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Phonetics for Linguistics Students

The document discusses phonetics and the study of speech sounds from three perspectives: articulatory phonetics which studies the anatomy and movements of speech organs, acoustic phonetics which studies the physics of sound waves, and auditory phonetics which examines the perception of sounds. It also describes how sounds can be characterized by their place and manner of articulation, and how variations in pitch play different roles across languages in distinguishing meanings. Secondary articulations like labialization can further modify sounds.

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Abdelouahed Abiyou
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123 views9 pages

Phonetics for Linguistics Students

The document discusses phonetics and the study of speech sounds from three perspectives: articulatory phonetics which studies the anatomy and movements of speech organs, acoustic phonetics which studies the physics of sound waves, and auditory phonetics which examines the perception of sounds. It also describes how sounds can be characterized by their place and manner of articulation, and how variations in pitch play different roles across languages in distinguishing meanings. Secondary articulations like labialization can further modify sounds.

Uploaded by

Abdelouahed Abiyou
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

The domain of Phonetics

Speaker Listener
Brain Brain
C F NP NP
Ear H C
VO
(H)
(F)
Production: Transmission: Reception

C- Creative Function : through it the message is conceived and formed.


F- Forwarding Function: sending out instructionsin the form of nervous impulses
along the nervous pathways connecting the brain to the muscles of the speech
organs.
H- hearing Function: receiving sound sequences of changing quality: pitch, length…
NP- Nervous Pathways
VO- Vocal Organs

Stages in the passing of a spoken message


• Various interests of the phonetician:
• 1-The study of anatomy and physiology:
investigating what the speech organs do by means
of: a) direct obsevation b) X-ray photography c)
photography to investigate the vocal cord movement
d) electromyography or the detection and
measurement of the small electrical potentials
associated with muscle contraction within the vocal
tract.
• This area is known as articulatory phonetics.
• 2) The interest in the way in which the air vibrates bet. The mouth
and the ear: like the physicist studying acoustics: Acoustic Phonetics.
• The interest in the hearing process: the sensation of hearing, which
is brain activity.
• 3) Auditory phonetics
• GENERALLY,Sounds may be characterized in terms of hearing as by
their articulatory or acoustic specifications.
• The phonetician is not only a taxonomist: a describer and classifier of
sounds
• He consider the function of sounds in a particular lge. Eg. Then/den;
lather/ladder; breathe/ breed.
• In Spanish the dif.bet. /th/ and /d/ doesn’t obtain.
• Similarly, variations of pitch play a part in all lges but
the basic function of those variations distinguish bet.
Different lges:
• In Eng pitch changes are not a part of the shape of the
word:eg: NO! can be pronounced with a variety of pitch
patterns: level, rising, falling or combinations of these
to express doubt, certainty, apathy, interrogation.
• BUT the word remains the same old basic negative.
• This is different from Chinese: the word ‘Ma’
pronounced with dif. Pitch patterns leads to dif. mngs.
• Ma with high, level pitch means ‘mother’
• Ma with a rise from medium to high pitch
means ‘hemp’
• A rise from low to medium gives ‘horse’
• A fall from high to low gives ‘scold’
• In Chinese, then, pitch is an essential part of
the shape of the word. It is distinctive.
• Secondary articulation: added to their
primary place of articulation, sounds can have
another (extra) place of articulation: eg.
• Labiolization, dentalization, palatalization,
velarization and pharyngealization.
• It should be made dif. from co-articulation.
•
• Coarticulation: 2 equal places of articulation
• /w/: Labiovelar
• Labiolization:eg.

• should /ʃʷud/
• Question/kʷwestʃn /; queen /kʷwi:n/
• Phonetic labiolization in Berber:
• /taggʷurt/ ‘door’
• /ʡigʷra/ ‘frogs’ ; /ʡigra/ ‘he threw away sth’
• Dentalization: eg.
• Tenth /ten͆θ/
• Palatalization:
• Cure /kᶨju:b/; tube/tᶨju:b/
• In Russian, there is a difference bet. / brat/: brother’
and /bratᶨ/ ‘to take’ 

• Velarization bet. dif. Clear /l/ and dark /ḷ/

• Pharyngalization :/ ṫ /; /ṡ /; / ḍ /

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