LING1000

Introduction to Language
Week 3
Phonetics

Dr. O. Lam
osclam@hku.hk
Sept. 20, 2023 (Wed)
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Today’s Plan
• Phonetics

• Reading for today’s class:

• Yule (2022), Ch. 3 ‘The sounds of language’

• Reading for next class:

• Yule (2022), Ch. 4 ‘The sound patterns of language’

• For reference:
• What is plagiarism?
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Phonetics
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Phonetics
• Phonetics
• the study of speech sounds
• articulatory phonetics
• how speech sounds are produced/ articulated

• How are speech sounds produced?

• Speech organs
• Consonants
• Voicing
• Place of articulation
• Manner of articulation
• IPA
• Vowels
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Speech production in humans

• Airflow

• The larynx (the ‘voice box’)

• Vocal folds
• Glottis

• The vocal tract

• The oral cavity and/or the nasal

cavity

• English speech sounds

• Lieberman & Blumstein (1988:4), in Dawson
• Pulmonic egressive airstream & Phelan (2016)
mechanism
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Voicing
• Vocal folds
• Folds of muscles
• Glottis – the space between the folds

• Voicing
• A voiceless sound
• Vocal folds are separated
• Airstream passes through easily
• No vibration of vocal folds

• A voiced sound
• Vocal folds are brought together
• Airstream has to be forced through the
vocal folds
• Vibration of vocal folds

• [s] and [z]

Dawson & Phelan (2016)
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Consonants & vowels

• Two classes of sounds
• Consonants
• Produced with some restriction of the air flow in the vocal tract

• Vowels
• Produced a relatively free airflow

• The production of consonants

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Place of articulation
• Where in the vocal tract is the airflow restricted?

Dawson & Phelan (2016) Fromkin et al. (2018:190)

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Place of articulation
• Bilabials
• Consonants produced by bringing both lips together
(1) a. [p] pat
b. [b] bat
c. [m] mat
d. [w] with

• Labiodentals
• Consonants produced by bringing the lower lip against the upper teeth
(2) a. [f] fine
b. [v] vine

• Dentals
• Consonants produced by tongue tip touching the back of the upper front
teeth
(3) a. [θ] thin ‘theta’
b. [ð] there ‘eth’
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Place of articulation
• Alveolars
• Consonants produced by bringing tongue tip near the upper alveolar
ridge
(4) a. [t] tin e. [n] nine
b. [d] din f. [l] line
c. [s] sip g. [r] ride
d. [z] zip

• Palatals
• Consonants produced by bringing the body of the tongue near the
palate
(5) a. [ʃ] show ‘esh’
b. [ʒ] measure ‘ezh’
c. [tʃ] church
d. [dʒ] judge
e. [j] yes
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Place of articulation
• Velars
• Consonants produced by bringing the body of the tongue further
back, near the velum or soft palate
(6) a. [k] kill
b. [g] gill
c. [ŋ] sing

• Glottals
• Consonants produced by constricting the airflow at the larynx,
by closing the glottis
(7) a. [h] hide
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The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

Internatonal Phonetic Association. 2015. The International Phonetic Alphabet.

https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/sites/default/files/IPA_Kiel_2015.pdf.
(Sept. 16, 2019.)
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The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

• Why don’t we use ‘ordinary’ letters used in spelling, or
orthography, to represent sounds?
• Lots of inconsistencies!!
• Same sound represented by different spellings/letters
(8) Examples from Fromkin et al. (2018:186)
a. Did he believe that Caesar could see the people seize the
seas?
b. The silly amoeba stole the key to the machine.

• Same letter (combination) representing different sounds

(9) a. character
b. check
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Manner of articulation
• How is the airflow restricted in the vocal tract?

• Stops or plosives
• Airstream is completely stopped.
(10) [p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [g]

• A three-part description of consonants

(11) a. [p] b. [b]
voicing voiceless voiced
place bilabial bilabial
manner stop stop
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Manner of articulation
• Fricatives
• Airstream is nearly completely stopped and is pushed through a
narrow opening
(12) [f], [v], [θ], [ð], [s], [z], [ʃ], [ʒ], [h]

• Affricates
• Airstream is completely stopped briefly, and then it is pushed
through a narrow opening
(13) [tʃ], [dʒ]
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Manner of articulation
• Nasals
• Most speech sounds are
produced with the velum
raised against the back of
the throat, such that air
flows through the oral
cavity.
• Oral sounds
• Nasal sounds are
produced with the velum
lowered, such that air
flows through the nasal
cavity.
(14) [m], [n], [ŋ]
• All three are voiced.
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Manner of articulation
• Liquids
• [l] – front of tongue touches alveolar ridge, airstream flows out
from the sides of the tongue
• [r] – tongue tip is ‘raised and curled near the alveolar ridge’
(Yule 2006:36).
• Both are voiced.

• Glides
• Articulators are slightly closed, and the tongue glides when
producing these sounds.
• Semi-vowels
(15) [j], [w]
• Both are voiced.
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What is plagiarism?
How can we avoid it?
Definition
Examples
Turnitin
Citations
Unified Style Sheet for Linguistics Journals
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What is plagiarism?
• ‘To plagiarize means:-
• to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
• to use (another's production) without crediting the source
• to commit literary theft
• to present as new and original an idea or product derived from
an existing source.

• In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both

stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward. ’

(Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, in ‘What is plagiarism?’.

Available online at: https://www.plagiarism.org/article/what-is-
plagiarism. Sept. 16, 2019.)
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What is plagiarism?
• ‘All of the following are considered plagiarism:
• turning in someone else's work as your own
• copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
• failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
• giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
• changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source
without giving credit
• copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up
the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see
our section on "fair use" rules).’
(Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, in ‘What is plagiarism?’. Available online
at: https://www.plagiarism.org/article/what-is-plagiarism. Sept. 16, 2019.)
• providing a translation of a source without giving credit
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Illustration
• Original sentence from source:
• ‘I do not like green eggs and ham’ (Giesel 1960:12).

Author’s surname Year of publication Page no.

• Reference
Giesel, Theodore Seuss. 1960. Green eggs and ham. New York:
Random House Inc.

• Video
• Azman, Rosiana and Stephen Fox. 2013. Understanding Plagiarism
with Help from Dr. Seuss.
https://www.plagiarism.org/video/understanding-plagiarism-with-help-
from-dr-seuss. (Sept. 18, 2023).
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Types of plagiarism
• The plagiarism spectrum
• https://www.turnitin.com/static/plagiarism-spectrum/

• compiled by turnitin
• automatic plagiarism checker
• link to upload your paper will be found on Moodle
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How should we refer to the sources?

• Talking about sources as you are writing
• In-text citations
• Whenever you use a direct quote or rephrase an idea from another
source, you must include an in-text citation with the author’s surname
and year of publication, e.g.:
a. An idea (directly attributed to the author)
Chan (1996) points out that the nature vs. nurture debate…
b. An idea (indirectly attributed to the author or to multiple authors):
The nature vs. nurture debate is a long-running debate in linguistics
(Chan 1996, Smith & Lee 2007, Kwok et al. 2010) that…
c. A direct quotation:
Chan (1996) points out that ‘the nature vs. nurture debate…’.

• 1 author: A (Yr. of pub.)

• 2 authors: A & B (Yr. of pub.)
• 3 authors: A et al. (Yr. of pub.) NOT A, B and C (Yr. of pub.)
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Reference list
• At the end of you paper, include a section with the
heading ‘References’.
• All sources cited must be listed here, arranged
alphabetically according to the surnames of authors.
• 1 source = 1 entry
• Indent the second line of an entry (if applicable).

• Style: Unified style sheet for linguistics

• Background: https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/unified-
style-sheet
• The style sheet:
https://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/style-
sheet_0.pdf
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Bibliography vs. references

Bibliography References
Sources which you have
read/consulted while writing your Sources which you have cited/
paper, including ones which provide referred to in your work
background information on a topic
e.g. 5 sources
e.g. 10 sources
Longer Shorter
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Unified Style Sheet for Linguistics

• Books
Author’s surname, author’s first (and other) name(s). Year of publication. Title. Place
of publication: Publisher.
Kroeger, Paul R. 2005. Analyzing grammar: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
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• Book chapters
• Some books contain a number of individual papers, written by various authors.
• These collections of papers are edited by editors.
Hole, Daniel. 2012. The information structure of Chinese. In Manfred Krifka &
Renate Musan (eds.), The expression of information structure, 45-70. Berlin:
Walter de Gruyter.
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• Journal articles
Boneh, Nora & Léa Nash. 2017. The syntax and semantics of
dative DPs in Russian ditransitives. Natural Language &
Linguistic Theory 35(4). 899-953.
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• Online materials
Franks, Steven. 2005. Bulgarian clitics are positioned
in the syntax.
http://www.cogs.indiana.edu/people/homepages/franks/
Bg_clitics_remark_dense.pdf (17 May, 2006.)

(Entry from ‘Unified style sheet for linguistics’)

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EndNote
• a very useful software that allows you to manage your
citations easily

• You can use it for free!

Download: https://lib.hku.hk/endnote/download.html

• Library course:
• Managing Citation with EndNote:
https://learning.hku.hk/catalog/course/ilt02/
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References
Dawson, Hope C. & Michael Phelan (eds). 2016. Language files:
Materials for an introduction to language, 12 ed. Columbus: Ohio
State University Press.
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2018. An
introduction to language. Boston: Cengage.
Lieberman, Philip & Sheila E. Blumstein. 1988. Speech physiology,
speech perception, and acoustic phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Yule, George. 2006. The study of language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.