Introduction to Phonetic Science

HESP 403 Spring 2007

Our backgrounds

...

Syllabus

Course / Instructor info

www.bsos.umd.edu/hesp/mwinn

Office hours Book (yes, theres a book) Syllabus/Grading

Exams,

quizzes, prep work, homework, (=attendance)

Purpose of the course

ASHA guidelines
Communication between clinicians Understanding of the speech mechanism Physical and theoretical properties of speech sounds

Goals of todays class:

Understand what the science of phonetics is.

Understand linguistic terms like phoneme allophone and syllable Understand Stress Know why we use phonetic symbols

Phonetics

Where does it fit in?

What kinds of explanations does it offer? What comparisons and analogies can we make?

To other fields of study,

within the study of language

Kinds of Phonetics

Articulatory / Transcription Phonetics

What is being said? How do we classify sounds that we make in speech? What are the physical properties of speech sounds?

Acoustic Phonetics Auditory Phonetics Clinical Phonetics

How do we organize speech sounds in our brains?

How can we use this knowledge to solve problems?

Articulatory / Transcription Phonetics

What is being said? How do we classify sounds that we make in speech?

English Sounds in the IPA

http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/ipa/index.html

Acoustic phonetics
What are the physical properties of speech sounds?

Auditory Phonetics
How do we organize speech sounds in our ears and in our brains?

Clinical Phonetics

The application of the knowledge of phonetics to solving practical problems

Phonological disorders Understanding dialects Accent reduction Language acquisition

The most important slide EVER

Orthography (how a word is written)

Does not indicate Pronunciation (how a word is spoken)

Dont be fooled by spelling! Phonetics is concerned

Digraphs th sh ch -ti Vowels

Represent one sound

with sounds, not letters

etc.

Are often not clearly reflected by spelling.

Spelling

Wood would Fly high Here hear Cough scoff Mission ration fishing Mission fission

Helpful symbols to start off

word a normal, typewritten word in plain English / word / the basic idea we have about how a word is pronounced [ word ] an actual pronunciation of a word (usually from an audio recording)

Terms: Phoneme:
A sound in a language

Smallest unit of sound that distinguishes

meaning in a word/language

cat

Each phoneme is represented by one symbol in

the IPA alphabet

has three sounds, each of which can distinguish its meaning from another word rat kit cab If you change any of the three sounds, the word no longer means the same thing.

Understanding phonemes

Every sound that is important to the word is a phoneme

Phoneme Ph /f/ B /b/ o /o/ n /n/ e /i/ t /t/ me /m/

Boat
oa /o/

Activity

How many phonemes do these words have?

Good Half Through Chips

Minimal Pairs Words that differ by only one phoneme Shoe / u / Do / d u /

Min. Pair even though it is 4 letters vs 2
Not minimal pairs:

Cough rough

differ by more than one sound, though only one letter.

Pair and Pare

both the same no change in

sounds, though there is a change in orthography.

Are they Minimal pairs?

Shoe sue Shoe stew Flew stew Correct collect Mice nice Wail sale Wail where

Phoneme categorization

Each speaker sounds a bit different.

Every time to say a word, it might sound a bit different.

Still, we can learn to put these physically different sounds into categories.

The categories are phonemes

Allophones

Variant pronunciations of a phoneme

So they are different phones (sounds) but the same phoneme (category)
Any speech sound

Because they dont change the meaning of the word

Allophone examples

Keep and Keep (unreleased or released final sound) Light and Dark L sounds

Little

vs ball

Keel and cool

Front and back /k/

Allophone example

/ ph I t / pit

Aspirated (puff of air escapes from the mouth) Unaspirated

/ s p I t / spit

Both are still perceived as the same sound

Allophone is a language-specific designation.

Allophones

Phonemes

Japanese /r/
p h o n e p h o n e

English /l/ /r/

p h o n e p h o n e

[l]

[r]

[l]

[r]

Allophone is a language-specific designation.

Allophones
See

Phonemes

English /i/
p h o n e p h o n e

Finnish / i / / i: /
p h o n e p h o n e

Sika Siika

[i]

[ i: ]

[i]

[ i: ]

Different phones can be the same or different phonemes

Phonemes in Sindhi

voiceless d aspirated t breathy d unaspirated t

Allophones of the same phoneme / t /

(in English)

Non-phonemic phones

Clicks

Other sounds

Velar click Palatal click Dental click Glottal click

Bbbbbb! Whistle Scream

Not phonemes in English

http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/ course/chapter11/zulu/zulu.html

Phonemes from other languages

Clicks not phonemic in our language, but they are phonemes in !X

be seated to die not to be shoot you

Analogy for Allophones: orthography

Representation in the head

b

b Normal use

B Proper names special words

2 realizations of the same letter

So far...

Phonetics as a sound science Spelling is generally not useful for phonetics

May not reflect sound contrasts May imply false contrasts Is not consistent

Sounds can distinguish meaning

This is language-specific

Kinds of transcription

If we use Broad Transcription, we just use the intended phoneme and disregard the slight variation

All ks are ks.

All bs are bs

If we use Narrow Transcription, we use the exact allophone being spoken

Different sounds are written differently

The IPA

The International Phonetic Alphabet

Purpose Guiding principle: one sound = one symbol A different symbol for each distinctive sound The same symbol should be used for that sound in every language which uses it Simple symbols for major sounds (from the roman alphabet where possible) Diacritics are used for minor modifications

IPA symbols

Familiarize yourself with the IPA chart

(handout) It contains the characters used in broad transcription
to use for slight variations.

Extended IPA charts show markings (diacritics)

IPA symbols introductory issues

/ j / = y th
sh and ch

ng classification

Sound inventories

English has roughly 42 sounds

Different dialects may drop or add some This is above-average (~29)

Small inventories: Rotokas, Mura 11 sounds Hawaiian 13 sounds

Largest inventory: !X - 141

Combining sounds

Syllables sound units of words

Are countable Are singable Contain a vowel / a vowel quality

Syllables

Definition?
Word behave
Syllable Syllable onset rhyme
nucleus coda

onset

rhyme
nucleus coda

ve

Kinds of Syllables

Open syllables

End in a vowel (no coda)

The, he, she, play

Closed syllables

End with a consonant (have a coda)

Bring, them, luck, speech

Syllables and phonotactics

Not all sounds are permitted in any position / in any combination in a syllable.

ng ts rf at start of syllable? 3 @initial

4 @coda

English consonant clusters

Japanese lack of clusters

Stress

= lexical stress = accent An increase in muscular force for one vowel in a word General tendencies:

Longer duration Higher pitch Louder

Types of stress

Trochaic (English) vs. Iambic (French) stress

Photo Defense Strategy

Stress

If you can sing it long... it is probably the If you say it loud stressed syllable when youre mad... Which syllable is stressed?

Baker Enter Infer Police

Accident Guitar Computer Plant

Stress as a semantic identifier in (phonetic) homographs

(Same sounds in the word)

convict project converse

vs. vs. vs.

convict project converse

first syllable stressed: noun

second syllable
stressed: verb

Interchangeable stress

Inside Hello

Non-Interchangeable stress

Gather Sleepy Computer

Transcription of stress

Transcr|ibe

Insert | before the stressed syllable (or vowel) Insert | before a syllable (vowel) of secondary stress
(this one is not as important)

Pr|emon|ition

Examples of stress transcription in orthography

M|emphis Sevent|een Revol|ution Inv|est B|ubble

|Invoice

Inst|ead Ind|eed |Insect |Index Insp|ire

So far...

We use IPA to transcribe sounds

The IPA is governed by specific and simple

principles Different languages vary greatly in their inventory of contrastive sounds

Syllables Stress

Homework for next week

( Handout)

QUIZ next week:

Basic linguistic terms that we discussed today The nature of phonetic transcription Identifying phonemes and stress in words Think about prep question