PHONETICS

O’GRADY& ARCHIBALD, CH. 2

PHONETICS

● Speech remains the primary way in which humans express

themselves through language
● Species spoke long before we wrote
● Anatomical specialization for speech
● Specialized neural mechanisms for the perception, production, and
comprehension of speech sounds
PHONETICS
● The inventory and structure of the sounds of speech

● Human languages display a wide variety of sounds, called phones (Gr. phōnē
‘sound, voice’) or speech sounds

● The class of possible speech sounds is finite

○ A portion of the total set will be found in the inventory of any human language
○ Very wide range of sounds (600 consonants and 200 vowels, in an estimate)
PHONETICS

● Articulatory phonetics
• Analyzing the physiological mechanisms of speech production

● Acoustic phonetics
• Measuring and analyzing the physical properties of sound
waves produced when speaking
ACOUSTIC PHONETICS
ACOUSTIC PHONETICS

Vowel F1 F2
ʌ 873 1334 Determining the vowel phonemes of
ɘ 603 2274 Ayta Mag-antsi, an Aeta language
with speakers in Central Luzon, with
ɪ 404 2310 a concentration in Porac, Pampanga
ʊ 532 1362
PHONETIC
TRANSCRIPTIO
N
ARTICULATORY PHONETICS
INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC
ALPHABET (IPA)
● Since the 16th century, efforts to devise a universal system for transcribing sounds
of speech
● The best known system is the IPA
• There is also a North American system
● IPA has been in use and is evolving since 1888
● a group of British and French language teachers → International Phonetic Association
• suggested by Otto Jespersen to Paul Passy
• Alexander John Ellis, Henry Sweet, Daniel Jones, Paul Passy
 INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC
ALPHABET (IPA)
● Each symbol attempts to represent each sound of human speech with a single
symbol
● Enables linguists to transcribe languages consistently & accurately
● [ ] = phonetic brackets
• Transcription is enclosed in these brackets, e.g. [ ˈba.taʔ] ‘bata/child’
● Phonetics IS NOT orthography (spelling)
 IPA CONSONANTS: Pulmonic

● pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism

● “pulmonic” = having to do with the lungs; “egressive” = outward
● sound made by pushing the air out of the lungs
IPA CONSONANTS: Non-pulmonic
NON-PULMONIC
• Clicks
– Completely non-pulmonic
– Does not require breathing out from lungs
• Implosives
– “glottalic,” involves moving the larynx
– Producing sound somewhere above the larynx
then pulling the larynx downward
• Ejectives
– Air is pushed out in the lungs, stopped
somewhere in the oral tract
– With secondary closure at the glottis
IPA VOWELS
IPA SUPRASEGMENTALS
UNITS OF REPRESENTATION
● “The International Phonetic Alphabet is like any alphabet, except
that, where most alphabets form the words of a language, the IPA
represents the sounds of a language. Any language, in fact: the IPA
can represent nearly any vowel or consonant made by humans.”

● IPA represents speech in the form of segments (individual phones)

● Segments are individual units of linguistic structure that should be

represented individually in a system of transcription
THE SOUND-
PRODUCING
SYSTEM
 THE LUNGS
● Take air into the lungs and expel it into speech
● Level of air pressure maintained by various set of muscles
• Intercostals
■ Muscles between the ribs
• Diaphragm
■ Large sheet of muscle separating the chest cavity from the abdomen

● Intercostals raise ribcage to allow airflow to lungs during inhalation

● Diaphragm control the release of air during exhalation for speech
 THE LARYNX

● Lungs → trachea (windpipe)

● Passes through the larynx (voice box/Adam’s apple)
• A box-like structure made of cartilage and muscle
• Cartilages (thyroid cartilage, cricoid cartilage, arytenoids)
• Glottis (vocal fold)
THE LARYNX
THE LARYNX
SOUND
CLASSES
 VOWELS AND CONSONANTS
● Articulatory difference
• Consonants: voiced or voiceless
• Consonants: complete closure or a narrowing of the vocal tract is either blocked
momentarily or restricted that noise is produced as air flows past the constriction.
• Vowels: produced with little obstruction in the vocal tract

● Acoustic difference
• Vowels are more sonorous (acoustically powerful) and perceived as louder and
longer lasting
VOWELS AND CONSONANTS
VOWELS AND CONSONANTS
● Syllabic and non-syllabic sounds

● The greater sonority of vowels allow them to form the basis of

syllables

● Syllable: peak of sonority surrounded by less sonorous segments

• counting syllables = counting vowels

● vowel = nucleus of a syllable

GLIDES
● Shows properties of both vowel and consonant

● Rapidly articulated vowels but move quickly to another articulation

● Vowel-like in articulation but pattern as consonants

● Semivowel or semiconsonant

● [w], [j]
CONSONANT
ARTICULATIO
N
 CONSONANT ARTICULATION
● Airflow is modified in the vocal tract by the placement of the tongue
and the positioning of the lips

● Parameters
• Voicing
• Place of articulation
• Manner of articulation
 TONGUE
● Primary articulating organ
● Raised, lowered, thrust
forward, retracted, rolled back
● Sides can be raised or lowered
● phonetic description: five
areas
• tip, blade, body, back, root
• dorsum
VOICING
 PLACES OF ARTICULATION
● Each point at which the airstream can be modified to produce a different sound
● lips, oral cavity, pharynx, glottis
PLACES OF ARTICULATION
LABIAL
○Any sound made with closure or near-closure of the lips
■ Bilabial
● Sounds involving both lips
● [p], [b], [m]

■ Labiodentals
● Sounds involving the lower lip and upper teeth
● [f], [v]
 DENTAL AND INTERDENTAL
● Dental
○ Tongue is placed against or near the teeth
○ E.g. Tagalog [t] and [d]

○Interdental
■ Tongue is placed between the teeth
■ ‘th’ sound = [ɵ] and [ð]
ALVEOLAR

○ The tongue touches or brought near the alveolar ridge, a small

ridge that protrudes behind the upper front teeth

○ English [t] and [d]

○ [n], [r], [s], [z], [l]
 ALVEOPALATAL & PALATAL
● Alveopalatal
○ The tongue touches the area just behind the alveolar ridge where the
root of the mouth rises sharply
○ palatoalveolar
○ Postalveolar [ʃ], [ʒ] and affricates [tʃ] and [dʒ]

● Palatal
○ the tongue touches or brought near the palate, the highest part of the
root of the mouth
■ glide y [j]
 VELAR
●Velar
○ Sounds made with the tongue touching or near the velum, the soft area toward
the rear of the roof of the mouth
○ [k], [g] and [ŋ]

●Labiovelar
○ The tongue is raised near the velum and the lips are rounded at the same time
○ glide [w]
■ velar aspect as primary place of articulation
■ labial aspect as secondary place of articulation
 UVULAR

●Uvular
○ Sounds made with
the tongue against or
near the uvula (more
back than the velar)
 PHARYNGEAL
●Pharyngeal
○ Articulated primarily in
the pharynx
GLOTTAL

● Sounds made with the glottis or the opening between the vocal folds
as primary articulator

● [h], [ʔ]
MANNER OF ARTICULATION
The positioning of lips, tongue, velum, and glottis in different ways to produce
different sound types
ORAL VS NASAL PHONES
● Oral sounds
○ The velum is raised, cutting off the airflow through the nasal cavity
● Nasal sounds
○ The velum is lowered to allow air to pass through the nasal cavity

● Both consonants and vowels can be nasal

○ Vowels like the one in bank and wink can be nasal because of their
proximity to nasal consonants
 STOPS
● They are made with a complete closure either in the oral cavity or at the glottis
● In world languages, can be found at:
■ bilabial
■ dental
■ alveolar
■ alveopalatal
■ palatal
■ velar
■ uvular
■ glottal
VOICE LAG & ASPIRATION
● A lag in the onset of vocalic voicing accompanied by release of air
● Transcribed with a small [ʰ] after the aspirated consonant
 UNRELEASED STOPS
● In the ff. examples, words in the second column have
unreleased stops.
● It is quite common not to release word-final stops at all
○ cap
■ end with lips closed (instead of
releasing the sound)
○ pot, back
■ end with tongue staying in the roof of
mouth (instead of lowering/
backing the tongue)
 NASALS
● speech sound in which the
airstream passes through the nose
as a result of the lowering of the
soft palate (velum) at the back of
the mouth
 FRICATIVES
● Consonants produced with a continuous airflow through the mouth

● Belong to a large class called continuants (with vowels and glides)

○ A special class of continuant
○ During production, they are accompanied by a continuous audible noise because
the air passes through a very narrow opening either at the glottis or at some point
higher in the vocal tract
FRICATIVES
 AFFRICATES
● When a stop articulation is
released, the tongue moves
rapidly away from the place of
articulation. However, some
non-continuant consonants
show a slow release of the
closure, forming affricates
STRIDENTS AND SIBILANTS
● Acoustic criterion for fricatives and affricates divided based on their
relative loudness
● Strident/Sibilant = noisier fricatives and affricates
● Non-strident = quieter fricatives and affricates, [θ] or [ð]
LIQUIDS

● l & r and their variants

●Oral sonorous consonants
●Laterals
○ varieties of l
●Rhotics
○ Varieties of r
LIQUIDS
● Laterals
○ a consonant sound produced by raising the tip of the tongue
against the roof of the mouth so that the airstream flows past
one or both sides of the tongue

● Rhotics
○ rapid flick of the tongue at the alveolar ridge
● Retroflex [ɹ] ride, car
● Flap [ɾ] butter, bitter
● Trill [r] pero, relo
SYLLABIC LIQUIDS & NASALS
● Liquids and nasals are more sonorous than other consonants
● Are more like vowels than other consonants
● They are so sonorous they may function as syllable nuclei
GLIDES
● Shows properties of both vowel and consonant

● Rapidly articulated vowels but move quickly to another articulation

● Vowel-like in articulation but pattern as consonants

● Semivowel or semiconsonant

● [w] labiovelar
● [j] Palatal/alveopalatal
○ y in orthography
CONSONANTS

●[b] voiced bilabial stop

●[ŋ] voiced velar nasal

●[f] voiceless labiodental fricative

●[r] voiced alveolar trill

●[h] voiceless glottal fricative

VOWELS
 VOWELS
● sonorous, syllabic
sounds made with the
vocal tract more open
than it is for consonant
and glide articulations.
 PARAMETERS
● Vowel sounds (vowel qualities) are produced by varying

• placement of the body of the tongue

■ Height (high, mid, low)
■ Backness (front, central. back)
• shaping the lips
■ Rounded, unrounded
• degree of vocal tract constriction
■ Tense, lax
HEIGHT
BACKNESS
ROUNDEDNESS
VOCAL CONSTRICTION

● Degree of tension, muscular activity

● Tense vowels
○ greater muscular effort, slightly higher tongue
positions, and longer durations than lax
vowels.
● Lax vowels
SIMPLE VOWELS & DIPHTHONGS
● Simple vowels (monophthong)
• no noticeable change in quality during articulation
• Pit, set, cat, dog, but, put

● Diphthongs
• Exhibit change in quality within a single syllable
• A diphthong does not add a syllable to the word
• Buy, boy, now, play, go
• [ai]/[aj], [oi]/[oj], [au]/[aw], [ei]/[ej], [ou]/[ow]
 PARAMETERS

High Front Rounded

Mid Central Unrounded

Low Back
VOWELS

●[a] low (or open), near front, unrounded

●[e] high-mid (or close-mid), front, unrounded

●[i] high (or close), front, unrounded

●[o] high-mid, back, rounded

●[u] high (or close), back, rounded

SUPRASEGMENTAL
S
SUPRASEGMENTAL
● segment = consonants & vowels
● suprasegmental = “above” the segment
● prosodic features
○ pitch
○ loudness
○ length
 PITCH
● Auditory property of sound that enables us to place it on a scale that ranges from low to
high
● Especially noticeable in sonorous sounds: vowels, glides, liquids, and nasals

● Speakers have the ability to control the level of pitch

○ Controlling the tension of the vocal folds and the amount of air that passes
through the glottis
○ tense vocal folds + greater air pressure = higher pitch
○ less tense vocal folds + lower air pressure = lower pitch

● tone and intonation = controlled pitch movement

 TONE
● Tone language
• differences in word meaning are signaled by differences in pitch
■ a car. a car? a car! (no matter how it is pronounced, ‘car’ refers to the same
thing no matter the pitch)
■ English is NOT a tonal language

• Mandarin IS a tonal language

■ falling & rising tones
■ ma (falling =scold; rising = hemp)
 TONE
● Tone language
• Tsúut’ína (or Sarcee), an Athabaskan language spoken in Alberta

● Level tones (high, mid, low)

 TONE
● Register tones
• level tones that signal meaning
differences

● Norm = two or three register tones

● Mazatec (Mexico) = 4 tones

● A single tone may be associated with more

than one syllabic element
• It can be applied to only 1 vowel or all the
vowels
 TONE
● Contour tones
• change pitch within a single syllabic element

● Mandarin (with both register and contour tones)

 TONE
● Can have a grammatical function
● Bini, language in Nigeria
○ signal differences in tense (past vs present)
 INTONATION
● Pitch movement in spoken utterances that is not related to differences in word meaning
● Convey information of a broadly meaningful nature

● Terminal (intonation) contour

• falling intonation
• Fred parked the car.

● Non-terminal (intonation) contour

• rising or level
• often signals incompleteness
• Questions
■ indicate incompleteness (a conversational exchange is not yet finished.)
INTONATION
 INTONATION AND TONE
● Not mutually exclusive
● Tones are not absolute, but relative pitches
● downdrift
• maintain distinction among pitch registers even as the overall pitch of the utterance
falls
• Each high tone is always lower than the preceding high tone but still higher than the
low tone that immediately precedes it
 INTONATION AND TONE
● Igbo (West Africa)
 LENGTH
● vowels and consonants whose articulation takes longer relative to that of
other vowels and consonants
● IPA style colon or [:]

● Yapese (Yap Island, Western Pacific)

LENGTH
 STRESS
● some vowels are perceived as more prominent than others
● a syllabic nucleus that are more prominent than other nuclei in the word is said to be
stressed
■ banana [bəˈnæːnɐ]
■ telegraphic [ˌtɛ.lɪ.ˈgræf.ɪk]

● a cover term for the combined effects of pitch, loudness, and length
■ kabayo [ka.ˈba.jɔʔ]
■ lalaki [ˈla.la.kɪ] ‘will grow’ vs [la.ˈla.kɪ] ‘male’
STRESS
PHONETICS &
ORTHOGRAPH
Y
 PHONETICS & ORTHOGRAPHY
● Phonetics is NOT THE SAME as Orthography

PHONETICS EXAMPLE ORTHOGRAPHY EXAMPLE

ʔ [ˈlʊj.ʔa] ‘ginger’ (Cebuano) none, sometimes a hyphen luy-a
[ˈʔa.pat] apat
ŋ [ˈŋɪ:pɪn] ng ngipin
ʃ [ˈʃam] sh, sy siyam
tʃ [ˈtʃan], [tʃa.ˈʔa] ty, ts tiyan, tsaa
ʤ [ʤarˈjɔ] dy, j dyaryo, juta
[ˈʤʊ.taʔ] ‘land’ (CEB)
j [ˈja.taʔ] y yata
Stress [ˈ] [ˈtaʔɔ] None, sometimes diacritics tao
[ʔa.ˈkɔ] but uncommon ako
 PHONETICS & ORTHOGRAPHY
● Phonetics is NOT THE SAME as Orthography

PHONETICS EXAMPLE ORTHOGRAPHY EXAMPLE

length [:] [ˈba:j] ‘house, Cebuano’ none bay
[a, Λ] [sam.ˈpʊʔ] a sampu
[ɪ, i] [ŋɪ:ˈtɪʔ] i ngiti
[u, ʊ] [ʔʊ.ˈpʊʔ] u, o upo
[e, ɛ] [ʔa.tɛ] e ate
[o, ɔ] [ˈʔɔ.pɔʔ] o opo
SPEECH
PRODUCTION
 SPEECH PRODUCTION
● Treatment of phonetic segments as if they existed in isolation and did not affect one another

● Speech production IS NOT a series of isolated events

● It is a complex phenomenon as the articulatory organs interact with each other

● Many fine adjustments are carried out rapidly as we speak

● Often results in the articulation of one sound affecting that of another sound
 COARTICULATION
● A complex series of muscular movements

● Production of speech sounds dependent on each other

● Anticipatory

● More than one articulator is active

ARTICULATORY PROCESSES

● Adjustments that occur during the production of connected speech

● Change the nature of the individual segment

● Make words easier to articulate

● Make speech more efficient

ASSIMILATION

● Influence of one segment on another

● Always results in a sound becoming more like another nearby

sound in terms of its phonetic characteristics
 ASSIMILATION
● Nasalization
• Nasalization of a vowel before a nasal consonant
• Anticipating the lowering of the velum in advance of a nasal segment
■ French vin [ vĩ ] ‘wine’
pain [pɛ̃] ‘bread’
nom [nɔ̃] ‘name’

The vowel assimilates the nasal qualities of the sound that follow them [n, m] and
became nasalized vowels.
 ASSIMILATION
● Voicing assimilation
• Devoicing in English: voiced liquids and glides become voiceless after voiceless stops

• Voicing in Dutch: voiceless fricatives assimilate to the voicing of the stops that follow
them
 ASSIMILATION

● Progressive Assimilation
• change moving forward
to a proceeding segment
 ASSIMILATION
● Regressive Assimilation
• change moving backwards to a preceding segment
• A segment changes the sound of the segment preceding it

■ Affixes ending in [ŋ] ‘-ng’ in Tagalog, e.g. pang-, sing-, mang-

■ [paŋ] → [pan]/ d, l, r, s, t pang- + regalo = panregalo
[pam] / b, p pang- + bahay = bahay
[paŋ]/ elsewhere pang- + kulay = pangkulay

● In the examples, the [r] in panregalo affects the sound BEFORE it, they are now both
alveolar
● In pambahay, they are now both bilabial
 ASSIMILATION
● Flapping
○ dental or alveolar stop articulation changes to a flap articulation.
○ Becoming less stop-like in between vowels, which involve no closure in the
vocal tract

● English: [t] and [d] between vowels

○ Butter, writer, fodder, wading, I bought it

● Tagalog
• madami → marami; madamot → maramot
 DISSIMILATION
● Results in 2 sounds becoming less alike in articulatory or acoustic terms
● Much rarer than assimilation

● English: word with three consecutive fricatives

• fifths → fifts [fricative, stop, fricative]
• sixth → sikst [stop, fricative, stop]
 DISSIMILATION
● Ayta Mag-antsi (Porac, Pampanga)
○ A pattern is observed that when there are two [ʊ] or [o] in orthography, the second
vowel is pronounced [ɘ] which dissimilates from the sound of the first vowel.
○ [ɘ] = close-mid, central, unrounded vowel

[hʊ'lʊk] → [hʊ'lɘk] ‘galit; anger’

['dʊhʊk] → ['dʊhɘk] ‘kalbo; bald’
[bʊ'hʊɁ] → [bʊ'hɘɁ] ‘kawayan; bamboo’
[pʊ'tʊɁ] → [pʊ'tɘh] ‘bunso; youngest’
[kʊ'kʊ] → [kʊ'kɘ] ‘kuko; fingernail’
 DELETION
● removes a segment from certain phonetic contexts
● Ayta Mag-antsi
• [Ɂʌ'jɪn] → ['Ɂʌjn] ‘wala; none’
• [bɪ'jʌj] → ['bjʌj] ‘buhay; alive’
 EPENTHESIS
• inserts a syllabic or non-syllabic segment within an existing string of segments
 METATHESIS
● reorders a sequence of segments
• spaghetti → pesghetti
• prescribe → perscribe

• lagay + -in- = linagay → nilagay

• yaya + - in- = yinaya → niyaya
VOWEL REDUCTION
● articulation of vowels may move to a more central position when the vowels are
unstressed
● typically as a schwa [ə]
 LENGTHENING
● In some words with two vowels which have all the same features, one gets deleted. After deletion, the
remaining vowel lengthens

● Mag-antsi
○ ['tɘɁɘk] → [tɘ:k] ‘ear’

● Cebuano
○ ['dalan] → [da:n] ‘way’
○ [ba’laj] → [ba:j] ‘house’
 LENITION
● A segment weakens in the
sonority hierarchy
● Strongest consonality is at the
bottom
● Climbing up, the sounds
undergo lenition (becomes less
of a consonant → more
sonorous, vowel-like)
 LENITION

● Lateral → glide [l] → [w]

● Cebuano
○ [laˈlɔm] → [laˈwɔm] → [ˈlawm] ‘deep’
○ [kaˌhɪbaˈlɔ] → [kaˌhɪbaˈwɔ] → [kahɪ’baw] ‘to know’
AFFRICATION
● Stops become affricates • Mag-antsi

● [tj] or [tɪj] → [tʃ] • [t] → [tʃ] / ___ ɪ

[tɪ.ˈjan] → [ˈtʃan] [t] becomes [tʃ] when it comes
[tɪ. ja.ˈgaʔ] → [tʃa.ˈgaʔ] before [ɪ]

● [dj] or [dɪj] → [ʤ] • [mʌg'Ɂʌntɪ] → [mʌg'Ɂʌntʃɪ] ‘name of an Aeta language’

[dɪ.ˈjan] → [ʤan] • ['hʌtɪ] → ['hʌtʃɪ] ‘this’
[djɪp] → [ʤɪp] • ['dʌtɪ] → ['dʌtʃɪ] ‘before’
FRICATION

● Segments becoming fricatives

[sɪˈjam] → [ˈsjam] → [ˈʃam] ‘nine’

[sɪˈja] → [ˈsja] → [ˈʃa] ‘he,she,it’
 REFERENCES
O’Grady, W., & Archibald, J. (Eds). (2015). Contemporary linguistic analysis: An introduction (8th ed). Pearson.
Benosa, S., Endriga, D.A., Igno, J., Javier, J., Klimenko, S., Perez, A., Rosario, F. Jr., & San Juan, M.P. (2018). Gramatikal
sketch
ng wikang Ayta Mag-antsi. A special publication of The Archive, no. 15.
Endriga, D.A.P. (2009). A dialectology of Cebuano: Cebu, Bohol, and Davao. Capstone Paper for BA Linguistics, University
of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City.
UBC Visible Speech. 28 Jan 2015. Introduction to articulatory phonetics (Consonants). [Video]. Youtube.
UBC Visible Speech. 5 Feb 2015. Introduction to articulatory phonetics (Vowels). [Video]. Youtube.

Images from National Portrait Gallery

//DAPEndriga