The Sounds of Language

Phonetics

The general study of the characteristics of speech sounds is called Phonetics. There are three kinds of Phonetics in study language. They are articulatory Phonetics, acoustic Phonetics, and auditory Phonetics (or perceptual Phonetics). But, our main interest will be in articulatory Phonetics, which is the study of how speech sounds are made, or ‘articulated’.

Articulatory Phonetics

In articulatory phonetics, there are two common sounds. They are voiced and voiceless.

Consonant Place of Articulation

There are seven places of articulation in articulatory phonetics. They are bilabials, labiodentals, dentals, alveolars, palatals, velars, and glottal

Manner of Articulation

There are six manners of articulation in phonetics. They are stops, fricatives, affricatives, nasals, liquids, and glides.

Vowels Place of Articulation

There are twelve vowels in phonetic articulatory. They are e, ɪ, ǝ , ʌ, ʊ, ɜ:, ɒ, æ, i:, u:, ɔː, and ɑː. They have different place of articulation such as heat (hiːt) and hit (hɪt), the place of articulation is “high front”. For more information about the place of articulation can be looked at the chart below.

Diphthongs

Diphthong is the combination of two vowels sounds. There eight diphthongs in phonetic articulatory. They are eɪ, aɪ, ǝʊ, aʊ, ɔɪ, eǝ, and ʊe. In pronouncing, we move from one vocalic position to another as we produce the sound.

The Sound Patterns of Language

Phonology

Phonology is essentially the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language. Phonology is about the underlying design, the blueprint of each sound type, which serves as the constant basis of all the variations in different physical articulations of that sound type in different contexts.

Phonemes

Each one of these meaning-distinguishing sounds in a language is described as a phoneme. It’s usually written between slashes (/……./).

Examples: /f/ and /v/ such as fat and vat, and fine and vine

Phones and Allophones

            Phones is the different versions of the sound type regularly produced in actual speech (‘in the mouth’). Allophones is the group of several phones. It’s usually written two squares brackets. Examples:

Tar = the [t] sound in the word tar is normally pronounced with a stronger puff of air. That’s one phone and represented as [t^h]. Star = the [t] sound in the word star is normally pronounced with a flap. That’s another phone and represented as [D].

Minimal Pairs and Sets

Minimal Pairs is two words such as pat and bat are identical in form except for a contrast in one phoneme, occurring in the same position. Examples: fan–van, bet–bat, site–side. Minimal sets is a group of words can be differentiated, each one from the others, by changing one phoneme (always in the same position in the word). Examples:

a.       Based on vowel phonemes     : feat, fit, fat, fate, fought, foot, etc.                             

b.      Based on consonants phonemes: big, pig, rig, fig, dig, wig, etc.

Phonotactics

Phonotactics is permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters, and vowel sequences by means of phonotactical constraints or permitted arrangements of sounds.

Syllables and Clusters

            A syllable must contain a vowel (or vowel-like) sound. Technically, the basic elements of the syllable are the onset (one or more consonants) and the rhyme. The rhyme (sometimes written as ‘rime’) consists of a vowel, which is treated as the nucleus, plus any following consonant(s), described as the coda. Examples: green (CCVC), eggs (VCC), and (VCC), etc. Both the onset and the coda can consist of more than one consonant, also known as a consonant cluster.

           

Co-articulation effects

a.       Assimilation is When two sound segments occur in sequence and some aspect of one segment is taken or ‘copied’ by the other.

b.      Elision is the process of not pronouncing a sound segment that might be present in the deliberately careful pronunciation of a word in isolation.

Questions

1.      Which of the following words normally end with voiced (+V) and voiceless (-V)? Give the phonetic transcription!

a.       Bang          (+V, /bæŋ/)

b.      Crash         (-V, /kræʃ/)

c.       Smack       (-V, /smæk/)

d.      Fuck          (-V, /fʌk/)

e.       Bread        (+V, /bred/)

2.      What is phonotactics?

Phonotactics is permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters, and vowel sequences by means of phonotactical constraints or permitted arrangements of sounds. For example,a word “language.” The word language has eight fonems. The permitted arrangements are /l, a, n, g, u, a, g, e/ not n, g, u, g, e, a, a, l or the others.