English Consonants in Context

1
Lecture 4

• English Consonants in Context
• (Ladefoged, Chapter 3)

2
A Naïve View of An Utterance

• pH Q t kH aU n t s b i d z
• time ?
• each sound is uttered independent of its neighbors

3
But sounds interact with neighboring sounds

• Here the context of the stop affects its
  pronunciation
• (1) (2) (3) (4)
  (5)
• pie buy spy nap nab
• tie die sty mat mad
• kye guy sky knack nag

4
p vs. b

• pie has a voiceless aspirated p
• buy has a voiced b
• spy has a voiceless unaspirated p
• nap has a voiceless p that is either
• aspirated, released, or unreleased
• nab has a voiced b that is either
• released, or unreleased

5
Prevocalic Stops Partial Voicing

• pie has a voiceless aspirated p
• buy has a partially voiced unaspirated b
• voicing depends on context
• nQb nQbIN
• nab nabbing
• partially voiced fully voiced

6
Voicing of stops after /s/

• (A) (B)
• spy sby
• sty sdy
• sky sguy Is there an explanation
  for the gap in (B)?
• spill sbill
• still sdill
• skill sgill

7
Voicing Ambiguity accounts for a Systematic Gap

• spy has a partially voiced, unaspirated
  bilabial stop
• since this stop hangs half way
  between p and b
• we have spy, but no sby

8
Postvocalic Stops Voicing Ambiguity

• nap has a voiceless p that is either
• aspirated, released, or unreleased
• nab has a partially voiced b that is either
• released, or unreleased
• How do we distinguish nap from nab when both
  stops are unreleased and b is only partially
  voiced?

9
Postvocalic Stops Voicing Ambiguity

• the length of the previous vowel
• distinguishes voiced from voiceless stops
• nQp? nQ?b?

10
Postvocalic Stops Place of Articulation
Ambiguity

• How do we distinguish among final, voiceless
  stops if they are unreleased?
• nap
• knat
• knack
• by the quality of the preceding vowel

11
Postvocalic Stops

• my cat Mabel
• apt to go
• act now
• white teeth
• Final stops are released into the following nasal
  or stop.
• In English, two consecutive homorganic stops are
  both articulated if a word boundary intervenes.
  (Compare why teeth).

12

• Give me a verbal negative response
• without opening your mouth.

13
The Glottal Stop ? in English

• ?m?m No.
• American English kitten, Trenton, Clinton
• NY bottle
• Cockney butter, kitty, fatter
• The explosion caused by closing the glottis is
  released in the following sound.

14
Coarticulationthe overlap of adjacent
articulations

• ki ku k? /k/s are different
• tik tuk t?k /k/s are the same
• In English, place of articulation adapts to the
  following sound
• This is known as anticipatory, or regressive,
  coarticulation

15
Anticipatory Coarticulation

• key coo
• lips spread lips rounded
• tongue near hard palate tongue near soft palate
• see saw
• lips spread lips rounded
• be boo
• lips spread lips rounded

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Anticipatory Coarticulation (2)

• Due to neuromuscular commands (commands from
  brain to articulators)
• There is an inherent delay between the command
  from the brain and the articulation
• To compensate for this delay, commands are
  initiated before the segment in which they are
  required

17
Coarticulation

• Regressive A ? B cupful
• Progressive A ? B cups/cubs
• English is primarily a regressive language
• French and Italian are progressive
• Why?

18
Terminology

• Ladefoged
• Coarticulation is the overlapping of adjacent
  articulations, as in the rounding of k before
  u.
• Assimilation is the change of one sound into
  another sound because of the influence of
  neighboring sounds, as in the change of
  underlying /n/ to m in ImpUt.
• Roca Johnson
• phonetics will help us to understand the
  articulatory motivation behind these phenomena in
  terms of coarticulation, the term by which
  phoneticians express essentially what
  phonologists refer to as assimilation.

19
Stop Consonants in Context Review (1)

• Stops have 2 phases closure,release
• Prevocalic voiceless stops are aspirated except
  after /s/
• Postvocalic stops can be aspirated, released,
  unreleased
• In stop C, stop is released in C
  Qpt
• s?dn - nasal plosion
• Qtl?s - lateral plosion

20
Stop Consonants in Context Review (2)

• voiced stops are only partially voiced
• voicing is distinguished prevocalically by
  presence or absence of aspiration
• voicing is distinguished postvocalically by
  length of the preceding vowel

21
Stop Consonants in Context Review (3)

• /t/, /d/ become
• ? before syllabic /n/ trEn?n
• R intervocalically cIRi
• vowel length distinguishes latter from ladder
• (evidence that there is an underlying /t/ or
  /d/)
• stops anticipate the following sound
  (anticipatory coarticulation kip vs.kup )

22
Talking Heads

• Techniques to Measure and Analyze Speech
  Production

23
Fricatives in Real Speech

• st?aIf st?aI?v
• ti? ti?D
• ?luS?n ?lu?Z?n
• loUf loU?vz
• f?s f??z
• m?? m??Dz seIf seI?v

24
Fricatives (2)

• Vowels are longer and following fricatives
  shorter when the fricative is voiced.

25
Fricatives (3)

• Vowel Length Rule
• V ? -long / ___ C
• -voice
• What VC strings does this rule cover?

26
The Vowel Length Rule Covers Fricatives and Stops

• The Obstruent class of sounds
• involve significant obstruction of the airstream
• voicing affects length of preceding vowel
• voiced obstruents are not voiced throughout
  unless the following sound is voiced
• Surprise Pat.
• Thats surprising.

27
The Fricative /h/

• bihEst ?hEd
• /h/ is signaled by a weakening of voicing.
• h w.
• wItS witch hwItS which
• h w is sometimes written as ?
• ? is now only used in the uncommon wh- words
  (which, whether, but not what)

28
Affricate stop homorganic C ts, dz, tT,
dD, tS, dZ wksht

• Distribution of Affricates
• kQts lQdz
• tsQk dzQl
• eitT eIdD
• tTIn dDIn
• tS??tS dZ?dZ

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Special Status of the Affricates tS and dZ

• Only tS and dZ occur at both beginning and end of
  English words.
• Therefore, these affricates are treated
  phonologically as single units even though they
  are represented phonetically as a sequence of two
  phonemes.

30
Nasals Dictation

• Syllabic Nasals.
• s?d?n s?dn
• laIt?n lai?n
• ??k?n ??kn
• sEv?n sEbm
• dZQk Qnd keIt dZQk N keIt
• kAnt?nEnt?l kAnnEnl

31
The Velar Nasal Dictation

• (A) (B) (C)
• sIN? singer fINg? finger l?Ng? longer
• stIN? stinger lINg? linger j?Ng? younger
• Q Why is the /g/ retained in (B-C) but not in
  (A)?

32
Approximants

• Syllabic /l/.
• bAt?l bARl
• p?d?l p?Rl

33
Approximants (2)

• Distribution of English /l/
• lif fi?
• lIt tI?
• lI? l??
• postvocalic /l/, written ?, is velarized

34
Likelihood of Allophonic Variation in Consonants

• Consonant Sensitivity to Context
• stop high
• fricative moderate
• nasal low
• approximant low

35
Why Learn about Consonants in Context?

• ESL/EFL concentrates on the learning of segments
  that are absent from the source L
• T and D
• ? and l
• But allophonic variation plays a large role in
  non-native accents

36
Allophonic variation in accents

• I?z ? Is (vowel is not long)
• pHIl ? pIl (initial voiceless stop is not
  aspirated)
• goUt ? goUt (initial stop is fully
  voiced)
• l??v ? ??f (initial l is velarized vowel is
  not long)
• http//classweb.gmu.edu/accent/