Phonetics-Phonology Flashcards
(78 cards)
1
Q
What is a phoneme?
A
A phoneme is the smallest linguistic unit, which can distinguish meaning.
It is a symbolic representation which allows us to relate specific speech sounds to each other, recognizing their phonological sameness despite their phonetic differences.
(Davenport, Intro to Phonetics and Phon.)
2
Q
What is an allophone?
A
One of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds, or phones, or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language.
They are in complimentary distribution and therefore never cause a confusion about meanings. This is language specific however and the same can contain meaning distinction in other languages.
3
Q
What can be said abt the phonology of English?
A
wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect.
However, most dialects have vowel reduction in unstressed syllables and a complex set of phonological features that distinguish fortis and lenis consonants (stops, affricates, and fricatives).
on suprasegmental and segmental level
Segmental:
- Phonemes
- Vowels, consonants
- articulation
Suprasegmental:
- phonotactics
- stress
- Lexical stress is phonemic in English (read vs. read, past tense)
- intonation
4
Q
What is the difference between Phonetics and Phonology?
A
Phonetics:
Phonetics first of all divides, or segments, concrete utterances into individual speech sounds.
It is therefore exclusively concerned with PAROLE or performance.
Phonetics can then be divided into three distinct phases:
(1) articulatory phonetics,
(2) acoustic phonetics, and
(3) auditory phonetics.
- > (1) Articulatory phonetics describes in detail how the speech organs, also called vocal organs or articulators, in the vocal tract are used in order to produce, or articulate, (specific) speech sounds.
- > (2) Acoustic phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds, i.e. the way in which the air vibrates as sounds pass from speaker to listener. A spectrograph is a machine that measures the soundwaves and depicts them as images, called spectrograms or sonograms, showing the duration, frequency, intensity, and quality of the sounds.
- > (3) Auditory phonetics investigates the perception of speech sounds by the listener, i.e. how the sounds are transmitted from the ear to the brain, and how they are processed.
Owing to its close association with physics (and also with medicine), phonetics is sometimes considered a natural science, rather than a branch of linguistics (which belongs to the humanities) in the narrow sense.
But no matter how we classify it, phonetics is an indispensable PREREQUISITE FOR PHONOLOGY, and is therefore an integral part of all introductions to linguistics. In the language departments of most universities, however, the study of phonetics is largely restricted to articulatory phonetics because of its applications to the learning and teaching of pronunciation. For that reason, this manual, too, will only be concerned with articulatory phonetics, and phonology.
______
Phonology:
Phonology deals with the speakers’ knowledge of the sound system of a language. It is therefore exclusively concerned with LANGUE or competence.
(Phonology, then, is not the study of telephone manners, as one student once jokingly suggested.)
Phonology can be divided into two branches: (1) segmental phonology and
(2) suprasegmental phonology.
- > (1) Segmental phonology is based on the segmentation of language into individual speech sounds provided by phonetics. Unlike phonetics, however, segmental phonology is not interested in the production, the physical properties, or the perception of these sounds, but in the function and possible combinations of sounds within the sound system.
- > (2) Suprasegmental phonology , also called prosody , is concerned with those features of pronunciation that cannot be segmented because they extend over more than one segment, or sound. Such features include stress [ Betonung ], rhythm, and intonation (also called pitch contour or pitch movement [ Tonhöhenbewegung ]).
_____
to help visualize…
speaker's brain = phonology speaker's mouth = articulatory phonetics transmission of sound through air = acoustic phonetics listener's ear = auditory phonetics listener's brain = phonology
5
Q
What can be said abt the phonology in English lg?
A
- English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect
In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar (but not identical) phonological system.
most dialects have:
- vowel reduction in unstressed syllables
- a complex set of phonological features that distinguish fortis and lenis consonants (stops, affricates, and fricatives)
Standard English varieties often used as reference point (RP, GenAm, AuE)
Phonemes:
- Orthography: The phonemes in this and many other English words do not always correspond directly to the letters used to spell them (English orthography is not as strongly phonemic as that of many other languages).
6
Q
Which subfields is Phonetics concerned with?
A
Acoustic Phonetics
Articulatory P.
Auditory P.
7
Q
What are the concerns in Phonology in comparison to Phonetics?
A
While Phonetics deals with the production, properties and perception of the speech sounds of human lg, phonology is concerned with how these speech sounds form patterns in a particular lg.
Phonologists investigate, for example, which function a sound has in a lg and which sounds can be combined - follow each other - and which cannot.
Phonology can be divided into two areas:
- segmental p.
- suprasegmental p.
8
Q
what is suprasegmental phonology?
A
suprasegmental level is concerned with larger units than speech sounds, such as syllables, words, intonation phrases.
9
Q
What is intonation?
What are the basic principles?
A
intonation is also called ‘pitch contour’ or ‘pitch movement’.
Linguists have found many ways to describe it but they agree on these basic principles:
- All lgs have intonation
- Intonation is principally the variation of pitch, but also prominence, over a stretch of speech.
- Intonation has four functions:
– structural: grammatical or structural role of utterance
(is it a question, exclamation, request, statement?)
– accentual: prominence of syllable
– attitudinal: speaker’s attitude tpward what’s said
– discourse: marks turn-taking point in convo - the set of intonation patterns is limited and can be fully determined, but linguists are not in full agreement on the number of contours
- in order to analyse i., continuous speech can be broken down to smaller units, but the conventions are slightly different on how to break them up.
10
Q
How can you describe pitch?
A
pitch in utterance or sound is connected to the frequency of the vibration of the vocal folds. The faster they vibrate, the higher.
In English, it’s not distinctive like in other languages, but it still serves several functions (see intonation).
So the question to ask when analyzing intonation is whether pitch carries linguistic, or communicative, significance.
Pitch is another way to refer to the fundamental frequency (F0) of the voice.
It’s determined by physical size, and the sex of a speaker.
Male speaker around 120 Hz.
Female: 210 Hz.
11
Q
Parole vs. langue
and
performance vs. competence
A
parole - language use
langue - the system of language
In order to separate the two meanings of the word language the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857– 1913) proposed the French terms parole to refer to actual language use (i.e. to concrete utterances) and langue for a speech community’s shared knowledge of a language (i.e. for the language system).
performance - actual lg use of a speaker
competence - the knowledge of a speaker of that language
A similar dichotomy was put forward by the American linguist Noam Chomsky (b. 1928), who used the terms performance and competence to refer to largely the same concepts. Chomsky, however, put more emphasis on the individual nature of language. Performance, then, is the actual language use of an individual speaker, and competence is that individual speaker’s knowledge of the language. Chomsky later replaced these terms with E(xternalised)-language and I(nternalised)-language , but the new terms are rarely used.
[A Manual of English Phonetics and Phonology : Twelve Lessons with an Integrated Course in Phonetic Transcription]
12
Q
What are the vowel spaces? Name examples
A
How do we describe vowels?
The method usually used is to set up an imaginary “vowel space” and define vowels by their position in the space. We imagine a cross-section of the human head looking to the left, and define the vowels according to the position of the HIGHEST POINT OF THE TONGUE for each vowel.
It turns out that human vowel-sounds in any language can be partly defined in relation to this vowel space.
______
High (= close) front
Mid front
Low (=open) front
Central
Low back
Mid back
High back
can also define as close-mid, open-mid, or centralized.
13
Q
How are vowels classified? What are the basic criteria and what other distinctions can be made?
Why do we need a diff system than that of consonants to describe vowels?
A
height + backness + rounding
- other additional info:
vowel length, nasality and monophthong/diphthong
Need a diff. system than w/ consonants bc w/ manner of articulation airflow is always unhindered (articulators are far enough apart)
Consonantal place specifications also inappropriate bc produced in smaller area (palatal and velar regions)
Vowels are sonorants so always voiced
14
Q
consider the words stuck, tuck, cut and duck.
What can be said abt them with a phonetic focus vs. a phonological focus?
A
phonetically speaking, there are 4 closely related but slightly different sounds.
- The ‚t‘ in ‚tuck‘ is aspirated.
- The ‚t’ in ‚stuck‘ is not.
- The ‚t‘ in ‚cut‘ is accompanied or replaced by a glottal stop
- The ‚t‘-like sound in ‚duck‘ actually sounds a lot like the ‚t‘ in ‚stuck‘ but is voiced
People would generally say that there are only two different sounds, but their focus actually lies on the orthography. However, this also reflects the phonological status of the sounds, bc concerning the English lg system the three ‚t‘-sounds behave quite similar and therefore do not distinguish meaning when replaced, whereas if you substitute the ‚d‘ with a ‚t‘ it does (as in ‚tuck‘ vs ‚duck‘) contrast.
15
Q
How can the meaning of the term ‚generative grammar‘ be described/specified?
A
generative is not in the sense of production but comes from a mathematical sense:
‚specifying as allowable or not within in a specific language‘
grammar is often used to describe the structures and rules of a lg, but here it is actually used for all aspects of a specific language. So it‘s sth like ‚the complete description on a language‘.
A generative grammar consists of a set of formal statements which delimit all and only all the possible structures that are part of the language in question.
Basic aim of a generative theory?
- represent in a formal way the tacit knowledge native speakers have of their language. = native speaker competence
Performance not so important to them bc influenced by many factors (tired, speaker, etc)
16
Q
What is a homorganic stop?
What happens when they occur in sequence, give an example.
A
When a stop follows another stop with the same place of articulation aka a ‚homorganic stop‘. e.g. in ‚shrimp‘ from [m] to [p] - nasal to oral - voiced to voiceless
but they are both biliabial
in sequence:
„That dog“
17
Q
What are the major aspects of speech production?
A
Speech production is part of he study of articulatory phonetics.
4 major aspects:
- the airstream mechanism:
where the air used in speech starts from, and which direction it is traveling in - the state of the vocal cords:
whether or not the vocal cords are vibrating, which determines voicing - the state of the velum:
whether it is raised or lowered, which determines whether a sound is oral or nasal - the place and manner of articulation:
the horizontal and vertical positions of the tongue and lips
18
Q
What parts of anatomy are involved in the production of speech sounds?
A
- lips
- teeth
- tongue
- alveolar ridge
- palate
- velum
- uvula
- pharynx (housing vocal cords)
(Lungs)
19
Q
Give examples that demonstrate distinctions:
Voiced-voiceless
Oral-nasal
A
Voiced/voiceless:
Hiss - Buzz
Oral/Nasal:
Frog - man (or French word for bread: pain)
20
Q
How are speech sounds influenced by the oral tract?
A
The state of the oral tract, in particular, the position of the - active articulators (lower lip and tongue) in relation to the - passive articulators (the upper surface of the oral tract).
Tongue can be considered as having different sections:
tip, blade, front, back and root.
(Front and back are together referred to as the body).
Passive articulators:
Upper lip, teeth, roof of the mouth, pharynx.
Roof of the mouth further divided into:
Alveolar ridge, hard palate, soft palate (or velum) and uvula.
–> The relative positions of the articulators allow to specify the manner of articulation and the place of articulation of a speech sound.
21
Q
Describe the manner and place of articulation
A
Manner of articulation:
- Vertical relationship between the active and passive articulators, I.e. the distance between them (usually known as stricture); anything from being close together, preventing air escaping, to wide apart, allowing air to flow through unhindered.
- stops (air pressure builds up behind blockage)
- affricates (also complete closure but different release of air, slower release through a narrow channel)
- fricatives (articulators in close approximation but no complete closure)
- liquids, glides and vowels have free passage of air (open approximation)
______
Place of articulation:
where in the oral cavity is the sound produced?
The place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator (typically some part of the tongue), and a passive location (typically some part of the roof of the mouth). Along with the manner of articulation and the phonation, it gives the consonant its distinctive sound.
Active places:
The lower lip (labial)
Various parts of the front of the tongue (coronal):
The tip of the tongue (apical)
The upper front surface of the tongue just behind the tip, called the blade of the tongue (laminal)
The surface of the tongue under the tip (subapical)
The body of the tongue (dorsal)
The base a.k.a. root of the tongue and the throat (pharyngeal)
Passive Places:
The upper lip (labial)
The upper teeth, either on the edge of the teeth or inner surface (dental)
The alveolar ridge, the gum line just behind the teeth (alveolar)
The back of the alveolar ridge (post-alveolar)
The hard palate on the roof of the mouth (palatal)
The soft palate further back on the roof of the mouth (velar)
The uvula hanging down at the entrance to the throat (uvular)
The throat itself, a.k.a. the pharynx (pharyngeal)
The epiglottis at the entrance to the windpipe, above the voice box (epiglottal)
22
Q
What can be said about the phonetics of stops?
A
- stops involve complete closure of oral tract
- pulmonic egressive oral stops: plosives (as obstruents either voiced or voiceless)
- In English, three pairs of voiceless/voiced stops:
- Bilabial, alveolar, velar
- and glottal stop in many English varieties (Brit English London, Manchester, Glasgow; AmE New Jersey, upstate and metropolitan NY)
- some lgs have stops other than pulmonic egressive: glottalic egressice = electives, glottalic lowered airstream = implosives; velaric ingressive = clicks
_____
Production of stops
- for pulmonic egressive oral stops, 3 clearly identifiable stages:
- closing stage
- closure stage
- release stage
23
Q
what are homorganic stops?
A
stops that have the same place of articulation. e.g. in ‚shrimp‘ from [m] to [p] - nasal —> oral - voiced —> voiceless but both are bilabial
also in connected speech:
‚that dog‘
24
Q
Describe what aspirated stops are and when they occur
A
- an audible puff of air, follows the release (can be made visible by holding a piece of paper in fron of mouth while pronouncing)
Articulatory:
- vocal cords remain wide open after release of plosive
- into initial articulation of following segment
_________
When?
- occurs when plosive is word-initially, e.g. “pie, tie, core”
- strongest in voiceless stops at beginning of stressed syllables (compare ‚petrol’ and ‚patrol‘)
- since it doesn‘t occur with stops that follow an initial [s], it helps distinguish potentially ambiguous sentences like „peace talks“ and „pea stalks“.
- when aspirated stop is followed by a liquid or glide [l, r, j, w] as in ‘platypus’, the aspiration is realized as the devoicing of the sonorant. (Vocal cords remain open till articulation of vowel starts)
______
Phonetically:
English has 3 kind of stops. Voiced, voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated.
In terms of contrast aspiration is not significant and no words are distinguished from others solely by virtue of having an aspirated versus unaspirated stop. (As is in Thai or Korean)
25
What can be said about glottalisation and the glottal stop in English?
_Glottalisation_
- voiceless stops may be subject to 'glottalisation' or 'glottal reinforcement' in many kinds of English
- particularly likely for final stops in emphatic utterances, e.g. "stop that!"
- common to some degree for many word-final voiceless stops
- transcript: [?] after the stop symbol
(- some kinds of English, also have it between two vowels aka. intervocalically, e.g. in North East English English)
- also occur with vowels occurring word-initially, especially if emphatic "go [?]away!" or if there is a hiatus (two juxtaposed vowels in consecutive syllables), e.g. "co-[?]authors"
- may also occur in places where otherwise there would be a linking r
- pre-vocalic glottal stop, also in German, no restrictions here
Articulatory:
- as well as closure of oral tract, there is also an accompanying (brief) closure of the vocal cords --> dual articulation
_____
Glottal Stop:
- voiceless stops may under some circumstances be replaced by a glottal stop --> no oral closure but only glottal closure
- extent depends on the accent of speaker, where the stop is and what kind of stop it is
When?
- for most kinds of British English (incl. RP) [t] can be replaced by [?] before a nasal
- -> "at night" or "Britain"
- Similarly, voiceless stop replaced when preceding a homorganic obstruent
- -> "great smile" or "grapefruit"
- somewhat restricted but still true for many typed of more recent RP: word-final [t] replaced in "rat"
- word-final [p] or [k] replacement not a feature of standard varieties, but occurs in non-standard, e.g. Cockney
- -> [ra?] could be rat, rap or rack
- more restricted (in terms of varieties but not in numbers of speakers) intervocalic [t] substituted by [?]
- -> "water"
26
What is a hiatus?
a hiatus (two juxtaposed vowels in consecutive syllables)
27
How are stops affected in connected speech? What can be said about their variation?
They may be influenced by neighboring segments.
- aspiration
- glottalisation
- assimilation (place or in manner even)
-- bilabials remain unaffected
-- velar stops only fronted in context of front vowels
-- alveolars [t] and [d] show considerable variation, position of closure will be place of articulation of following segment
--> "ho[p p]otato" or "ba[b b]oy" or "sa[b m]an"
--> preceding velars: "ho[k k]rumpet"
--> before dentals diacritic ,, shows closure at teeth
- t-flapping shows influence by vowels ([t] and [d] are neutralised)
- in many Northern English accents, voiceless alveolar stop [t] replaced by an r-sound when after a short vowel and next sound is a vowel (usually across words only)
--> "ge[r] off"
_______
They may influence the surrounding sounds themselves:
- presence or absence of voicing in a plosive may affect the preceding segment. When a voiced stop followes a liquid, nasal or vowel it causes that sound to lengthen
- -> "gulp" vs "bulb" or "sent" vs "send" or "back" vs "bag"
28
What can you say about affricates in English?
- produced like plosive (involce a closing, closure and release stage) but the difference lies in the nature of the release. The active articulator remains close to the passive articulator, resulting in friction as the air passes between them, as for fricatives
Phonetically:
- similar to a stop followed by a fricative
- don't behave like a sequence of two segments though
- -> "catch it" vs "cat shit" the sound represented in "tch" is noticeably shorter than the sequence of sounds represented by "t sh"
- English only has two affricates:
e. g. in "chimpanzee" and voiced counterpart in "jaguar"
- both can occur in all positions
___
Voicing and Variation
- as with all obstruents, voiced affricate lengthens a preceeding sonorant segment (nasal, liquid or vowel)
compare:
"lunch" vs. "lunge"; "belching" vs. "Belgian"
- affricates undergo little assimilation in English, but the oral stop part may be missing when they follow [n] as in "lunch", "sponge"
- also some variation among speakers between word-final affricate vs fricative segment in loan words like "garage" or "beige"
29
Fricatives of English
- close approximation
- can be voiced or voiceless
___________
Distribution?
- labio-dentals [f] and [v]; dentals [] and [], alveolars [s] and [z] and voiceless palato-alveolar [] occur in all positions in English
- although voiced dental fricative is restricted for word-initial position to small set of 'function words' such as articels and adverbs (then, there, etc).
- voiced palato-alveolar, glottal h and velar [x] (in those varieties that have it) is somewhat restricted in English
-- voiced palato-alveolar never word-initially (e.g. teasure and with exception of loan words like "genre") and occurs only in few words
-- glottal fricative [h] only word-initially or word-medially at the beginning of a stressed syllable, never finally
-- velar fricative [x] never word-initially
________
Voicing?
- as with stops; voiced fricatives undergo devoicing word-initially and word-finally (typically only fully voiced when between other voiced sounds)
--> "vague" or "save" vs "saving"
- fricatives also affect the length of the preceding sonorant (nasal, liquid or vowel).
Voiced fricatives lengthen the duration of any sonorant they follow; compare "fence and "fens" or "shelf" and "shelve" or "face" and "phase"
_________
Variation?
- labio-dental fricatives [f] and [v] don't show great deal of assimilation (though [v] may often become voiceless word-finally preceding voiceless obstruent, e.g. in "ha[f] to" = have to)
--> in fast speech the sound may be lsot altogether, e.g. in "piece of cake"
--> This loss of segment is known as ELISION
- dental fricatives also subject to elision when precede [s] or [z]
(e. g. "clothes" or "months"
- - may be replaced by [f] and [v] in some varieties of English (S E English; Southern US)
- - in some Scottish varieties word-initial "th" is replaced by [s]
- - Irish english often has dental stop [t] in place of "th"
- - in English in general assimilation to preceding alveolar sound; e.g. "i[n n]e pub" = in the pub
- alveolars [s] and [z] often assmilated to a following palatal glide [j] or palato-alveolar friatve "sh" by retracting the active articulator to a palato-alveolar position, being realised as "sh" and "ge" respectivey, as in "mish jou"
30
How are speech sounds created?
What is the difference between vowels and consonants?
Speech sounds are created by modifying the volume and direction of a flow of air using various parts of the human respirator system.
the distinction between vowels and consonants:
- not as simple as it may seem
- at first glance: has to do with the stricture, i.e. distance between articulators
- -> stops (oral and nasal), fricatives and liquids all involve stricture of at lease close approcimation
- -> however the class of glides makes this distinction difficult --> stricture of open approximation
- -> here distinction not so much phonetics but phonology:
- has to do with how sounds function in language
True vowels like 'i' in 'pig' are syllabic (comprise essential part of syllable), Glides behave like consonants and do not form the nuclei of syllables
____
Vowels:
- unhindered airflow = open approximation
- vowels produced in smaller area of vocal tract (palatal and velar regions)
- no voiced/voiceless distinction (bc vowels are sonorants), except for some lgs like Japanese
___
Consonants:
- some sort of stricture, even if close approximation
31
How are vowels classified?
Why can it be helpful to classify them?
Three-term classification:
- vowel height (height of tongue)
sometimes 'close' and 'open' used
- "backness" of the tongue or 'which part of the tongue is highest?'
front, central, back
- rounded/unrounded lips
Also important:
- vowel length
- nasality
- Monophthong/diphthong
How can distinctions be judged?
--> x-ray photography
32
Explain the cardinal vowel chart
Is there a difference between German and English?
Cardinal vowels are a set of reference vowels used by phoneticians in describing the sounds of languages.
Cardinal vowels are not vowels of any particular language, but a measuring system. However, some languages contain vowel or vowels that are close to the cardinal vowel(s).
First proposed by Daniel Jones.
A cardinal vowel is a vowel sound produced when the tongue is in an extreme position, either front or back, high or low.
The vowel of the English word "feet" can be described with reference to cardinal vowel 1, [i], which is the cardinal vowel closest to it.
```
unround:
1 [i] close front unrounded vowel
2 [e] close-mid front unrounded vowel
3 [ɛ] open-mid front unrounded vowel
4 [a] open front unrounded vowel
5 [ɑ] open back unrounded vowel
```
round
6 [ɔ] open-mid back rounded vowel
7 [o] close-mid back rounded vowel
8 [u] close back rounded vowel
```
same degree of backness as 1-8 but opposite rounding
9 [y] close front rounded vowel
10 [ø] close-mid front rounded vowel
11 [œ] open-mid front rounded vowel
12 [ɶ] open front rounded vowel
13 [ɒ] open back rounded vowel
```
unround
14 [ʌ] open-mid back unrounded vowel
15 [ɤ] close-mid back unrounded vowel
16 [ɯ] close back unrounded vowel
17 [ɨ] close central unrounded vowel
18 [ʉ] close central rounded vowel
____
difference on a phonetic level...?
and since German and English have different vowel system, should be different...
but positions on the chart are not necessarily those for the vowels for any particular language; rather they indicate the "limits of vowelness"
- give reference points
English [i] in 'see' is somewhat lower and more retracted than cardinal [i], whereas German [i] in 'sie' is loser to C1.
33
Name the different (Cardinal) vowels in English
- 2 front vowels (in most Englishes)
[I] and [i:]
--> first (lax) ist somewhat lower and more centralized than latter (tense)
- 1 short mid front, unrounded
[e] as in' bed'
- one short low front vowel
[ae] as in 'rat' between C3 and C4
- many other kinds also have lower vowel [a], other higher
- 2 common low back vowels:
- - long low back unround [a:] as in 'father'
- - short low back round [ ] as in many British varieties in the vowel 'dog' (not in AmE)
- 1 Mid back round vowel [turned c] in words like 'bought'
in many varieties there is also a long vowel (also increasingly in non-rhotic v.)
- 2 high back vowels
- - long [u:] as in 'show', short [turned omega] as in 'put'
- -> difference in quality and quantity
- 1 central vowel [A] as in 'cup' or 'luck'
34
What are phonemic gaps in German, that are filled in English? What ones are the most difficult to fill?
phonemic gaps:
English has 2 'th' realisations [ that arent in German
35
Comment on allophonic variation in English
Allophone:
realization of a specific phoneme.
free variation vs. complementary distribution vs. contrastive distribution
free variation: sound can be replaced by another allophone, without it sounding non-native. often regionally destinguished (e.g. r) but not always (either-either)
complementary distribution
- the specific allophone selected in a given situation is predictable
- one sounds occur in certain phonetic context and may take part in phonological process
contrastive:
= phoneme
Replacing a sound by another allophone of the same phoneme usually does not change the meaning of a word, but the result may sound non-native or even unintelligible.
If a specific allophone must be selected in a given context, and using a different allophone for a phoneme would cause confusion or make the speaker sound non-native, the allophones are said to be COMPLEMENTARY.
Another example of an allophone is assimilation, in which a phoneme is to sound more like another phoneme. One example of assimilation is consonant voicing and devoicing, in which voiceless consonants are voiced before and after voiced consonants, and voiced consonants are devoiced before and after voiceless consonants.
______
There are many allophonic processes in English:
lack of plosion, nasal plosion, partial devoicing of sonorants, complete devoicing of sonorants, partial devoicing of obstruents, lengthening and shortening vowels, and retraction.
EXAMPLES
```
Nasal plosion:
a plosive (/p, t, k, b, d, ɡ/) has nasal plosion if it is followed by a nasal, whether within a word or across a word boundary.
```
Partial devoicing of sonorants:
In English, sonorants (/j, w, l, r, m, n, ŋ/) are partially devoiced after a voiceless sound in the same syllable.
Complete devoicing of sonorants:
In English, a sonorant is completely devoiced after an aspirated plosive (/p, t, k/).
Partial devoicing of obstruents:
In English, a voiced obstruent is partially devoiced next to a pause or next to a voiceless sound within a word or across a word boundary.
Retraction:
In English, /t, d, n, l/ are retracted before /r/.
___________
Aspiration:
six allophones of the phoneme /t/: unreleased [ t̚] as in cat, aspirated [tʰ] as in top, glottalized [ʔ] as in button, flapped [ɾ] as in American English water, nasalized flapped [ɾ̃] as in winter, and none of the above [t] as in stop. However, they may become aware of the differences if, for example, they contrast the pronunciations of the following words:
Night rate: unreleased [ˈnʌɪt̚.ɹʷeɪt̚] (without a word space between [ . ] and [ɹ])
Nitrate: aspirated [ˈnaɪ.tʰɹ̥eɪt̚] or retracted [ˈnaɪ.t̠ɹ̠̊˔ʷeɪt̚]
________
Allophones of English /l/ may be noticed if the 'light' [l] of leaf [ˈliːf] is contrasted with the 'dark' [ɫ] of feel [ˈfiːɫ]. Again, the difference is much more obvious to a Turkish-speaker, for whom /l/ and /ɫ/ are separate phonemes, than to an English speaker, for whom they are allophones of a single phoneme.
___________
1. Related to consonant sequences:
- Stops are unexploded before another stop.
- Alveolar consonants become dental before dental consonants.
- Alveolar stops are reduced or omitted between two consonants. (T-flapping?)
- A consonant is shortened before an identical consonant.
- /s/at the end of a word is sounds likewhen the next word begins with [j]
__________
2 Related to voicing:
- Voiceless stops are aspirated when syllable initial.
- Approximants are at least partially voiceless following initial voiceless stops.
- Voiceless stops are unaspirated following /s/ at the beginning of a syllable.
- Voicing does not contrast after initial /s/.
- /s/ is unaspirated.
36
What are the requirements for getting a 1 on phonology teaching?
- suprasemental
- segmental
- inventory phonemes
- transcription
- allophonic varieties
37
If you had to write a book on Phonology of English, which chapters would you include?
.
38
What are syllables? Why is it good to have them?
Good because..
- description is easier with them
- final devoicing also syllable connected
- organizational function, place of potential stress have intuition of syllables!
- most sonorous sounds in middle (except /s/)
39
How would you define consonants, vowels?
| Considering articulatory, functional and acoustic phonetics?
- functional: nucleus --> vowel
| - acoustic: clear formant structures, consonants: white noise, etc. n & l have formants
40
Can you name the group sounds of English? What are they good for?
they behave a certain way (all consonants occur in beg. of…..)
What are obstruents good for?
final devoicing – fricatives – obsturents
41
Is the difference between phonetics and phonology boarder sharp?
you need both as they go hand in hand. But prototypically they deal with different sides of the spectrum.
42
Why could phonetics and phonology be interesting for your future career as a teacher?
- It tells me major learning difficulties in the contrast between E and G
- Segmental + Suprasegmental features (stress, pitch, intonation) help to sound more native-like goal of many German English learners
- Pronunciation teaching can be fun! (see activity in the beginning)
43
What are major learning difficulties faced by a speaker of German when trying to master the new phonemic system of English?
1. Phonemic gaps (ash, th)
2. Distributional constraints (voiced/voiceless)
3. Contrasts in the allophonic realisation of phonemes (clear and dark/vearized l)
44
What is phonotactics concerned with?
a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters and vowel sequences by means of phonotactic constraints.
- highly language-specific
Syllables have the following internal segmental structure:
Onset (optional)
Rhyme (obligatory, comprises nucleus and coda):
Nucleus (obligatory)
Coda (optional)
Both onset and coda may be empty, forming a vowel-only syllable, or alternatively, the nucleus can be occupied by a syllabic consonant. Phonotactics is known to affect second language vocabulary acquisition.
45
Can you name some phonotactic constraints specific to English?
All syllables have a nucleus
No geminate consonants
No onset /ŋ/
No /h/ in the syllable coda
No affricates or /h/ in complex onsets
The first consonant in a complex onset must be an obstruent (e.g. stop; combinations such as *ntat or *rkoop, with a sonorant, are not allowed)
The second consonant in a complex onset must not be a voiced obstruent (e.g. *zdop does not occur)
If the first consonant in a complex onset is not /s/, the second must be a liquid or a glide
Every subsequence contained within a sequence of consonants must obey all the relevant phonotactic rules (the substring principle rule)
No glides in syllable codas (excluding the offglides of diphthongs)
The second consonant in a complex coda must not be /r/, /ŋ/, /ʒ/, or /ð/ (compare asthma, typically pronounced /ˈæzmə/ or /ˈæsmə/, but rarely /ˈæzðmə/)
If the second consonant in a complex coda is voiced, so is the first
An obstruent following /m/ or /ŋ/ in a coda must be voiced and homorganic with the nasal
Two obstruents in the same coda must share voicing (compare kids /kɪdz/ with kits /kɪts/)
46
What does the Sonority Sequencing Principle determine?
Segments of a syllable are universally distributed following the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), which states that, in any syllable, the nucleus has maximal sonority and that sonority decreases as you move away from the nucleus.
Sonority is a measure of the amplitude of a speech sound. The particular ranking of each speech sound by sonority, called the sonority hierarchy, is language-specific, but, in its broad lines, hardly varies from a language to another,[5] which means all languages form their syllables in approximately the same way with regards to sonority.
47
What are the different realizations of /r/ in RP and GenAm?
| What are the distributional rules?
Depending on dialect, /r/ has at least the following allophones in varieties of English around the world:[1]
-- Common R: postalveolar approximant [ɹ̠] (About this soundlisten) (a common realization of the /r/ phoneme worldwide, Received Pronunciation and General American included)
-- "Bunched" or "Molar" R: "bunched-tongue" alveolar approximant [ɹˤ] (occurs in Southern American English and some Midwestern and Western American English most strongly); in fact, there is often a continuum of possible realizations for the postalveolar approximant within any single dialect from a more apical articulation [ɹ̺] to this more bunched articulation
-- "Velar" R: velarized alveolar approximant [ɹˠ] (occurs in conservative Irish English)
-- "Retroflex" R: retroflex approximant [ɻ] (About this soundlisten) (occurs in some American and most Irish English, including Northern Irish English)
-- "Flapped" or "Tapped" R: alveolar flap [ɾ] (About this soundlisten) (occurs in Scouse, most Scottish English, some South African, Welsh, conservative Irish and Northern England English, and early twentieth-century Received Pronunciation; not to be confused with flapping of /t/ and /d/)
-- "Trilled" or "Rolled" R: alveolar trill [r] (About this soundlisten) (occurs in Afrikaans English, some Welsh English,[3] some very conservative Scottish English, and Jersey English)
-- "Uvular" R or "Northumbrian burr": voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] (About this soundlisten) (occurs in very conservative varieties of Geordie and Northumbrian dialect, though largely now disappeared, as well as possibly some conservative South-West and East Irish English and some Aberdeen English)
-- "Labial" or "Rounded" R: labiodental approximant [ʋ] (About this soundlisten) (occurs in some south-east England and London English as a presumed idiosyncrasy, though this is disputed, as is its overlap with rhotacism; see § R-labialization below)
48
Comment on rhoticity in English, give examples.
All English accents around the world are frequently characterized as either rhotic or non-rhotic.
The majority of accents in England, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa speak non-rhotic accents, and in these dialects the historical English phoneme /r/ is not pronounced except when followed by a vowel.
However, the historical /r/ is pronounced in all contexts in rhotic accents, which are spoken across the majority in Scotland, Ireland, the United States, Canada, and also in some English accents (for example West Country and some parts of Lancashire and the far north).
example:
rhotic accent pronounces marker as [ˈmɑrkər]
non-rhotic accent pronounces the same word as [ˈmɑːkə]
r-coloring:
Generally speaking in rhotic accents, when /r/ is not followed by a vowel phoneme, it surfaces as r-coloring of the preceding vowel or its coda: nurse [nɝs], butter [ˈbʌtɚ].
49
How would you explain syllables?
Syllables play an important role in phonotactics.
Every syllable is at least made up of a nucleus and optionally an onset and coda.
There are open (no coda) and closed (with coda) syllables.
(Also heavy/light distinction. Light: 1 mora = short vowel open syllable; heavy = long vowel or diphthong)
Universal core syllable: CV
The sonority hierarchy plays an important role in determining the selection of the nucleus of a syllable and the order of segments within the onset and coda.
50
Comment on the function of minimal pairs and explain complementary distribution.
Minimal pairs:
- pair of words which differ by just one sound and which are different lexical items
- -> different lexical items are distinct items of a vocabulary, regardless of their meaning
Example: 'bat' and 'mat'
therefore one says that [b] and [m] contrast.
_________
Function:
- minimal pairs rest on contrastive distribution
- the contrast can be made obvious by means of a commutation test, i.e. a substitution of one sound for another yielding a different lexical item
- the contrast can help clarify which speech sounds function as phoneme or simply an allophone.
- What if there are no minimal pairs for a specific pair of sounds in the lg?
--> near minimal pairs
e.g. 'mission' and 'vision'
(focus lies on the postalveolar fricatives, voiced/unvoiced)
- here the immediate phonetic
environment of the two sounds concerned is identical
______
Complementary distribution
- where we find one sound, the other does not occur in the same environment
EXAMPLE:
- aspirated p, [p^h] occurs only at the beginning of words
- [p'] we only find at ends of words
--> because we cannot get the p-sounds to contrast each other we know they are allophones of a single phoneme.
(Water analogy: we find water being ice, fluid or as steam, but normally never under same state - they are all "allophones" or the "phoneme water")
[note that we DO find contrasts between members of different groups of sounds [p^h] and [k^h] contrast, as do [p] and [k]
51
What is free variation and in what context can it cause problems?
- can obscure the identification of phonemes
```
EXAMPLE
/t/
- as voiceless stop may be unreleased at end of word [mae']
- but also unaspirated release [maet]
- or glottal stop possible [mae?]
```
--> these do not contrast and are three different pronunciations of the same lexical item. Since they involve the same lexical item, we can say the three sounds are in free variation, since there are no minimal pairs.
We can thus maintain that they are allophones of a single phoneme.
52
Maximal onset principle
- Definition and example
Principle determines the placement of syllable boundaries in cases of doubt.
The principle states that, unless doing so would violate universal or language-specific constraints, consonants should be assigned to the syllable onset rather than the syllable coda.
e.g.
the English word "extra" could be syllabified ek.strə or eks.trə or ekst.rə.
All other syllable divisions would result in illegal consonant clusters in English.
--> The principle favours the first of the versions shown.
53
Heavy versus light
Open versus checked syllables
An open syllable contains only one vowel which it ends with.
A closed syllable also only contains one vowel, but ends in a consonant, which is any letter that is not a vowel.
_______
In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. In classical Indo-European verse, as developed in Greek, Sanskrit, and Latin, distinctions of syllable weight were fundamental to the meter of the line.
A heavy syllable is a syllable with a branching nucleus or a branching rime,[1] although not all such syllables are heavy in every language. A branching nucleus generally means the syllable has a long vowel or a diphthong; this type of syllable is abbreviated as CVV.
A syllable with a branching rime is a closed syllable, that is, one with a coda (one or more consonants at the end of the syllable); this type of syllable is abbreviated CVC. In some languages, both CVV and CVC syllables are heavy, while a syllable with a short vowel as the nucleus and no coda (a CV syllable) is a light syllable.
In other languages, only CVV syllables are heavy, while CVC and CV syllables are light. In yet other languages, CVV syllables are heavy and CV syllables are light, while some CVC syllables are heavy (for instance if the coda is a sonorant) and other CVC syllables are light (for instance if the coda is an obstruent).
Some languages distinguish a third type, CVVC syllables (with both a branching nucleus and a coda) and/or CVCC syllables (with a coda consisting of two or more consonants) as superheavy syllables.
54
How would you describe stress?
Suprasegmental level of phonetics and phonology
Phonetic substance:
- pitch
- length
- loudness
- vowel quality
55
Contrastive stress
Stress is a vital part of both speaking and listening in stress timed languages. As English is a stress timed language, we have to take the stress in consideration while examining it. The stress can occur on both syllables in a word and words in a sentence. So we can divide stress as word stress and sentence stress. I will focus on a type of sentence stress which is called contrastive stress in this paper because this aspect of the language can cause problems for learners in both their speaking and perhaps more importantly listening.
a stress imposed on a word or syllable contrary to its normal accentuation in order to contrast it with an alternative word or syllable or to focus attention on it, as the stress given to the normally unstressed word 'of' in 'government of the people, by the people, for the people' in order to point up the parallel between 'of', 'by', and 'for' and to distinguish 'of' from words such as 'over' or 'against'.
Contrastive Stress
There is one word in most phrases that receives the phrase (sentence) stress under ordinary occasions. However, the stress can always be shifted from this normal place to some other place in the sentence. This shifting always changes the meaning of the phrase somewhat or makes it fit into some special context. As Çelik (2003:58) indicates that when a choice for contrast is not intended on a contrasted item or notion crops up in conversation, the contrasted item or notion should be intelligible to the address. In other words, the contrasted item should make sense in the context of discourse at the time and place of speaking.
The simple sentence below can have many levels of meaning based on the word you stress according to the contrastive choices.
1. _I_ don’t think he should get the job.
Meaning: Somebody else thinks he should get the job.
2. I _don’t_ think he should get the job.
Meaning: It’s not true that I think he should get the job.
3. I don’t _think_ he should get the job.
Meaning: That’s not really what I mean. Or I’m not sure he’ll get the job.
4. I don’t think _he_ should get the job.
Meaning: Somebody else should get the job.
5. I don’t think he _should_ get the job.
Meaning: In my opinion it is wrong that he is going to get the job.
6. I don’t think he should _get_ the job.
Meaning: He should have to earn that job.
7. I don’t think he should get _the_ job.
Meaning: He should get another job.
8. I don’t think he should get the _job._
Meaning: Maybe he should get something else instead.
As we see in the example, the meaning changes when we shift the stress in the phrase according to our contrastive choices.
In an answer statement, a word has the stress on it when it is contrasted with an item in the question statement. It is more clearly understood with the examples below:
A) Would you prefer coffee or tea?
B) Tea, please.
The answer shows which option you choose in respond to the question, so ‘tea’ has the contrastive stress.
A) Did you go to the campus yesterday or not?
B) I went to the campus yesterday.
The verb ‘went’ appears to be the old information and it has the meaning of confirmation.
A) Did you park your car inside the garage?
B) No, I parked my car outside.
‘Outside’ is contrasted with ‘inside’. The meaning is: the car is parked outside, not inside.
Contrastive stress does not only appear in response statement, it can also be seen in the speech of one speaker. Let’s look at the example:
‘Tom is very good at football whereas he is really bad at doing other sports.’
We can give many more examples to explain the subject of contrastive stress.
56
What kinds of stress are there?
Word stress and sentence stress
Word Stress:
If we mention about the stress within a word, we define the term ‘stress’ as syllable prominence. Prominence may, of course, derive from several phonetic factors such as increased length, loudness, pitch movement or a combination of these aspects (Ball and Rahilly, 1999:105). Roach (1983:73) identifies the four characteristics that make a syllable stressed. A stressed syllable;
1. is louder,
2. is longer,
3. has a higher pitch and
4. contains a vowel different in quality from the neighboring vowels.
Sentence Stress:
When mentioning the sentence stress which means the stress in sentence;
The stresses that can occur on words sometimes become modified when the words are part of sentences. The most frequent modification is the dropping of some of the stresses (Ladefoged, 2001:98). English words have the stress on their first syllables when they are used alone. But when used in a sentence, the stress shifts. It is clear in the example that Ladefoged mentions: There is a stress on the first syllable of each of the words ‘Mary, younger, brother, wanted, fifty, chocolate, peanuts’ when these words are said in isolation. But there are normally fewer stresses when they occur in a sentence such as ‘Mary’s younger brother wanted fifty chocolate peanuts’. If we put the stress on the first syllables of all the words in the sentence, it will not sound nice and the meaning may be hardly understood. The sentence should be ‘Mary’s younger brother wanted fifty chocolate peanuts.’ The first syllables of ‘younger’, ‘wanted’ and ‘chocolate’ are pronounced without stress.
The place of the stress in sentences is indicated according to such reasons as emphasis or contrast in the meaning. So, we can divide sentence stress into some types of stress which are tonic stress, emphatic stress and contrastive stress. This paper will focus on contrastive stress and its features in a sentence.
57
What is intonation?
Majority of European lg don't use pitch to distinguish meaning on word level
--> but pitch variation is used on sentence or phrase level --> intonation
Phonetic substance:
-
In linguistics, intonation is variation in spoken pitch when used, not for distinguishing words as sememes (a concept known as tone), but, rather, for a range of other functions such as indicating the attitudes and emotions of the speaker, signalling the difference between statements and questions, and between different types of questions, focusing attention on important elements of the spoken message and also helping to regulate conversational interaction. (The term tone is used by some British writers in their descriptions of intonation but to refer to the pitch movement found on the nucleus or tonic syllable in an intonation unit.)
Although intonation is primarily a matter of pitch variation, it is important to be aware that functions attributed to intonation such as the expression of attitudes and emotions, or highlighting aspects of grammatical structure, almost always involve concomitant variation in other prosodic features. David Crystal for example says that "intonation is not a single system of contours and levels, but the product of the interaction of features from different prosodic systems – tone, pitch-range, loudness, rhythmicality and tempo in particular."
58
What are the parts of intonation units?
= groups of words that belong closely together in speech
- not only grouped together by meaning but phonological properties involved, bc even a listener not understanding the lg can tell them apart
- intonation unit boundary, sometimes but not always signaled by a short pause
or: final syllable lengthening, anacrusis and change of pitch level
59
Nuclear tone patterns
based on assumption that each intonation unit has a nucleus, which is its most prominent syllable and which is usually associated with a distinct pitch movement
- Nucleus Placement
-- hard to formulate exact rules, but there are some tendencies
-- rule of thumb:
1. it’s the last content word of an intonation unit that receives nuclear accent
(content word: noun, verb, adjective, adverb)
- simple:
fall \
rise /
- complex:
fall-rise \/ ;
rise-fall /\
rise-fall-rise /\/
60
Differences in intonation between German and English
speakers of different lgs typically use different pitch height and pitch range.
- English typically higher pitch range
- and E. also higher average pitch
Also:
in BritE: low rising or falling-rising nucleus produced in statements or commands carries attitudinal implications such as leaving open the possibility of agreement or disagreement
EXAMPLE: That’s /hot.
--> In German, this usage of a low rise or fall-rise does not exist, and falls are produced instead.
--> German learners may create impression that they want to impose a belief on the conversation partner when using falling nucleus!
61
Name some phonetic processes
| including examples
- linking
(Linking and intrusive r, consonant linking, aspiration)
'butter and milk'
'idear and thought'
Can I have a bit of egg? = ca-ni-ha-va-bi-to-vegg?
- assimilation
e. g. 'put back' = pu[p] back; handbag = ha[m]bag
- epenthesis: addition of one or more sounds to a word
e. g. hamster /ˈhæmstər/ often pronounced with an added p sound; GA: [ˈhɛəmpstɚ] or RP: [ˈhampstə]
- t-flapping
e. g. in 'butter' in GA
- vowel length variation
(vowel reduction may occur when a vowel changes from a stressed to an unstressed position)
- deletion
- cluster reductions
62
Define pitch and tone
The variations in sound are actually a result of tone, pitch and intensity.
Pitch is connected to the fundamental frequency. The human auditory system cannot perceive and differentiate between frequencies of notes in some given circumstances. Pitch is subjective in that the perceived tones to a listener are assigned to a musical scale’s relative positions based mainly on frequency of vibration. The frequency of the tones determines the ‘just-noticeable difference’ (jnd), which is the threshold of change perception.
On the other hand tone represents the ‘quality’ of sound, that which distinguishes it and makes it recognizable by its constant ‘pitch’. A tone’s pitch defines its depth (or height) in relation to the complete series of tones that can be heard by the ear. This is why two instruments sound differently even if the pitch is the same, for instance a violin and a flute playing the same pitch will sound differently. The way a listener evaluates frequency also represents pitch of a tone. Obviously a higher pitch results from a higher frequency and a lower frequency gives a lower pitch.
63
Intonation in English
Falling tones in Engl are in general associated with finality, completeness and definiteness.
A nuclear fall typically indicates to the listener that the content of the utterance a speaker produces is complete and does not require any additions.
Rising tones mostly indicate non-finality and that the speaker is seeking anticipating information.
P.122 Ulrike Gut
64
What are the phonetic acoustic consonant features in a spectrogram?
Voiced:
voice bar at bottom of spectrum (vertical striations corresponding to the vibration of the vocal cords)
very general:
- formant structures and hights indicate different characteristics
- e.g. stops: gap in pattern, then burst of noise (voiceless) or sharp beginning of formant structure (voiced)
__________
More detailed - not so important:
Bilabial:
Locus of both second and third formants comparatively low
Alveolar:
Locus of second formant about 1700-1800Hz
Velar:
Usually high locus of the second formant. Common origin of second and third formant transitions.
Retroflex:
General lowering of the 3rd and 4th formants
Stop:
Gap in pattern, followed by a burst of noise for voiceless stops or sharp beginning of formant structure for voiced stops.
Fricative:
Random noise pattern, especially in the higher frequency regions, but dependent on the place of articulation
Nasal:
Formant structure similar to that of vowels but with nasal formants at about 250, 2500 and 3250 Hz.
Lateral:
Formant structure similar to that of vowels but with formants in the neighborhood of 250, 1200 and 2400 Hz. The higher formants are considerably reduced in intensity
65
comment on distribution of consonant phonemes of English
most can be word-initial, but some can never be in word-final position:
- h --> "hat"
- w --> "wear"
- j --> "yes"
66
What sound groups are there and what are they good for?
groups behave a certain way (all consonants occur in beg. of…..)
e.g. What are obstruents good for?
describing final devoicing – fricatives – obstruents
67
some phonetic processes in connected speech
co-articulation [sounds influence, biological, neurological, and physical focus]
--- anticipatory
> e.g. in "two" lips are rounded for "t"
> "have to" no voicing of "v" preceding voiceless
--- perservative
> e.g. "split" no coicing of "l" after voiceless consonant
assimilation [sounds become more similar; deals with the actual sound or sounds]
--- of place
> e.g. "unkind" the "n" is velarized
--- of manner
> happens in coalescence: "get you" sounds "tsh"
--- of voicing
> "have to" --> ha[f] to
```
deletion
--- sounds not produced at all
> e.g. "could be" --> [kebi]
--- final consonant cluster deletion
> "just", "perfect", "bland" to [jus]; [perfek], this more frequent in unstressed syllables
```
reduction
--- articulation only partially realized
> e.g. "could be" --> "u" is reduced
--- vowel reduction
> E. vowels always reduced in unstressed syllables, e.g. in "Around"
> "police" not even articulated at all [p.lis]
68
What does sonority refer to?
the relative loudness of a sound
69
functions of intonation
- attitudinal
- pragmatic
- discoursal
70
How do speakers of German produce stress differently from speakers of English?
English speakers produce an accented syllable mainly by increasing the height of the pitch on the vowel.
German speakers typically produce greater loudness of an accented syllable comared to an unaccented one
71
What are formants?
What is the fundamental frequency?
Around what pitch do women and men range?
In a spectrogram, formants are the frequencies with higher intensity. There patterns
the fundamental frequency is abbreviated as F0 and is the frequency that determines the pitch that is perceived. (Has to do with biological factors, i.e. size of vocal cords --> kids smaller vocal folds, higher pitch values)
In English:
female: 150-250 Hz
male: 100-150 Hz
72
How do GA and RP differ in terms of intonation?
most noticeable:
- RP/BrE uses high-falling
- GA uses rising intonation
73
Differences in Pronunciation
| British vs. American
https://pronunciationstudio.com/american-vs-british-pronunciation/
Consonants
Consonant sounds are largely similar in American and British with just a few key differences:
- /t/ > t-flapping e.g. in "butter"
- non-rhotic
- but ALSO /r/ pronunciation: GA retroflex; RP alveolar continuant/approximant
- Yod (/j/) Dropping
Vowels
/ɒ/ to /ɑ/ as in "want" or "lost"
/æ/ to /e/ "Harry" in GA sounds like "hairy" not like in "cat"
/ɜː/ to /ɜr/ as in "heard"
/ɔː/ to /ɔr/ & /ɑ/ Long back rounded /ɔː/ as in "sword" /sɔːd/, "though" /θɔːt/
/ɑː/ to /ɑr/ & /æ/ Long back unrounded /ɑː/ like in "car" /kɑː/ or "after"
--> and others due to non-rhoticity/rhoticity
/əʊ/ to /oʊ/ as in "go"; RP starts in the centre
Suprasegmental level
- Word Stress:
Some words are stressed differently in American English, particularly those of French origin where American keeps the last syllable stress and British goes for first syllable
- Intonation:
The melody of British and American is quite different, though the structure of speech is very similar. The most obvious difference is the British tendency to use high falling intonation, hitting the main stress high and dropping down. Whereas in American rising tones are more common, so you go up from the main stress. This use of rising intonation on statements is sometimes referred to as ‘Upspeak’.
“I don’t really know what to do about it.”
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What can be said abt Speech Perception?
What theories or models exist?
organs of speech perception:
- peripheral auditory system (ear; outer, middle and inner ear)
- internal auditory system (relevant parts of the brain)
The internal auditory system:
- auditory nerve and cortex (converts the motions into electrical signals that are communicated to thousands of nerve cells via neurotransmitters)
- changes in the acoustic properties of speech sounds do not correspond linearly to changes in the sensations experienced by a listener
humans can perceive frequencies between 20 to 20,000 Hz, everything below 20 is below the threshold of hearing; most sensitive to frequencies below 1000 Hz, above that ability to notice changes decreases;
relationship between subjective perception of pitch and absolute frequencies is depicted on Mel scale; difference between the two frequencies depends on absolute magnitude of frequencies (below 1000Hz fairly dorect relationship between frequency and perceived pitch, above a logarithmic curve
lowest frequency is perceived as pitch, the others contribute to the timbre of a sound; perception of timbre is independent of its loudness and pitch;it is the energy distribution of the different frequencies of a sound that determines the perception of its timbre -> sound of same loudness and pitch perceived differently when pro by a flute or a human voice; even when fundamental frequency is removed from a sound it can still be perceived by listeners
_____
speech perception requires the linguistic interpretation of the neural signals transmitted to the auditory cortex; but how do listeners extract meaningful units from a continuous acoustic stream?
--> rely on theories
- humans can identify small differences between two speech sounds = categorical perception -> listeners group sounds into categories
- ability to identify phonemes despite them being influenced as described in earlier chapters; but for speech perception people likely use mental representations of syllables
- words are understood almost immediately after the first sound is perceived, probably due to matching an acoustic signal to a representation in memory -> mental lexicon (probably in left hemisphere, also contains groups of words for each word, about 75000 for average English speaker)
____
- see articles:
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Speech perception and FLA/SLA?
FLA
- newborn babies have a wide range of perceptual abilities due to hearing language in the womb; infants can perceive sound differences;
- are able to discriminate sounds that play no contrastive role in their native language but ability is lost at about 9 months, then only phonemes since phonological system begins to form
SLA and teaching:
- learners of an L2 have already acquired perceptual categories for the sounds, words and other linguistic units of their first language;
- initially learners understand nothing of the foreign language due to having no mental representations of speech sound, syllables, words and their meaning to which the acoustic signal can be matched
- very little empirical data on acquisition of perception in an L2;
- learners of an L2 do not perceive speech in this language in the same way as native speakers do since they often rely on durational differences instead of formant differences;
- intonation and word stress also perceived differently;
- easier for children but still possible as adults to understand and mend differences
- theory that language learners perceive the L2 sounds through categories of the phonological structure of the L1 and these categories constrain which non-native can be perceived correctly and can be learned correctly (FLEGE?)
- acquisition of L2 sounds that are not present in L1 is easier since new perceptual categories are created quickly;
- when no phonetic differences between two sounds are perceived by the learner (equivalence classification) category formation for L2 sound will be blocked and learner will end up with representation of a single phonetic category for both sounds -> Germans often perceive English /w/ and /v/ as /v/
- before attempting to produce sounds learners should be exposed to the language and simply listen; orthography only later since that activates wrong perception patterns; best different voices and contexts
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Which nuclear patterns are there in English?
| How do they differ between English, German and GA, RP?
1. Falling
- typically finality
- wh-questions in English
2. Rising
- Non-finality
- yes-no-questions
BE: low-rises for yes/no-Q
AE: high-rise (if used in BE -> disbelief)
- speaker wants to continue utterance, links 2 intonation units
BE: low-rise
AE: high-rise
- increasingly used for statements too (high rising terminal)
BE: That's /hot.
Rising for Statement not in German...produces with falling. Seems demanding.
3. Fall-rises
- sth unpleasant, disagreement, doubt
BE: answer yes no question to politely correct
-- typically fall-rises for material of secondary importance:comment (fall for topic:important)
e.g. \/Firstly | I'll show you the \bathroom.
4. Rise-fall
- in declarative: finality
- can also convoy surprise or strong emotion (approval/disapproval). Arrogance, confidence, irony, etc
5. Rise-fall-rise
- not very common in speech
- Surprise
______
Tag Questions:
- diff pragmatic function depending on rising or falling
Falling - invites confirmation
Rising - expects listener to know better, invites contradiction
_____
HOWEVER
It's the combination of head (preceding pitch accents) and nuclear pattern that serve function...
This Combo = the tune
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What are the main types of interference according to Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis?
1. Substitution
e. g. /s/,/z/,/v/ for English , /w/
2. 1 Overdifferentiation
- Frucht/Obst --> fruit
2. 2 Underdifferentiation
- shade/shadow --> Schatten
3. 1 Overrepresentation
- structures of L1 used in L2 more often than natives, or overuse L2 structures (to avoid others?)
- finite subordinate clauses with introductory relative pronouns or adverbial subordinators
- -> he was the teacher, that...... (?)
3.2 Underrepresentation
- L2 structures used less than L1 natives
--- shortened relative clauses
(The man sitting on the bench watched...)
--- adverbial participles
( Sitting on the bench the man watched...)
--- mediopassive constructions
(This book won't sell)
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What kind of approaches exist to explore phonology? Can you explain?
```
o lexical
o generative
o natural
o optimality theory
o hierarchical approaches
```
1. Lexical Phonology
Its basic claim is that all morphological processes, and many phonological ones, are carried out in the lexicon. Theory accounts for the interactions of morphology and phonology in the word building process. On this view, phonological rules fall into two classes:
(1) Lexical Rules: which may interact with morphological rules.
(2) Postlexical Rules, which may not interact with morphological rules. Here, sounds which do not occur in inventory may still occur. (in a sentence, rapid speech)
2. Generative Phonology
- assigns the correct phonetic representations to utterances in such a way as to reflect a native speaker’s internalized grammar.
Generative phonology posits two levels of phonological representation:
An underlying representation is the most basic form of a word before any phonological rules have been applied to it. Underlying representations show what a native speaker knows about the abstract underlying phonology of the language.
A phonetic representation is the form of a word that is spoken and heard.
3. Natural Phonology
- theory from 1979
phonology is based on a set of universal phonological processes which interact with one another; which ones are active and which are suppressed are language-specific. Rather than acting on segments, phonological processes act on distinctive features within prosodic groups. Prosodic groups can be as small as a part of a syllable or as large as an entire utterance.
4. Optimality Theory (OT)
- the theory that surface forms of language reflect resolutions of conflicts between competing constraints (i.e., specific restrictions on the form[s] of a structure). introduced in the 1990s "Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar". originally developed from generative phonology. the idea that language, and in fact every grammar, is a system of conflicting forces. These 'forces' are embodied by constraints, each of which makes a requirement about some aspect of grammatical output forms. Constraints are typically conflicting, in the sense that to satisfy one constraint implies the violation of another. Given the fact that no form can satisfy all constraints simultaneously, there must be some mechanism selecting forms that incur 'lesser' constraint violations from others that incur 'more serious' ones.
5. hierarchical approaches
