Transcript Chapter 2 Speech Sounds 1. Phonetics 2. Phonology 1. Phonetics 1.1 Speech production and perception 1.2 Speech organs (vocal organs) 1.3 Phonetic transcription 1.4 English speech sounds.

Chapter 2
Speech Sounds
1. Phonetics
2. Phonology
1. Phonetics
1.1 Speech production and perception
1.2 Speech organs (vocal organs)
1.3 Phonetic transcription
1.4 English speech sounds
1.1 Speech production and perception
Speech
Production
(speaker A)
Speech
Perception
(speaker B)
A three-step process of speech sounds
Articulatory phonetics----the study
of the production of speech sounds
From the speaker’s point of
view: how a speaker uses his
speech organs to articulate the
sounds, which results in
articulatory phonetics.
Auditory phonetics----the study of the
perception of speech sounds
From the hearer’s point of view:
how the sounds are perceived by
the hearer, which results in
auditory phonetics.
Acoustic phonetics----the study of the physical
properties of the sounds produced in speech
From the way sounds travel: how sounds
travel by looking at the sound saves, the
physical means by which sounds are
transmitted through the air from one
person to another, which results in
a c o u s t i c
p h o n e t i c s
.
1.2 Speech organs (vocal organs)
• The parts of the human body involved in
the production of speech.
• The three cavities of the vocal tract:
– the pharynx (pharyngeal cavity),
– the mouth (oral cavity),
– the nose (nasal cavity).
• The air- stream coming from the lungs is
modified in various ways in these cavities,
resulting in the production of various
sounds.
The respiratory tract
Organs of speech
A. The pharyngeal
cavity:
13 windpipe, 12
glottis/vocal cords,
11 pharyngeal cavity
B. The oral cavity:
1/2 lips, 3/4 teeth, 5
teeth ridge(alveolus),
6 hard palate,7 soft
palate (velum), 14
uvula, 8 tip of tongue,
9 blade of tongue, 10
back of tongue
C. Nasal cavity: 15
1.3 phonetic transcription
• A method of writing down speech sounds in
a systematic and consistent way.
• 1.3.1 IPA (International phonetic Alphabet)
• 1.3.2 Two ways to transcribe speech sounds
1.3.1 IPA (International phonetic Alphabet)
• IPA: the abbreviation of International Phonetic Alphabet,
which is devised by the International Phonetic
Association in 1888 on the basis of the phonetic
alphabet proposed at the time. It is a standardized and
internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription.
• The Danish grammarian Jespersen first proposed the
idea in 1886.
• The first version of IPA was published in August 1888.
• The latest version was devised in 1993 and corrected in
1996.
• The basic principle: using a separate letter selected
from major European languages for each distinctive
sound and the same symbol should be used for that
sound in any language in which it appears.
1.3.2 Two ways to transcribe speech sounds
• Broad transcription: transcription with lettersymbols only. This is the transcription normally
used in dictionaries and teaching textbooks.
• Narrow transcription: transcription with lettersymbols together with the diacritics. This is the
transcription required and used by the
phoneticians in their study of speech sounds.
• Diacritics: A set of symbols added to the lettersymbols to show that it has a sound value
different from that of the same letter without the
mark.
1.4 English speech sounds
1.4.1 Classification
1.4.2 Description of English
consonants
1.4.3 Description of English
vowels
1.4.1 Classification of English
Speech sounds
A dichotomy of English speech sounds:
1. Vowels: Speech sounds which are produced with no
obstruction whatsoever of the vocal tract, so no
turbulence or a total stopping of the air can be
perceived.
2. Consonants: Speech sounds which are produced by
constricting or obstructing the vocal tract at some
place to divert, impede, or completely shut off the
flow of air in the oral cavity.
1.4.2 Description of English Consonants
• Consonants (P39-44)
• Three parameters to identify a
consonant:
• ①place of articulation: place in the
mouth where obstruction occurs
• ②manners of articulation: ways in
which articulation can be accomplished
• ③state of vocal cords: voiced VS.
voiceless
English consonants
1.4.3 Description of English vowels
• Vowels (P45-52)
• the quality of vowels depend on position of tongue
and the shape of lips.
• Four criteria (parameters) of vowel description:
①the height of tongue raising:
high, middle, low
②the position of highest part of the tongue :
front, central, back
③the shape of the lips (the degree of liprounding ) :
rounded, unrounded
• ④the length or tenseness of the vowel :
tense vs. lax or long vs. short
English vowels
2. Phonology
• 2.1 Phonology and phonetics
• 2.2 Phone, phoneme and allophone
• 2.3 Minimal pairs and complementary
distribution
• 2.4 Distinctive features
• 2.5 Suprasegmental features
2.1 Phonology and phonetics
•Phonetics and phonology are the two disciplines dealing with
speech sounds. While both are related to the study of sounds,
they differ in their approach and focus. Phonetics studies how
speech sounds are made, transmitted and received. Phonology,
on the other hand, is essentially the description of the systems
and patterns of speech sounds. It aims to discover how speech
sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are
used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.
•Phonology is concerned with the abstract and mental
aspect of the sounds in language rather than with the actual
physical articulation of speech sounds.
Phonological knowledge permits a speaker to produce sounds
which form meaningful utterance, to recognize a foreign
accent, to make up new words.
2.2 Phone, phoneme and allophone
• Phone
• Phoneme
• Allophone
Phone
• Phone: the speech sounds we hear and
produce during linguistic communication are
all phones. It’s a phonetic unit or segment.
(in the mouth)
• Conventionally, phones are placed within
square brackets “[ ]”(phonetic transcription)
• Phones do not necessarily distinguish
meaning. Usually phones of different
phonemes distinguish meaning.
Phoneme
• Phoneme: A sound which is capable of distinguishing one
word or one shape of a word from another in a given
language is a phoneme. It’s a basic unit in phonological
analysis. It is not any particular sound, but an abstract
segment. In actual speech, a phoneme is realized
phonetically as a certain phone. (the sound type in the
mind)
• The phoneme is the smallest meaning-distinguishing unit.
• Phonemes are placed in slashes “/ / ” (phonemic
transcription)
• e.g. Neither the sound [p] in pit or the sound [b] in bit is a
phoneme. They are phones; they are the phonetic
realization of the phoneme /p/ and /b/.
Allophone
• Allophone: when we have a set of phones, all of
which are versions of one phoneme, we refer to
them as the allophones of that phoneme.
• One phoneme may have several allophones, but
the choice of an allophone is rule-governed.
2.3 Minimal pairs and
complementary distribution
2.3.1 Minimal pairs
2.3.2 Complementary distribution
2.3.3 Free variation
I’m a pear, not a pair, go to next page
to see what is a minimal pair.
2.3.1 Minimal pairs
• When two different forms are identical in every
way except for one sound segment, which occurs
in the same place in the strings, the two sound
combinations are said to form a minimal pair.
• When two words such as pat and bat are identical
in form except for a contrast in one phoneme,
occurring in the same position, the two words are
described as a minimal pair.
• Minimal pairs are established on the basis of
sound and not spelling.
• Note: Three requirements for a minimal pair
Three requirements for a minimal pair
• Same number of segment
• One phonetic difference in the same place
• Different meaning
– a minimal pair : lit-lip; phone-tone; pill-bill
– a minimal set: beat, bit, bet, boot, but, bite
• The minimal pair test helps establish
which sounds contrast in a language.
2.3.2 Complementary distribution
• Not all speech sounds occur in the same
environment, when the two sounds never
occur in the same environment they are
said to be in complementary distribution.
• Not all phones in complementary
distribution are considered to be allophones
of the same phoneme. They must be
phonetically similar and in complementary
distribution.
2.3.3 Free variation
•
•
A phone may sometimes has free variants.
If two sounds occurring in the same
environment do not contrast, that is, the
substitution of one for the other does not
produce a different word form, but merely a
different pronunciation of the same word,
then the two sounds are in free variation.
2.4 Distinctive features
•
•
The features that a phoneme possesses,
making it different from other phonemes,
are its distinctive features.
Distinctive features are language-specific.
– e.g. “ba” (爸) “pa”(怕)
– In Chinese, these two sounds are
distinguished by aspiration , while in English
they are distinguished by “voicing”
2.5 Suprasegmental features
• The phonemic features that occur
above the level of the segments
– Stress: word stress & sentence stress
– Tone
– Intonation