Free education

1. Phonetics:
The Sounds of Language
CONSONANT SOUNDS

2. Three ways of approaching phonetics:
 Articulatory Phonetics:
 Physiological mechanism of speech production.
 Acoustic Phonetics:
 The physical properties of sound waves.
 Auditory Phonetics:
 Perception of the sounds by the brain.

3. Phonetics of languages
 You can make a lot of noises with your
mouth, but only some of these are used in
speech.
 Almost every language uses a different set of
these possible sounds.
 We will mostly focus on English sounds for
now.

4. Tomato or Tomahto?
 http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&r
lz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS244&q=gershwin+let%2
7s+call+the+whole+thing+off&um=1&ie=UTF
-8&ei=lv-aSqeSD82pnAfu-
6WWCA&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=tit
le&resnum=4#q=+let%27s+call+the+whole+t
hing+off&hl=en&emb=0

5. Differences in pronunciation
 Tomato/Tomahto
 Do you say pin/pen in the same way?
 Do you say push or poosh?
 How do you say ‘car’? How about ‘dawn’?

6.  How do you best symbolize the different
pronunciation?
 There are lots of conventions used. (see p.
41)
 How well does the English alphabet
represent sounds?

7. 5 problems with English spelling
 The same sound can be represented by different letters: sea, see, scene,
receive, thief, ameoba, machine
 One letter can represent several different sounds: fish, light; chart,
character
 Two sounds may be represented by a single letter: I; use; judge
 Two letters may be used to indicate a single sound: ship, three, leisure,
enough
 Some letters represent no sound at all: base, knight, psychology

8. International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
 The IPA is consistent, unambiguous, and
there is always a one-to-one sound to symbol
correspondence.
 IPA has been developing since 1888
 These symbols can be used to transcribe the
sounds of any language.
 The system represents each sound of human
speech with a single symbol.
 The symbol is enclosed in brackets [ ].

9. IPA, continued
 IPA website http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ipa/ipachart.html
 To use a symbol to describe what someone says, we put
the symbols in square brackets “[ ]”.
 You will need to be able to:
 identify the number of sounds in a word
 transcribe English words using IPA
 translate from IPA into English spelling
 See page 43 for examples of symbols

10. Articulation of sound
 Articulation is the motion or positioning of
some part of the vocal tract with respect to
some other vocal tract surface in the
production of a speech sound
 English uses a pulmonic (=lung) egressive
(=blowing out) air stream mechanism.
 Vowels are usually the nucleus of the syllable
and consonants are usually the onset (start)
or coda (end) of the syllable.

12.  To describe articulation for consonants:
 Is the sound voiced or voiceless? (action of the
vocal folds)
 Where is the airstream constricted? (place of
articulation)
 How is the airstream constricted? (manner of
articulation)
 Descriptions are in the order of
Voicing+Place+Manner

16. Places of Articulation
 Bilabial  [p], [b], [m]
 Labiodental 
 Interdental 
 Alveolar  [t], [d], [s], [z], [ ], [r], [n]
[ ], [ ]
[f], [v]

17. Places of Articulation
 Palatal  [ ], [ ], [t ], [d ], [ ]
 Velar 
 Glottal  [h]
[k], [g], [N], [w]

18. Places of
Articulation

20. Manner of Articulation
 Plosive (Stop): Complete and momentary
closure of airflow through the vocal tract.
 [p], [t], [k], [b], [d], [g]
 Nasal: The airflow passes through the nasal
passages.
 [n], [m], [ ]
 Fricative: Continuous airflow through the mouth.
 [f], [ ], [s], [ ], [h], [v], [ ], [z], [ ]

21. Manner of Articulation
 Affricate: The stop articulation is released and
the tongue moves rapidly away.
 [t ], [d ]
 Liquid: Air escapes through the mouth along the
lowered sides of the tongue.
 [ ], [r]
 Glide: semi-consonants.
 [ j ], [w]

22. The consonant chart
 See page 53 for the consonant chart

23. Some practice
1) Voiced bilabial stop
2) Voiceless labiodental fricative
3) Voiced bilabial nasal
4) Voiceless velar stop
5) Describe [n]
6) Describe [w]
7) Describe [g]
8) Describe [m]