Transcript German Linguistics Lectures

German Linguistics Lectures
Lecture 11:
German and the Phonetic Alphabet
Designed by Paul Joyce
University of Portsmouth
E-Mail: [email protected]
11.1 Introduction
• It is important to distinguish between the
way in which a sound is pronounced and
the way it is written.
• The alphabet we use when writing German
and English turns out to be imprecise when
it comes to describing the sounds of the
two languages.
11.2 Similar sounds, different spellings
• Let us examine the following historically
related words:
Vater = German
Father = English
• Whereas the first sound of each word is
spelled differently, their pronunciation is
nonetheless the same.
11.3 Similar spellings, different sounds
• Now consider the two following words:
Sand = German
Sand = English
• This time, the two initial sounds are spelled
the same, but their pronunciation is
different.
• The ‘s’ in the German Sand is pronounced
like the ‘z’ in the English word zoo.
11.4 International Phonetic Alphabet
• The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) can
transcribe any of the world’s languages.
• Thus the same sound at the beginning of Vater
and Father is represented in the IPA by one
phonetic symbol: /f/
• But the initial sounds in Sand and Sand are
represented by two different symbols: /z/
and /s/ respectively.
11.5 Phonemes
• The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is
made up of phonemes.
• A phoneme is defined as “the minimal sound
unit of a language” - or in lay person’s terms
as “a distinctive sound”.
• IPA phonetic symbols that represent
phonemes are usually written in slanted
brackets – e.g. /f/, /z/ and /s/
11.6 The benefits of the IPA
• Being able to read the IPA is enormously
helpful to anyone learning a language.
• Any good German-English dictionary gives not
only translation and grammatical info about a
word, but also its pronunciation.
• Hence Vɛnti’la:to:ɐ shows the different way in
which the word Ventilator is pronounced in
German compared to English!
11.7 The organs of speech
11.8 Describing German consonants
• 3 pieces of information are used to
describe German consonants:
• Place of articulation (where in the vocal
tract the sound is produced)
• Manner of articulation (how the air passes
through the vocal tract)
• Voiced or voiceless?
11.9 Plosives (stops)
• With plosive consonants, the airstream is
stopped as it passes through the vocal
tract.
• This blockage is very brief.
• The built-up air is soon released, causing a
small explosion.
• Try saying the following plosives:
Pein, Bein, können, Tag, Dach
11.10 Bilabial Plosives
• Bilabial sounds involve placing upper and
lower lips together.
• The phoneme /b/ is voiced – i.e. your
vocal cords vibrate when saying Bein or
Ball.
• The phoneme /p/ is unvoiced - i.e. you
don’t use your vocal cords to say Pein or
Papier.
11.11 Alveolar Plosives
• Alveolar sounds are made when the
tongues makes contact with the alveolar
ridge, i.e. the part of the mouth
immediately above the teeth.
• The phoneme /d/ is voiced – i.e. your
vocal cords vibrate when saying dein or
dort.
• The phoneme /t/ is unvoiced - i.e. you
don’t use your vocal cords to say Tisch or
Torte.
11.12 Velar Plosives
• Velar sounds are articulated towards the
back of the vocal tract in the velum or soft
palate.
• The phoneme /g/ is voiced – i.e. your
vocal cords vibrate on saying geht.
• The phoneme /k/ is unvoiced - i.e. you
don’t use your vocal cords to say kaum or
kommt.
11.13 Fricatives
• Fricatives are sounds produced by forcing
air through a narrow gap in the vocal tract
with audible friction.
• Try saying the following fricatives:
• fein, wein, singen, heiß, Schnee
• New for English-speakers: Loch, ich
11.14 Labio-dental Fricatives
• Labio-dental sounds involve the lips and
teeth, creating a slight hiss.
• The phoneme /v/ is voiced – your vocal
cords vibrate on saying Wein, Wagen or
Klavier.
• The phoneme /f/ is unvoiced. You don’t
use your vocal cords to say fein, Affe - and
vier.
11.15 Alveolar Fricatives
• Alveolar sounds have the tip of the tongue just
behind the top teeth.
• The phoneme /z/ is voiced – i.e. your vocal
cords vibrate when saying so, lesen or singen.
• The phoneme /s/ is unvoiced - i.e. you don’t
use your vocal cords to say heiß, muss or
Szene.
• Note the different ways in which these very
different phonemes are spelled in German!
11.16 Palatal-alveolar Fricatives
• Palatal-alveolar sounds find the whole of
the tongue close to or touching the hard
palate.
• The phoneme /ʒ/ is voiced – i.e. your
vocal cords vibrate when saying Genie (or
the French loan word Etage).
• The phoneme /ʃ/ is unvoiced, i.e. you
don’t use your vocal cords to say schön,
Asche or Schnee.
11.17 Palatal Fricatives
• Palatal fricatives are articulated further
back in the mouth than palatal-alveolar
sounds.
• The phoneme /j/ is voiced – i.e. your
vocal cords vibrate on saying ja, Januar, or
even brillant.
• The phoneme /ç/ doesn’t occur in English.
It is the unvoiced sound to be found in
words such as ich, mich, leicht, Früchte
and also in Chemie.
11.18 Velar Fricatives
• Although often spelled “ch”, the phoneme
/x/ is very different to /ç/.
• It is formed towards the back of the vocal
tract in the soft palate and feels similar to
clearing your throat.
• The phoneme /x/ is heard in words such
as Loch, Buch and Lachen.
11.19 Glottal Fricatives
• The glottis is the gap between the vocal
cords.
• The glottal sound /h/ is similar in German
and English and is found in words such as
Haus and Gehalt.
• It is different from the glottal stop that
occurs before German vowels at the
beginning of words or syllables – i.e. twice
in the term ein Ei.
11.20 Affricates
• Affricates are made up of two sounds: a
fricative and a plosive
• There are two German affricates:
• The voiceless phoneme /ts/ is found in
words like zu, Zeit or Tanz.
• This phoneme should not be confused with
/z/!
• The voiceless phoneme /pf/ is found in
Apfel, Pfanne and Pfund.
11.21 Nasal Consonants
• Nasal consonants are produced when the
airstream is expelled via the nasal cavity
and not the oral tract.
• All three German nasals are voiced:
• The phoneme /m/ - mein, immer
• The phoneme /n/ - nein, anders
• The hardest nasal to remember is /ŋ/ Ding, jünger, hängen
11.22 Lateral Consonants
• Lateral consonants are so called because of
the position of the tongue.
• The tongue curls up to touch the alveolar
ridge, letting the air escape laterally.
• The only German lateral is /l/
• It is formed with the front of the tongue
and found in words such as faul, Falle or
viel.
11.23 Rolls or Trills
• Rolls are sounds that are formed when one
of the organs of speech hits another in
quick succession.
• This is key to German /r/ sounds, which
can also be described as voiced uvular
fricatives.
• There are many regional differences in the
formation of this sound that is found in
words such as rot and Straße.
11.24 The phoneme /r/ after vowels
• In the speech of many German speakers,
such words as hier, der, Tür and Wörter
have no friction in the /r/ sound.
• The result is a diphthong whose second
part can be represented as /ɐ/.
• Thus hier represented phonetically would
be /hiɐ/
• der = /deɐ/; Tür = /tyɐ/
• Wörter = /vœɐtɐ/
11.25 Describing German vowels
• Our Roman alphabet is too vague to
describe English and German vowels.
• For example, ‘e’ is pronounced very
differently in the words bed and below.
• The sounds represented by German ‘o’
differ in the words Ofen and Offen.
• Vowel length is a very important factor in
establishing the German vowel phonemes.
11.26 The /ɪ/ and /i/ vowel pair
• The phoneme /ɪ/ represents the short
vowel sound found in ich, Tisch or Mitte.
• The phoneme /i/ represents the long
vowel sound found in the words: viel,
ihnen, labil or Ziel.
• Note the many different ways in which this
long vowel can be written in German.
• The long vowel sound is sometimes written
as /i:/ in dictionaries.
11.27 The /ɛ/ and /e/ vowel pair
• The phoneme /ɛ/ represents the short
vowel sound found in Bett, Ende or Gäste
(note the different spellings of this sound!)
• The phoneme /e/ represents the long
vowel sound found in the words: Regel,
Schnee or Tee.
• The long vowel sound is sometimes written
as /e:/ in dictionaries.
11.28 The /a/ and /ɑ/ vowel pair
• The phoneme /a/ represents the short
vowel sound found in Mann, Apfel or
Hand.
• The phoneme /ɑ/ represents the long
vowel sound found in the words: Abend,
Name or kam.
• The long vowel sound is sometimes written
as /a:/ in dictionaries.
11.29 The /ɔ/ and /o/ vowel pair
• The phoneme /ɔ/ represents the short
vowel sound found in Stock, offen or
Sonne.
• The phoneme /o/ represents the long
vowel sound found in the words: Ofen,
ohne or Sohn.
• The long vowel sound is sometimes written
as /o:/ in dictionaries.
11.30 The /ʊ/ and /u/ vowel pair
• The phoneme /ʊ/ represents the short
vowel sound found in muss, unser or
Mutter.
• The phoneme /u/ represents the long
vowel sound found in the words: Urlaub,
du or gut.
• The long vowel sound is sometimes written
as /u:/ in dictionaries.
11.31 The /ʏ/ and /y/ vowel pair
• The phoneme /ʏ/ represents the short
vowel sound found in füllen or hübsch.
• The phoneme /y/ represents the long
vowel sound found in the words: über,
Bücher or kühl.
• The long vowel sound is sometimes written
as /y:/ in dictionaries.
11.32 The /œ/ and /ø/ vowel pair
• The phoneme /œ/ represents the short
vowel sound found in zwölf, öfters or
können.
• The phoneme /ø/ represents the long
vowel sound found in the words: schön, Öl
or Flöße.
• The long vowel sound is sometimes written
as /ø:/ in dictionaries.
11.33 Quiz: short or long vowels
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ofen
=
füllen =
Bieten =
Stadt =
Betten =
Spuken=
?
?
?
?
?
?
Offen
fühlen
bitten
Staat
beten
spucken
=
=
=
=
=
=
?
?
?
?
?
?
11.34 Answers: short or long vowels
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ofen = /o/ (long) Offen = /ɔ/ (short)
füllen = /ʏ/ (short) fühlen = /y/ (long)
bieten = /i/ (long) bitten = /ɪ/ (short)
Stadt = /a/ (short) Staat = /ɑ/ (long)
Betten = /ɛ/ (short) beten = /e/ (long)
spuken = /u/ (long) spucken = /ʊ/ (short)
11.35 The schwa and ‘dark’ schwa
• Both of these are short vowels.
• The phoneme /ə/ (schwa) depicts the
unstressed neutral vowel sound found in
Gebäude and Liebe.
• The phoneme /ɐ/ (dark schwa) represents
the unstressed vowel sound in the words
Besucher, Wetter or Lieber.
11.36 Diphthongs
• The vowels that we have looked at so far
consists of just one sound.
• They are called monophthongs.
• Diphthongs occur when two vowels merge
to form one.
• lf you say the 2 vowels separately, you find
yourself moving from the first vowel to the
second.
11.37 Diphthongs
• There are three German diphthongs
• The phoneme /aɪ/ appears in words such
as ein, klein or mein.
• /aʊ/ is found in auf or blau.
• The phoneme /ɔɪ/ appears in words such
as neu, deutsch, Geräusch and läuft.
• (The vowels in Schnee and Tee are not
therefore diphthongs, but the long vowel
phoneme /e/)