Phonetics

From Yule, Ch. 3

Orthography
Orthography, or alphabetic spelling, does not represent the
sounds of a language in a consistent way.
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead: its said like bed, not bead
For goodness sake dont call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
T. S.W. quoted in Mackay (1970)

from Finegan

from Finegan

Phonetics
The general study of the
characteristics of speech sounds is
called phonetics.
International Phonetics Alphabet
(IPA)

 Articulatory Ponetics
Acoustic Phonetics
Auditory Phonetics

Phonetic studies: examples

spectogram

Magnetic Resonanc Image (MRI)

http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/files/docs/answered-adoor.swf

Vowels and consonants

Consonants: there is some restriction
or closure in the vocal tract that
impedes the flow of air from the lungs
Vowels: vowels are produced with
little restriction of the airflow from the
lungs out
the mouth and/or the nose.

Consonant sounds are

classified according to these 3
criteria:
Voicing
Place of articulation
Manner of articulation

Voicing
Voiced sounds: If the vocal cords are
together, the airstream forces its way
through and causes them to vibrate
(all vowel sounds are voiced)
Voiceless sounds: when the vocal
cords are apart so that air flows freely
through the glottis into the oral cavity
(some consonant sounds are voiced
and some are voiceless)

Place of articulation

Bilabials: /p/ /b/ /m/ /w/

Labiodentals: /f/ /v/
Dentals: // //
Alveolars: /t/ /d/ /n/ /s/ /z/ /l/ /r/
Palatal: // // /t/ /d/ /j/
Velars: /k/ /g/ //
Glottals: /h/

Manner of articulation

Stops: /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ //

Fricatives: /f/ /v/ // // /s/ /z/ // //
Affricates: // //
Nasals: /m/ /n/ and //
Liquids: /l/ /r/
Glides: /w/ /j/

Vowel sounds
- To describe vowel sounds we
consider the way in which the tongue
influences the shape through which
the airflow must pass.
- Vowel sounds are voiced

Diphthongs
In addition to single vowel sounds, we
regularly create sounds that consist of a
combination of two vowel sounds, known as
diphthongs. When we produce diphthongs,
our vocal organs move from one vocalic
position [a] to another [] as we produce the
sound [a], as in Hi or Bye. The movement in
this diphthong is from low towards high front.
Alternatively, we can use movement from
low towards high back, combining [a] and []
to produce the sound [a], which is the
diphthong repeated in the traditional speech
training exercise [ha na bran ka].

Schwa
In fact, in casual speech, we all use
schwa more than any other single
sound.

[]
Unstressed vowels can be
pronounced as schwa.