KEY TO THE EXERCISES IN UNIT 2

Prof Dr Mara de los ngeles Gmez Gonzlez

English Phonetics & Phonology
1.

There exist three types of ingressive sounds, which are lingual or velaric
ingressive (from the tongue and the velum), glottalic ingressive (from the
glottis), and pulmonic ingressive (from the lungs). This kind of inhaled
speech is not a common phenomenon, but it is normally associated with the
Scandinavian languages, usually in discourse markers such as feedback
words (yes, no) or cries of pain or sobbing. In English an ingressive sound
may be used to express surprise, and in Portuguese it is common in
interjections. If you want to listen to a sample of ingressive speech, please
visit http://ingressivespeech.info.

2.

Yes, they are. Phonation takes place at the larynx and glottis, whereas
articulation takes place in the mouth. Because phonation and articulation are
independent processes, we are able to produce phonemes (articulate) with
different phonation types; this means that we are still able to articulate
sounds even if we have a sore throat (hoarse voice), or in a low voice
(whisper). In fact, we are able to articulate sounds with no voice at all, which
are decoded by means of lip-reading.

3.

Broadly, both vowels and consonants are identified using three-term lables.
Vowels are usually identified in OBR terms: (i) openness, (ii) backness and (iii)
lip-rounding. In addition, the relative length of RP is also mentioned as this
is a contrastive feature in English. Consonants, on the other hand, are
identifying using VPM terms involving (i) the voiced-voiceless contrast, (ii)
place of articulation and manner of articulation. An additional distinction is
that existing between fortis and lenis consonants that is equivalent in vowels
to the fortis-lenis distinction. This is an important distinction because,
among other things, fortis consonants trigger pre-fortis clipping, that is, the
shortening of mostly long vowels.

4.

Phonetically, a consonant is realised by two articulators in the mouth coming

into contact, an active one which moves towards and/or touches a passive
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one. Think of the articulation of any consonant sound and think about which
articulators are at work. The production of a vowel sound, however, does not
involve articulators moving in the mouth, except for the tongue, the height
and backness of which determines that a given vowel sound is produced. The
only function of the lips is to shape the air column as it comes out of the
mouth. Phonemically, a vowel sound can function as the nucleus of a syllable,
which in English and Spanish means that it can actually constitute a syllable
by itself ( /e/ in elephant or elefante), whereas a consonant sound cannot.
Think, for example, how most monosyllables used to catch someones
attention in a loud voice will be based on either open syllables (therefore,
ending in a vowel sound, which can be easily prolonged in time), or else a
single

vowel

(e.g.

eh!).

Acoustically,

vowels

are

characterised

by

homogenous formant patterns, whereas consonants have non-homogenous

or irregular waveforms.
5.

Several types of articulation can be distinguished. Most sounds are produced

with a single point of articulation. Sounds may, however, be produced
involving two points of articulation (co-articulation), in which case two
articulatory possibilities emerge: the two points of articulation both
contribute equally to the dentity of the sound (double articulation or coordinate co-articulation); or one point of articulation may be the dominant
one (the primary (co-)articulation), the other having a lesser degree of
stricture (the secondary (co-)articulation). Examples of secondary articulation
are palatalization, velarization, pharyngealization and labialization (Crystal
2008: 35).

6.

Clipped forms or clippings are reductions of longer forms. Two forms of

clipping occur in English, pre-fortis clipping and rhythmic clipping, which
affect the duration of both long and short vowels alike but they are only
marked in the narrow (or allophonic) transcriptions of long vowels with a
half-length mark [] because it is in this latter context that the clipping effect
is most noticeable. Pre-fortis clipping occurs when a syllable is terminated by
a voiceless consonant, while rhythmic clipping takes place when a stressed
vowel is followed by multiple unstressed syllables within the same rhythm
unit (often referred to as a rhythmic foot). Examples of pre-fortis and
rhythmic clipping are provided below (extracted from Ashby 2011: 105, 107,
198):
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PRE-FORTIS CLIPPING

RHYTHMIC CLIPPING

6.