A Tour of Phonology, Part 1

A Tour of Phonology, Part 1 Part 1: Phonetics Part 1: Phonetics ð?s ?z ? s?nt?ns ?n a?pie? (IPA). a? æm n?t v??i g?d æt t??ænzleit?? IPA, so a? w?l p??b?bli m?ik ? l?? ?v m?st?iks. a? t?k ? kw?z ?n IPA ? k?pl wiks ?go, so hopf?li m?? ??f t??ænsk??p??n m?iks s?ns! ?f ju k?n rid ð?s w?ð?ut hæv?? sin o? l?nd IPA bifo?, ðæt ?z ?ili ?mp??s?v! g?d d??b. IPA ?z ? tul tu h?lp pip?l, ?sp???li l??gu?sts, tu ?nd?stænd ð? f?n???ks ænd f?n?l?d?i ?v ? læ?gu?d?. IPA k?n ?ksp??s p??ti m?t? ?v?i p?s?b?l sa?nd ðæt hjum?nz k?n me?k tu k?mjun?keit w?? it??ð? ?n ð? k?nt?kst ?v læ?gu?d?. s?ns IPA ?z jun?v?s?l, pip?l ?niw?? k?n ?nd?stænd ha? ? w?d ?z p??na?nst sinss IPA, ?n ?i?i, g?vs ? junik mæp?? f??m IPA s?mb?lz tu ð? sa?ndz ð?i ??p??z?nt. ?n ð?s bl?g post, al g?v ? v?ri k?rs ov?vju ?v ði IPA ælf?b?t f? ??gl??, ænd ð?n si ha? wi kæn juz IPA tu t?k ?ba?t s?m ??gl?? f?n?l?d?i. (ð?s w?l bi ? s?m??i ?f ??fli tu 24.900 klæs l?kt??z.) Hi! Normal English here. If you cant read the above text very well or at all, thats okay! What Ill do in this section is give an overview of the IPA symbols that are used in English. By the time youre done here, you should be able to make out most of the above text and move on to the next section about phonology. Consonants There are three major categories to describe consonants: their place of articulation, manner of articulation, and their voicing. A consonant is voiced if the vocal cords vibrate when producing it. A consonant is unvoiced if the vocal cords do not vibrate when producing it. Here is a diagram that might help you visualize the locations of where your tongue is when making the following sounds: Bilabial:  Both lips are used. [p] paint unvoiced [b] barn voiced [m] mango nasal* [w] wipe approximant* * well get to what these mean later. Labiodental: Your upper teeth and your lower lip together. [f] face unvoiced [v] vase voiced Interdental: Your tongue goes between your teeth. these symbols are the first ones that dont look like english! [?] three unvoiced [ð] there voiced Alveolar: The tip of your tongue goes against the alveolar ridge, just behind your top teeth. [t] tap unvoiced [d] door voiced [s] sail unvoiced [z] zebra voiced [n] noise nasal* Alveopalatal: Otherwise known as post-alveolar, the blade of your tongue goes slightly behind the alveolar ridge. [?] sheet unvoiced [?] azure voiced Palatal:  This one is hard for me to describe, the best way to think of it is further back behind the alveolar ridge, where the roof of your mouth is at its highest point. [j] yes approximant* Velar: The body of your tongue is against the velum, the soft potion at the back of the roof of your mouth. [k] king unvoiced [g] gain voiced [?] song nasal Glottal: Your vocal chords! [?] ?uh-?uh, a glottal stop [h] hair voiceless There are other places where you can make sounds in your mouth, like retroflex, uvular, and pharyngeal sounds. But these sounds arent really, if ever, used in English (but they can be quite common in other languages). I recommend you take a look at this if youre interested in the full library of IPA symbols! So now we know how sounds are organized by the position of our lips, teeth, tongue, etc. in our mouth. There are other ways to categorize. How can we tell the difference between the sounds [s] and [z]? We know theyre both alveolar, but [s] is voiceless and [z] is voiced: thats the main difference. How about [t] and [s]? Theyre both voiceless and alveolar, but we know theyre clearly not the same sound. Its important not just to label sounds by place of articulation, but manner of articulation: [t] is a stop, or plosive, and [s] is a fricative. A stop means what you think it means: the airflow through the mouth is stopped while producing the sound. A fricative means that there is continuous airflow while producing the sound. (Put your hand up to your mouth and try saying [t] and [s] a few times to see what I mean!) Several sounds we covered (*) are neither stops nor fricatives: those are [m], [n], [?], [w], and [j]. The first three are nasal: for these sounds, there is an obstruction that we make that prevents air from flowing through the mouth, but our lowered velum allows air to flow through the nose in order to produce the sound. If you hold your hand up to your mouth, you wont feel any air. (This is why when we get a cold and our nasal cavity gets stuffy, it becomes really hard to communicate!) comic strip taken from encyclopedias brown and white: a foxtrot collection The latter two are called approximants: the tongue gestures at another articulatory point without making contact. More specifically, [w] and [j] are called glides, and the two other English approximants we use are called liquids: [l] life [?] reef Finally, there is the notion of an affricant, which is something that sounds like a stop immediately followed by a fricative: [t?] change [d?] joy We can now go back and label all the sounds weve learned so far using three categories: voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation, in that order. For example: [t] is an unvoiced  alveolar  stop [z] is a voiced  alveolar  fricative [h] is an unvoiced  glottal  fricative [?] is a (voiced) velar nasal (all English nasals are voiced, so saying its voiced is redundant) [ð] is a voiced interdental fricative Phonetics is fascinating, especially from an English perspective, because we can arrange all the English consonants in a sort of table with respect to place and manner of articulation, and like Mendeleev and predicting elements in his periodic table, we can see gaps where sounds must surely exist, although English may not have them. Although there are some sounds that are not quite possible (try doing a glottal nasal: you cant), there are many sounds that exist outside of the ones you just learned, and other languages do indeed have them! (More on this next time.) Vowels Vowels are categorized in several different ways as well: we can categorize by vertical position and horizontal position of the tongue. A vowel can be classified as high, middle, or low, and it can be classified as front or back. It can also be central. The best way to explain the vowels is to show you a chart, and give examples like last time: Front High [i] sheep [?] pick Middle [e] hate [?] shred Low [æ] ash Central [?] machine [?] shove Back High [u] poo [?] good Middle [o] load [?] caw Low [?] hot We can also say a vowel is rounded or unrounded by looking at the shape of the lips. A high, back, rounded vowel sounds very different from a high, back, unrounded vowel. In fact, English does not have a high, back, unrounded vowel! (But many other languages do, like Koreans vowel [?].) There are other ways to categorize, but I wont mention them here. Here are a few sample sentences in IPA (all of them given in 24.900 lecture or recitation) to test your newfound skills: b?for juw kr?t?sajz s?mw?n, juw ??d w?k ? majl ?n ðejr ?uz. ðæt wej, w?n juw kr?t?sajz ð?m, j?r ? majl ?wej ?nd juw hæv ðer ?uz. dæd ?lwejz ??t læft?r w?z ð? b?st m?d?s?n, w?t? aj g?s ?z waj s?vr?l ?v ?s dajd ?v t?b?rkj?los?s. æz ð? lajt t?ejnd?d fr?m r?d t? grin t? j?low ?nd bæk t? r?d ?gj?n, aj sæt ðer ???k?? ?bawt lajf. w?z ?t n???? mor ð?n ? b?nt? ?v h??k?? ?nd j?l??? s?mtajmz ?t simd ðæt wej. -dip ??ts, d?æk hændij aj w?d ?mæd??n ?f juw k?d ?nd?rstænd mors kowd, ? tæp dæns?r w?d drajv juw krejzij. ajm ?g?nst p?k????, b?? aj don? now haw ?? ?ow ?t? maj fejk? plænts dajd b?k?z aj d?d n?t pr?t?nd t? w???r ð?m. aj lajk rajs. rajs ?z grejt ?f juw w?n? ijt? tuw ?awz?nd ?v s?m???. aj g?? ? k?? sajz b?d. aj don? now ?nij k??z, b?? ?f w?n kejm owv?r, aj g?s hij w?d bij k?mft?rb?l. -m?t? h?db?rg t?? tw?st?rz: r?d l?ð?r, j?low l?ð?r blæk bækgrawnd, brawn bækgrawnd ?rij ?ort sord ?i?s r?d bjuw?k, bluw bjuw?k s?z?rz s?z?l, ??s?lz s?z?l ajr?? r?stw?t? w?liz rilij wirij ril wird rir wilz so na? yu hav ? g?d s?ns ?v ha? tu rid IPA! ?n ? l?it? post, w?l l?k æt f?n?l?d?i tu si ha? wi k?n juz IPA ?n æk??n. Post Tagged #Course 24 - Philosophy Linguistics