CENTRE FOR DISTANCE AND ONLINE

EDUCATION, AMU, ALIGARH

BACHELOR OF ARTS
I Semester

PHONETICS AND APPLIED

PHONETICS
(CE-101)

ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY,

ALIGARH, INDIA
1
UNIT I PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
Structure
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Unit Objectives
1.2 Phonetics and Phonology: Definition and Relationship
1.3 Speech Mechanism
1.3.1 Air Stream Mechanism
1.3.2 Organs of Speech
1.4 Relationship between Letters and Sounds
1.5 IPA Symbols
1.6 Summary
1.7 Questions and Exercises
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Unit-I shall introduce you to the definition and relationship between phonetics and
phonology. It aims at bringing out the interesting and captivating differences between the
sounds of English and the letters of the English alphabet. This unit will also be concerned
with speech mechanism and relationship between the organs of speech that participate in
the production of English sounds. It shall also introduce you to the IPA symbols.

1.1 UNIT OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

 understand the relationship between phonetics and phonology;

 draw the human organs of speech;
 describe the functions of the various organs in speech production.
1.2 Phonetics and Phonology: Definition and Relationship
Phonetics is one of the branches of linguistics. It is concerned with the description of the
physical properties and production of speech sounds that occur in languages of the world.
When we speak, it is usually one continuous string of sounds. How then do we recognise
speech sounds? How do we determine the sounds and how many sounds are there in any
language? We can identify speech sounds when we divide a string of sounds into bits
known as segments, hence sound segments. For example, as a speaker of English, you

5
know that the word ‗cap‘ has three segments ‗c‘, ‗a‘, and ‗p‘. When each sound is
substituted with another in a frame such as in a word, it causes a change in meaning. For
example, ‗cap‘ becomes ‗sap‘ when ‗c‘ is replaced with ‗s‘; ‗cap‘ becomes ‗cup‘ when
‗a‘ is replaced with ‗u‘; and ‗cap‘ becomes ‗cab‘ when ‗p‘ is replaced with ‗b‘. The
words ‗sap‘, ‗cup‘, and ‗cab‘ all have different meanings in English. By so doing, a
phonetic study provides an inventory of sounds of a language.

Thus, Phonetics, as a branch of Linguistics, is considered the scientific study of how

speech sounds are produced, transmitted and perceived. The primary duty of a
phonetician is to carry out rigorous studies of the human sounds made for the purpose of
communication. The main aim of this is to be able to identify all the possible human
sounds made for the purpose of oral communication.

Every language uses a limited number of speech sounds and makes its own selection out
of the large number of different sounds the human vocal organs can produce. Phonetics is
concerned with the description and classification of these sounds on the basis of how they
are produced by our vocal organs (articulatory phonetics), how, they are perceived by
our hearing mechanism (auditory phonetics), and how they are transmitted in the air
(acoustic phonetics).

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

1. The inventory of sounds in a language can be derived through a phonetic study.

True/False

2. Articulatory phonetics is the study of how listeners perceive sounds. True/False

Phonology is the study of how sounds are structured or patterned to convey meaning.
Knowledge of the phonology of a language allows us to combine sounds that make
meaningful speech. Having phonological knowledge means for example, knowing what
sounds can combine together to form words, what sounds can occur at the beginning or at
the end of a word, and how they should be pronounced etc. (Fromkin et al 2003).

Various definitions of phonology shed light on its scope. For example, Spencer (1996, 2)
defines phonology as ‗the linguistic patterning of sounds in human languages‘ while
Donwa Ifode (1995) describes phonology as ‗the study of the systematic organization of

6
selected speech sounds in any particular language‘. These definitions show that
phonology covers how sounds are combined, the relations between them and how they
affect each other. As a description of the how sounds structure and function in a
language, phonology involves studying a language to determine its distinctive sounds and
to establish a set of rules that describe the set of changes that take place in these sounds
when they occur in different relationships with other sounds.

Phonology thus, is concerned with how a particular language organises its sounds into
distinctive units (called phonemes), how the phonemes are combined into syllables and
how the prosodic features of length, stress and pitch are organised into patterns.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

Phonetics and phonology are closely related to each other. However, they are studied at
different levels of linguistic analysis, because they constitute different levels of language
structure. The relationship between phonetics and phonology is such that phonetics is the
starting point while phonology takes off from where phonetics ends. In a way the output
of a phonetic study forms the input for a phonological study of a language.

Phonetics as a level of language study deals with the physical realization of sounds as
produced by the organs of speech. It deals with the study and analysis of the speech
sounds of languages in terms of articulation, transmission and perception. Thus,
phonetics has three major components, which are articulatory phonetics (production of
sounds with the speech organs), acoustic phonetics (the physics or instrumental
production of sounds), and auditory phonetics (perception of sounds with the ears).
Details deriving from these branches (of phonetics) facilitate the development of writing
systems, that is, orthographies. Without phonetics, it will be extremely difficult to study
phonology as it produces the basic raw materials or building blocks for phonology to
build on.

Human beings produce a whole lot of sounds ranging from the non-linguistic (belching,
grunting, and hissing) to the linguistic (consonants and vowels). Out of all the sounds
produced some of them are not linguistically relevant. So, phonetics deals with the
production of the relevant and the irrelevant sounds in languages. These sounds in
phonetics do not belong to any particular language, they are universal sounds. Phonetics

7
basically deals with all possible sounds that are produced by human beings, the useful
and the useless sounds. Human beings can produce even the novelty sounds, which
nobody had ever produced or heard.

These phonetic and non-phonetic segments which are universal sounds constitute the raw
material for phonology to build on. Without some output from phonetics there will be no
input for phonology. It is where phonetics leaves off that phonology starts.

Phonology is a branch of linguistics that deals with useful sounds of a specific language.
It studies the ways sounds of a language are organized into systems. At the phonetics
level a wide range of sounds, which are not linguistics, are produced; only a very small
number of these sounds are contrastive or significant. It is these significant speech sounds
that phonology is concerned about.

As mentioned earlier, a phonetic study of language studies the physical properties,

perception and production of speech sounds of a language with the aim of distinguishing
the sounds that are used in the language. Phonology on its part is concerned with how
these sounds, which have been identified through phonetic study, are organised,
combined and patterned to make meaningful words. Through phonological analysis, an
inventory of sound segments that make for a difference in meaning in words is
determined.

1.3 Speech Mechanism

A Speech event involves a series of operations. A concept is first formulated in the
speaker‘s brain and its linguistic codification by the nerves to the speech organs which
are set in motion. The movements of these organs set up disturbances in the air, and these
sound waves are received by the listener‘s ear. The nervous system carries the message to
the brain, where it is interpreted in linguistic terms. The speaker and the listener must
share the same linguistic code in order to communicate effectively.

1.3.1 Air Stream Mechanism

The air that is used for speech is referred to as an airstream. There are, however, several
ways of initiating an air displacement through the throat, mouth, and nose. The most

8
common - and most effective – way is that in which lung air is pushed through the vocal
tract in the respiratory mechanism, or breathing process.

In order to generate sound, it is necessary to have air pressure. Speech sounds can be
classified according to the source of air pressure used to produce them.

There are three sources of air pressure:

(1) The air pressure for pulmonic sounds is generated by the lungs. If the lungs are fairly
full, elastic recoil compresses them and generates air pressure. Otherwise, we may use the
intercostal muscles and the diaphragm to compress the lungs, producing positive
pressure, or to expand them, producing negative pressure.

(2) The air pressure for velaric sounds is generated by closing the oral tract at the back
by raising the back of the tongue against the velum, closing it at the front with the tongue
tip or blade or the lips, pulling down the centre of the tongue, thereby expanding the
volume of the enclosed region and generating a vacuum. The closure at the front is then
released.

(3) The air pressure for glottalic sounds is generated by closing the oral tract at the glottis
by jamming the vocal folds together. When a closure is made somewhere farther forward,
the result is a sealed tube. If the larynx is then raised, the air is compressed. If the larynx
is lowered, the air is rarefied (a vacuum is produced).

What makes air flow is a difference in air pressure between two places. Therefore, air
may flow in either of two directions, depending on where the air pressure is higher. In the
case of speech this means that air may flow in two directions:

(A) When the air pressure inside the mouth is greater than the air pressure outside the
mouth, air flows out of the mouth and the airstream is said to be egressive.

(B) When the air pressure inside the mouth is lower than the air pressure outside the
mouth, air flows into the mouth and the airstream is said to be ingressive.

There are therefore six logically possible combinations:

9
 Location/Direction Eggressive Ingressive
Pulmonic Usual Only paralinguistic
Velaric Impossible Clicks
Glottalic Ejectives Implosives

For the sounds of English and Indian languages, a pulmonic egressive air- stream is used,
that is, an air-stream is expelled from the lungs. Only for some sounds in Sindhi a
different air stream mechanism is used - a glottalic ingressive air stream. The energy for
the production of English speech is generally provided by the air-stream coming out of
the lungs.

Pulmonic egressive sounds are found in all human languages. In many languages, such as
English, all of the sounds are pulmonic egressive.

Pulmonic ingressive sounds are physically possible but seem not to be used in human
languages. Some languages use them paralinguistically, that is, for communication
outside of the normal linguistic system. For example, Japanese has an ingressive [s]
sound. When a Japanese person is told something that upsets him, he will produce this
sound. It is not considered a true Japanese speech sound because it cannot be part of
ordinary words of the Japanese language. It is unclear whether pulmonic egressives occur
as normal speech sounds. One speaker of Tsou, an Austronesian language of Taiwan, was
recorded using pulmonic ingressive fricatives in word-initial position by Fuller (1990),
but other investigators (Ladefoged and Zeitoun 1993) were unable to replicate this with
other speakers from the same village. The only other known case of pulmonic egressives
as normal speech sounds is by Hill and Zepeda (1999) who report that in Tohono
O'odham (Papago) pulmonic ingressive airstream is used by women with other women in
some situations.

Velaric egressive sounds are physically impossible because there is no way to compress
the portion of the oral tract between the velar closure and the anterior closure.

Velaric ingressive sounds are called clicks. Many English speakers have some clicks used
paralinguistically. For example, the kissing sound that many people make at babies is a
bilabial click. The sound that some people use to call to horses is an alveolar click. The
only languages that use clicks as regular speech sounds are found in Southern Africa.
These are the Khoi and San languages, the languages of the native people of the southern

10
part of Africa, and some of the southern Bantu languages, such as Zulu, which have
borrowed these sounds from the Khoi and San languages.

Glottalic egressive sounds are called ejectives. Sometimes they are called ―glottalized"
sounds, but the sounds called ―glottalized" are not all ejectives. Ejectives do not occur in
European languages, except in the Caucusus region, at the border of Europe and Asia, but
they are quite common in the languages of the world. They are especially common in the
native languages of North America, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

Glottalic ingressive sounds are called implosives. They are not as common as ejectives,
but are found in various languages around the world. They are especially common in
Africa. Some Mayan languages (Central America) have a single glottalic series of
consonants, with labial implosives but ejectives at other points of articulation.

1.3.2 Organs of Speech

All speech begins with the articulation of speech sounds. When we speak, we produce a
string of speech sounds (consonants and vowels), which are arranged in sequence to give
words in utterances.

It is important to state here that the organs are essentially parts of the human body which,
in addition to their roles in speech production perform important functions in respiration
or chewing. However, our concern for now is with their roles in sound production.

11
The Process of Speech Production

Some people may think that the tongue, the teeth and the lips are the only organs
necessary for the production of speech, but the issue is, can anyone really produce any
speech sound by simply moving the tongue or altering the shapes of the lips? The answer
is No. In fact, by the time the tongue, teeth and lips become involved, the process of
speech production has gone a long way. The process of speech production therefore starts
from the lungs which serve as the ‗power house‘ from which the air flows.

Figure 1 is a diagram showing a side view of the parts of the throat and oral cavity as
well as the nasal cavity which are all very important to recognise in spoken English.

How the Speech Organs Work?

When we speak, we breathe normally and as the air stream flows out from the lungs
through the narrow space of the wind pipe, some sounds are produced. Other organs
along the throat and in the oral cavity modify the sound according to the message which
the speaker wants to send. It may also interest you to know that the various organs are all
encapsulated in three cavities; the oral cavity, the nasal cavity and the pharyngeal cavity.
Let us study these cavities one after the other to really understand how the organs in them
function in speech production.

12
The Oral Cavity: This is the mouth. Within this cavity, there are a number of organs
which are very important in the production of speech sounds. The tongue is one of the
organs here, and may be described as the most active articulator. It is the most flexible
organ because it moves easily and can, in contact with other organs of speech in the oral
cavity, create a total or partial obstruction during the production of consonants.

On the other hand, its distance from the top of the oral cavity influences the quality of the
vowel. Although the tongue has no obvious natural division like the palate, it is useful to
think of it as divided into four parts as shown in Figure 1 in the preceding page. The back
of the tongue lies under the soft palate when the tongue is at rest; the front lies under the
hard palate; the tip and the blade (middle) lie under the alveolar ridge. The tip and blade
of the tongue are particularly mobile, and can touch the whole of the lips, the teeth, the
alveolar ridge and the hard palate. The front of the tongue can be flat on the bottom of the
mouth or it can be raised to touch the hard palate. When you say the vowel /a:/, you will
observe that the front of the tongue is flat on the bottom of the mouth, but when you say
/æ / as in ‗cat‘ the front rises a little; now say /e / as in ‗met‘, and you will observe that
the front rises again. If you go on to say / Ι: / as in ‗see‘, you will see that the front rises
to a very high position behind the teeth and close to the hard palate. The back of the
tongue, on the other hand, can be flat in the mouth, or it can be raised to touch the soft
palate, or it can be raised to a position between these two extremes, especially for the
vowels / ɒ, ɔ:, ʊ, u:/ as in ‗pot, fought, put, boot‘. Now when you say these sounds in the
order in which they have been presented here, you will observe that the back of the
tongue rises gradually towards the soft palate.

Another important organ in this cavity is the teeth. The lower front teeth are not so
important in speech except that if they are missing, certain sounds, e.g. / s / and / z / will
be difficult to make. But the two upper front teeth are used in spoken English to some
extent. Now, put the tip of your tongue very close to the edge of these teeth and blow;
this will produce a sound like the English /θ/ in ‗thin‘; if you turn on the voice during
this /θ/ - sound, you will get a sound like the English /ð/in ‗then‘.

The palate is yet, another important organ in the oral cavity. As you can see from Figure
1, the palate forms the roof of the mouth and separates the oral cavity from the nasal
cavity. Now, if you make the tip of your tongue touch as much of your own palate as you

13
can, you will observe that most of it is hard and fixed in position, but when the tip of your
tongue is as far back as it will go, away from your teeth, you will notice that the palate
becomes soft. You can easily see the soft part of the palate if you use a mirror. Turn your
back to the right, open your mouth wide and say the vowel /a:/, and move the mirror so
that the light shines into your mouth. You will be able to see the soft palate curving
down towards the tongue and becoming narrower as it does so until it ends in a point
called the uvula. Behind the soft palate, you will be able to see part of the back wall of
the pharynx. When the soft palate is lowered, it allows the breath of air to pass behind
itself and up into the nasal cavity, and out through the nose. This is the position of the
palate for the / m /, / n / and /ŋ / consonant sounds. Apart from the raising and lowering of
the soft palate, the whole of the palate, including the soft palate, is used by the tongue to
interfere with the air streams.

The hard, fixed part of the palate is divided into two sections as shown in figure 1: the
alveolar ridge and the hard palate. The alveolar ridge is that part of the gum immediately
behind the upper front teeth, and the hard palate is the highest part of the palate, between
the alveolar ridge and the beginning of the soft palate. You can touch the whole of the
alveolar ridge and the soft palate with the tip of your tongue. The alveolar ridge is
particularly important in spoken English because many of the consonant sounds like /t, d,
n, l, r, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, ʧ, dʒ/ are made with the tongue touching or close to the alveolar ridge.

The Lips: The oral cavity terminates with the lips, and it is obvious that the lips can take
up various different positions when a sound is being articulated. They can be brought
firmly together as in /p/ or /b/ or /m/.

They can also be drawn inward and slightly upward to touch the upper front teeth as in
the sounds /f/ and /v/. When speaking, some people make more lip movements than
others, but it is never necessary to exaggerate these movements. In fact, it is generally
believed that English can be spoken quite easily while holding a pipe between the teeth.

The Vocal Cords: The air used in speech, which is usually released by the lungs, passes
through the wind – pipe and arrives first at the larynx.

The larynx (Adam‘s apple) contains two small bands of elastic tissue lying opposite each
other across the pharyngeal cavity. These are the vocal cords. They can be brought
together tightly so that no air can pass through them or they can be drawn apart so that
there is a gap between them through which the air can pass freely (this is their normal

14
position when we breathe quietly in and out). This opening and closing of the vocal cords
is called voice.

Some of the English sounds have voice and some do not. Now, say a long /m/ - sound
and put your fingers on your neck by the side of the larynx; you will feel the vibration of
the vocal cords. Now, say the word ‗may‘ / meΙ /, still with your fingers on your neck.
Does the vowel /eΙ/ have voice? Can you feel the same vibration for /eΙ/ as for /m/?
Yes, both sounds are voiced. Now say a long /f/ - sound. Is it voiced? No, it has no
vibration.

Subsequently, the English sounds which are not voiced – voiceless sounds – are made
with the vocal cords drawn apart so that the air can pass out freely between them and
there is no vibration. However, when the vocal cords are close and the air has to be
‗forced‘ through them during the pronunciation of a sound, this will result in the
production of a voiced sound. All the vowels of English are voiced.

The Nasal Cavity

Before discussing the importance of the nasal cavity in spoken English, it is important to
mention the role played by the velum or soft palate during articulation. The velum is the
continuation of the roof of the mouth also called the palate. The harder, bony structure
situated towards the exterior of the mouth continues with the velum into the rear part of
the mouth. The latter‘s position at the back of the mouth can allow the air stream to go
out through either the mouth or the nose or through both at the same time. Thus, if the
velum is raised, blocking the nasal cavity, the air is directed out through the mouth and
the sounds thus produced will be oral sounds. If the velum is lowered, we can articulate
either nasal sounds, if the air is expelled exclusively via the nasal cavity, or nasalized
sounds if, in spite of the lowered position of the velum, the air is still allowed to go out
through the mouth as well as through the nose.

If we nip our nostrils or if the nasal cavity is blocked because of a cold, etc, we can easily
notice the importance of the nasal cavity as a resonator and the way in which its blocking
affects normal speech production. The distinction nasal / oral is essential in all languages
and it will further be discussed when a detailed analysis of both English consonants and
vowels is given.

15
We have discussed the oral cavity and the organs that delimit the cavity.

Now, the nasal cavity is a large air-filled space above and behind the nose in the middle
of the face. It acts as a resonator in the production of consonant sounds in English. For
instance, in the articulation of all nasal consonants, the soft palate is lowered and at the
same time the mouth passage is blocked at some point, so that all the air is pushed out of
the nose. The nasal sounds /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/ are voiced in English, and the voiced air
passes out through the nose. During articulation, the soft palate is lowered for both /m/
and /n/. For /m/ the mouth is blocked by closing the two lips so that the air can flow out
through the nasal cavity, while for /n/, the tip of the tongue is pressed against the alveolar
ridge and the air escapes through the nasal cavity. Interestingly, for the production of /ŋ/
the back of the tongue is pressed against the soft palate so that the air passes out through
the nasal cavity.

These various descriptions confirm the fact that the nasal cavity performs the role of a
resonator – providing the proper passage for the air that is used in the articulation of the
nasal consonant sounds.

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Draw Figure 1 and label all the different parts of the speech organs. Do this several times
until you can do it without looking at the diagram in the book.

1.4 Relationship between Letters and Sounds

It is a well known fact that the alphabet which we use to write English has 26 letters, but
it may interest you to know that English (RP- Received Pronunciation) has about 44
sounds. Inevitably, English spelling will not be a reliable guide to pronunciation (in
spoken English) because-

 Some letters have more than one sound.

 Sometimes letters are not pronounced at all in some English words.
 The same sound may be represented by different letter.
The Letters of the English Alphabet

16
When writing English, we use 26 letters of the alphabet. However, when speaking there
are roughly 44 different sounds in English. These sounds are called phonemes.

The Sounds of English

There are 44 sounds in English. These sounds are made up of consonants and vowels, and
there is a system for writing all the sounds of English. It is called the International
Phonetic Association (IPA) system. If you know this system you can pronounce any
English word perfectly (without the assistance of your tutorial facilitator) by looking in a
learner's dictionary (for example, an English Pronunciation Dictionary).

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Bear and bare are spelt differently but pronounced the same, /bε∂/. Make a list of other

words which are spelt differently but pronounced in the same way.

1.5 IPA Symbols

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabet developed in the 19th century to
accurately represent the pronunciation of languages. One aim of the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was to provide a unique symbol for each distinctive sound in a
language—that is, every sound, or phoneme, that serves to distinguish one word from
another.

The concept of the IPA was first broached by Otto Jespersen in a letter to Paul Passy of
the International Phonetic Association and was developed by A.J. Ellis, Henry Sweet,
Daniel Jones, and Passy in the late 19th century. Its creators‘ intent was to standardize the
representation of spoken language, thereby sidestepping the confusion caused by the
inconsistent conventional spellings used in every language. It was first published in 1888
and was revised several times in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The IPA primarily uses Roman characters. Other letters are borrowed from different
scripts (e.g., Greek) and are modified to conform to Roman style. Diacritics are used for
fine distinctions in sounds and to show nasalization of vowels, length, stress, and tones.

Given below are the IPA symbols for the sounds of English language-

17
CONSONANTS

IPA symbol Example words

p pat, happy, trip

t top, return, pat

k cat, biker, stick

b bat, rubber, snob

d day, adore, bad

g guts, baggy, fig

f photo, coffee, laugh

v voice, river, live

θ think, author, teeth

ð this, weather, breathe

s sit, receive, bass

z zoom, fuzzy, maze

ʃ ship, pressure, rash

ʒ measure, rouge

m mice, lemon, him

n nest, funny, gain

ŋ singer, bang, bank

l light, yellow, feel

r rice, arrive, very

w winter, away

j yell, onion

h hill, ahead

18
ʧ chop, nature, itch

dʒ judge, region, age

VOWELS

IPA symbol Example words

i see, funny, bead

I bit, sing, rib

e bet, send, affect

æ stamp, pack, yeah

a: dark, father, far

u: loon, flute, who ´

ʊ pull, good, would

ɔ: caught, dawn, boss

ɒ cot, Don, father

Ʌ shut, come, bug1

ə about, Alberta, element

ɜ: earl, girl, purse

1.6 Summary

In this unit you were introduced to the terms 'phonetics' and 'phonology'. You learnt how
to give a phonetic description of speech sounds - vowels and consonants. You learned in
detail about the speech mechanism and the organs involved in the production of speech.
You were also introduced to the IPA symbols.

1.7 Questions and Exercises

Answer the following questions-

1. What is phonetics?
2. What is phonology?

19
 3. What are the different organs of speech?
4. What is the source of energy for most speech sounds?
5. How do we classify vowels?

20