Chapter 2 Phonetic Transcription of English Flashcards
As you begin your study of phonetics…
it is extremely important to think about words in terms of how they sound and not in terms of how they are spelled
C-A-T
/kæt/
‘king’
‘apple’
‘table’
what printed letter has no phonetic symbol?
‘c’
when a word begins with ‘c’ it may sound like…
/k/ or /s/
‘king’ or ‘city’
what were the three major developmental periods?
Old English (300–1150 CE), Middle English (1150–1500 CE), and Modern English (since 1500 CE)
What is the phonetic alphabet?
an alphabet that maintains a one-to-one relationship between a sound and an alphabet letter
what are some examples of silent letters in words?
“gnome” “psychosis” “pneumonia”
Exercise 2.1 Compose a list of 10 words that contain silent letters.
debt, numb, lamb, plumber, muscle, scene, wednesday, age, hate, love
why do some words have silent letters?
they are often related to the origin of a word
how many speech sounds vs graphemes does the word “through” have?
3 speech sounds and 7 graphemes
“th” “r” “oo”
exercise 2.2
reed 3
frog 4
wince 4
a. lazy
b. smooth
c. cough
d. spilled
e. driven
f. oh
g. comb
h. why
i. raisin
j. thrill
k. judge
l. away
a. 4
b. 4
c. 3
d. 5
e. 6
f. 1
g. 3
h. 2
i. 5
j. 4
k. 3
l. 3
why does one alphabet letter often represent more than one speech sound?
the roman alphabet contains fewer letters than the number of speech sounds in English
exercise 2.3
a
i
g
f
z
c car city
s vision sit
a- apple Austin
i- limb light
g- growl wage
f- fate of
z- zero azure
what are allographs?
different letter sequences or patterns that represent the same sound
what are some examples of allopgraphs?
loop through threew fruit canoe
mail convey hate steak
what are digraphs?
pair of letters that represent one sound
what are some examples of digraphs?
look- oo
think- th
ear- ea
exercise 2.4
_shoe Xmeasure _ocean _sufficient
_chord _liquor _biscuit Xrag
_moon _through Xthough _suit
Xwood _done _flood _rub
_ice Xwas _press _scissors
what three units of spoken language help form the foundation for the study of phonetics?
morphemes
phonemes
allophones
what is a morpheme?
the smallest unit of language cpable of carrying meaning
e.g “book” “chair”
it conveys meaning
how many morphemes does the word “book” have?
2 “book” and -s
what are some examples of verb ending morphemes?
-ed walked
-ing calling
what are some examples of prefix morphemes?
pre- prepaid
re- reread
what are some examples of suffix morphemes?
-tion constitution
-ive talkative
what are free morphemes with examples?
morphemes that can stand alone and still carry meaning
e.g. “book” “phlegm” “music” “press”
what are bound morphemes with examples?
morphemes that are bound to other words and carry no meaning when they stand alone
e.g. re- -s -ian -ure
what will the focus be when performing phonetic transcription?
individual speech sounds or phonemes
exercise 2.5 think of another word that shares the same morpheme
create creation
deduce
protect
potent
scrutiny
labor
great
honest
decent
late
magnet
deduce-s
protect-ed
im-potent
scrutin-ies
labor-s
great’ly
dis-honest
decent-ly
late-ly
magnet-ize
exercise 2.5 indicate the number of morphemes
cucumber 1
reading 2
reworked 3
caution 1
warmly 2
prorated 3
running 2
finger 1
clarinetist 2
lived 2
talker 2
sharply 2
relistened 3
kangaroo 1
swarming 2
what is a phoneme?
individual speech sound that is capable of differentiating morphemes and therefore is capable of distinguishing meaning
i.e. a morpheme like “look” is composed of a string of individual phonemes
what will a change in a single phoneme change?
always will change the identity and maning of the morpheme
e.g “look” /l/ to /b/ “book”
what are minimal pairs or minimal contrasts?
words that vary by only one phoneme (speech sound)
i.e. “look”/”book” “cat”/”cab” vary only by 1 phoneme
“hear”/”beer”
exercise 2.6
initial phoneme change
1. tame
2. late
3. call
4. could
5. boil
- tamelame
- laterate
- callball
- couldwould
- boilcoil
exercise 2.6
final phoneme change
6. heart
7. tone
8. web
9. cheap
10. rub
- hearthard
- tonetoad
- web wet
- cheap cheat
- rubrug
exercise 2.6 Place an “X” next to the word pairs that are examples of minimal pairs.
1.kale, mail
2.blog, blot
3.smart, smarts
4.rinse, sins
5.bird, burned
6.find, fanned
7.daughter, slaughter
8.twitch, switch
9.rings, brings
10.limes, rhymes
1
2
6
8
10
when are the IPA symbols consistent?
always even from language to language
what are pulmonic consonants?
produced with the need for airflow from the lungs
what are diacritics?
indicate an alternate way of producing a certain sound
what are suprasegmentals?
used to indicate the stress, intonation pattern, and tempo of any particular utterance in a langauge
exercise 2.7 Examine the vowel symbols in Table 2.1. Which vowel symbol would be used to transcribe each vowel in the following words?
breast i
lend
man
flick
should
rude
week
lend ɛ
man æ
flick ɪ
should ʊ
rude u
week i
exercise 2.8
dog ɡ
rich tʃ
1. ram
2. laugh
3. wish
4. sung
5. bath
6. leave
- ram m
- laugh f
- wish ʃ
- sungŋ
- bath θ
- leave v
exercise 2.9
1. shoe
2. them
3. chew
4. guilt
5. wood
6. rough
7. mocked
8. wing
9. exaggerate
10. biscuit
11. vision
12. labor
- shoe ʃ
- them ð
- chew tʃ
- guilt ɪ
- wood ʊ
- rough f
- mocked t
- wing ŋ
- exaggerate ԁʒ
- biscuit k
- vision ʒ
- labor ɚ
what are the 2 ways that phoneme can be defined?
- speech sound that can distinguish one morpheme from another
- a family of sounds
what are allophones?
members of a phoneme family are actually variant pronounciations of a particular phoneme
what are two variants of /l/?
“little” first /l/ is light and the second /l/ is dark
if switched the word “little” can still be recognized so they are not indiivdual phonemes
what determines the way certain allophones must be produced?
constraints of the other sounds in a word osea phonetic context
i.e. “kid” the /k/ is produced close to the front of the mouth because the next vowel is a “front vowel”
