Phonetics

1
Phonetics

• The object of study of phonetics are called
  phones. Phones are actual speech sounds as
  uttered by human beings.
• Phonetics has three main branches
• articulatory phonetics, concerned with the
  positions and
• movements of the
  lips, tongue, and other
• speech organs
  in producing speech
• acoustic phonetics, concerned with the properties
  of the
• sound waves
  and
• auditory phonetics, concerned with speech
  perception.

2
Vowels

• How high is the tongue?
• 2. What part of the tongue is involved, and
• is that part up, down, or neutral in the
  mouth?
• 3. What is the position of the lips?

3
High front tense vowel

• i (heat)

4
High front lax vowel

• i (bit)

5
Mid front tense vowel

• e (bait)

6
Mid front lax vowel

• e (bet)

7
Low front vowel

• æ (back)

8
High back tense and round vowel

• (food) u

9
high back lax and round vowel

• (foot) ?

10
Mid back, tense and round vowel

• (boat) o

11
Mid back lax and round vowel

• (bought) ?

12
Low back unround vowel

• a (bomb)

13
SchwaMid-low central lax vowel

• ? (won)

14
Mid-low center-back lax vowel

• (cut)

15
Vowel Chart

• i u
• i ?
• e ? o
• e ?
• a

æ
16
Vowel chart of the IPA
17
phoneme vs. allophones

• broad transcription
• abstract segment
• mental unit
• underlying representation
• meaning significance
• distinguish words
• (minimal pair)
• unpredictable

• narrow transcription
• concrete phones
• practical pronunciation
• free variation
• no meaning significance
• non-distinctive
• In complementary distribution
• (mutually exclusive)
• rule-governed

18
phoneme vs. allophones

• p, ph, p
• t, th, t
• k, kh, k

• /p/
• /t/
• /k/

Minimal pairs
allophones pit vs. bit /p/
? p / s___ spoon, speak time vs.
dime /p/ ? ph / ___
picture, pure keep vs. beep /p/
? p / ___ stop, cup
19
Allophonic variations of the phoneme /t/ (????)
(??)

• /t/ ? th / ___
• /t/ ? t / s___
• /t/ ? t? / ___
• /t/ ? tN / ___nasal
• /t/ ? tL / ___lateral
• /t/ ? tG / V___V
• in complementary distribution(??? ??)
• mutually exclusive in their environment
  
• (?? ??? ??)

20

• a. aspirated (??, ???, ???)
• /t/ ? th / ___ Tim, take, time,
  together,
• terrible
•  
• b. unaspirated (???, ????)
• /t/ ? t / s___ stem, strike, stop,
  stake, stream
•  
• c. unreleased (????, ???)
• /t/ ? t? / ___ spot, pit, foot, hat,
  hot, caught

21

• d. nasal plosive (?? ???)
• /t/ ? tN / ___nasal bit me, batman,
• 
  statement, button, bottom
•  
• e. lateral plosive (?? ???)
• /t/ ? tL / ___lateral bottle, cattle,
  blatantly,
• 
  immediately
• f. flap (???)
• /t/ ? tG / V___V Betty, battery, water,
  botany,
• better,
  hotter