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Speech Sounds
As human beings we are capable of making
all kinds of sounds, but only some of these
sounds have become units in the language
system.
We can analyze speech sounds from various
perspectives and the two major areas of
study are phonetics and phonology.
Phonetics studies how speech sounds are
produced, transmitted, and perceived.
Articulatory Phonetics is the study of the
production of speech sounds.
Acoustic Phonetics is the study of the
physical properties of speech sounds.
Perceptual or Auditory Phonetics is
concerned with the perception of speech
sounds.
Phonology is the study of the sound patterns
and sound systems of languages.
It aims to ‘discover the principles that govern the
way sounds are organized in languages, and to
explain the variations that occur’.
In phonology we normally begin by analyzing an
individual language, say English, in order to
determine its phonological structure, i.e. which
sound units are used and how they are put together.
Then we compare the properties of sound systems
in different languages in order to make hypotheses
about the rules that underlie the use of sounds in
them, and ultimately we aim to discover the rules
that underlie the sound patterns of all languages.
1. How speech
sounds are
made
Black: IPA
Red: English
The problematic area is that the initial
sound in hot gives little turbulence,
depending on how forcefully it is said, and
in yet and wet the initial segments are
obviously vowels.
To get out of this problem, the usual solution is
to say that these segments are neither vowels
nor consonants but midway between the two
categories. For this purpose, the term ‘semi-
vowel’ is often used.
Languages also frequently make use of a
distinction between vowels where the quality
remains constant throughout the
articulation and those where there is an
audible change of quality.
The former are known as pure or monophthong
vowels and the latter, vowel glides.
If a single movement of the tongue is
involved, the glides are called diphthongs.
A double movement produces a triphthong,
which is ‘a glide from one vowel to another
and then to a third, all produced rapidly and
without interruption’.
They are really diphthongs followed by the
schwa [ə], found in English words like wire
[waɪə] and tower [taʊə].
2.3 The sounds of English
Received Pronunciation (RP)
General American (GA)
English consonants
The consonants of English can be described
in the following manner:
[p] voiceless bilabial stop
[b] voiced bilabial stop
Nasalization rule:
[-nasal] [+nasal] / ____ [+nasal]
Dentalization rule:
[-dental] [dental] / ____ [dental]
Velarization rule:
[-velar] [+velar] / ____ [+velar]
4.2 Epenthesis, rule ordering and
the Elsewhere Condition
a hotel, a boy, a use, a wagon, a big man, a
yellow rug, a white house
an apple, an honor, an orange curtain, an old
lady
Epenthesis (Insertion) Rule:
Plurals in English
a. The [] appears after voiceless sounds.
b. The [] appears after voiced sounds.
c. The [] appears after sibilants.
Onset Rime
Nucleus Coda
k r æ k t
Open syllable: bar, tie
Closed syllable: bard, tied
coMMUNal COMMunal
forMIDable FORmidable
conTROVersy CONtroversy
RP vs. GA
RP GA
laBORatory LABoratory
DEBris deBRIS
GARage gaRAGE
V vs. N
Verb Noun
conVICT CONvict
inSULT INsult
proDUCE PROduce
reBEL REbel
Compound vs. Phrase
Compound Phrase
epiphenomenal
unsatisfactory
discrimination
standardization
communication
industrialization
Sentence Stress
John bought a red car.
JOHN bought a red car.
John BOUGHT a red car.
John bought a RED car.
John bought a red CAR.
5.3 Intonation
Intonation involves the occurrence of
recurring fall-rise patterns, each of which is
used with a set of relatively consistent
meanings, either on single words or on
groups of words of varying length.
For example, the fall-rise tone in English
typically involves the meaning of a contrast
within a limited set of items stated explicitly or
implicitly.
(Isn’t her name Mary?) No / Jenny
The old man didn’t come / whereas the
young man / did come and actually enjoyed
himself
I didn’t do it
5.4 Tone
Putonghua [pa]
Chinese Tone Tone Tone
Pinyin Gloss
character symbol number description