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Linguistics week 11 2007
Phonetics 3
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Check table 6.2, p243
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Parameters for describing consonants
So far (this is not complete yet) we have– Airstream (usually the same for all consonants)– Place of articulation– Voicing– Manner of articulation
So, [p] is …– egressive pulmonic– bilabial– voiceless– plosive
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More manners of articulation: Trills (articulators collide rapidly and
repeatedly)– Bilabial (brrr: not really part of English) [ʙ]– Alveolar (perro dog, in Spanish) [r]– Uvular (Paris, in French) [ʀ]
Tap (usually alveolar)– Like a trill, but only one collision– In Spanish pero but [ɾ]
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And glottal consonants… The glottal stop [ʔ]
– Usually without plosion– Used in Cantonese 識唔識 , 得唔得– Taiwanese?– And English, in London accent!
The glottal fricative [h] is generally used to represent English “h”, and ㄏ spoken by Taiwanese people– In mainland Mandarin, it’s [x], a velar fricative
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Some other fricative sounds Mandarin has a voiceless retroflex fricative
– It is [ʂ], representing ㄕ– Retroflexion means that the tongue is curled
There is also a voiced retroflex fricative– [ʐ], aka ㄖ– However, some people transcribe this as [ɻ]– They believe it is a retroflex approximant
And, there is a voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative– [ɕ], or ㄒ (only the consonantal part)
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Affricates A plosive followed by a homorganic
fricative– Homorganic = “same place of articulation”– so [kf] in breakfast is not an affricate, because
[k] and [f] do not have the same place of artic.– [ʣ] and [ʦ] are affricates, but are not normally
treated so in English phonology– The only affricate English phonemes are /ʤ/
and /ʧ/
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Affricates in Mandarin /tsʰ/ and /ts/ /tʂʰ/ and /tʂ/ /tɕʰ/ and /tɕ/
– Can you guess what they are?– What is the ʰ?– Why have I suddenly started using /asd/ instead of
[asd]? (slant brackets instead of square brackets) ㄘ and ㄗ ㄔ and ㄓ (retroflex affricate) ㄐ and ㄑ (alveolo-palatal affricate)
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Aspiration Aspirated and unaspirated consonants
– ㄅ is unaspirated [p]– ㄆ is aspirated [ph] (puff of air)
English: spit vs pit (aspiration difference)– Compare pit vs bit– That is a voicing difference
Aspiration is much less important in English than in Chinese– Can you explain why?
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Because aspiration in Mandarin is phonemic (also, tone in Mandarin is phonemic)
pʰ and p are two different phones; two different sounds
but in Mandarin they are different phonemes– /pʰa/ (ㄆㄚ ) and /pa/ ( ㄅㄚ ) represent different
meanings– in English pʰ and p do not help to distinguish meaning– There are no minimal pairs like pʰa and pa
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Mandarin sounds
http://www.wfu.edu/~moran/Cathay_Cafe/IPA_NPA_4.htm
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Vowels vs consonants
Consonants– There is some obstruction in the vocal tract
(=the mouth or throat) Vowels
– There is no such obstruction (the air flows freely)
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Regional accent variation
English accents– The consonants are generally the same– The vowels are often very different
Mandarin Chinese accents– Pronunciation of consonants often varies
widely according to region
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Describing vowels
Say [i] followed by [æ] (like cat)– Think about where your tongue is– Look in a mirror– What changes? What can you say about the
position of the tongue in the two cases? This is one of the features of vowel
description
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Another feature (=characteristic)
Now compare [ɑ] (father) with [æ] (like cat)
You can also try comparing the vowels in ㄢ and ㄤ
Notice any difference? This is the second distinguishing feature
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The third parameter
Compare 四 with 速 Or, compare ㄧ with ㄩ
– The difference should be quickly apparent
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So, the 3 features are…
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The IPA vowel chart This represents of the
inside of the mouth It shows
– the cardinal vowels» marked by black dots
– and the approximate position of vowels common in many languages
The next slide shows the position of English vowels on the same kind of chart
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Diphthongs Yule describes these as a vowel + an approximant
(p49) so /bajt/; /bawt/ We can also say there are two vowels involved
– an initial vowel, in “bite” or ㄞ = a– a target vowel, in “bite” or ㄞ = I– the tongue moves towards I– but doesn’t actually reach its target– Check the cool website for a demo
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So what is a phoneme? A phoneme is a member of the set of sounds of a
particular language A phoneme can be spoken in different ways, depending on
– the other sounds near it, in the utterance (context)– the local accent or dialect– the person speaking
These different realizations (different ways) are the allophones of the phoneme
A phoneme can be distinguished from every other phoneme
– You do this by checking that a minimal pair exists
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Economy of effort: allophonic differences within one syllable
The vowels in ㄢ and ㄤ are different (front and back) because the speaker is preparing for the following consonant
The consonants /k/ in kit and cat differ slightly because the speaker is preparing for the following vowel. Tongue position for the first is further forward
Why do these allophonic differences exist? In language, as in life, people are lazy!
– It is logical that tongue movement should be minimized– As long as people can understand what we are saying!
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Economy of effort: assimilation
Another syllable or word influences pronunciation, in rapid speech
How do you pronounce 根本 ?– This is an example of progressive assimilation
What about 多少錢– This is an example of elision
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Assimilation in English and French
Usually it’s regressive– A phoneme is changed to accommodate
(match) the next phoneme. Voicing
– Newspaper, of course, have to– News has /z/; newspaper has [s] to
accommodate the following /p/– French avec /avek/ in avec vous /aveg vu/
“with you”
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Assimilation of place of articulation
/tem/ in ten minutes /iƷ/ in is she? http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/
assimilation.html– For more examples
Read about assimilation at http://www.personal.rdg.ac.uk/~llsroach/phon2/asscoareli-into.htm
