Chapter 1: a working basis

1. Introduction An important purpose of this course is to explain how English is pronounced in the accent normally chosen as the standard in England. However, if this was the only thing the course did, English pronunciation would have been a more suitable title. Some theoretical background will be provided as well; this is necessary for anyone who needs to understand the principle regulating the use of sounds in spoken English. Furthermore, well look at larger chunks of language, such as the syllable, and well discuss aspects of speech like stress or intonation. Moreover, it is important not only to understand the main principles of English phonetics, but also to apply them to your own speech and develop a correct and fluent pronunciation.

2. Phonetics and phonology Phonetics, the study of speech sound, is essentially a matter of practice as well as theory. In other words, youll have to produce sounds as well as read about them Exercise 11 Say the Dutch word mam. We are going to examine the sound at the beginning and end of the word: [m]. Say this word a number of times. Now say a long [m]. Keep it going for five seconds or so. Which characteristics can we ascribe to the sound [m]? Exercise 2 Say a long [m]. This time pinch your nostrils tightly, blocking the escape of air. What happens? Exercise 3 Say a long [m]. Put your fingers in your ears. You should be able to hear a buzz inside your head, which is called voice. Try alternating [m] with silence [m m m m]. You should be able to hear the voice being switched on and off. Conclusions So we have seen that [m] is: 1) 2) 3) 4) Now try the same tests for another sound, e.g. the sound [t] as in Dutch auto. 1) 2) 3) 4) Later, we shall look at more sounds in English and Dutch and we will elaborate this description. An important part of phonetics is describing what speech sounds are like and, in particular, how they are made. Human beings are able to make a variety of sounds with their vocal apparatus. A large number of these are found in human speech. Sounds like clicks or lip trills (which often seem strange to Europeans) are part of everyday speech in languages spoken elsewhere in the world.

Exercises 1, 2 and 3 and the conclusions are based on B. Collins and I. Mees (1996). The Phonetics of English and Dutch. Leiden: Brill, p.2.

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Each language uses only a small number of the sounds available. For example: English has no sound equivalent to the Dutch sound spelt as <g> or <ch> (as in goed or kracht). Dutch, on the other hand, has no sound such as that represented by <th> in English thanks. The available sounds form patterns in the language. For instance: English has words ending in [d], contrasting with others ending in [t], e.g. bed and bet. Though Dutch has spelling differences of this sort, there is no contrast in the pronunciation of nood and noot. These patterns will be studied in phonology. Conclusion Phonetics = the study/science of speech sounds in language in general; Phonology = the study of the selection and patterns of sounds in a particular language. Note that we place the symbol between square brackets [ ] to indicate that we are concerned with the sound [m] and not the letter <m>. Orthographic symbols (i.e. the letters of ordinary spelling) can be placed between angled brackets, as in the example above.

3. Varieties of English and Dutch In each living language accents and dialects can be found. The accents are the number of ways in which a language can be pronounced (e.g. the difference in pronunciation of Dutch words between people from Limburg and people from Antwerp). Languages are pronounced differently by people from different geographical places, from different social classes, of different ages and different educational backgrounds. The accent that we concentrate on in this course is British English. If there are also differences in grammar, word-order and the choice of vocabulary (also called lexis) we use the term dialects. Linguists distinguish 2 types of dialects: - regional dialect: it covers variation from one place to another - social dialect: it reflects differences between one social group and another. Regional dialects are generally accepted; people from Bruges do not speak Dutch in the same way as people from Antwerp. Social dialects, however, might be more controversial, as linguists and sociologists state that accent and dialect are closely related to social class. a. Dutch In the Netherlands, there is one variety of Dutch that is often associated with the better-off section of the population (so with high status, education and wealth). As a result, it has become some sort of prestige dialect, i.e. a standard variety of the language which is highly regarded (even by those who do not speak it). This dialect is called AN (Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands). It is not a regional dialect, so it is difficult to indicate where ABN-speakers were born or raised. However, it is possible to work out their social backgrounds (generally, they belong to the professional classes and they have received a better than average kind of education). In Belgium, the standard variety of Dutch is known as AN (Algemeen Nederlands). In its written form, AN is more or less identical to the ABN of the Netherlands. Its spoken forum, though, has developed its own distinctive character and has become a prestige variety of Belgian Dutch throughout the 20th century. The majority of newscasters and announcers of the Flemish services of Belgian radio and TV speak Dutch of this type. When Dutch is mentioned in this case, we refer to both AN and ABN. b. English Some of what has been said about the Dutch-speaking world also applies in large measure to England. Once again, there is a large number of different varieties, but one accent has a more eminent position. It is often referred to as Standard English, Oxford English, BBC English or the Queens English, but none of these names can be considered really accurate. Phoneticians used

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to call this type of British speech Received Pronunciation (RP)2 and this term has started to be taken up by a wider public. RP is the classic example of a prestige dialect, as it has high status all over England and to a certain extent the world, although it is spoken only by a relatively small number of people. RP is heard all over the country, so it not a regional accent, but rather a social accent (similar to the Dutch standard varieties). It is used on the stage and at one time it was practically the only speech used by national BBC radio and television announcers. A vast majority of Conservatives speak RP, whereas Labour MPs maintain more of the flavour of their local speech. Welsh and Scottish nationalists tend to hold on to their Welsh and Scots accents, perhaps in order to emphasize their regional identity. English is not just spoken in England; it is a world language. In Scotland, Ireland and Wales, RP retains considerable status. This is also the case for the former colonial countries such as South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Although few people there still consciously imitate British English, the speech of newscasters and announcers in these countries clearly has close relationships with RP. Even in the USA, there was formerly a tradition of using a special artificial type of English, based on RP, for the stage; nowadays, the British accent (by which Americans mean RP) still has a degree of prestige in the United States. Within RP itself, we can make a distinction between different varieties. The traditional narrow definition would only take account of people who have been educated at one of the famous English public schools, like Eton or Winchester. However, for social reasons many people adapted their speech and so ended up with something very close to RP. RP is today best regarded as educated British English speech lacking regional characteristics3. Today, millions of English people speak a type of English which is closer to RP than any local accent; we speak of general or mainstream RP.

2 3

Received implies socially acceptable. From: Collins, B., Mees, I. (1996). The Phonetics of English and Dutch. Leiden: Brill, p.7.

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Chapter 2: the phoneme4 1. Phonemes and allophones When we are listening to an utterance (= a stretch of speech), we hear a continuous stream of sound, broken up only by pauses for breath. Therefore, speech is a continuum. So, there is actually a constant change without clear divisions between one state and the next. It is one of the tasks of phonetics to divide this continuum into smaller pieces which are easier to describe. This process of splitting up an utterance is called segmentation and the resulting smaller units of sound are segments. These segments are also known as vowels and consonants. If you ask someone how many speech sounds there are in cat, he/she will almost certainly reply three, and name them [c], [] and [t]. However, segments do not work alone; [c], [] and [t] have no meaning taken on their own. They can only mean something if they are combined to a word which has meaning (in this case: cat). In all languages, certain variations in sound are particularly significant because they can change the meaning of words. Take, for instance, the Dutch word maan. If we replace [m] by [l], we produce a new word laan. This gives a pair of words distinguished in meaning by a single sound difference. Two words of this kind are termed a minimal pair. So you have a minimal pair when two sounds can replace each other in the same position and the same environment, leading to meaning contrast. Exercise5 Find minimal pairs in Dutch using the following words: gaat kijk lief zee luid It is possible to take this process further: next to laan, we could also produce gaan, baan and haan. This is termed a minimal set. Moreover, the vowel can be changed in stead of the initial consonant, e.g. maan, meen, mijn, min, man, men, which provides us with another minimal set. We can also change the final sound, which leads to a third minimal set of this type: maan, maak, Maas, maag Through such processes, we can eventually determine those speech sounds which are phonologically significant (so, which are important to change meaning). These contrastive units of sound which can be used to change meaning are called phonemes. Using the process of discovering minimal pairs, we can draw up a phonemic inventory for Dutch (with 22 vowels and 20 consonants) and for English (20 vowels and 24 consonants) (see chapters 4 and 5). Not every small difference that can be heard between one sound and another will alter the meaning of words. All languages have a certain degree of variation in each phoneme. A striking example is Dutch /r/. It can range from sounds made by the tip of the tongue (tong-r) to various types of articulation involving the uvula (huig-r). These various pronunciations are allophones of the phoneme /r/. So, each phoneme can be seen as a compound of a number of different sounds. Only the allophones of a phoneme exist in reality. They are concrete units, which can be recorded, stored and reproduced. Phonemes, on the other hand, are abstract units. Their existence is only in the mind of the speaker and listener. Because the phoneme is actually an abstraction, we often speak of it being realised as a particular allophone. Again, different brackets are used to represent different concepts: phonemic transcription is enclosed within slant brackets / /; phonetic transcription (used to represent allophones; so only the particular sound is important here) is enclosed in square brackets [ ]; orthographic symbols are enclosed in angled brackets < >.
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This chapter is based on B. Collins and I. Mees (1996). The Phonetics of English and Dutch. Leiden: Brill, pp.8-14. From: Collins, B., Mees, I. (1996). The Phonetics of English and Dutch. Leiden: Brill, p.8.

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The allophones of any single phoneme mostly have a considerable phonetic similarity in both acoustic and articulatory terms: this means that 1) they sound similar; 2) they are articulated in a similar way. Eventually, this brings us to a working definition of the phoneme: a member of a set of abstract units through which contrasts of meaning are produced and which together form the sound system of a language.

2. The phoneme in English and Dutch The speech of an individual person is called an idiolect. Usually, it is easy for a native speaker to interpret the phoneme system of another native speakers idiolect. Even if he or she speaks a different variety of the language, they will be able to understand each other, because the phoneme systems will be broadly similar. However, problems may occur for the foreign learner, because the phoneme system of his language is likely to be different. a. Consonants 6 Dutch native speakers learning English often have trouble with some of the consonants of English, for instance, English //, as in then. It is important to make a contrast between the pronunciations of the words then and den. Dutch has no // and as a consequence, Dutch speakers are likely to interpret this phoneme as Dutch /d/ (because to a Dutch ear this sounds closest to English //). English: then // vs. den /d/ Dutch: den /d/ From the moment children start learning to talk, they are taught to listen for those sound contrasts which are essential for their own language and to ignore those which are not important. The result is that we all interpret the sounds we hear in terms of the phonemes of our mother tongue. There are many remarkable examples of this. For example: the Japanese cannot distinguish the contrasting phonemes /r/ and /l/ of English; Greeks hear no difference between /s/ and / /, as in same and shame. Cantonese Chinese may confuse /l/ with /n/, hence finding it difficult to hear the contrast between Leeds and needs. The Dutch learner should learn to interpret the sound system of English as heard by English ears and ignore the patterns imposed by years of speaking and listening to Dutch. b. Vowels Dutch people are often surprised when they discover that an English person has difficulty in hearing the difference between words like Dutch huid and hout, because the Dutch vowel phonemes / y/ and / u/ sound alike to English ears. The reason is that both seem similar to the allophones of the English vowel phoneme // as in out. This can be represented as follows: Dutch: huid / y/ vs. hout / u/ English: out /a / The same applies to the Dutch vowels / / and / /, as in mat en mot. A Dutch person can make a distinction between these two phonemes, but an English listener may interpret them as allophones of / / in not.

These examples have been described by B. Collins and I. Mees in The Phonetics of English and Dutch, pp.10-11.

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On the other hand, Dutch learners of English also have their problems. The English words man and men sound alike to Dutch ears. That is because the English phonemes // and /e/ are heard as if they were allophones of //, as in Dutch men. English: man // vs. men /e/ Dutch: men // Another problem for Dutch speakers is the contrast between / / and /u:/, as in pull and pool. Dutch speakers are inclined to hear the two English vowels in terms of /u/, as in poel. 3. Summary7 A phoneme is a member of a set of abstract units which together form the sound system of a given language, and through which contrasts of meaning are produced. Each phoneme shows allophonic variation, i.e. there will be a number of variant sounds (phonetic realisations) which may represent the phonemic unit. Normally, there will be considerable phonetic similarity between these variant sounds. The allophones are easily placed in phoneme categories by a native speaker, but learning to do this is one of the chief problems of the learner of a foreign language. Do you remember? The difference between phonemic and phonetic transcription Phonemic transcription (between slant brackets, e.g. /m/): used to represent phonemes. For example: we are not concerned whether somebody pronounces /r/ in Dutch as tong-r or huig-r, but we want to establish that there is a sound /r/ which contrasts with other sounds such as /k/, /p/, Phonetic transcription (between square brackets, e.g. [m]): used to represent allophones of a particular sound. For example: the difference between Dutch huig-r (uvular r) and tong-r (tongue tip r) is important. 4. The syllable8 Phonemes can be regarded as the basic phonological elements. Above the phoneme, we can consider units which are larger in extent, namely the syllable and the word.

Figure 1 : diagram to illustrate segment, syllable and word

We can divide a word into one or more syllables. For instance, mum has one syllable, mother has two syllables and grandmother has three syllables. A syllable is a group of one or more sounds (so, it is regarded as a phonological unit) and can be considered as ranking between the phoneme and the word. However, in practice, the syllable is a unit difficult to define, although native speakers of a language generally have a good intuitive feeling for the concept, and are usually able to indicate how many syllables there are in a particular word.
7

From: Collins, B., Mees, I. (1996). The Phonetics of English and Dutch. Leiden: Brill, p.11. This part is based on B. Collins and I. Mees (1996). The Phonetics of English and Dutch. Leiden: Brill, pp.14-17. 9 From: Collins, B., Mees, I. (1996). The Phonetics of English and Dutch. Leiden: Brill, p.14.
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Exercise How many syllables are there in the word spinazie? Also indicate the syllable boundaries. Do the same for the following words: scholengemeenschap arbeidscontract koolmeesje. However, in some other examples the syllable boundaries may be more doubtful. How would you divide the syllables in the words expres and extreem? We have said that the syllable is considered to be a phonological unit. This means that we can define it in terms of how it functions in a given language. The essential part (or nucleus) of a syllable is a vowel sound (V). At either side of this vowel (so, at the margins of the syllable), there may be one or more consonants (C). Some examples from Dutch (they are all words of one syllable): ei V rij CV ijs VC reis CVC spring CCCVC And some examples from English I V my CV ice VC nice CVC spiced CCVCC However, the rules for syllable structure are not exactly the same for Dutch and English; there are, for instance, different restrictions on the possible consonant clusters (i.e. the combination of consonants) to be found at the beginning or end of a syllable. Some examples: Dutch has the syllable-initial cluster /kn/, as in knie, which has no counterpart in English; English has the initial cluster /hj/, as in huge, which Dutch does not have. In English, there is a large number of syllable-final clusters, such as /dz, bz, gz, vz, ndz/ in roads, robes, rogues, saves, bands, which do not occur in Dutch. English and Dutch both have closed syllables (i.e. syllables ending in more than one consonant) and open syllables (i.e. syllables ending in a vowel). Many languages allow only open syllables or syllables to be closed by only a restricted range of consonants. Samoan (spoken on islands in the Pacific Ocean), for example, allows only open syllables; this language has borrowed many words from English and adapted to the Samoan open syllable phonological system, e.g. sosi (from sauce) and lipoti (from report). Some remarks: Letters are not the same as sounds. The consonant letters <w> and <y> are not consonant sounds if they come after the vowel sound in the syllable, e.g. saw, say. They are part of the vowel sound then. Some people use the word syllable to indicate the parts of a written word. In this course, however, we use syllable to talk about the pronunciation of the words. For example, in writing, we can divide chocolate into three parts like this: cho-co-late. But when we say the word, we pronounce only two syllables, like this: [ t k.l t]. (The dot shows where the two syllables are divided).

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A number of other words may be pronounced with fewer syllables than in writing. Listen to the following examples. chocolate general different [ t k.l t] [ enr l] [ d fr nt] comfortable interesting secretary [ k mft b l] [ ntr st ] [ sekr tri]

The first syllable in the following words has the same three sounds, but in the opposite order: kitchen chicken [ k t n] [ t k n]

If a sentence has similar-sounding syllables like this in it, it may be difficult to pronounce. These sentences are called tongue-twisters. Listen to the following example. Exercise 110 Write these words in the correct column: aunt Wednesday grandfather cook dad doctor uncle passenger teacher sister officer lovely restaurant vegetables. 1 syllable 2 syllables 3 syllables

Exercise 2 Look at these one-syllable words. Write C where there is a consonant sound. There may be one before V, after V or in both places. 1. bought: 2. eyes: 3. key: 4. day: 5. through: V V V V V 6. laugh: 7. two: 8. youth: 9. weigh: 10. rhyme: V V V V V

Exercise 3 Read these tongue twisters aloud and listen: how many syllables are there in each? Write the number. Example: She sells sea shells on the sea shore. = 8 1. Walter walked towards the waiter. = 2. Betty bought a better bit of butter. = 3. The fat cat sat on the vets wet hat. = Exercise 4 Some one-syllable words are just a single vowel sound (V), for example oh and eye. If we add one or more consonant sounds (C) to the beginnings of these words, they are still only one syllable. Look at these examples:
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Exercises 1-8 are based on M. Hancock (2003). English Pronunciation in Use. Cambridge University Press: pp.50-63.

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V oh oh eye air or [ ] [ ] [a] [e ] [ :] no low lie where law

CV [n ] [l ] [la] [we ] [l :]

snow slow fly swear floor

CCV [sn ] [sl ] [fla] [swe ] [fl :]

Now add one of the sounds from the box after the consonant at the start of these words to make other words. Think of sounds, not spelling! [k] Example: die: dry 1. back: 2. fight: 3. fat: 4. go: 5. pain: 6. pay: 7. two: 8. say: 9. sin: 10. send: [l] [r] [p] [t]

Exercise 5 The spelling changes if you change the order of sound in these one-syllable words from CV to VC. Write the missing words. Example: CV [l :] = law; VC [ :l] = all CV 1. [de] = 2. [n ]= [ed] = [ n] = VC

3. [p e ] = 4. [t i:] = 5. [me ] = 6. [se ] =

[e p] = [i:t] = [e m] = [e s] =

Exercise 6 Think of a computer which people speak into and it writes what they say. This computer wrote these sentences down wrongly, but one of the correct words is given at the end (in brackets). Write the correct sentences. Example: She dozen turn much. (earn) She doesnt earn much.

1. I thing cold cars are better. (think) 2. The bang caught to be open by now. (ought) 3. I thing call the time. (all) 4. If you took aspirins, your head wooden take. (ache)

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5. Word-stress11 Stress patterns can help you hear the difference between similar words. a. Numbers ending in -teen or -ty thirtteen thirty fourteen forty sixteen sixty eighteen eighty nineteen ninety Remark: the stress pattern of numbers with -teen is sometimes different when the word is used in a phrase or sentence: e.g. the nineteen nineties, nineteen people. b. Nouns vs. verbs Some words are both nouns and verbs. For example: record is a noun if you put the stress on the 1st syllable, and a verb if you put the stress on the 2nd syllable. Try this out for the following list: record contrast desert export object present produce protest rebel increase conduct. Remark: there is not always a change of stress in words that are both nouns and verbs. For example: answer, picture, promise, reply, travel and visit always have a stress on the same syllable. Exercise 1 Pronounce the words below to find the odd one out: cross out the word with a different stress pattern. Example: money machine mountain message. 1. 2. 3. 4. answer agree allow attract middle minute mission mistake compare correct copy collect garden granny guitar grammar 5. 6. 7. 8. complete common careful crazy pronounce provide promise prefer shampoo shoulder shower shopping reason remove receive review

Exercise 2 Read the sentences and indicate the stress pattern for the words in bold. 1. I got my first record as a present when I was eleven. 2. Youve progressed well this year, but Id like to see even more progress. 3. We import too much petrol and the countrys export figures are going down. 4. It started as a student protest, but now the army has rebelled against the government. 5. In the desert, theres a big contrast between temperatures in the day and at night. c. Some frequent mistakes... Indicate the word stress in the following word pairs and pronounce them correctly. economy economics distribute distribution artist artistic atom atomic photograph photographer public publicity national nationality nationalise nationalisation continue continuation climate climatology take over takeover hand out handout

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This part is based on M. Hancock (2003). English Pronunciation in Use. Cambridge University Press ; pp.64-71.

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Chapter 3: The speech mechanism The speech mechanism consists of the respiratory system, the phonatory system and the articulatory system. The two first systems will be briefly discussed, the last one more elaborate. 1. The respiratory system The respiratory system consists of the lungs and the bronchial tubes.

Figure 1 : Larynx, trachea and bronchial tubes.

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In human speech, the air stream is set in motion by the action of the lungs. The air passes through the larynx (Adam's apple), which converts the energy of the air stream into a sound source. This is amplified and modified by a resonator (the passageway formed by the throat, mouth and nose). Speech can be regarded in a sense as controlled breathing: the lungs take in air rapidly and they let it out slowly and under careful control. Exercise 113 Breathe in and out sharply a few times. Then make a Dutch /a:/ vowel (as in la). Hold it for as long as you can. Then try making the same sound while breathing in. What differences do you notice?

Nearly all speech sounds are made by using air that is pushed out of the lungs. This is called an egressive air stream. When you did exercise 1 above, you will have noticed that it is very difficult to speak on an ingressive air stream for a long stretch of time. Exercise 2 Using a normal egressive air stream, count up to ten in English without taking in a breath. Then try to do the same on an ingressive air stream. Notice how much more difficult it is to talk breathing inwards and how odd your voice sounds.

From: Collins, B., Mees, I. (1996). The Phonetics of English and Dutch. Leiden: Brill, p.26. These exercises are based on B. Collins and I. Mees, I. (1996). The Phonetics of English and Dutch. Leiden: Brill, pp.29-35.
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2. The phonatory system The bronchial tubes lead into the so-called windpipe or trachea. At the top of the trachea, we find the larynx, which is a framework of cartilage containing the vocal folds. These can vibrate rapidly when an air stream is passing between them. The vibrations produce what is termed voice (a sort of buzz one can hear and feel in vowels and in most consonants). The space between the vocal folds is termed the glottis. Exercise Say a vowel [a:] as in la. Prolong it. Press your hand on your larynx and feel the buzz (the voicing). Now say a long [m] and feel the same thing. Now say a long [s] and go on to say a [z]. Prolong it. Can you feel and hear the voicing for the [z]sound? Say [s z s z s z] and feel the contrast of voiceless and voiced in these sounds. The function of the larynx as a vibration source is called phonation. The state of a voiceless sound is usually indicated by (-) and the voiced state by (+). Variation in the speed of vibration of the vocal folds (or frequency) is very important in producing changes of pitch, i.e. the way in which we perceive sounds as being high or low. The higher the frequency (i.e. the more rapid the speed of vibration), the higher we perceive the pitch of a sound to be. Intonation is the term used for variation over a stretch of speech.

3. The articulatory system The articulatory system is formed by the vocal tract (this is the area above the glottis) and consists of three cavities. These are the spaces inside the pharynx or throat, the mouth and the nose. The cavities act as resonators, altering the buzz produced by the vocal folds. The shape of the cavities is particularly important in making different types of vowel sounds. It is convenient to examine the vocal tract by means of a sagittal cross-section. Sagittal is an anatomic term to indicate a flat surface of the body running from front to back. Figure 2 is a simplified version of such a cross-section. 1. 2. 3. Nasal cavity Oral cavity Pharyngeal cavity

Figure 2 : Simplified model of a sagittal cross-section, showing nasal, oral and pharyngeal cavities.

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a. The pharyngeal cavity This is the space enclosed by the pharynx and situated immediately above the vocal folds. The passageway forks are located at the top of the pharynx, with one part leading to the oral cavity (the space inside the mouth) and the other to the nasal cavity (the space inside the nose). The soft palate (see below) acts rather like a railway points mechanism. The air stream can be switched to pass either (1) through both the oral and nasal cavities simultaneously or, alternatively, (2) through the oral cavity only.
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From: Collins, B., Mees, I. (1996). The Phonetics of English and Dutch. Leiden: Brill, p.28.

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In the latter case, the soft palate rises and forms a closure against the back of the pharynx, thus shutting off the entrance to the nasal cavity. The soft palate remains lowered, when youre breathing normally and not speaking.

Figure 3 : Cross-section illustrating the articulation of /n/, showing the soft palate lowered; note that (+) means voiced.

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Figure 4: Articulation of /d/, showing the soft palate raised.

Most speech sounds are oral, being made with the soft palate raised, and so having only the resonance of the oral cavity. However, nearly all languages have at least one nasal consonant, e.g.: [m, n, ], and many have nasal vowels, e.g. the vowels in French un bon vin blanc. For nasal sounds, the soft palate is lowered, allowing the air to escape through the nose. Exercise Say a prolonged [m]. Now pinch your nostrils sharply. What happens? Do the same with [n] and []. These consonants, where the air stream is allowed to resonate in the nasal cavity, are called nasals. When you block the point of the release at the nostrils, the air can no longer escape and the sound suddenly ceases. b. The oral cavity Lips The Latin word for lips is labia, producing the adjectives labial and bilabial (= 2 lips). The lips are flexible in several directions and can be rounded, spread or neutral. The two lips can close to block the air stream, as for bilabial /b, p, m/ in English and Dutch. However, the lips can also be nearly closed, with the lower lip close to the upper teeth, as for English /v, f/ (e.g. fine, vine). In the production of vowels, lips can be spread (e.g. E /i:/ as in see), neutral (e.g. D /a:/ as in laan) or rounded. There is a distinction between open rounding (e.g. E / / as in box) and close rounding (e.g. D /y/ as in nu). Consonants may also have lip-rounding, for instance, E /w/ in week has strongly rounded lips; E / / in shoe and /t / in chew have lip-rounding and protrusion with the lips. D /sj/ as in sjaal seems similar, but has less lip-rounding (with some speakers none at all actually). Exercise Use a mirror to practise lip-rounding and spreading with vowel sounds. Say D /i/ as in ziek. Now say it and round your lips. What sort of vowel do you get now? Say the vowel in nu. Unround your lips. What sort of vowel do you hear? Say the sound /sj/ as in sjaal. Observe whether you have your lips rounded or spread. Try adding or removing the lip-rounding from /sj/ and note what difference (if any) it makes to the sound.

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Figure 3 and 4 have been taken from: Collins, B., Mees, I. (1996). The Phonetics of English and Dutch. Leiden: Brill; p.29.

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 Teeth The teeth are in fixed position and act as obstacles to the air stream when it is directed against them by the positioning of the tongue. The upper front teeth are the most important for speech. They are mainly significant for the production of the friction required for sounds such as /s, z/ in Dutch and English, and it is very difficult to speak without them. The tip of the tongue is close to the front teeth in the articulation of the English sounds // in think and // in rather. Such articulations are called dental and usually pose a problem for Dutch speakers. In the languages of the world, dental fricatives similar to // and // are not exceptional: they are found, for instance, in Greek, Spanish and Icelandic. The lips can articulate against the teeth, as we have seen, for labio-dental sounds like E /f/ and /v/. Exercise Try saying the dental sounds [] and []. Use your mirror to check the position of your tongue and teeth. See if you can say the dental sounds by placing the tongue just behind the back of the upper front teeth.

Alveolar ridge In English, a large number of sounds are produced with the tongue pressing against or moving towards the alveolar ridge, e.g. /t, d, n, s, z, l/. Dutch has similar sounds, differing in details which will be discussed later. In addition, D /r/ is frequently made by the tongue tapping against the alveolar ridge. Sounds involving the alveolar ridge are labelled alveolar. Exercise If you put a finger into the mouth, the (upper) alveolar ridge can be felt as a corrugated ridge just behind the upper front teeth. You can also easily feel it with the tip of your tongue.

Hard palate For Dutch and English /j/, as in jaar and yes, the tongue makes a movement towards the hard palate. Such articulations involving the tongue and the hard palate are termed palatal. Similar articulations are heard in E / / (ship), E /t / (choke), E / / (measure) and E / / (joke); but these are produced by the tongue rising towards the alveolar ridge and the front part of the hard palate. These sounds are called palato-alveolar. (They are different from D /sj, tj/ in that a smaller portion of the front of the palate is involved.) Exercise If you run your tongue back from the alveolar ridge, you will feel the dome of the hard palate. Say the word ja and feel the tongue come up for the /j/ as it moves towards the hard palate.

Soft palate The alternative name for the soft palate is velum, and two adjectives have been derived from this term, viz. velar and velic. We have already discussed how the soft palate can be raised to form a closure against the back wall of the pharynx (and so block off the nasal cavity) (see figure 4, p.13). This is called a velic closure and it is part of the articulation of all non-nasal sounds. The soft palate (or velum), however, can have the tongue articulating against it. Such a closure is used for [k, g, ] and is termed a velar closure. As a consequence, the articulations for [k, g] have a velic and a velar closure; [], on the other hand, has a velar closure, but no velic closure, as it is a nasal sound.

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Figure 5: Articulation of /g/, showing (1) velar closure (2) velic closure

Figure 6: Articulation of //, showing (1) velar closure (2) absence of velic closure

Uvula At the back of the soft palate is the uvula, which can easily be seen in a mirror as a hanging lump of tissue at the back of the mouth. It is possible to make it vibrate and so produce a uvular trill [R]. A similar sort of effect is obtained by gargling with water.

Tongue The tongue is extremely mobile and flexible, and the tip is a very sensitive organ of touch much more sensitive, actually, than the finger tips. Both this sensitivity and our ability to detect movement diminish greatly towards the back of the tongue. The tongue is one organ, with no natural divisions. For phonetic purposes, however, it is usual to divide it into parts, as shown in figure 7.

Figure 7: Parts of the tongue

It is important to note that the front of the tongue is actually behind the tip and the blade. If we look at the tongue in another of its postures with the tip down and the tongue-body raised, as for many vowel sounds the reason for the label front becomes clear.

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Exercise Fill in the blanks by consulting the text.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

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