2. What is Phonetics?
• Phonetics is the study of speech sounds.
> Articulatory phonetics – how speech sounds are
produced
> Acoustic phonetics – the transmission and
physical properties of speech sounds
> Auditory phonetics – perception of speech sounds
• Phonetic transcriptions – one sound = one
symbol.
3. Consonants
• The descriptions of the sounds we call
consonants are based on the human articulatory
system (lungs to pump air in and out, vocal
folds, oral cavity including tongue and lips, and
nasal cavity).
• Consonants are described using 3
characteristics:
▫ vocal quality (voiced/voiceless)
▫ point of articulation
▫ manner of articulation
6. Vowels
• Place of articulation, manner of articulation and
voicing are not useful when trying to describe
vowels.
• Vowels are all made in the mouth (place), with
little or no air flow constriction (manner) and
are always voiced in English
• So the system that describes vowels does so in
terms 4 characteristics:
▫ tongue placement
▫ tongue height
▫ lip rounding
▫ tenseness.
7. Supersegementals
• Length
▫ High vowels shorter than low vowels
▫ Voiceless consonants longer than voiced consonants
▫ Voiceless fricatives longest
▫ Length is influenced by the surrounding sounds
• Tone
▫ Can change meaning in some languages (like Chinese)
• Stress
▫ Stressed syllables more prominent than unstressed ones
▫ Stressed syllables usually contain tense vowels
▫ Stressed syllables are often longer
▫ Unstressed syllables reduce vowel
• Intonation
▫ Rising and falling intonation can change meaning
8. What is Phonology
• Phonology is how speech sounds are organized
and affect one another in pronunciation.
• Key terms:
▫ Phone – sound that is actually heard [ ]
▫ Phoneme – more theoretical (idea) of a sound / /
▫ Allophone – nondistinctive realization of the same
phoneme
• This organization is explained in phonological
rules
9. Different Types of Phonological Variation
• Overlapping Distribution – different sound
in same environment (ex. /thap/ vs. /phat/).
• Contrastive distribution – changing sound
changes meaning (ex. /mæn/ vs./mɪn/).
• Complementary distribution – sounds in a
language never found in the same phonetic
environment (ex. /thap/ vs. /path/*).
• Free variation – two sounds that occur in
overlapping environments but doesn’t change
meaning (ex. /ɪnpʊt/ vs. / ɪmpʊt /).
10. Phonemic Rules
• Aspiration Rule: Voiceless stops are aspirated at the
beginning of a stressed syllable.
• Liquid/Glide Devoicing: Liquids/Glides become
voiceless when they follow a voiceless stop, fricative, or
affricate.
• Vowel Lengthening: Vowels are lengthened when they
come before a voiced consonant.
• Flapping: When a /t/ or /d/ is preceded by a vowel and
followed by a vowel, it becomes flapped (ex.
bitter, butter, batter, ladder, letter, beauty, beautiful).
11. Phonological Rules
• Assimilation – becomes like the neighboring
sound (ex. hippo)
▫ Palatization (ex. Don’t you, Won’t you)
▫ r coloring (ex. fur, bird, party) often seen as /ɚ/or/ɝ/
▫ Nasal coloring
• Dissimilation (ex. fifth, sixth)
• Insertion (ex. dance, strength, hamster)
• Deletion (ex. chocolate, interesting)
