Week 7 phonetics and phonology

Question 1

Describe the key anatomical structures involved in speech production (know diagram)

Answer 1

-Speech = the movement of air.
-Air flows from lungs, through vocal folds in larynx, up the throat (pharynx) into mouth and/or nose and finally out of the body

Question 2

Describe the vocal folds. How do they aid speech production?

Answer 2

-Paired ‘shelves’ made of muscle, ligament and membrane
-Located in larynx, which sits on the top of the trachea. Opening bwn vocal folds is the glottis.
-Vibration triggered by build up of air pressure
-Pitch (frequency) – how fast vocal folds vibrate (faster = higher).
e.g. A small larynx (e.g. women, child) has shorter vocal folds – which vibrate faster.

Question 3

Go through IPA for consonants and vowels (look, cover, write, check)

Answer 3

:)

Question 4

What is place of articulation? What are its types

Answer 4

Where the articulators are constricted to produce the sound
-Bilabial/labial
-Labiodental
-Interdental/lingua-dental
-Alveolar or lingua-alveolar
-Palatal or lingua-palatal
-Velar
-Glottal

Question 5

Where are bilabial/labial articulators? What are it’s consonants?

Answer 5

produced with closed lips (p, b, m, w)

Question 6

Where are labiodental articulators? What are it’s consonants?

Answer 6

lower lip resting against upper teeth (f, v)

Question 7

Where are interdental/lingua-dental articulators? What are it’s consonants?

Answer 7

tongue between teeth (ɵ,ð=th)

Question 8

Where are alveolar or lingua-alveolar articulators? What are it’s consonants?

Answer 8

tongue in contact with alveolar ridge (t, d, s, z, n, l)

Question 9

Where are palatal or lingua-palatal articulators? What are it’s consonants?

Answer 9

tongue near or contacting hard plate (r, j, ʃ, ʒ, dʒ, ʧ)

Question 10

Where are glottal articulators? What are it’s consonants?

Answer 10

produced around the glottis (h)

Question 11

Where are velar articulators? What are it’s consonants?

Answer 11

tongue touches velum or soft palate (g, k, weird n)

Question 12

Define manner. What are it’s types?

Answer 12

How airflow manipulated to make sound
Stop/plosive
Fricative
Affricate
Nasal
Approximants: Liquid and Glide

Question 13

What is stop/plosive manner. What are it’s consonants?

Answer 13

articulators pressed together tightly then air is released quickly (p, b, t, d, k, g)-air can’t escape through nose

Question 14

What is fricative manner. What are it’s consonants?

Answer 14

slow turbulence of air within vocal tract caused by friction of articulators close together and air forced through it (F, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, h)

Question 15

What is affricative manner. What are it’s consonants?

Answer 15

begin with stop , ends with fricative (ʧ,ʤ = ch and j)

Question 16

What is nasal manner. What are it’s consonants?

Answer 16

open velum, air flows through nasal cavity (m, n, ng)

Question 17

What is approximants manner. What are it’s consonants? What is meant by liquid and glide?

Answer 17

articulators only approximate one another-don’t make complete closure. Two types-liquids and glides

Liquid: no friction, more like vowel but curled tongue, side passage around tongue (L, r)-tip of tongue

Glide: no friction, more like vowel. Air escapes via mouth, but direction of flow altered by gliding over tongue before exiting lips (w, j= w and y)-body of tongue raised

Question 18

Define length and how it works

Answer 18

(duration)
-can change word meaning in some languages
-In English, only vowels—not consonants—are lengthened.

Question 19

Define pitch and how it creates intonation and tone

Answer 19

-Tone Languages: Pitch changes differentiate word meanings
It’s the relative pitch, not absolute frequency, that matters.
-Intonation Languages: may effect meaning of whole sentences (rising pitch question falling pitch statement)
Non-tone languages like English use pitch changes for sentence-level meanings

Question 20

Describe stress

Answer 20

making syllables longer, louder, and slightly higher or lower in pitch, affecting meaning (e.g., defect as a noun vs. defect as a verb). This feature is not present in syllable-timed languages like French

Question 21

Differ between phoneme and allophone

Answer 21

-Phoneme: the basic form of a sound
-Allophone: predictable phonetic realisation of phoneme
e.g. The phoneme /t/
□ allophone [th] as in tick
□ allophone [t] in stick

Question 22

Define and provide examples of coarticulation

Answer 22

phonetic features overlap to make speech smoother/ more efficient. Features can be anticipated (brought forward) or retained (carried over) between sounds.
Common forms include:
-Assimilation: When sound’s feature spreads to neighbouring sounds
-Epenthesis: Inserting sound
-Segment Deletion: Omitting unstressed vowels

Question 23

Define phonotactic rules

Answer 23

-Relate to the permissible sequences of sounds and the permissible locations of sounds in syllables.
-E.g. In English if a syllable begins with /l/ or /r/, the next segment must be a vowel. E.g. Lbick is not permissible.