IPA Phonetics Flashcards
The Sounds: Phonetics - Class Reading Definitions
English sound inventory
The pool of sounds which English speakers use to construct words of their language.
Phonetics
A subdiscipline of linguistics that deals with muscle movements that make sound. How to describe the sounds, which languages use which sounds, how can we distinguish a criteria for sounds etc.
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
The most well-known and most standardised transcription system - the transcription system is what phoneticians have established to represent sounds exactly with symbols.
< > = letters [ ] = sounds
Received Pronunciation (RP)
British English accent symbols
General American
North American accent symbols
Pulmonic agressive airstream mechanism
English sounds produced with air being pushed out from lungs, mouth, or nose.
Sound
Air vibration
Frequency
A greater number of vibrations AKA more cycles of variation in air pressure causes a higher frequency.
Higher frequencies = higher pitched sounds
Vocal tract
The entire passage above the larynx where speech sounds are shaped.
*Dimensions of everyone’s vocal tracts are different & airstreams are modified accordingly.
Active articulators
Articulators that move such as tongue, lips, and lower jaw.
*Where is the sound produced?
Articulators
All parts of the vocal apparatus which are involved in speech production.
Passive articulators
Articulators with a permanent positioning like upper teeth and hard palate.
Articulation manner
HOW is a sound produced?
Place of articulation
Linguists will use the “point of closest constriction” in the vocal tract as a criterion for description and classification of consonants.
Bilabial sounds
Sounds like [b] which are characterized by a constriction at the lips.
Alveolar ridge
The roof of your mouth, just behind your upper front teeth.
Alveolar sounds
Sounds like [d] where the obstruction is at the alveolar ridge. (Tongue goes up and behind the upper teeth).
Labio-dentals
Sounds that involve only the lower lip and upper teeth movement.
Dental place of articulation
When the lips do not play a role at all in the production of sounds. These sounds are produced with the tongue.
AKA inter-dental
Palato-Alveolar sounds
When the constriction is between the hard palate and the alveolar ridge.
Hard palate = roof of mouth.
Palatal sound
When the tongue is raised towards the hard palate.
Velar sound
An obstruction at the velum (AKA soft palate = back of the roof of the mouth)
Glottal place
When airstream is obstructed at the glottis (in the middle of the larynx, at the voice box, behind an Adam’s apple)
Stops
A complete stop of the airflow followed by a release.
Plosives
Another form of a stop but with a burst of air at the moment of release.
Fricatives
Leaving only a narrow passage through which air can escape and when the air passes through that narrow space, the result is an audible friction.
Affricates
A stoppage of the air flow, followed by a prolonged release with only a narrow opening and therefore, audible friction.
Approximants
Sounds in which the articulators approach each other but do not cause a strong constriction in the vocal tract.
There are 4 sounds in the English language like this.
Nasals
The velum is lowered with an open passage from the oral to the nasal cavity so that the air can escape through the nose.
These sounds differ ONLY in their place of articulation.
Voiceless
When the vocal cords are apart, and the air can pass relatively freely into the vocal tract, no vibration of the vocal cords is caused.
Voiced
Sounds which are produced by vibration.
Vibration = cycles of opening and closing at the vocal folds/cords.
What are the criterion used for articulatory properties (consonants)?
- Voicing (is it voiced or voicelss?)
- Place of articulation
- Manner of articulation
