Introduction to Language 2011 Fall

1. Phonetics Introduction to Language 2011 Fall

2. Objectives: • Explore the relationship between sound and spelling • Become familiar with International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA ) • Understand the nature of consonants and vowels • Learn where particular sounds occur (physical aspects of the human vocal tract) • How sounds change when different sounds surround them • Yule: Chapter 3, The Sounds of Language

3. Phonetics • Acoustic phonetics – the physical properties of speech as sound waves in the air • Auditory phonetics – the study of the perception of speech sounds, via the ear • Articulatory phonetics – the study of how speech sounds are made, or ‘articulated’

4. Imagine a word spelled as SEAGH But pronounced as CHEF? How would one come to this spelling? sure dead laugh

5. Describing Language Sounds • The sounds of spoken English often do not match up with the letters of written English. • One solution to describe the sounds of a language is to produce a separate alphabet with symbols that represent sound  phonetic alphabet • These symbols represent both the consonant and vowel sounds of language

6. A “Good” Phonetic Alphabet: Characteristics 1. Each symbol should represent only one sound (phone) • e.g. <c>: [k] in cat and [s] in cymbal 2. If 2 sounds can distinguish one word from another, they should be represented by different symbols • e.g. <th>: they vs. thigh Good phonetic transcription  unambiguously convey the important aspects of the pronunciation of a given set of sounds, using a written system of symbols.

7. The English Alphabet • The English alphabet has 26 letters but there are over 40 different speech sounds: • 5 vowel and 21 consonant letters of the alphabet • About 20 vowel sounds and 24 consonant sounds (depending on dialect)

8. A “Good” Phonetic Alphabet: Not English • Same sound spelled using different letters: sea, see, scene, receive, thief, amoeba, machine • Same letters can stand for different sounds: - sign, pleasure, resign - dough, through, rough, cough, fought, drought

9. A “Good” Phonetic Alphabet: Not English • Single sound spelled by a combination of letters: lock, that, book • Single letter represents a combination of sounds: exit, use • Sometimes letters stand for no sound at all: know, doubt, though

10. Vowels: • Vowels are speech sounds, which are produced freely without any obstruction to the free passage of air either in the vocal track or in the nasal passage. The 20 vowels are classified as pure vowels (12) and diphthongs (8)

14. Consonants: • Consonants are a set of speech sounds that are produced with some kind of obstruction (total or partial) of the air stream coming to the mouth through the windpipe from the lungs. There are 24 consonants in the English language.

18. Diphthongs: • A diphthongs is a glide from one vowel to another vowel the whole thing acting as one vowel without a break.

20. blood /blʌd/ • but /bʌt/ • money /ˈmʌni/ • feature /ˈfitʃər/ • teacher /ˈtitʃər/ • culture /ˈkʌltʃər/ • children/ˈtʃɪldrən/ • cheap /tʃip/ • ship /ʃɪp/

21. chop  • shop • God • good  • wand  • won • wonder   • wander  • Literature

22. chop /tʃɒp/ • shop /ʃɒp/ • God/gɒd/ • good /gʊd/ • wand /wɒnd/ • won /wʌn/ • wonder  /ˈwʌndər/ • wander /ˈwɒndər/ • Literature /ˈlɪtərətʃər/