PHONETICS COURSE

PHONETICS : FIRST YEAR SYLLABUS

I) – INTRODUCTION TO PHONETICS

What is Phonetics : Definition and scope

Articulatory – Auditory – Acoustic

Phonetics and Phonology

Speech and Writing

II) – ARTICULATORY PHONETICS

The production of Speech

The Speech Mechanism

III) – THE SOUNDS of ENGLISH

The International Phonetic Alphabet

Consonants of English: Definition and description

Classification of consonants: Place and Manner of Articulation

The Vowels of English:

Definition
Categories
Description of Articulation of each vowel: The vowel chart

The Diphthongs of English

Definition
Categories

IV) – INTRODUCTION to INTONATION and STRESS

The suprasegmental features of stress

The weak form of words

V) – BIBLIOGRAPHY

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I ) – INTRODUCTION TO PHONETICS:

1 - WHAT IS PHONETICS?

Definition and scope:

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics. It is the scientific study and description of speech
sounds.
It looks at speech from 3 distinct but interdependent viewpoints:
a) – it looks at speech from the standpoint of its production. i.e. it studies the vocal
organs through the use of which we articulate the sounds of speech. This part is
called articulatory phonetics.
b) – it looks at speech from the standpoint of its transmission from one person to
another. i.e. it studies the sound waves, which is the physical way in which the
sounds are transmitted through the air. This part is called acoustic phonetics.
c) – it looks at speech from the standpoint of their reception. i.e. it studies the ways in
which human beings perceive speech sounds through the medium of the ear. This
part is called auditory phonetics.

2 – PHONETICS and PHONOLOGY:

Phonetics is descriptive. It describes the sounds of languages. It is a general study of all the
languages. It is the study, the analysis, and the classification of speech sounds. To describe
these sounds, it needs symbols to represent these sounds. The whole of the symbols it uses
is called the I.P.A., or the International Phonetic Alphabet, elaborated by the International
Phonetic Association.

Phonology is prescriptive. It deals with the sounds of one particular language. It deals with
the rules, the context (when / where) these sounds occur, and how they are combined to
form words and sentences.
Each language consists of a certain number of sounds (phonemes) which make up the
phonological system of that particular language. Languages devise different rules to
combine their phonemes into utterances and this is what distinguishes a particular language
from the rest of the other existing languages. The phonemes of a given language are limited
(between 20 and 120), but the number of sentences/utterance they can express is infinite,
hence the remarkable language economy that results.

Example of a phonetic description: /b/ is a voiced - bilabial – plosive

Example of a phonological rule: In English, no word begins or ends with the following
consonants: /dgb/. To plough /pləυ/ , hence the problem of spelling in writing.

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II – SPEECH and WRITING

The two basic media in which human language is expressed are speech and writing. Both
are specifically human. Still, speech is believed to be older than writing, because the earliest
forms of writing date only approximately at five thousand years ago, as is attested by the
Sumerian tablets and the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Another argument in favour of the
precedence of speech over writing is the fact that all human aggregates are supposed to have
used some kind of speech for social communication to maintain and promote their gregarity.
A last argument supporting the anteriority of speech is the fact that we know of a great
number of human communities that have used writing alongside speech for social
communication, whereas we know of no human society that has used only writing.
Some authors compared the two media and enlightened the basic differences between them.
In this respect, speech is also called ear language, and writing, is called eye language. The
two media display the following differences:

WRITING / EYE LANGUAGE SPEECH / EAR LANGUAGE

- Uses graphic symbols (graphemes) - Uses phonic symbols which are
which are combined to form text combined to form discourse utterances.
sentences. - The listener is present and needs not be
- The reader is absent, so the writer so explicit.
has to be explicit. - The speaker uses language
- The writer has time to think and spontaneously
arrange her sentences. - It is learnt through exposition and
- It is learnt through instructions. dynamic socializing and is therefore
It is therefore conservative in more flexible in rules.
rules.

II ) – ARTICULATORY PHONETICS

THE SPEECH MECHANISM (by J.D. O’Connor)

Phonetics is concerned with the human noises by which the ‘message’ is actualized or given
audible shape: the nature of those noises, their combinations and their functions in relation
to the message.

 Stages in the passing of a spoken message

The act of communication starts in the brain of the speaker which has two distinct functions
concerning communication purposes:

1 – The creative function: where the message is conceived and formed. It stores our
profound knowledge of the way in which the language operates, i.e. the rules of the game.
This knowledge is derived from our experience of operating the language as both speaker
and listener from earliest childhood. This concerns the correct grammatical patterns and the
vocabulary items which can be used to fill out those patterns. If we want to communicate
efficiently, there must be a sufficient stock of information at our disposal.

There are three distinct phases of the creative function:

a)- A need to communicate arises
b)- A choice has to be made as to which medium will be used (speech, writing, both, other?)
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c)- A decision concerning the form the message will take (question, instruction, proposition,
etc.)
we make these decisions very rapidly and indeed without consciously thinking of them at all
in most cases, and the message is ready formed. The forwarding function of the brain takes
over.

2 – The forwarding function: the part of the brain concerned with the control of muscular
movement sends out patterned instructions in the form of nervous impulses along the
nervous pathways connecting the brain to the muscles of the organs responsible for speech
sounds. These instructions call upon the muscles concerned to perform various delicate
combinations and sequences of movement which will result in the ‘right’ sounds, being
emitted in the ‘right’ order.

3 - The vocal organs: the neurological activity in the speaker’s brain is transformed into
muscular activity. The result of these movements is to set air in motion. i.e. we move from
neurological activity, to muscular activity, to air in motion. The moved air eventually
impinges on the ear of the listener.

The ear: the ear-drum is sufficiently sensitive for the air-pressure waves to cause it to move
in and out in a way closely related to the movement of the air itself. The further
transformations ( from air movement to the organic movement of the ear-drum of the
listener) results more impulses being sent along the nervous pathways connecting the ear to
the listener’s brain.

4 – The hearing function: The impulses coming from the ear to the brain are accepted as
sound sequences of constantly changing quality and characteristic length, pitch and
loudness. The listener hears the message, but does not yet understand it. To be understood,
the sounds must be interpreted by the listener thanks to the knowledge stored in his brain,
which he has about language. He not only hears the sounds, but recognizes them and
matches them up with what he knows to be possible in the language at various levels, before
finally selecting the most likely meaning. This creative process is another part of the
creative function of the brain.

* The matching process:

1 – Pronunciation: it starts with the sounds themselves. e.g. stveet? => street .
2 – Grammar: the man are on strike. The men?, the man is ?
3 – Lexis: “birds of a feather dwell together” (flock)
4 – Pragmatics: the utterance must be matched with: a) the situation of communication
b) the general cultural background e.g. ‘the wine is very sweet?

* Beyond the production, transmission and reception of sounds, the message requests much
more activity. i.e. the sound is not the message, but it is what gives the message its
shape/form, in spoken communication and the graph does the same in the written one. A
word, when it is pronounced, must have a particular sound shape if it is to be recognized,
just as it must have a particular letter shape when written. The order of the constituent
sounds is equally important in both speech and writing. Eg: dog/god.

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 THE SPEECH MECHANISM (by J.D. O’Connor)

Phonetics is concerned with the human noises by which the ‘message’ is actualized or given
audible shape: the nature of those noises, their combinations and their functions in relation
to the message.

 Stages in the passing of a spoken message

The act of communication starts in the brain of the speaker which has two distinct functions
concerning communication purposes:

1 – The creative function: where the message is conceived and formed. It stores our
profound knowledge of the way in which the language operates, i.e. the rules of the game.
This knowledge is derived from our experience of operating the language as both speaker
and listener from earliest childhood. This concerns the correct grammatical patterns and the
vocabulary items which can be used to fill out those patterns. If we want to communicate
efficiently, there must be a sufficient stock of information at our disposal.

There are three distinct phases of the creative function:

a)- A need to communicate arises
b)- A choice has to be made as to which medium will be used (speech, writing, both, other?)
c)- A decision concerning the form the message will take (question, instruction, proposition,
etc.)
we make these decisions very rapidly and indeed without consciously thinking of them at all
in most cases, and the message is ready formed. The forwarding function of the brain takes
over.

2 – The forwarding function: the part of the brain concerned with the control of muscular
movement sends out patterned instructions in the form of nervous impulses along the
nervous pathways connecting the brain to the muscles of the organs responsible for speech
sounds. These instructions call upon the muscles concerned to perform various delicate
combinations and sequences of movement which will result in the ‘right’ sounds, being
emitted in the ‘right’ order.

3 - The vocal organs: the neurological activity in the speaker’s brain is transformed into
muscular activity. The result of these movements is to set air in motion. i.e. we move from
neurological activity, to muscular activity, to air in motion. The moved air eventually
impinges on the ear of the listener.

The ear: the ear-drum is sufficiently sensitive for the air-pressure waves to cause it to move
in and out in a way closely related to the movement of the air itself. The further
transformations ( from air movement to the organic movement of the ear-drum of the
listener) results more impulses being sent along the nervous pathways connecting the ear to
the listener’s brain.

4 – The hearing function: The impulses coming from the ear to the brain are accepted as
sound sequences of constantly changing quality and characteristic length, pitch and
loudness. The listener hears the message, but does not yet understand it. To be understood,
5
the sounds must be interpreted by the listener thanks to the knowledge stored in his brain,
which he has about language. He not only hears the sounds, but recognizes them and
matches them up with what he knows to be possible in the language at various levels, before
finally selecting the most likely meaning. This creative process is another part of the
creative function of the brain.

* The matching process:

1 – Pronunciation: it starts with the sounds themselves. e.g. stveet? => street .
2 – Grammar: the man are on strike. The men?, the man is ?
3 – Lexis: “birds of a feather dwell together” (flock)
4 – Pragmatics: the utterance must be matched with: a) the situation of communication
b) the general cultural background e.g. ‘the wine is very sweet?

* Beyond the production, transmission and reception of sounds, the message requests much
more activity. i.e. the sound is not the message, but it is what gives the message its
shape/form, in spoken communication and the graph does the same in the written one. A
word, when it is pronounced, must have a particular sound shape if it is to be recognized,
just as it must have a particular letter shape when written. The order of the constituent
sounds is equally important in both speech and writing. Eg: dog/god.

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 HOW SPEECH SOUNDS ARE PRODUCED

What we call the “vocal organs” or the “organs of speech”, lungs, vocal cords, tongue, teeth,
jaws, etc. are not primarily organs of speech at all.

The lungs: Most sounds of all languages are made with outgoing breath from the lungs
(eggressive air stream). When we breathe in, air travels through the nose or mouth, down
the windpipe or “trachea” which branches into two bronchi (bronchial tubes) supplying the
two lungs, and so down into the small airways of which the lungs consist. The two are like
sponges. In order to expel air they must be squeezed and to take in air they must be allowed
to expand. The lungs expand outwards with the raising of the ribs and downwards with the
lowering of the dome of the diaphragm, and this expansion, like the unsqueezing of a
sponge, causes air to flow into the airways. To expel air, the process is reversed.
In quiet breathing, inspiration and expiration, each take just about half of the time of the
whole respiratory cycle, expiration being very slightly longer. But in speech, inspiration is
quickened up and expiration is slowed down to last eight to nine times as long as
inspiration.

The larynx: the larynx is a fairly rigid box made up of cartilages situated at the top of the
trachea and continuous with it so that all air passing in and out of the lungs must pass
through it. Inside the larynx are the first of the structures which can interfere with the air
stream.

The vocal cords: they consist of two bands of muscle and connective tissue lying opposite to
each other at the top of the trachea, fixed adjacent to each other at the front end (the Adam’s
apple), but horizontally moveable at the back, where they are attached to the arytenoids
cartilages.
By muscular action the arytenoids can be drawn together or parted, causing the vocal cords
to come together or part. They may come together very firmly and prevent air at very great
pressures issuing from the lungs, as in heavy lifting. They may be drawn wide apart at the
arytenoids ends so that they allow air in and out of the lungs with no obstruction at all. They
may therefore interfere totally or minimally with the air stream. Example of total
interference: the glottal stop which can be heard in some accents (cockney, Glasgow,) in
pronouncing words like butter, water, … or in coughing. In many ways, the vocal cords
function like the lips (stops, frictions, open free, spread).
Voicing: just as the lips can be made to open and close rapidly in the air stream, with a sort
of rolling noise, often used to indicate coldness and written (Brrrr!), the vocal cords too can
be made to perform this rapid opening and closing in the air stream, at a much greater speed.
The lips up to 30 times / second, the vocal cords from 70, up to 1000 times / second. The
resulting effect is a continuous vibration called voice.
We call vary the rate of vibration, and differences in rate correspond to differences in pitch;
the slower the rate, the lower the pitch, and the higher the rate, the higher the pitch.
Concerning the amplitude, i.e. the amount of the horizontal opening of the cords relates to
loudness. The further the vocal cords move apart in the open phase, the louder the resultant
sound and the smaller the gap, the softer the sound. Loud sounds will have both extra
pressure from the lungs and large amplitudes, soft sounds less pressure and smaller
amplitudes.

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The pharynx: the pharynx is a single tube-like cavity branching into two other cavities: the nasal
above and the oral below. The pharynx stretches from the top of the larynx up to the back of the
nasal cavity and serves mainly as the container of a volume of air which can be set into vibration in
sympathy with vibrations coming from the vocal cords. It is divided into two, one part being the
back of the mouth and the other being the beginning of the way through the nasal cavity. The
escape of air through the pharynx may be affected according to the position of the soft palate
(velum).

The nasal cavity: the contribution to speech of the nasal cavity is entirely a matter of resonance.
If, with the vocal cords vibrating, the soft palate is lowered so that the pharynx, nasal cavity and
oral cavity are connected, the whole mass of air in the connected cavities vibrates with a
characteristic nasal effect. If, at the same time, the mouth is blocked at some point (by closing the
lips), then the vibrating air will pass through the pharynx and nasal cavity out of the nostrils, with a
dull, humming effect. If on the other hand, the mouth is open, as for /a:/, and the soft palate is still
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lowered, then the vibrating air goes out of both mouth and nostrils and the result is a modification
of a purely oral /a:/, which we recognize as a nasalization. This nasalization is used in French to
distinguish for example banc/bas, bon/beau, i.e. to distinguish between a nasalized vowel and an
oral one.

The oral cavity: the oral cavity is the most variable cavity in both dimensions and shape. This is due
to the mobility of the lower jaw, of the lips and of the tongue. The oral cavity is bounded at the top
by the palate. This is a dome-shaped structure whose front part is bony and fixed, and whose back
part (soft palate) is moveable. It is useful to divide the palate into three main parts: a) - the soft
palate (velum), b) - the hard palate, c) - the alveolar ridge.
The function of the palate in speech is to serve as a foil to the tongue in its articulatory movements.

The lower jaw: in moving up and down, it can decrease or increase the size of the cavity and so
influence the quality of the sound produced.

The tongue: the tongue consists of a complex bunch of muscles which make it enormously mobile;
for convenience purposes, it is divided into three major parts, according to their relation to the parts
of the palate. When the tongue is at rest, the blade of the tongue lies below the alveolar ridge, its
front, below the hard palate, and its back, lies below the soft palate. All parts of the tongue are
moveable, especially the tip and blade of the tongue.

The lips: the lips are capable of the same degrees of movement as the tongue. They can assume
various shapes: close rounding, open rounding, spreading, or neutral.

The teeth: the tongue may be brought in contact with the upper side teeth to form some speech
sounds, called dentals.

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III ) – THE INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET

THE SOUNDS OF ENGLISH:

The English phonological system is composed of 44 phonemes. There are 24 consonants, 12 vowels
and 8 diphthongs.
The formation of a consonant as distinct from a vowel is characterized by an obstruction of some
kind to the passage of the air through the mouth.

1 - The consonants of English:

Consonants of English are described with reference to the positions and actions of the organs of
speech concerned in forming them. In this respect, the place of articulation and the manner of
articulation are of primary importance in the description of consonants. Thus, a consonant may be
described:

A ) - According to the nature of obstruction ( Manner of articulation):

Plosive / Oral stop: [ p – b – t – d – k – g ]. To produce one of these sounds, the air passage is
completely closed, because one articulator is moved against another, or two articulators are moved
against each other so as to form a stricture that allows no air to escape from the vocal tract. After
this stricture, air is released suddenly, producing noise, loud enough to be heard.
Fricative: [ f – v – s – z – θ - ð - ∫ - ʒ - h ]. When fricatives are produced, the mouth passage is not
completely closed, but it is narrowed to such a degree that air by escaping through a small passage,
forces its way past the obstruction, thus producing audible friction.
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Affricate: [ ʧ - ʤ ]. They begin as plosives and end as fricatives.
Nasal: [ m – n - ŋ ] .The mouth is completely closed at some point, but the soft palate is lowered so
that the air is free to stream out through the nose.
Lateral: [ l ]. There is a complete closure between the centre of the tongue and the part of the roof of
the mouth where contact is to be made.
Approximant: [ r ]. The articulators approach each other, but do not get sufficiently close to produce
a “complete” consonant such as plosives, fricative or nasal.
Semi-vowel: [j – w]. Phonetically, they are produced like vowels (with no obstruction), but
phonologically, they behave as consonants.

B ) – According to the place of articulation:

Bi-labial: [ p – b ] [ m ] [ w ] The obstruction is formed by the two lips.

Labio-dental: [ f – v ] The lower lip against the upper teeth.
Dental: [ θ – ð ] the tip of the tongue between the teeth.
Alveolar: [ t – d [ n ] [ l ] [ s – z ]the tip and the blade of the tongue to the alveolar ridge.
Palato-Alveolar, [ ∫ - ʒ ] [ ʧ - ʤ ] tongue tip close to the back of the alveolar ridge.
Post-Alveolar: [ r ] tongue tip touching the back of the alveolar ridge.
Palatal: [ j ] tongue to the hard palate.
Velar: [ k – g ] [ŋ ] The back of the tongue to the velum
Glottal: [ h ] the glottis is wide open.

Here is the table of English consonants

Manner
Place of
Articulat

Alveolar

Alveolar

Alveolar
Of Palato-

Glottal
Palatal
Dental

Dental
Labio-
Labial

Velar
Post-

Articu
ion

Bi-

Lation
Plosive p–b t –d K–
g
Nasal m n Ŋ

Fricative f–v θ–ð s– z ∫-ʒ h

Affricate ʧ-ʤ

Lateral l

Approximant r

Semi-vowel w j

The I.P.A. Vowels:

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2 – The vowels of English:

Intonation and stress in English

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