Week 2

Question 1

Speech communication consists of…

Answer 1

A chain of events linking the speaker’s brain with the listener’s brain.

Question 2

What are the linguistic, physiological and physical levels of the speaker?

Answer 2

1) Linguistic level: selecting words and sentences.
2) Physiological level: neural and muscular activity.
3) Physical level: generation and transmission of sound wave.

Question 3

What is the speaker also doing while speaking?

Answer 3

Listening

Question 4

Phonetics

Answer 4

The study of speech sounds, concerned with the physical and physiological levels of the speech chain.

Phonology is related to phonetics but is concerned with the linguistic level of the speech chain.

Question 5

Articulatory phonetics

Answer 5

Production of speech by speaker.

Question 6

Acoustic phonetics

Answer 6

Properties of sound waves.

Question 7

Auditory phonetics

Answer 7

Perception of speech by hearer.

Question 8

What is sound?

Answer 8

Sound is air that vibrates. Air molecules are set in motion by an energy source. This causes them to oscillate and pass on their energy to neighbouring molecules. This way, sound is spread from the sound source (the speaker) to the listener.

The vibrating air strikes the ears of the listener, and the vibrations are interpreted by the listener’s brain as sound.

Question 9

What are the properties of sound?

Answer 9

1. Loudness
2. Pitch
3. Shape of the sound wave

Question 10

What are speech sounds?

Answer 10

They are ‘units’ that can be identified in the speech stream.

Question 11

Natural speech is…

Answer 11

Continuous

Question 12

Why do we use IPA?

Answer 12

To avoid complications/confusion between the actual sounds and the spelling. Each phonetic symbol corresponds to exactly one speech sound.

Question 13

Why/how is the relation between sounds and letters not always straightforward?

Answer 13

1. The same sound can be represented by different letters (sea, see).
2. Same letter representing different sounds (apple, lame).
3. Not always a one-to-one relation between sounds and letters (union, sing).
4. Silent letters (love, knight).

Question 14

In voiced sounds the vocal cords are…

Answer 14

Loosely together, and they impede the airflow but don’t stop it completely. The air that’s pushed past the vocal cords causes them to vibrate.

Examples: [ a, l, m, b ]

Question 15

When are the vocal cords wide apart?

Answer 15

In voiceless sounds.

Examples: [ s, f, p, t, h ]

Question 16

The oral cavity can be shaped in different ways:

Answer 16

1) By making contact and thereby obstructing the airstream at different places of articulation (for consonants).

2) By shaping the tongue body in different ways (for vowels).

Question 17

VPM

Answer 17

1. Voicing: Are the vocal cords vibrating?
2. Place of articulation: Where in the vocal tract is the obstruction made?
3. Manner of articulation: How is the outgoing airstream modified?

Question 18

Active articulators and passive articulators

Answer 18

The tongue is the main active articulator; the part which moves during the articulation of a speech sound.

The active articulation makes contact or near-contact at different locations. These ‘places of articulation’ are the passive articulators).

Question 19

Manner of articulation can be done in three ways:

Answer 19

1. By blocking the air fully (complete closure).
2. By blocking the air almost fully (narrow approximation).
3. By not making a significant obstruction (wide approximation).

Question 20

Velum UP vs. Velum DOWN

Answer 20

Oral /g/ vs. Nasal /ŋ/

Question 21

How are nasal stops like [m, n, ŋ] produced?

Answer 21

With a lowered velum and a closed oral cavity.

Question 22

Difference between stops and fricatives

Answer 22

Stops involve complete closure whereas fricatives involve narrow approximation. They differ in their manner of articulation.

Question 23

Fundamental frequency (F0)

Answer 23

In voiced sounds, each opening and closing gesture of the vocal cords causes a peak in air pressure in the sound wave. The rate of occurrence of these peaks is the fundamental frequency , or F0.

Question 24

What does F0 give us?

Answer 24

A way to estimate the pitch of a sound; the faster the vocal cords are vibrating, the higher the pitch is.

“The chicken has crossed the road” can be either declarative or interrogative. The pitch contour signals to the listener whether the sentence is a statement or a question.

Question 25

Example of pitch

Answer 25

“The chicken has crossed the road” can be either declarative or interrogative depending on pitch.

The pitch contour signals to the listener whether the sentence is a statement or a question.

Question 26

Harmonics (overtones)

Answer 26

The vibrations of going back and forth, and also vibrations at twice the frequency.

Question 27

In vowels, some harmonics are amplified while others are dampened; what does this depend on?

Answer 27

Depends on the shape of the vocal tract.

Question 28

How is the quality of a vowel determined?

Answer 28

This is determined by the shape of the oral cavity and the pharyngeal cavity. The shape of these make some overtones louder and others less present. The reinforced bands of overtones are called formants.

Question 29

Formants

Answer 29

The reinforced bands of overtones.

Question 30

First formant (F1)

Answer 30

Resonance of pharyngeal cavity (pitch rises and falls).

Low-high on vowel chart.

Question 31

Second formant (F2)

Answer 31

Resonance of oral cavity (high to low pitch).

High-low on vowel chart.

Question 32

How do formants show up in spectrograms?

Answer 32

As dark bands.

Question 33

How can more precise statements be made about vowels?

Answer 33

By describing vowels in acoustic terms.