Chapter 2 - The Phonological Component: Phonetics Flashcards
Phonetics
The study of speech sounds: their physical properties, the way they are received and decoded by the brain, and the way they are produced.
Acoustic phonetics
The study of the physical properties of sound.
Auditory phonetics
The study of how sounds are received by the ear and decoded by the brain.
Articulatory phonetics
The study of the production of speech sounds.
Ingressive sounds
Speech sounds that are produced by sucking air into the mouth
Egressive sounds
Produced by expelling air from the lungs
Articulators
The organs of speech
Trachea (windpipe)
A tube that extends from the voice box to the lungs
Larynx (voice box)
The uppermost part of the trachea that contains the vocal chords or folds and is one of the main sound-producing organs
Vocal folds (vocal cords)
A muscular pair of elastic folds, which can be moved into various degrees of openness
Glottis
The space (opening) between the vocal folds
Epiglottis
A membrane flap that covers the glottis during swallowing and prevents anything that is swallowed from entering the lungs
Pharyngeal cavity
The space or passageway in the throat
Nasal cavity
The passageway in the nose
Oral cavity
The space or passageway in the mouth
Uvula
The fleshy lobe at the back of the roof of the mouth
Alveolar ridge
The hard ridge behind the upper front teeth
Hard palate
The bony section of the mouth
Soft palate (velum)
The back, fleshy section of the roof of the mouth that is movable and closes off the nasal cavity during swallowing
Voiced sounds
Produced, in part, by the vibrations of the vocal folds
Voiceless sounds
Produced when the vocal folds are apart and the airstream flows from the larynx with minimal or no vibrations
Orthography
Refers to spelling and to the writing system of a language
Consonant
A speech sound that is produced when the airstream is constricted or stopped (and then released) at some point along its path before it escapes from the body
Vowel
A speech sound without constriction or stoppage
Articulation
The production of speech sounds by the movement of the speech organs
Aspiration
The amount of air that is produced upon the release of a stop
Diacritics or diacritic marks
Notations added to the main phonetic symbol to clarify details of pronunciation
Tense vowels
Produced with more tension and more constriction than lax vowels; they are usually of longer duration
Lax vowels
Show less tension and constriction; they are usually shorter in duration than tense vowels
Schwa
An unstressed mid-central vowel that is a shorter version of a similar sounding but longer vowel (Bach)
Accent
A way of pronouncing words that identifies one speaker of a language as speaking differently from another speaker of the same language
Monophthong
A single vowel sound
Diphthong
A double vowel sound that begins with one vowel sound and gradually moves into another vowel sound or glide
Homophones
Words that sound the same but differ in meaning and/or spelling
Syllabic consonants
Nasal or liquid consonants that can take the place of vowels as the nucleus of a syllable in certain words
Phonetic segment or phone
A speech sound that is perceived as an individual and unique sound, different from other such sounds
Suprasegmentals or prosodic features
Characteristics of speech that can distinguish words, phases, or sentences that are otherwise identical in their phonetic segments. They are associated with stretches of speech larger than an individual phonetic segment.
Fundamental frequency
The rate at which the vocal folds (cords) in speech
Pitch
The perception of fundamental frequency evaluated on a scale from high to low
Intonation contour
The overall pitch of an utterance, sometimes represented by a line drawn over the utterance that are otherwise the same
Tone language (tonal language)
Pitch difference in the same string of phones will change the meaning of that string
Tone
A specific change in pitch that functions in tonal languages to distinguish words that are made up of the same segments
Duration
How long a phone lasts
Geminate
A phone with duration about twice that of the same phone pronounced with a short duration: a long consonant or vowel
Singleton
An individual phone with a duration about half as long as a geminate
Stress
To make emphatic or more prominent
Juncture
A real or perceived pause within a series of phones
Geminate
A phone with duration about twice that of the same phone pronounced with a short duration: a long consonant or vowel
