WEEK 2: PHONETICS

AND PHONOLOGY
Linh Nguyen
 PHONETICS:
THE SOUND OF LANGUAGE
– The study of speech sounds in
general
– Main areas:
■ Articulatory phonetics: deals
with the way in which speech
sounds are produced
■ Acoustic phonetics: deals with
the transmission of speech
sounds through the air
■ Auditory phonetics: deals with
how speech sounds are perceived
by the listener
PHONOLOGY:
THE SOUND PATTERNS OF
LANGUAGE
– The study of the speech sounds
in a particular language (in our
case, English) and their
relationship to one another
– Considers:
■ Study of the phonemic system
■ Phoneme sequences
■ Syllable structure
■ Supra-segmental structures
(stress, intonation)
I. PHONETICS
1. The production of speech sounds
– The vocal tract
– Speech production processes
2. Consonants
– Place of Articulation
– Manner
3. Vowels
– Monophthongs
– Diphthongs
1. The production of speech sounds

■ Articulators
 How are speech sounds produced?
■ When we are making sounds, the air from the lungs
comes up through the windpipe/trachea and arrives at
the larynx.
■ Then it goes through the vocal cords into the pharynx
and up to the uvula.
■ At this point, the air may go in either
way:
– It may go into the oral cavity
& get out through the mouth.
– Or it may go into the nasal
cavity & get out though the nose.
 Oral vs. Nasal sounds
1. How are oral sounds
produced?
■ Oral sounds are the sounds in
the production of which the
soft palate is raised, blocking
off the nasal cavity so that the
airstream can only get out
through the mouth.
■ Eg.
 Oral vs. Nasal sounds
2. How are nasal sounds produced?
■ Nasal sounds are the sounds in the
production of which the soft palate
is lowered, blocking off the oral
cavity so that the airstream can
only get out through the nose.
■ There are only three nasal sounds
in English:
 Consonants vs. Vowels
3. How are consonant sounds produced?
When we are making sounds, if two articulators come
together, obstructing the air-stream and the air-stream cannot
get out freely, we have consonant sounds. In other words,
there is some stricture or closure of the air stream.
E.g.
4. How are vowel sounds produced?
When we are making sounds, if there is no obstruction to the
flow of air as it passes from the larynx to the lips, and the air
can get out freely, then we have vowel sounds. In other words,
they are produced with open articulation.
E.g.
 Voiced sounds vs. Voiceless sounds
5. How are voiced sounds produced?
When we are producing sounds, the air-stream goes through the
vocal cords. If the vocal cords come together, obstructing the
air-stream, the air-stream cannot get out through them freely and it
makes them vibrate, then we have voiced sounds.
E.g.
6. How are voiceless sounds produced?
When we are making sounds, the air-stream goes through the vocal
cords. If the vocal cords come apart, they are open. The air-stream
can go out through them freely and it does not make them vibrate,
then we have voiceless sounds.
E.g.
2. Consonants

The description of consonants includes the following

information:

■ Voicing

■ Place of articulation

■ Manner of articulation
Place of articulation
■ The place of articulation is the location of the obstruction
of the air-stream in the articulation of consonants

■ It describes the point at which the articulators actually

touch or are at their closest

■ The most important places of articulation for the

production of English consonants are listed in the table
below.

(Notes: The terms used to describe the sounds are those

which denote the place of articulation of the sounds)
Place of articulation
Name Place of articulation Examples

Bilabials Both lips

Labiodental Upper teeth with lower lip

Dentals Tongue tip behind upper teeth

Alveolars Tongue tip to alveolar ridge

Palatals Tongue and palate

Velars Back of tongue and velum

Glottals Space between vocal folds

Manner of articulation

■ Manner of articulation is the way in which the

air-stream is obstructed or altered in the production
of speech sounds.
■ It describes the types of obstruction caused by the
narrowing or closure of the articulators.
Manner of articulation
Name Manner of articulation Examples
Stops/ Plosives Block airflow, let it go abruptly
Fricatives Almost block airflow, let it escape
through a narrow gap
Affricates combine a brief stop with a
fricative
Nasals lower the velum, let air flow out
through nose
Liquids raise and curl tongue, let airflow
escape round the sides
Glides/ Approximants/ move tongue to or from a vowel
Semi-vowels
English consonant chart
3. Vowels - Monophthongs
■ Vowels depend mainly on the variations in the position of the
tongue. They are normally voiced.

■ Vowels in English can be classified according to three variables:

a. Tongue height

b. Part of the tongue which is raised

c. Degree of lip rounding

English vowel chart (RP)
According to degree of lip rounding
1. Rounded vowels: are those made with rounded
lips. The corners of the lips are brought towards
each other and the lips are pushed forwards.
e.g.
2. Unrounded vowels: are those made with the lips
spread. The corners of the lips are moved away
from each other as for a smile.
e.g.
3. Neutral vowels: are those made with the lips
neither rounded nor spread.
e.g.
Diphthongs
A diphthong is a glide
from one vowel to
another, and the
whole glide acts like
one of the long
simple vowels.

RP English diphthongs chart

Describing diphthongs

Describe the glide from the first vowel to the second.

■ /aɪ /: low central to high front diphthong
■ /eɪ/: mid front to high front diphthong
■ /ɔɪ/: mid back to high front diphthong
■ / /: mid central to high back diphthong
■ / /: low central to high back diphthong
II. PHONOLOGY

1. Phonemes, phones and allophones

2. Phonemic analysis
3. Phonotactics and constraints-based phonology
4. Phonological processes and rule-based phonology
5. Prosodic phonology
1. Phonemes, phones & allophones

■ A phoneme is each one of the meaning-distinguishing

sounds in a language
■ Eg: ‘pit’ vs. ‘bit’ - differ only in their initial sound (‘pit’ begins
with /p/ and ‘bit’ begins with /b/)
■ This is the smallest amount by which these two words
could differ and still remain distinct forms. Any smaller
subdivision would be impossible because English doesn’t
subdivide /p/ or /b/. Therefore, /p/ and /b/ are considered
two phonemes.
Minimal pairs
■ Pair of words such as ‘pit’ and ‘bit’, ‘pit’ and ‘pet’, ‘back’ and ‘bag’
which differ by only one phoneme in identical environment are
known as minimal pairs.
■ More examples:
– zip >< zap
– ship >< sheep
– three >< tree

■ One way to identify the phonemes of any language is to look for

minimal pairs.
Phones and Allophones
■ Phones are the variants of phonemes that occur in speech.
■ When we have a set of phones, all of which are versions of one phoneme, we
add the prefix “allo-” (= one of a closely related set) and call them allophones
of that phoneme.
■ Reasons: the way a phoneme is pronounced is conditioned by the sounds
around it or by its position in the word. For example: /t/

[th] tea

■ /t/ [ t̊ ] stay

[t ] get there
 Phonemes Allophones

the abstract basic units that differentiate predictable phonetic variants of one
words phoneme

Abstract, “in the mind” produced in actual speech, “in the mouth”

Substituting one phoneme for another Substituting allophones only results in a

will result in a word with a different different pronunciation of the same words
meaning as well as a different
pronunciation

placed between slanting lines ( // ) put between square brackets ( [ ] )

2. Phonemic analysis
■ Phonetics provides “features” that distinguish each phoneme
from the next. If the feature is present, we mark it with a plus
sign (+) and if it is not present, we use a minus sign (−)
E.g.: /p/: [−voice, +bilabial, +stop]
/k/: [−voice, +velar, +stop]
/b/: [+voice, +bilabial, +stop]
■ When a feature distinguishes one phoneme from another,
hence one word from another, it is a distinctive feature or,
equivalently, a phonemic feature.
E.g.: voicing is a distinctive feature to distinguish /p/ and /b/
Natural class
■ Two sounds share some features are sometimes described as
members of a natural class of phonemes.
E.g.: /p/ and /k/ are members of the natural class of voiceless
stops.
■ Phonemes that have certain features in common tend to
behave phonologically in some similar ways.
e.g.: In English, clusters of /pl/ and /kl/ are common but /vl/ or /nl/
are not as /v/ & /n/ do not belong to this natural class
3. Phonotactic constraints of
phonemes
■ Phonotactic constraints are the limitations on sequences of
segments
■ E.g.: given 4 phonemes /b/, /ɪ/ /k/ /l/, which arrangements are
possible to form an English word?
/blɪk/ /klɪb/ /bɪlk/ /kɪlb/
/lbkɪ/ /ɪlbk/ /bkɪl/ /ɪlkb/
■ All languages have constraints on the permitted sequences of
phonemes, although different languages have different
constraints.
■ Possible words without meaning are sometimes called
nonsense words and are also referred to as lexical gaps.
4. Phonological processes and
rule-based phonology
■ The relationship between the phonemic representation of a
word and its phonetic representation, or how it is pronounced, is
rule-governed. Phonological rules are part of a speaker’s
knowledge of the language.
■ Phonological rules
– Assimilation rules
– Dissimilation rules
– Feature-changing rules
– Segment insertion and deletion rules
– Movement rules
Assimilation
■ Assimilation is the process when two sound segments occur in
sequence and some aspect of one segment is taken or “copied” by the
other to make it quicker, easier and more efficient for our articulators
to produce the sounds

■ E.g.: Good boy Alveolar + bilabial => bilabial

Get there Alveolar + dental => dentalized
did you? Alveolar stop and a following /j/ may merge to form an
affricate
Elision

■ Elision is the process of not pronouncing a sound segment that

might be present in the deliberately careful pronunciation of a
word in isolation
■ E.g.:
– consonant cluster (→ reduced) / ____ + consonant: məst + bi → məsbi
– three syllables (→ two syllables) /____ + syllable: prɪzənər → prɪznər
– We asked him correct scripts
Phonological processes
Example
5. Prosodic phonology

■ Syllable structure
■ Word stress
■ Sentence and phrase stress
■ Intonation
Syllable
■ A syllable is a phonological unit composed of one or more
phonemes. A syllable must contain a vowel or vowel-like sound,
including diphthongs.
 Stress

■ Stress is an extra force exerted on a particular

syllable or a particular word in spoken language. The
stressed syllable or word is said with greater energy,
and stands out in a word, phrase or sentence.
Examples:

father information

John bought a new car yesterday

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 Types of stress
1. Word stress: is an extra force put on a particular syllable
of the word. It is usually fixed. For example:

invite entertain

2. Sentence stress: is an extra force put on a particular

word in a sentence. Sentence stress is not fixed. It
depends on the speaker’s feelings and attitudes and the
message that he wants to get across to the listener. For
example:

John bought a new car yesterday.

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 The nature of stress

■ We can study stress from the point of view of

production and perception.
1. From the production point of view, the production of stress is
generally believed to depend on the speaker’s using more muscular
energy than for unstressed syllables.
2. From the perception point of view: all stressed syllables have one
characteristic in common, and that is prominence. At least four
factors make a stressed syllable prominent: loudness, length, pitch
and vowel quality. Generally, these four factors work together in
combination though syllables may sometimes be made prominent
by means of only one or two of them.

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 Levels of stress

1. Primary stress (tonic/nuclear): is the strongest type of stress. It is

marked by a small vertical line high up just before the syllable it
relates to.
2. Secondary stress (non-tonic): it is weaker than primary stress, but
stronger than unstressed syllables. It is usually found in words of
four or five syllables. It is represented in transcription with a low
mark. For examples:
photographic economical
anthropology nationality
3. Unstressed: can be regarded as being the absence of any
recognizable amount of prominence.

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Intonation
■ Intonation is the pattern of pitch changes that occurs over a
phrase which may be a complete sentence.

E.g.: When he came, I greeted him

■ In English, intonation may reflect syntactic or semantic

differences.

E.g.: Yes