Articulators, APA, and English Consonants Flashcards
How sounds are produced
Air flow from lungs => trachea => larynx= vocal folds
Vocal fold vibration = voicing
Vocal fold tensing/relaxing = pitch
Epiglottis: blocks larynx during eating/drinking (creating flow to esophagus)
Passive articulators (the static parts):
Upper lip, upper teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, soft palate (velum), uvula, pharyngeal wall
Active articulators (the moving parts):
Lip, tongue (tongue tip, front, body & root), velum, glottis
Velum is both active and passive: Active with nasals (lowered to allow airflow to nasal passages)
The IPA…what is it and why should I care?
IPA allows us to:
Transcribe any language
Compare the sound inventories of different languages
Talk about and understand English without relying on orthography
No one-to-one correlation between sound and spelling
Why do words like ‘cough’ and ‘dough’ not rhyme? Or ‘love’ and ‘prove’? Or ‘thread’ and ‘bead’?
Why do we have words like ‘read’ that can be pronounced two different ways?
Analyze language as it actually sounds => necessary in understanding sound patterns and processes
Describing consonants
Voicing: vocal fold vibration?
Place (of articulation): which active/passive articulator combo)
Manner (of articulation): how the airflows through articulators)
Note: sounds are described in this order:
Voicing Place Manner
Voiced bilabial fricative [β]
Voiceless alveolar stop [d]
Manners of articulation
Obstruents Stops/Plosives Fricatives Affricates Sonorants Nasals Approximants
Stops/Plosives
complete closure (combining some active and passive articulator) followed by a burst of air
Which articulators are involved in the following English sounds?
[p,b]
[t,d]
[k,g]
Fricatives
Articulators are close but some air moves through, creating turbulence English: [f,v,θ,ð,s,z,ʃ,ʒ,h] What articulators are involved in each of these sets? [f,v] [θ,ð] [s,z] [ʃ,ʒ] [h]
Affricates
Stop + Fricative: closure followed by frication
Note: not a category on the IPA chart
[tʃ, dʒ]
Movement from alveolar ridge [t,d] to post-alveolar [ʃ,ʒ]
Nasal
Lowered/opened velum English: [m] [n] [ŋ]
All involve closure of articulators but airflow is redirected through nasal passages
Approximants
Narrowed vocal tract, like fricatives but less frication
[j,w,ɹ,l]
[j,w]: glides (frictionless continuant, semi-vowels)
[ɹ]: rhotic (“r-like sounds”)
[l]: lateral (“l-like sounds”, air flow goes around tongue)
Consonants of English Inventory
b d f g h j k
l m n p s t v w z θ ð ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ ɹ ŋ
Non-pulmonic sounds
Implosives
Ejectives
Clicks
Implosives (aka glottalic ingressive stops)
Formed similarly to stops (plosives) but with airflow coming in (i.e. implosives) rather than out
Larynx lowers creating change in air pressure
[ɓ, ɗ, ʄ, ɠ, ʛ]
bilabial [ɓ] dental/alveolar [ɗ] palatal: [ʄ] velar: [ɠ] uvular: [ʛ] Note: implosives are always voiced b/c of vibrating larynx
Ejectives (aka glottalic egressive)
Similar to implosives but airflow is reversed (Larynx raises)
Same closure of larynx + closure somewhere else (i.e. place of articulation)
Marked by diacritic [‘] following symbol:
p’
t’
s’
etc…
