Phonetics and Phonology Flashcards
What are Phonetics and Phonology
the smallest building blocks of
spoken language: speech sounds.
Phonetics focuses on their physical characteristics
*how they are produced by speakers
* how they are transmitted through the air
* how they are processed by listeners
Phonology focuses on their functions in the grammars of
languages:
- each language has its own inventory of core speech sounds
- each language has its own constraints on how its sounds can be combined
to form syllables and words - each language has its own patterns of pronunciation variation
What are the three main componants of speech production
- Initation
- Phonation
- Articulation
Initation
*Sound is our percept of fluctuations in air pressure.
* In speech production, we need to move air to create these fluctuations
Phonation
*In some speech sounds, air pressure fluctuations are partly due to
vibration in the larynx.
* In other sounds there is no vibration.
Articulation
*The sounds of the world’s languages fall into various groups according to
the type of noise they exemplify.
* Different types of noise are produced with different vocal tract shapes and
movements.
The three components of the
sound production process
map quite neatly to three
regions of the vocal tract:
*below the larynx (sub-
laryngeal or sub-glottal)
✓the larynx
✓above the larynx (supra-
laryngeal or glottal)
Pulmonic Sounds
Most speech sounds are produced
with air initiated by the lungs
the airflow is
egressive
For most speech sounds, air flows out
of the vocal tract
The larynx sits where
on top of the trachea, at the base of the tongue.
The Larynx contains vocal folds below where
The epiglottis
The space between the folds is
The glottis
The shape of the glottis is under whose control
the speakers
