ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

Lecture 1
Speech and speech sounds

Prepared by Duong Minh Hoang

1. Phonetics and phonology
1.1. Phonetics
 Phonetics is “the science which studies the characteristics of human sound-making, especially those sounds used
in speech, and provides methods for their description, classification and transcription” (Crystal, 2008, p. 363).

 The three main branches of phonetics are:

▪ Articulatory phonetics: focuses on how speech sounds are produced by articulators;

▪ Acoustic phonetics: focuses on how speech sounds are transmitted;

▪ Auditory phonetics: focuses on how the ear translates sound waves into electrical impulses to the brain and
how the brain perceives these as speech sounds.
 Questions that phoneticians often ask:

▪ How are speech sounds made?

▪ How do speech sounds travel through the air?

▪ What are the ways to measure speech?

▪ How do people interpret sound waves?

▪ How can people distinguish one sound from another?

 Notable phoneticians (in alphabetical order): David Abercrombie (1909 – 1992), Gunnar Fant (1919 – 2009), A.
C. Gimson (1917 – 1985), Daniel Jones (1881 – 1967), Peter Ladefoged (1925 – 2006), Ian Maddieson (1942 –),
John Laver (1938 – 2020), and John Wells (1939 –).
1.2. Phonology
 Phonology is the study of “the sound systems of languages” (Crystal, 2008, p. 365).

 Segmental phonology deals with individual sounds (segments) and linear strings of sounds, while
suprasegmental phonology analyses features that extend over more than one segment.

 Questions that phonologists often ask:

▪ How do native speakers of a language organize sounds in their brains?

▪ What restrictions, or constraints, do languages put on sequences of sounds?

▪ What changes occur to sounds when impermissible sequences of sounds arise?

▪ How are sounds combined into larger units such as syllables, feet, words, and phrases?

 Notable phonologists (in alphabetical order): Noam Chomsky (1928 –), Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1845 –
1929), John Goldsmith (1950 –), Morris Halle (1923 – 2018), Roman Jakobson (1896 – 1982), Edward Sapir
(1884 – 1939), and Nikolai Trubetzkoy (1890 – 1938).
2. The human speech production system
 The human speech production system is made up of all the
body parts that are used for creating speech sounds.

 Every body part used for speech has some other biological
function (breathing, biting, chewing, sniffing, etc.)

→ “Physiologically, speech is an overlaid function, or, to be

more precise, a group of overlaid functions. It gets what
service it can out of organs and functions, nervous and
muscular, that have come into being and are maintained for
very different ends than its own” (Sapir, 1921, p. 7).

The main components of the human speech production system (Katz, 2013)
 The human vocal tract may have developed its present form around 50,000 to 100,000 years ago (Zsiga, 2013).

 One useful way to see different parts of the vocal tract and their actions is to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

MRI mid-sagittal cross-section of the head MRI mid-sagittal cross-section of the heads of four
during the pronunciation of ‘Kanupolo’ people saying [a e i o u].
(Niebergall et al., 2013) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaIquq_4560
 The human speech production system can be divided into three
subsystems:

▪ The subglottal vocal tract (the respiratory system)

▪ The larynx (the phonatory system)

▪ The supra-laryngeal vocal tract (the articulatory system)

The sub-systems of the HSPS The sub-systems of the HSPS (Zsiga, 2013)
(Collins et al., 2019)
 Illustrations from Seikel et al.(2021)

2.1. The subglottal vocal tract

 The subglottal vocal tract consists of the lungs, the bronchial tubes, and the trachea (windpipe).

 All English sounds are produced with a pulmonic egressive airstream.

Bronchial tree Sagittal cross-section of the right lung Respiratory passageway

2.2. The larynx
 The human larynx is placed low in the throat compared with those of other animals.

▪ Disadvantage: humans can’t drink/eat and breathe at the same time;

▪ Advantage: the human pharynx is wide, allowing greater freedom for movement of the tongue in sound
production.

Configurations of the larynx in human infants, chimpanzees, and adult humans (Lieberman, 2018)
  At the end of the trachea and above the cricoid cartilage are the vocal folds, which are multiple layers of tissue
that can potentially cover the opening to the trachea.

 The vocal folds are attached to the front of the larynx to the thyroid cartilage
and at the back to the arytenoid cartilages.

 The space between the inner edges of the vocal folds is called the glottis.

The vocal folds in action. Source:

A simplified model of the larynx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tlpk
A sagitally cut larynx (Seikel et al., 2021) (Collins et al., 2019) dq8a8c
 The larynx can produce a wide variety of different modes of phonation (Laver, 2017).

Phonation type Description

The glottis is wide open for the air to escape.

Voiceless

http://australianlinguistics.com/phonation-
modes/voiceless-mode/
The vocal folds are brought lightly together and vibrate as the air passes over them.
.

Voiced

http://australianlinguistics.com/phonation-
modes/voiced-mode/
Phonation type Description
The vocal folds are brought close enough together to make the continuous airflow through them
turbulent, either through a gap left at the back or through a narrowed glottis.

Whisper

http://australianlinguistics.com/phonation-
modes/whisper-mode/
The front part of the glottis vibrates, at a much lower frequency than in normal voicing, while
the back part is pressed more tightly together.

Creaky voice
(Vocal fry)

http://australianlinguistics.com/phonation-
modes/creak-mode/
Phonation type Description
A combination of whisper and voiced mechanisms.

Breathy voice

http://australianlinguistics.com/phonation-
modes/breathy-voice/
The vocal folds make a complete obstruction to the airstream.

Glottal
stop/closure

The vocal folds are pressed together, blocking

the airstream completely (Laver, 1994)
2.3. The supra-laryngeal vocal tract
 The supra-laryngeal (or supra-glottal) vocal tract is above the larynx and consists of three resonating cavities:

▪ The nasal cavity (the nose)

▪ The oral cavity (the mouth)

▪ The pharyngeal cavity (the pharynx)

Resonating cavities in the supra-laryngeal

vocal tract (Collins et al., 2019)
 Articulators in the supra-laryngeal vocal tract:

▪ Active articulators: lower lip, tongue front,

tongue body, and tongue root;

▪ Passive articulators: upper lip, upper teeth,

alveolar ridge, hard palate, soft palate, uvula,
and pharyngeal wall.

 Besides being a passive articulator, the velum

acts as a valve that opens and closes to regulate
airflow between the oral and nasal cavities.

The supra-laryngeal vocal tract (Zsiga, 2013)

3. Transcribing sounds
3.1. The alphabet
 The English alphabetic writing system has 26 letters to represent 44 sounds.
▪ Advantages:
• Easy to learn;
• Easy to write.
▪ Disadvantages:
• One letter can represent more than one sound;
E.g. <c> represents [k] (cat, cut, etc.) or [s] (city, cell, etc.)
• One sound can be represented by more than one letter;
E.g. [ʌ] is represented by <o> (son, mom, month, etc.) or <u> (cut, shut, tub, etc.)
• There are a lot of silent letters.
E.g. knight, name, doubt, debt, psychology, etc.
3.2. The International Phonetic Alphabet
 The IPA was devised by the International Phonetic Association in 1887.

 Principles of the IPA:

▪ The symbols are universal;

▪ The symbols are unambiguous.

 Phonemic transcription represents the abstract sound system of a language,

while phonetic transcription represents the actual pronunciation.

E.g. Phonemic transcription: /kæt/, /kɪt/, /kɒt/, etc.

Phonetic transcription: [kæt], [kʰætʰ], [kʰæˀt̚ ], [kʰæʔ], etc.

 Broad transcription uses the simplest possible set of symbols, while narrow
transcription provides more phonetic details.

E.g. /hiːt/ is narrower than /hit/; [kʰæˀt̚ ] is narrower than [kæt]. The IPA revised to 2020. Source:
https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org
4. The phoneme and the allophone
4.1. The phoneme
4.1.1. Contrastiveness
 Phonemes are contrastive units in the sound system of a language.

E.g. [p] and [d] help to distinguish [pɒt] – pot from [dɒt] – dot.

→ [pɒt] and [dɒt] are a minimal pair – a pair of words that differ in only a single sound in the same position
within a word.

→ [p] and [d] are contrastive and occur in overlapping distribution.

→ /p/ and /d/ are two phonemes in English.

4.1.2. The phoneme as a set of non-contrastive sounds

 Phonemes are abstract groupings of phonetically similar sounds.

E.g. cat, skirt, picked, key, & cool

[kæt] [kʰ]

[skɜːt] [k]
[kʰ], [k], [k̚ ], [k̟ʰ], and [kʰ] are non-contrastive and
occur in complementary distribution.
[pɪkt] [k̚ ] /k/
→ [kʰ], [k], [k̚ ], [k̟ʰ], and [kʰ] are positional variants
[kiː] [k̟ʰ] of /k/.

[kuːl] [kʰ]
 4.2. The allophone
 An allophone is a variant of a phoneme.

E.g. /t/ ▪ Each allophone is a set of an infinite number of

phones, which are discrete, differentiable phonetic
[tʰ]1 Phones
Allophone
events.
C [tʰ]2
…
▪ Allophones of a single phoneme:
[t̚ ]1 [tʰ]n [ˀt]1
B [t̚ ]2 [ˀt]2
D • often occur in complementary distribution;
… …
[t̚ ]n [ˀt]n
• show close phonetic similarity;
[t̪ ]1
[t̪ ]2 • have phonetic differences due to their structural
A E …
… position (e.g., where in a syllable) or interaction
[t̪ ]n Phoneme
with their environmental context (e.g., standing
before or after a particular sound).
 Two phonemes of a language may be two allophones of one phoneme in another language.

E.g. [t] and [tʰ] are contrastive in Vietnamese but non-contrastive in English.

 Different English varieties may have different phonemic inventories.

E.g.

1. /ʊ/ – /ʌ/

/ʊ/ /ʌ/
Most varieties of English
book, cook, look love, bus, brush
/ʊ/
Northern English accent
book, cook, look, love, bus, brush

2. /w/

/w/
Most varieties of English
where, which, why, wear, witch, y
Most Scottish, many Irish /ʍ/ /w/
and some American speakers where, which, why wear, witch, y
4.3. Complicating factors
 Certain speech sounds are classified as separate phonemes despite occurring in complementary distribution.

E.g. /h/ always occurs at the beginning of a syllable (hot, hi, hum, etc.), while /ŋ/ always occurs at the end of a
syllable (thing, sing, song, etc.), but they are two distinct phonemes in English because they are phonetically
different.

 There are cases in which phonemes and allophones are in free variation, i.e. the replacement of one segment
with another causes no change in meaning of the word.

E.g.

Phonemic Allophonic

evolution /ˌiːvəˈluːʃn/ or /ˌɛvəˈluːʃn/

data /ˈdeɪtə/ or /ˈdɑːtə/ /t/ in cat: [kætʰ], [kæt̚ ], or [kæʔ]
Free variation
either /ˈaɪðə/ or /ˈiːðə/ /p/ in hop: [hɒpʰ] or [hɒp̚ ]
room /ruːm/ or /rʊm/
 Two phonemes may be subject to positional neutralization, i.e. they are realized the same in certain contexts.

E.g. In General American, both /t/ and /d/ are realized as [ɾ] when they stand between two vowels and not at the
beginning of a stressed syllable.

kitty /ˈkɪti/
[ˈkɪɾi]
kiddie /ˈkɪdi/
writer /ˈraɪtɚ/
[ˈraɪɾɚ]
rider /ˈraɪdɚ/
 Overview of phonemes and allophones

Overlapping distribution Complementary distribution

Phonemes Phonemes
Contrastive E.g. E.g.
/t/ in time and /d/ in dime /h/ in hi and /ŋ/ in sing
Phonemes or allophones Allophones
(Free variants) (Positional variants)
Non-contrastive E.g. E.g.
/iː/ and /ɛ/ in evolution [tʰ] in top and [t] in stop
[tʰ] and [t̚ ] in that
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