PHONOLOGY AND

PHONETICS
 PHONOLOGY
Here are a number of definitions of phonology coming from language experts:
1. It is a careful examination of linguistic rules governing the sounds system of a language,
including speech sounds, speech sounds production, and the combination of sounds in
meaningful utterances.
2. It is the study of the sound system of a language and the differences of system from one
language to another.( M.Crabtres and J.Powers, 1991)
3. It describes the systematic speech habits of the speakers of one given language.(Gillian
Brown, 1975)
4. It studies syllable structure, stress, accent, and intonation.
5. It describes how sounds functions within a given language or across language
 PHONETICS
• It refers to the specific branch of linguistics that
delves into individual speech sounds including
their production and their representation by
written symbols.
• The actions of the speech organs in producing
speech sounds is called ARTICULATION.
Three Types of Phonetics
• 1. Articulary Phonetics- the study of the production of speech
sounds, it describes the structure and function of the speech
organs in producing sounds.
• 2. Acoustic Phonetics- the magnitude or extent of the effects
produced by thr speech organs on the transmitting medium, the air.
• 3. Auditory Phonetics- the description of perception of the effects
produced by speech sounds upon the ear and its associated
structure.
The
Organs of
Speech
The Place of Articulations
• Bilabial

The articulators are the two lips. (We could say that the lower lip is the active
articulator and the upper lip the passive articulator). Bilabial consonants occur
when the airflow is blocked / constricted out of the mouth by bringing the lips
together. English contains the following three bilabial consonants:

/p/ as in “purse” and “rap“

/b/ as in “back” and “cab“

/m/ as in “mad” and “clam“

Labio- Dental
The lower lip is the active articulator and the upper teeth are the passive
articulator. Labio-dental consonants occur when airflow is blocked /
constricted by curling the lower lip back and raising it to touch the upper
row of teeth. English contains the following two labio-dental sounds:

/f/ as in “fro” and “calf“

/v/ as in “vine” and “have”

Dental
Dental sounds involve the upper teeth as the passive articulator. Dental
consonants occur when airflow is blocked / constricted by placing the
slimy tongue against the upper teeth. English contains the following two
labio-dental sounds:

/θ/ as is “thick” and “bath“

/ð/ as in “the” and “rather”

Alveolar
• Alveolar sounds involve the alveolar ridge as the passive articulator. Alveolar ridge is the place where teeth meet the
gums .The active articulator may be either the tongue blade or (usually) the tongue tip. When tongue is raised to the alveolar
ridge to block or constrict airflow alveolar consonants are produced. The English alveolar consonants are as follows:

• /n/ as in “no” and “man“

• /t/ as in “tab” and “rat“

• /d/ as in “dip” and “bad“

• /s/ as in “suit” and “bus“

• /z/ as in “zit” and “jazz“

• /l/ as in “luck” and “fully”

Post Alveolar
• Post-alveolar sounds involve the area just behind the alveolar ridge as the passive articulator. The active
articulator may be either the tongue tip or (usually) the tongue blade. When the tongue is retracted back just a bit
from the alveolar ridge, the sounds change enough to be recognized as distinct consonants. So post-alveolar
consonants are those that occur when the tongue blocks or constricts airflow at the point just beyond the alveolar
ridge. The post-alveolar English consonants are as follows:

• /ʃ/ as in “shot” or “brash”

• /ʒ/ as in “vision” or “measure”

• /tʃ/ as in “chick” or “match”

• /dʒ/ as in “jam” or “badge“

Palatal
• The active articulator is the tongue body and the passive articulator is
the hard palate. The roof of your mouth is the hard palate. Palatal
consonants are created when the tongue is raised to this point and
constrict airflow. English has only one palatal consonant:

/j/ as in “yes” and “bayou”

Velar
• The active articulator is the tongue body and the passive articulator is the soft palate.
Behind the hard palate there is velum or soft palate. When the back of tongue is raise to
the velum to block or restrict airflow, velar consonants are produced. English has the
following velar consonants:

• /ŋ/ as in “going” and “uncle” (note that the ‘n sound’ in these words is NOT made at
the alveolar ridge, which is why it is distinct from /n/).

• /k/ as in “kite” and “back“

• /g/ as in “good” and “bug“

Glottal
• This isn't strictly a place of articulation, but they had to put it in the chart somewhere. Glottal
sounds are made in the larynx. The glottis is actually two vocal folds (i.e. vocal cords). It acts
as a sort of bottle cap to our windpipe. If we inhale and then hold the breath for a few seconds
while keeping the mouth open, what actually we are doing is to keep the air from expelling
out of our lungs by closing our glottis. For the glottal stop, the vocal cords close momentarily
and cut off all airflow through the vocal tract.). In English, the following things happen at the
glottis:

• /h/ as in “hi” and “Bahamas.” While saying these words we notice that we are not actually
constricting or blocking airflow for this /h/ sound. We are just exhaling a little bit harder than
you would for a normal vowel sound in transition to the following vowel sound. 
Organs of Speech
• 1. Larynx- it contains the vocal sounds
• 2. Lips- they make the motion of speech visible
• 3. Pharynx- like the larynx, it can produce the closure to block the passage
of air.
• 4. Vocal cords- they produce the vibration to cause voicing or voicelessness
• 5. Oral cavity- the place where the greatest variety of articulatory motion
occurs.
• 6. Lungs- they push the air outward
• 7. Velic- It refers to the entrance from the upper part of the pharynx into the
nasal cavity.
Contoid Articulations
• Contoids are describes through various articulators which are along
the lower margin of the oral cavity and various points of
articulations which are along the upper margin.
• Articulator is a vocal organ that takes part in the production of a speech
sound. Such organs are of two types: those that can move, such as the
tongue, lips, etc. (active articulators), and those that remain fixed, such as
the teeth, the hard palate, etc. (passive articulators). The active articulator
usually moves in order to make the constriction. The passive articulator
usually just sits there and gets approached.
Vocoid Articulations
• There are 3 factors that described most of the vocoid articulations
namely
• 1. lip position
• 2. tongue height
• 3. tongue- advancement
Distinctions between Phonetics and Phonemics
What is IPA?

•I- INTERNATIONAL
•P- Phonetic
•A- Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet ( IPA)
• --The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based
primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late
19th century as a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language.[1] The IPA is used
by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech-language pathologists,
singers, actors, constructed language creators and translators.
• The IPA is designed to represent those qualities of speech that are part of lexical (and to a limited
extent prosodic) sounds in oral language: phones, phonemes, intonation and the separation of
words and syllables.[1] To represent additional qualities of speech, such as tooth gnashing, lisping,
and sounds made with a cleft lip and cleft palate, an extended set of symbols, the extensions to the
International Phonetic Alphabet, may be used.
SYMBOLS and TRANSCRIPTIONS
• Symbols have 2 purposes in phonology, they are either
symbols for phonemes---phonrmic or phoneme symbols or
they have phonetic symbols. Phoneme symbols are consist of
two characters , for example, we usually treat ꜩ (as 'chip'
ꜩxp)as one phoneme, so t is a phoneme symbol consisting of
two characters (t and
Types of transcriptions
• 1. Phonemic Transcriptions
• a. Transcriptions from dictation- transcriptions from dictated pieces of
information. Like , students take down data, ideas or concepts from the
person they listen to or from a tape - recording.
• b. Transcription from a written text- these are thoughts , words or phrases
written in conventional spelling and transcribe using the phonemic symbols
like IPA. Ex.; a student is given a passage of dialogue written in orthography
and must use phonemic symbol to represents how he/she thinks it would be
pronounced by a speaker of a particular accent.
2. Phonetic Transcriptions

A transcription that is more accurate than phonemic transction and

contains more detailed information about the sound system of a
language than a phonemic transcription
3. Narrow Phonetic Transcription
- it contains a lot of information about the exact quality of the sounds.
4. Broad phonetic transcription
- it includes only a little more information than a phonemic transcription