Phonetics Flashcards
For Quiz 1
1
Q
Acoustic Signal
A
sound wave traveling through the air
2
Q
Speech Comprehension
A
- perception
- listener has to decode continuous acoustic signal as a sequence of discrete consonants and vowels
- sequence of sounds needs to be further associated with the meaning, activating an internal mental representation for the object
3
Q
Phonetics
A
-how speech sounds (phones) are produced by speakers (articulatory phonetics), realized acoustically (acoustic phonetics), and perceived by listeners (auditory phonetics)
4
Q
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
A
one-to-one correspondence between a sound (segment or phone) and a symbol
-[ ]: phonetic transcription
5
Q
Segment
A
[u]
individual speech sound
6
Q
Vocal organs
A
- lungs: the source of air;
- larynx (and vocal folds): the sound source
- vocal tract: filtering
7
Q
Glottal States
A
- configurations of the vocal folds
- voiceless/voiced
- murmur/breathy voiced: vocal folds loosely+slowly vibrating; glottis not fully closed;
- whisper: front portions of folds are pulled close together
8
Q
Voiced/Voiceless
A
Voiceless: vocal folds widely pulled apart
Voiced: folds pulled close together and open repeatedly (vibration) regularly due to air passing between the folds
9
Q
Vocal Tract
A
- air passages above the vocal folds
- the pharynx, oral cavity, nasal cavity
- Modifications of airflow creates different sounds.
10
Q
Articulators
A
- parts of the vocal tract, can be used to form speech sounds.
- lower articulator articulates against an upper articulator.
11
Q
Upper/Passive articulators
A
- The upper lip, teeth, surface of the mouth:
- alveolar ridge
- hard palate
- soft palate/velum
- uvula
- pharyngeal wall
12
Q
Alveolar Ridge
A
-small protuberance just behind the upper teeth
13
Q
Hard Palate
A
-bony structure of the front part of the roof of the mouth
14
Q
Soft Palate/Velum
A
-muscular flap at the back of the mouth
15
Q
Uvula
A
-small appendage hanging down at the lower end of the velum
16
Q
Lower/Active articulators
A
- The lower lip, the lower teeth, the tongue
- Nasal cavity: velum is lowered adding nasal resonances to the speech
17
Q
Tongue
A
large muscular organ: the tip, blade, body, back (dorsum), root
18
Q
Consonants
A
- made with major obstruction in the vocal tract
- less sonorous
- can be syllabic
19
Q
Vowels + Glides
A
- made with relatively little obstruction
- more sonorous, air is moving more freely
- vowels form nucleus of syllable
20
Q
Consonant Articulation
A
1) voicing (glottal state),
2) place of articulation
3) manner of articulation
21
Q
Place of articulation
A
- where in the vocal tract + what articulators make the constriction
- labial, dental, alveolar, alveopalatal/palatal, velar, labio-velar, uvular, pharyngeal, glottal
22
Q
labial: bilabial/labiodental
A
- 2 lips together/lips to teeth
- pie, by, my, five, vibe
23
Q
Dental/Interdental
A
- tongue to teeth/between
- thigh, that
24
Q
Alveolar
A
- tongue right behind teeth
- die, tie, sigh, lie, rye
25
Alveopalatal/Palatal
- front tongue raised
- shy, child, jive
- palatal: yikes
26
Velar
- bunched up and back
| - kite, guy
27
Labio-Velar
- round lips and tongue raised to velum
| - wide, why
28
Glottal
- produced in the larynx
| - howl
29
Manner of articulation
- way the constriction is made or its degree
| - Oral, nasal, stops, fricatives, affricates, liquids, glides
30
Stridents/Sibilants
-sounds that produce, hissing/hushing
31
Continuants
-fricatives, vowels, glides
32
Syllabic Liquids/Nasals
-can function as syllabic nuclei
33
Oral vs. Nasal
- velum raised (closed) or lowered (open)
- oral: bye, sigh, lie
- nasal: my, nigh
34
Stops
- complete closure, no air passing through vocal tract
- pie, bye, tie, die, kite, guy
- At the end of the word, stops in English are usually unreleased.
- [p
35
Fricatives
- constriction narrow enough to cause friction
| - five, vibe, beige
36
Affricates
- complete closure with a fricative release
| - chime, jibe
37
Nasals
-complete closure in the oral cavity, lowered velum and air passing through the nasal cavity
38
Liquids
- relatively little obstruction
- laterals: lie
- rhotics: retroflex + flap, rye, atom
39
Glides
-rapidly articulated, vowel-like sounds
40
Flap
atom: the tongue hits the alveolar ridge in a ballistic motion; the closure cannot be maintained long.
- voiced, unlike the voiceless [t]
41
Aspiration
- delay of voicing after voiceless stops
- vocal folds start to vibrate some time after the oral closure has been released
- ‘puff’ of air after p, t, k in English
- pill, tall, cool
- [h] subscript
- After [s], English voiceless stops are unaspirated
42
Description of consonants – three parameters
(1) laryngeal settings (voiceless or voiced),
(2) place of articulation,
(3) manner of articulation
43
Vowels
- relatively little obstruction in the vocal tract
- sonorous (high acoustic intensity)
- always function as nucleus of syllable
- described in terms of height, backness, rounding, tenseness
44
Height
- relative raising or lowering of the tongue
| - high, mid, or low, (pit – pet – pat)
45
Backness
- relative fronting or backing of the tongue
| - front, central, or back (pit – put, pat – pot, bet)
46
Lip Rounding
- rounded or unrounded
| - only high and mid back vowels rounded in English -(boot – beat)
47
Tenseness
- greater/lesser vocal tract constriction
| - tense or lax (beat – bit, boot – put)
48
Simple vowels
- show no noticeable change in quality over time
| - bit, bet, bat, but, bought
49
Diphthongs
- consist of a sequence of a simple vowel and a glide
- bait, bite, boat, boy
- diphthongs are considered to be single units, one segment
50
Lax Vowels
- Lax vowels (except the schwa, [ǝ]) never occur at the end of a word
- are always followed by consonants
- [bɪd], [bɛd], [bæd], but *[bɪ], *[bɛ], *[bæ], etc.
51
Tense Vowels
- can freely occur at the end of a word and before consonants
- [bid], [bejd], [bud], [bi], [bej], [bu], etc.
52
Mid central vowels
- Schwa, [ǝ], is a mid, central, unrounded vowel that occurs in unstressed syllables and before
- When unstressed, schwa is reduced (short in duration and less loud).
- Caret, [ʌ], is also a mid, central, unrounded vowel occurring in stressed syllables. The two vowels sound very similar.
53
Suprasegmentals (Prosody)
- properties of speech that do not relate to specific vocal folds adjustments or place/manner of articulation
- Pitch, Loudness. Length
54
Pitch
- perception of relative frequency of vocal fold vibration.
- controlled by the tension of the vocal folds and amount of air going through the glottis.
- pitch movements are used in differentiating:
- Word meanings; ‘tone’.
- Sentence meanings; ‘intonation’.
55
Tone
- lexical items can be distinguished solely on the basis of their pitch
- Types of tones
- Flat pitch in a syllable: register tone
- Moving pitch in a syllable: contour tone
- can express a grammatical function
56
Intonation
- refers to pitch movements over utterances.
| - concerned with general meaning of the utterance
57
Length
- distinguish between short or long consonants or vowels.
| - length is said to be contrastive
58
Stress
- refers to auditory prominence of some syllables compared to others
- can be realized in various ways
- English: stressed syllables are higher in pitch, louder, and longer
59
Coarticulation
- sequence of movements of articulators that overlap in time.
- Articulation of one sound inevitably influences that of another
60
Assimilation
- One segment becomes more like another, taking on some or all phonetic properties of that segment
- Regressive assimilation: following segment affects the preceding segment, right-to-left.
- Progressive assimilation: preceding segment affects the following segment, left-to-right.
61
Dissimilation
- Two sounds become less alike in terms of articulation or acoustics. It is less common than assimilation
- fifths [fɪfθs]-[fɪfts]
62
Epenthesis/insertion
- segment get inserted next to other segments
| - [pɹɪns], [woɹmθ], [tɛnθ]-[pɹɪnts], [woɹmpθ], [tɛntθ]
63
Deletion
- segment gets deleted next to other segments
| - [səpówz] [pətéjɾow][spowz] [ptéjɾow]
64
Metathesis
- Two segments get re-arranged
| - [pɹɪskɹájb] [pɹɪskɹɪṕ ʃn̩]-[pəɹskɹájb][pəɹskɹɪṕ]
65
Vowel reduction
- vowel becomes shorter, less loud, and less peripheral (more central)
- Canada [khǽnədə], Canadian [kənéjdiən]
