward
and the lips open a bit more. The tip of the tongue raises and rounds. It touches the edge of_____
alveolar ridge and the back of upper teeth. The velum is still raised. Meanwhile, as soon as the__
[k] sound was realized, the vocal folds started to vibrate. But the air is stopped by the tongue,___
which makes now almost absolute closure in the mouth cavity. The air is able to escape only at__
the sides of the mouth cavity. This makes the sound [l]. Then the tongue slips down the teeth.___
The jaw lowers so the mouth is widely opened. The tongue lies down in front in the mouth_____
cavity. Vocal folds are vibrating and the velum is still raised. There is no obstacle in the vocal _
tract and the air flows out through the mouth cavity. The sound [æ] is now being realized. Then _
the lips move towards each other and the mouth closes. This closure is absolute. The tongue____
moves a little bit to the centre of the mouth cavity. The vocal folds still vibrate. The velum___ __
lowers so the air goes through the nasal cavity and makes the sound [m]. The vocal folds stop
vibrating and the velum raises again in order to stop the air from flowing through the nose. There
is still the same closure made by lips. When this closure is released the air escapes from the___ _
mouth cavity and the aspirated sound [p] is made.______________________________________

C) In Slovak word PEC the last sound (the letter C) is even in transcription represented by one__
phoneme. When I say it my upper and lower teeth are close to each other, they are almost______
touching each other. The tip of my tongue touches them at their edges, right at the place where__
they are closing. In English word PETS it is more audible, that the last sound consists of 2____ _
phonemes. We can distinguish that there are two single sounds [t] and the following [s]. In___ _
Slovak they fuse into a one sound [c], as if they both are said at once. In English the phoneme [t]
represents the last letter or rather the last morpheme of singular word PET and the phoneme [s] is
then just an additional morpheme which creates the plural suffix of the word. Another reason___
why the [t] is more audible in the English word is in its pronunciation. The [t] in English is_____
pronounced with aspiration and the tongue is touching the alveolar ridge. The Slovak [c] has no_
aspiration._____________________________________________________________________

2. Inspecting sound acoustics with Praat. Answer all the questions you see below.
A.
From the Sound files folder on the class website download the file “apa_aba.wav” and open it in
Praat as a regular sound file (not a Long Sound). Highlight the file in the Objects window, and
click on “Edit”. Then select “View”, then “Show analyses…” and make sure you unclick all the
options. Now you should see the waveform only.

Visual inspection: Look at the two stops. Note the closure portion of each. [b] may have voicing
partway through the closure. Does [p]? Can you see the release for each consonant? (Describe in
3-4 sentences)

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Homework I Linguistics I, Fall 2011

The closure portion of [b] is shorter than at [p]. [b] has a partial voicing during the closure which
is similar to a silent noise, but [p] does not, while it is a voiceless plosive. The release of each___
consonant is well visible, because the closure makes something like a gap in the graph, but_____
immediately the amplitude rises and the air pressure is more imbalanced.___________________

Using only the waveform, answer these questions:

How long is the total consonant, including closure, release, and aspiration for:

[p] _________0.141 s________ [b] __________0.085 s___________

Which one has aspiration? ____________p__________

Hint: If you need to, zoom in any part of the waveform to see its characteristics or measure its
duration.

[p]: How long is:

The closure portion of [p]: _______0.1017 s_____________

Voice Onset Time: ____0.039 s______________

[b]: How long is the closure portion of [b]: ________0.077 s____________

Is the closure portion of the [b] partially or fully voiced?: _____partially_____

How long is Voice Onset Time for [b]: _________0.007 s_________

B.
From the “Sound files” folder download the file “a-ptk-a.wav” and open it in Praat as a regular
sound file (not a Long Sound). Highlight the file in the Objects window, and click on “Edit”.
Select “View”, then “Show analyses…” and make sure that only “spectrogram” is checked. Use
either the waveform, the spectrogram, or both for the following measurements.

What is the duration of the closure in ms? [t] 71.4 ms (0.0714 s) [k] 72 ms (0.072 s)__
[p] 103 ms (0.103 s)_

What is the VOT in ms? [t] 70 ms (0.07 s) [k] 49 ms (0.049 s)__

[p] 40 ms (0.040 s)__

Now download the file “a-bdg-a.wav” and open it in Praat as a regular sound file (not a Long
Sound).

What is the duration of the closure in ms? [d] 49 ms (0.049 s) [g] 55 ms (0.055 s)
[b] 76 ms (0.076 s)

What is the VOT in ms? [d] 57 ms (0.057 s) [g] 30 ms (0.030 s)_

[b] 17 ms (0.017 s)

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Homework I Linguistics I, Fall 2011

What are the most salient differences between voiced and voiceless stops? (1-2 paragraphs)

The voiceless phonemes are actually longer than the voiced ones, either in their closure times___
and either in their onset times. I think it is caused by the partial voicing during the closure which
the voiced phonemes have. Therefore they need not to be pronounced as long as the voiceless___
ones. The voiceless phonemes are not audible during their closure, so they require more time to_
be said, or rather to reach the same quality like the voiced ones have. This difference is not very_
noticeable by hearing, because it depends on few thousandths of seconds which human ear_____
cannot register. To see the difference in the length, we just need to measure it._______________
But we can hear the other difference, which is the voicing or non-voicing during the closure. The
voiced phonemes are partially voiced during the closure. On the recording it sounds like some_ _
kind of noise. But at voiceless phonemes there is a silence instead._______________________ _

C. Formant measurements
From the “Sound files” folder download the file “bead-bid-AE.wav” and open it in Praat as a
regular sound file (not a Long Sound). Highlight the file in the Objects window, and click on
“Edit”. Select “View”, then “Show analyses…” and make sure that only “spectrogram” is
checked. Place the cursor roughly in the middle of the vowel, and go to “Formant” and select
“Formant listing”. Record the time, and F1 and F2 frequencies, and calculate F2-F1 below.

[] Time: 0.484304 s F1: _283.53__ Hz F2: _2183.41__ Hz F2-F1: _1899.88__

[] Time: 1.841179 s F1: _412.58__ Hz F2: _1828.09__ Hz F2-F1: _1415.52__

Now record yourself saying these two words. In Praat, go to New  Record mono Sound… then
RecordStopSave to list and once in the Praat object window, save with Write to wav file…
somewhere on your HD. Measure F1 and F2 in your words in the same way as above. Also, e-
mail me the file named in this way w/o diacritics: firstname_lastname_bead-bid.wav (e.g.
stefan_benus_bead-bid.wav)

[] Time:_1.806302 s F1:_330.388_ Hz F2:_1715.77__ Hz F2-F1:_1385.39__

[] Time:_3.128138 s F1:_446.01__ Hz F2:_2139.78__ Hz F2-F1:_1693.77__

Based on your measurements, what are the differences between the American speaker and
you? How are these acoustic differences in formant frequencies linked to articulatory
differences (e.g. what is happening inside the vocal tract of the Am. speaker and you)? (2
paragraphs)

I think that the first formants in my speech are quite near to those of the American speaker._____
There is difference just few tens Hz. But the difference is much greater at the second formants. _
In word BEAD the second formant of mine is about 468 Hz lower than the American’s. But in__
word BID it is about 311 Hz higher than it should be according to the American’s one. In my__ _
opinion, this is because in Slovak we do not distinguish more allophones of phoneme “i”. Even _
the “y” is usually pronounced the same in continuous speech. Therefore I am not used to_____ _
pronounce the phonemes in English differently and I need to practice it hard. I need to train my _
voice in order to reach the correct frequencies of formants because they create the difference and

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Homework I Linguistics I, Fall 2011

the quality of phoneme. In BEAD the lips are more spread when saying the vowel than it is in
Slovak words with “i”. On the other hand, in word BID the lips should be a bit less opened. I_
think the vowel there sounds then similarly to “y” in Slovak, when it is said separately (like_ _
when a child in school is naming the vowels)._______________________________________

D. Fundamental frequency
In the “a-bdg-a.wav” file and using only sound wave, determine the fundamental frequency (the
frequency of the vocal cord vibration) of the first [] around the time of 0.4s. Explain how you
proceeded (1-2 paragraphs).

At first I clicked to show the pulses. Then I zoomed it to the pulse or period around the time 0,4s.
I labeled the whole period to see how long the period is. On the top it showed me the number___
0.005289 s. I put this number to this formula: F=1/T instead of the T. The “T” there means the__
time of one period. “F” means the fundamental frequency. I calculated it and I got number 189__
(approximately). So the fundamental frequency of the phoneme [a] at around the time of 0, 4 s_
_ should be about 189
Hz.__________________________________________________________

3. Features of sounds
a. State the phonetic property that the following groups of sound share
i. [ɑɪ,eɪ ,əʊ,eə] they are diphthongs__________________
ii. [ɒ,ʊ,ɔ,u,ɑ] they are all back vowels_________________
iii. [ɜ,ə,ɔ,ɛ,ʌ] they are medium opened vowels__________
b. Please use pen/pencil for this part

c. Give the four necessary characteristics for these consonants

i. [tʃ] _voiceless_____, ___alveo-palatal___, _____affricative___,
____oral_________
ii. [h] _voiceless_____, ___glottal________, _____fricative_____,
___oral__________

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Homework I Linguistics I, Fall 2011

iii. [] _voiced_______, ___dental________, _____fricative_____,

___oral__________
iv. [g] _voiced_______, ___velar_________, _____plosive______,
___oral__________
v. [m] __voiced______, ___bilabial_______, ____nasal_________,
____nasal________

d. Give the IPA symbol for these consonants (you can use pen/pencil for this part)
i. dental, fricative, oral, voiceless [ ]
ii. velar, stop, nasal, voiced [ ]
iii. alveolar, approximant, oral, voiced [ ]
iv. palate-alveolar, fricative, oral, voiceless [ ]
v. labio-velar, approximant, oral, voiced [ ]

e. IPA transcription (you can use pen/pencil for this part)

i. Transcribe the following words using only the symbols of IPA. Pay special attention
to the vowels. Note aspiration wherever necessary.
 spun _______________ bike _______________
 pushed _______________ puke _______________
 breath _______________ said _______________
 flood _______________ breathe_______________
 October_______________ fleece _______________
 usual _______________ yellow _______________
 capes _______________ cabs _______________
 taught _______________ crow _______________
 cow _______________ dirty _______________
 start _______________ bombed_______________

4. More transcription
For each English vowel sound (including diphthongs) find 5 monosyllabic words that contain
that vowel. For schwa, find disyllable words. Write them in ordinary spelling as well as in the
IPA transcription.

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Homework I Linguistics I, Fall 2011

Example:
[i:]: teach [ti:], …