Transcript Phonetics - Bases Produced Home
Phonetics October 8, 2010
Housekeeping
• Morphology homeworks are due!
• Also: I will be gone next week… • Danica will be taking over the reins.
Allomorphy
• What’s going on here?
/in-/ + probable = /in-/ + mobile =
im im
probable mobile /in-/ + possible =
im
possible • /in-/ changes to /im-/ before both /p/ and /m/.
• /p/ and /m/ are both produced with the lips.
To explain patterns like this, we’re going to need to know something about how we actually produce the sounds of English.
We have to study
Phonetics
!
What is phonetics?
Phonetics is the scientific study of speech sounds. It consists of three main sub-fields: Articulatory phonetics = how speech sounds are produced Acoustic phonetics = how speech sounds are transmitted from producer to perceiver Perceptual phonetics = how speech sounds are perceived
Phonetic Transcription
The primary tool of phonetic science is
phonetic transcription
.
The basic idea: represent speech as a sequence of
segments
i.e., with an alphabet.
Segments = individual consonants and vowels.
.
Deep thought questions: What kind of alphabet should we use?
How about the English alphabet?
The Trouble with English
• Some letters represent more than one different sound c: re
c
all vs.
re
c
eive g:
g
ear vs. sie
g
e • Some letters represent no sounds at all receiv
e
us
e
hi
gh k
nee • Sometimes two letters represent just one sound reca
ll ph
onetics • Some letters represent two or more sounds at once ta
x u
se • The same sound can be represented by many different letters (or letter combinations).
sh:
sh
y, mi
ssi
on, ma
ch
ine, spe
ci
al, cau
ti
on
Phonetic Alphabet
• Solution: use a phonetic alphabet • In a phonetic alphabet, sounds and symbols have a
one to-one
relationship to each other • Each symbol represents one sound • Each sound is represented by one symbol • The use of a phonetic alphabet to represent speech is called
phonetic transcription
.
• Our phonetic alphabet of choice: • The
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
.
The IPA
Presided over by the International Phonetic Association Created in 1886 Still active and evolving today.
IPA Principles
1. The use of a symbol in a transcription is essentially a claim that the speaker produced a certain combination of
articulatory gestures
.
2. “There should be a separate letter for each distinctive sound; that is, for each sound which, being used instead of another, in the same language, can change the meaning of the word.” • one letter one sound • Sound contrasts can be shown to exist in a language by finding
minimal pairs
.
Minimal Pairs
• A minimal pair consists of: • two words that have different meanings • which differ from each other in only one sound.
• Some minimal pairs in English:
p
it vs.
b
it ~ /p/ vs. /b/ bee
t
vs. bea
d
~ /t/ vs. /d/ b
oa
t vs. b
oo
t ~ /o/ vs. /u/ • A series of minimal pairs is called a
minimal set
.
•
t
ee ~
b
ee ~
k
ey ~
s
ea ~
f
ee …
More IPA Principles
3. The alphabet should consist as much as possible of the ordinary letters of the Roman alphabet.
4. In assigning values to the Roman letters, international usage should decide.
• ex: vowel in English “bee” is transcribed with [i] 5. When any sound is found in several languages, the same sign should be used in all. This applies to very similar shades of sound.
• ex: French [u] = English [u] = Korean [u]
Caveats
The IPA is not perfect.
It is a useful tool for representing speech as a sequence of segments.
Phonetic transcription is an inexact science.
Impressionistic “I think the speaker said this” Important: speech perception is molded by your native language background.
Production, too!
Mechanical analysis can come in handy
Phonetic Reality
Here is an
acoustic waveform
of a sample of speech: Where were you a year ago?
In the physical world, speech lacks the discreteness and strict sequentiality of alphabetic representations.
Phonetic transcriptions of speech are
always
abstract
The Problem of Abstractness
How abstract should a phonetic transcription be?
The IPA solution: only capture contrastive differences between sounds.
Contrast: Non-contrast:
b
it vs. vs.
p
it • How about “Don” and “Dawn”?
• Here’s the catch: • The IPA must be able to represent all the contrasts between sounds that are found in language.
• …including some which we cannot easily hear.
Technical Terms
• A
phone
is any sound that is used in speech.
• (may or may not be contrastive) • A
phoneme
is a contrastive sound in a language • It may be used to distinguish between words in minimal pairs.
• An
allophone
is a phonetic variant of a phoneme • Different allophones often occur in specific contexts.
• Note: analogy with allomorphs.
Phonemic Analysis
• Phoneme: /t/ (aspirated) (unaspirated) “flap” Allophone 5: ‘bi
t
’ “glottal stop” (unreleased) • In our native language, we tend to hear the phonemes that the allophones belong to… • Rather than the allophones themselves.
Broad and Narrow
Broad transcriptions • Represent only contrastive sounds (
phonemes
) • Enclosed in slashes: / / • Generally use only alphabetic symbols • Narrow transcriptions • Represent
phones
• Capture as much phonetic detail as possible • Enclosed in brackets: [ ] • Can require use of diacritics
English Phonemes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Familiar IPA symbols, same sound: [p] ‘ [b] ‘ [t] ‘ [d] ‘ [k] ‘
t p b
ot’
d k
ot’ ought’ ot’ it’ 6.
[g] ‘
g
ot’ 7. [r] ‘
r
ot’ 8. [f] ‘
f
ought’ 9. [v] ‘
v
ote’ 10. [s] ‘
s
ot’ 11. [z] ‘
z
it’ 12. [m] ‘
m
a’ 13. [n] ‘
n
ot’ 14. [l] ‘
l
ot’ 15. [w] ‘
w
alk’ 16. [h] ‘
h
ot’
English Phonemes
Familiar IPA symbols, different sounds: 17. [j] 18. [i] ‘
y
acht’ ‘h
ee
d’ 19. [e] ([ej]) 20. 22. [u] ‘h
ay
ed’ ‘h
o
d’ 21. [o] ([ow]) ‘b
o
de’ ‘wh
o’
d’
“yod”
([ej] = a “diphthong”) ([ow] = a “diphthong”) • A
diphthong
is a phoneme that combines two phones.
English Phonemes
Unfamiliar IPA symbols, for consonants: 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. ‘
th
ought’ ‘
th
ough’ ‘
sh
ot’ ‘vi
si
on’ ‘ri
ng
’
“theta” “edh” “esh” “ezh” “engma”
28. 29. ‘
ch
op’ ‘
j
ot’