Lecture 14: Phonetics III

As usual, these are slightly modified excerpts from my class notes and overheads, and no guarantee is made for their completeness.

1. Organization of articulatory features

In trying to describe the articulatory features that make up a speech sound, you may find it useful to figure it out by answering the following three questions about how the sound is produced.

1. Where are the articulators when the sound is produced?

Consonants: bilabial, labiodental, interdental, alveolar, palatal, velar, (glottal)

Vowels: high, low, mid, tense, round

2. Is airflow blocked? If so, how?

No: vowel

Yes: stop

Partially: fricative, glide, affricate

Nose only: nasal

3. What are the vocal cords doing?

Vibrating: voiced

Not vibrating: voiceless

2. Tongue Position in Vowels

High front vowel: [i]

Low front vowel: [æ]

High back vowel: [u]

Vowel features

High vs. Low: describe position of tongue

Back vs. Front: describe position of tongue

Mid: describes position of tongue

Tense vs. Lax: describes tension of tongue muscles

Round vs. Unrounded: describe position of lips

3. Phonetic alternations and contrastiveness

Aspiration

English ­ aspiration present or absent, depending on position in syllable

syllable-initial		syllable-medial		syllable-final
pit	[ph]	spit	[p]	sip	[p]
tack	[th]	stack	[t]	sit	[t]
care	[kh]	scare	[k]	sick	[k]

Spanish stops ­ all unaspirated (e.g. pero, "but")

Thai stops ­ presence or absence can signal meaning difference (e.g. phaa vs. paa)

See next lecture for much more on use of aspiration

Vowel rounding

English: no two vowels differ in rounding alone

front vowels all unrounded

back non-low vowels all rounded

German, Russian, French: vowel rounding contrastive

French and German: high front unrounded vowel [i] contrasts with high front rounded vowel (IPA notation [y]); written as u-umlaut in German spelling

Russian: high back rounded vowel [u] contrasts with high back unrounded vowel