PHONETICS & PHONOLOGY

LESSON 1

antiquity: ancient history

Phonetics & Phonology

⁃ Human languages display a wide variety of sounds (estimated to be 600

consonants and 200 vowels)
⁃ Phonetics is the study of the production and perception of speech sounds.
Phonetics “provides means of describing and classifying virtually all the sounds that
can be produced by human vocal tracts.”
Phonetics studies:
+ Production of SPEECH SOUNDS (articulatory phonetics)
+ Transmission of SPEECH SOUNDS (Acoustic phonetics)
+ Perception of SPEECH SOUNDS (Auditory phonetics)
⁃ Phonology is the systematic organization of speech sounds in the production of
language.

Accents & Dialects

The way a person pronouces a word will vary according to various factors - where
they were born, grew up and live, their age, as well as their “social class”.
⁃ An accent refers to the differences in pronunciation only. Accent also refers to
how one person speaks a foreign language.
⁃ A dialect is a variation of speech of language based on geographical area,
native language background, and social or ethnic group membership. A dialect
involves pronuciation, grammar, vocab usage.

Speech Production System // Organ of Speech // Anatomy of oral cavity

⁃ The airstrem mechanism: Speech sounds are mafe by manipulating the way air
moves out of the vocal tract. Universally cross languages, speech sounds are produced
on an out-breath (known as egressuve pulmonic airstream)
+ Has been adopted by linguists, phoneticians, and speech and hearing
professionals in 1886. It provides a standard description of all the sounds that can be
found in the world’s languages.

Speech

Phonemes

Phonemes are the smallest sound units that distinguist one word from another, i.e.
phonemes make lexical distinctions. Phonemes are abstract units, meaning they are
not always pronouned the same way in every word. Phonemes are minimal
contrastive (can change word meaning if replaced) units of sound.

Allophones (biến thể của phonemes) […]

⁃ are the variations of one phoneme.
⁃ Aspirated [t] and unaspirated [t] are said to be in complementary distribution -
they never occur in the same environment. There is no meaning difference when we
swap allophones of the same phoneme.

Transcriptions
⁃ Narrow transcription […] -> transcript allophones

QUESTIONS
1. Phonetics and phonology are both concerned with speech sounds. In which do
they differ?
2. What is the difference btw accent and dialect?
3. What is a phoneme?
4. What is a narrow transription? (more infor to speak one word)

LESSON 2

The Vocal tract

⁃ Oral tract (cavity)
⁃ Nasal tract
Speech sounds are formed in the vocal tract, which extends from the larynx to the lops
and nostrils, usually airflow from the lungs

| The larynx, commonly known as the voice box, is the part of the body responsible for
making all voiced sounds.

The larynx is:

⁃ a hollow structure made of cartilage
⁃ is attached to the top of the trachea (windwipe)
⁃ when we breathe, the air passes through the trachea and the larynx
The front of the larynx is the prostrusion that can be felt in the front of the next, which
is called “Adam’s apple” in men.
+ The vocal folds lie inside the larynx, which are two strings of tissue…

Vowels and Consonants

In phonetics, the terms consonant and vowel refer to types of sounds. not to the letter
that represent them.
English is considered to have an average num of consonant phonemes when compared
to other languages throughout the world.

In term of production, vowels and consonants vary considerably. Unlike vowels,

consonants are not produced solely by changes in tongue and lip position.
⁃ Obstruction to airstream: Consonants (blocked before going out) >< Vowels
(no obstructions to the airstream)
⁃ State of vocal folds: Consonants (with or without the vibration of the vocal
folds) >< Vowels (always with the vibration of the vocal folds)

Consonantd are speech sounds. When we pronounce them, the organs of speech
always form the obstructions, the airstream is stopped before going out.
+ Consonant production generally invloves the coming together of two articulators
(one of which is most commonly the tongue) to modify the flow of air as it passes
through the oral and/ or nasal tract. Consonant sounds tend to occur at the start and
end of syllables, e.g. dog, table, chance
+ Consonants that occur before a vowel in any syllable are referred to as
PREVOCALIC, e.g. pray, cow
+ Consonants that occur after a vowel are referred to as POSTVOCALIC, e.g.
green
+ Consonants that occur between 2 vowels are termed INTERVOCALIC, e.g.
upper

The classification of consonants

⁃ Place of articulation: Place of articulation refers to where the obstructions are

made in the vocal tract.
+ Bilabial (Upper + lower lip): /p/, /b/, /m/, /w/*
+ Labio-dental (lower lip + upper teeth): /f/, /v/
+ Dental (tounge + teeth): /θ/, /ð/
+ Alveolar (alveolar ridge + tounge): /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /l/, /n/
+ Post-aveolar (tounge + back of the arveolar ridge): /r/
+ Palato-alveolar (alveoral ridge + hard palate + tounge): /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/
+ Palatal (the front part of the tounge + hard palate): /j/
+ Velar (soft palate/ velum + back part of the tounge): /k/, /g/, /ŋ/, /w/*
+ Glottal (at the glottis - the area btw the vocal folds): /h/

⁃ Manner of articulation (how you pronounce): Refers to the way in which the
airstream is modified as it passes through the vocal tract
+ Stop/ plosive: the airstream is completely stopped & suddenly release, e.g. /p/ –
pig, /b/ – bag, /t/ – tall, /d/ – dad, /k/ kick, /g/ – girl
+ Fricatives: the airstream is partially stopped and gradually released.
+ Affricates: the airstream is completely stopped and gradually released.
+ Nasal: the airstream goes through the nose
+ Approximants: articulation in which articulators approach each other but do not
ger sufficiently close to each other to produce a “complete” consonant such as a
plosive or fricative
* semivowels (or glides) (âm lướt): /w/ & /j/
* liquids (âm nước): /l/ & /r/
⁃ Voicing (energy of articulation): refers to whether the vocal folds are vibrating
during the production of a particular consonant.
+ Voiceless
+ Voiced

Fortis vs Lenis / All voiceless sounds are fortis, all voiced sounds are lenis

Distinctive Features: features that distinguish one phoneme from another

e.g: /s/: [+alveolar] [+fricative] [+voice]

/z/: [+labiodental] [+fricative] [+voice]
-> The distinctive feature btw /v/ and /s/ is their places of articulation

Allophonic variants of English consonants

⁃ The allophones of a phoneme form a set of sounds that:

+ Do not change the meaning of a word
+ Are very similar to one another
+ Occur in phonetic contexts different from one another

- aspiration, indicated by a small raised letter h [h] = a period of voicelessness after

the stop articulation and before the start of the voicing for the vowel (‘pie, tie, kye’
[phaɪ, thaɪ, khaɪ])
- unexploded/ unrelease consonant, indicated by a small raised mark [┐]: syllable- or
word-final consonant unexploded when the next syllable or word begins a stop or
nasal (‘the cat pushed [ðə 'khæt┐ 'phʊʃt], ‘apt’ [æp┐t], ‘act’ [æk┐t])
 + absence of this rule in oth. languages, a mark of foreign accent to explode all
final stop consonants and add an extra vowel at the end (‘it’s a big day’ [ɪts ə
'bɪg┐ 'deɪ] x *[ɪts ə 'bɪgə 'deɪ])
- a glottal stop, indicated by a question mark without the dot [ʔ] = the sound, or the
lack of sound, produced with the vocal cords held tightly together (m̩ hm̩ ] for ‘yes’ x
['ʔm̩ ʔm̩ ] for ‘no’)
+ glottal stops frequently as allophones of /t/ (‘beaten’ ['biʔn̩ ], ‘kitten’ ['kɪʔn̩ ],
‘fatten’ ['fæʔn̩ ])
- a syllabic consonant, indicated by [ˌ]
+ homorganic sounds = two sounds with the same place of articulation
(a) nasal plosion = the release through the nose of the air pressure built up in the
mouth when a voiced stop and a homorganic nasal occur in the same word (‘sadden’
['sædn̩ ], ‘sudden’ ['sʌdn̩ ], ‘leaden’ ['lεdn̩ ])
+a mark of foreign accent to add a vowel ['sædən, 'sʌdən, 'lεdən]
(b) lateral plosion = the release by lowering the sides of the tongue of the air pressure
built up in the mouth when a stop and a homorganic lateral occur in the same word
(‘little’ ['lɪtl̩ ], ‘ladle’ ['leɪdl̩ ])
- a flap [ɾ]: GA [t] changed into a voiced sound after a stressed vowel and before an
unstressed syllable oth. than [n̩ ] (‘city’ ['sɪɾ i], ‘better, writer’)
- devoicing of a vowel, indicated by [h]: a vowel after the voiceless stops /p, t, k/
partially voiceless (‘pie’ [phaɪ], ‘tie’ [thaɪ], ‘kye’ [khaɪ])
+ devoicing of a consonant, indicated by [ ۪ ]: an approximant after the voiceless
stops /p, t, k/ voiceless (‘play’ [pl̥ eɪ], ‘twice’ [tw̥ aɪs], ‘clay’ [kl̥ eɪ], ‘cue’ [kj̥ u])
- velarization, indicated by [~] = the arching upwards of the back of the tongue
+ GA: all examples of /l/ > [ł]
+ RP: only word-final or before a consonant (‘feel’ [fił], ‘ball’, ‘filled’)
- dentalized,