Phonetics Exam 1

Question 1

Phonetics

Answer 1

The scientific study of the production, transmission, and reception of the sounds of speech.

Question 2

Speech sounds

Answer 2

All possible speech sounds in all different languages.

Question 3

Phone(s)

Answer 3

Individual speech sounds; most basic unit in phonetics. Do NOT necessarily have to be meaningful. Can be the same as phonemes.

Question 4

Articulatory Phonetics

Answer 4

Branch looking at how sounds are produced.

Question 5

Acoustic phonetics

Answer 5

Branch looking at transmission of the speech sounds/how sound travels.

Question 6

Auditory/Perceptual Phonetics

Answer 6

Branch looking at how we receive & perceive sounds.

Question 7

Clinical phonetics

Answer 7

Branch that deals with disordered speech. Investigation can be: impressionistic (listen to & transcribe sounds) or instrumental (using equipment to analyze sounds/articulatory position.

Question 8

Linguistics

Answer 8

The study of human language.

Question 9

Phonology

Answer 9

Studies the rules of organizing speech sounds in a language.

Question 10

Phonemes

Answer 10

Smallest units of sound (linguistic units) that can change the meaning of a word.

Question 11

Phonemes: minimal pairs

Answer 11

Words that only differ by 1 sound; tells us those sounds are important in a language. Example: cat vs bat, cake vs take.

Question 12

Phonemes: allophones

Answer 12

2 types of a sound; little variations on sounds. Not the same as phonemes. Example: /p/ sound in peak vs. speak.

Question 13

Phonotactics

Answer 13

Where sounds are permitted to occur/which can combine. Example: no English word exists that begins with the /ng/ sound.

Question 14

Phonemes: allophones: complementary distribution

Answer 14

Phonetically similar sounds that occur at a certain place in a word. Predictable, dependent on the context, and occur in mutually exclusive contexts.

Question 15

Phonemes: allophones: free variation

Answer 15

Just depends on how the person says it; can be exchanged for one another in similar contexts.

Question 16

Articulation disorders

Answer 16

Problem with phonetics; not placing mouth in right position for the sound to be made (form).

Question 17

Phonological Disorders

Answer 17

Problem with how the sound functions/using them in meaningful ways to get the message across.

Question 18

Airstream mechanisms chart

Answer 18

Question 19

What happens physiologically in the respiratory system during a pulmonic egressive airstream?

Answer 19

The lungs decrease in volume, which generates positive pressure in the whole vocal tract. Air flows out to equalize this pressure. External intercostals brake collapse of lungs and provide longer exhalation for speech. Air can flow for up to 25 seconds, but normally in speech we use 2-10 seconds of any one exhalation.

Question 20

What is the most common airstream? Why?

Answer 20

Pulmonic egressive; all languages use it, and even if they use other mechanisms, most sounds will be pulmonic egressive. It’s especially suited to phonation, since vocal folds operate best with air from underneath.

Question 21

What are some qualities of the pulmonic ingressive airstream?

Answer 21

Vocal folds are not well adapted to air flow from above, so sound is rough. Not easy to use for more than a few seconds, and not used in any known language.

Question 22

Glottalic egressive airstream

Answer 22

The initiator is the larynx; the glottis is closed tight; the larynx is jerked upwards by the extrinsic laryngeal muscles. This process acts like a piston: the pressure of air above the glottis (and up to the articulatory stricture) is compressed. When the articulatory stricture is released, the air is ‘ejected’ swiftly.

Question 23

Ejectives

Answer 23

Use glottalic egressive airstream. The amount of air used is small, so only one ejective sound at a time is used; other surrounding sounds are pulmonic. Ejective stops, fricatives and affricates are found in natural language. They are quite common: Georgian, Gujerati, Korean, Zulu etc, and many native American languages

Question 24

Glottalic ingressive airstream

Answer 24

Reverse ejectives are formed by drawing down the larynx with the glottis shut. However, the glottis is not tight shut, and as the larynx is lowered, lung air beneath leaks through causing voicing. These sounds (implosives) are very rare in natural language. However, a combination of glottalic ingressive with pulmonic egressive is commonly encountered.

Question 25

Implosives

Answer 25

Use glottalic ingressive airstream. Formed when the larynx is jerked downward but lung air leaks out of the partially-open glottis, causing voicing. Only stop sounds are so formed, called implosives. They are found in West African languages (e.g. Hausa), Zulu, Sindhi (India) and many others.

Question 26

Velaric ingressive airstream

Answer 26

Need a closure between the back of the tongue and the velum; and an articulatory stricture somewhere further forward (e.g. alveolar ridge). There is a small pocket of air trapped between these two points. Then the pressure of this air is rarefied by lowering or retracting the body of the tongue. When the articulatory stricture is released, air rushes in from outside the mouth to equalize the rarefied pressure. Only stop like sounds are found in natural language, and these are termed clicks.

Question 27

Clicks

Answer 27

Velaric ingressive airstream. Can be made simultaneously with other pulmonic activity (e.g. airflow through the nasal cavity). Can be voiced, nasal, aspirated among other co-occurent features. Are found in Khoi-San languages (e.g. Nama, !Xõó), and Zulu, Xhosa, etc

Question 28

Esophageal speech

Answer 28

Laryngectomy clients may learn to use an alternative airstream mechanism: esophageal. Air is drawn into the esophagus, and the esophageal sphincter is used to create ‘phonation’. Clients can be trained to use this airstream for quite long stretches of speech.

Question 29

Why do we use phonetic transcription?

Answer 29

1 sound can have several different spellings; 1 letter can represent several different sounds; Digraphs (1 sound represented by two letters); “Silent” letters; Spelling silliness (ghoti = fish).