English Consonants in Real Speech

1
Chapter 3

• English Consonants in Real Speech

2
A Naïve View of An Utterance

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

3
In fact, sounds interact with neighboring sounds

• (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
• boUni Eb?ni
• bony ebony
• 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
• bilabial
• unaspirated
• stop
• So it sounds like something between a p and
  a b . If we had both spy and sby,
• we couldnt distinguish one from the other.

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 these words if the final
  stops are unreleased?
• nap
• knat
• knack
• by the quality of the preceding vowel
• (according to Ladefoged. This is much less
  reliable than the voicing distinction.)

11
Postvocalic Stops

• my cat Mabel
• apt to go
• act now
• Final stops are released during a following nasal
  or stop.
• white teeth
• 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
  release 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 usually adapts
  to the following sound
• This is known as anticipatory 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

16
Perseverative Coarticulation

• Place of articulation adapts to the preceding
  sound.
• s z
• caps cabs
• cats cads
• bucks bugs

17
Coarticulation

• Due to neuromuscular commands (commands from
  brain to articulators)
• to compensate for inherent delay in production,
  commands are initiated before the segment in
  which they are required

18
Coarticulation

• Anticipatory A ? B
• Perseverative A ? B
• English is primarily an anticipatory language
• French and Italian are perseverative
• Why? We dont know!

19
Stop Consonants in Context Review (1)

• 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 sIRi
• 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
Palatography

• 1. Black powder is applied to roof of mouth
• 2. speaker articulates
• Tracings left on the upper surface of the mouth
  are studied for evidence of tongue contact with
  roof of mouth

23
X-Ray Microbeam Tracking

• Gold pellets are placed on tongue, jaw, lips
• An electron beam images the pellets

24
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

25
Fricatives (2)

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

26
Fricatives (3)

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

27
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. z is partially voiced.
• Thats surprising. z is fully voiced.

28
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)

29
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

30
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.

31
The Syllable

• The core of the syllable is usually a vowel
• meatball open house old cigars
• Vowels act as the syllable core because they are
  very sonorous they can be heard more easily than
  consonants
• But there are highly sonorous consonants that can
  act as the core of the syllable.

32
Nasals Dictation

• Syllabic Nasals.
• s?d?n s?dn
• laIt?n lai?n
• r?k?n r?kn
• sEv?n sEbm
• dZQk Qnd keIt dZQk N keIt
• nasal ?? syllabic /obstruent ____

33
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)?

34
Approximants

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

35
Approximants (2)

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

36
Likelihood of Allophonic Variation in Consonants

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

37
Combinatory Phonetics

• In rapid speech, words in sentences undergo
  segmental changes
• extra segments may be inserted T??i three
• segments may be substituted sI?i city
• segments may be deleted grQnpa grandpa
• segments may be permuted Qks ask

38
Why Learn about Consonants in Context?

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

39
Allophonic variation in accents

• plI?z ? plIs (vowel is not long)
• pHiz ? piz (initial voiceless stop is not
  aspirated)
• bQt ? b?Qt (initial stop is fully voiced)
• sl?Q?bz ? s?a?b?s (initial /l/ is velarized
  vowel is not long)

40

• Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things
  with her from the store Six spoons of fresh snow
  peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe
  a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small
  plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids.
  She can scoop these things into three red bags,
  and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train
  station.