Functional vs formal

1. Functional vs formal

2. Phonetics Language & Mind Summer 2011

3. Fundamental properties • The Speech Chain (Denes & Pinson ‘73) • Brain  thought: encoded in language • Message sent through nerves to vocal apparatus • Muscles & organs are positioned and set in motion • Sound is produced • Sound is converted into electrical signals • Signals travel along auditory nerves to brain • Impulses are decoded = thought • (final 3 = feedback loop) • (middle 3 = articulatory, acoustic & auditory)

4. Phones (reasonable approximations) • The sounds of human languages. • Based on notion that we can isolate various (aspects of) sounds of our language and influenced by our writing systems which exemplify/ substantiate such an inclination. • However, NB evidence from spectography. • Likewise, note practicality of representation of sound for study (as well as for communication).

6. Vocal Tract • Lungs - egressive/ingressive pulmonic airstream; latter is rare (cf. Scand) • Larynx – vocal folds(cords); +/-voice distinction • Oral cavity - majority of sound modification takes place here via tongue, lips, & jaw • Nasal cavity – used by lowering velum/soft palate;

8. Types of phones • Consonants: • Described relative to where the airstream is impeded • a) places of articulation (across top row) • b) manner of articulation (down first column) • Also note +/- voice

10. Consonants: places of artic. • Labial (lips) • Bilabial (m,b,p); labio-dental (f,v) • Dental (tongue to upper teeth) • <th> • Alveolar (front of tongue to ridge behind teeth) • (t,d,n,r,s,z,l) • Palatal (large hard region of roof of mouth) • Alveo-palatal (cf. jungle, child,shield) • Velar (behind hard palate: soft palate/velum) • (k,g, <ng>)

11. … places of articulation • Uvular (appendage hanging down at the back of the velum) • Rare: cf. Parisian uvular trill • Pharyngeal (the chamber behind the back of the tongue above the larynx) • Made by pulling root of tongue back to narrow pharynx: cf. Arabic, Danish • Glottal (constriction of glottis/opening between vocal folds • Cf. ‘hot’ & Cockney dialect of London

12. 7 manners of articulation • Stops, nasals, fricatives, affricates, laterals, rhotics, & glides.

14. Manners of articulation • Stops (‘plosives’) • Has complete closure or blockage of airstream • E.g. p,b,t,d,k,g • English stops may have aspiration; they may be released or unreleased. • Nasals • Made by lowering velum and thus permit air to flow through the nose • E.g. m,n, ‘ng’ • Fricatives • Incomplete closure • Point of friction – from glottis to lips • E.g. f,v,s,z,’sh’, ‘zh’, ‘th’, h

15. Affricates • Combines a stop & a fricative • E.g. ‘ch’ & ‘dj’ (like church & jungle) • Laterals • Sides of tongue are lowered at point of articulation & air passes on both sides of central closure • E.g. l • Rhotics • Used for a variety of ‘r-like’ sounds: • Tap/flap (Scots,Jp), trills (Sp <apical> & Fr/Ger <uvular>) approximants (most English dialects) • Glides (semi-vowel = has least constriction) • One articulator glides toward another • E.g. j & w

19. Vowels of S.A.E.

20. Vowels • Made w/o interruption to passage of air • Use vocal tract as resonating chamber for an airstream vibrating from the action of the vocal folds • Cavities above the glottis act like the chamber of a wind instrument • Described by tongue’s position: high, mid, low; front, central, back; & lips’ roundedness • Nasal vowels when velum is lowered (‘man’)

21. More features • Airstream mechanisms • Glottalic: with vocal folds closed and raising the larynx (ejectives) or lowering it (implosives) • Velaric: made by forming a closure b/w the tip of the tongue & the alveolar ridge and the back of the tongue & the velum – the tongue is then drawn downward and the contact between the tongue and alveolar ridge is released (‘tsk, tsk’ or kiss, i.e. clicks)

22. More features • Coarticulation • Diphthongs • Syllables

23. Prosodies (suprasegmentals): dispersed phonetic properties • Pitch – frequency of vibration of vocal folds • Tone - distinguishes between words (Chin, Viet.) • Intonation – modulates meaning, e.g. re: grammatical structure and speaker’s emotions • Stress – increase of lung energy gives: • greater intensity, loudness, & often a higher pitch • N/V (e.g. present, conduct, produce…) • unstressed syllables often become ‘schwa’

24. Phonology • Number of phones in English is infinite. • Most differences are imperceptible. • some differences we ignore • Phonology = those differences that we ignore. • how some sounds pattern together • investigates the sound differences that are linguistically relevant in a language

25. Phonemes & Allophones • Cf. the bilabial stops in ban, pan, & span • Each of the three are phonetically different. • However, we (Eng speakers) think of the second 2 as ‘the same’ • Speakers of e.g. Nyulnyulan see all 3 as ‘the same’ • Speakers of e.g. Thai see them as different We cannot get a new word by substituting the [p] in pan for that in span. The aspiration in pan is not ‘different enough’ to change the meaning in span.

26. Phonemes & Allophones • The [p] sound in pan, span & nap all differ phonetically (the last being ‘unreleased’) • There is no meaningful difference if we substitute one for the other; they are non-contrastive • In English, the three [p] phones (sounds) are allophones, belonging the to phoneme /p/ • In Thai, the first two p sounds are separate phonemes: if you say one instead of the other, you get a different word

27. phonEMIC vs. phonETIC • Emic - Eticdistinction has been taken up by anthropologists and by others in the social and behavioral sciences to refer to two different kinds of data concerning human behavior. • In particular, they are used in cultural anthropology to refer to kinds of fieldwork done and viewpoints obtained.

28. Emic • a description of behavior or a belief in terms meaningful (consciously or unconsciously) to the actor • i.e., an emicaccount comes from a person within the culture. Almost anything from within a culture can provide an emic account.

29. Etic • An etic account is a description of a behavior or belief by an observer, in terms that can be applied to other cultures; • i.e. an etic account is 'culturally neutral‘ and thus considered ‘universal’ (just like the IPA phones, which is the study of phonetics)

30. Noncontrastiveness • Allophones never contrast – that’s what it means • Although the t sound in tab, stab & bat are phonetically different, you can’t get a new word by replacing one t for another. • Why? 2 reasons: • Free variation: e.g. English rhotic (r sound) • Complementary distribution: cf. span-pan, sip-sin

31. A phoneme’s allophones • The various phonetic realizations (i.e. the individual sonic substances) of a phoneme are its allophones. • Some of these allophones are conditioned by their surrounding phonetic environment. • E.g. /m/ (is realized as a labio-dental before a labio-fricative dental) & /g/ (is advanced, or labialized, or unreleased in various contexts)

32. Identifying phones • 1. Look for suspicious pairs • Phonetically similar phones • 2. Examine their distribution: • A. See if the contrast (occur in same environment) • If so, they are separate phonemes like /p/ & /b/ in English • B. See if they are in complementary distribution • Like the allophones of /p/ (e.g. aspirated [p] only occurs word initially and before a stressed vowel. • C. See if they’re in free variation • Like the English rhotic If B or C, the phones are allophones of the same phoneme

33. Identifying phones • Look for minimal pairs – pairs of different words that differ only in one phone (which gives us the two phones we are investigating) • If such a pair is found, we know that the two phones occur in the same phonetic environment (as different words), and therefore contrast (and therefore are different phonemes, not allophones of the same phoneme) • E.g. ‘bit’ and ‘pit’ vary by only one sound AND the vary in meaning – their phonetic difference is significant