Unit 2-phonetic And Phonology.docx

UNIT 2 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY Both phonetics and phonology are the study of sounds. Yet, phonetics focuses on sounds of language and phonology focuses on sounds pattern of language. The difference of these focuses will be observed in the following description. A. Phonetics a. Definition Yule (2006:30) stated that phonetics is the study of the character of speech sounds. it is devided into articulatory phonetics, accoustic phonetics, and auditory phonetics. Artuculatory phonetic deals with how speech sounds are produced. Acoustic phonetic deals with physical properties of speech sounds. Other area of this study is auditory phonetic which deals with perceptual phonetic of speech sounds. Hickey (... :21) proposed phonetics the general study of human speech sounds in a particular language which emphasis on the pronounciation of this language. Meanwhile, Delahunty and Garvey (...:90) describes phonetic as a system that record the sounds of language objectively. This study provides a valuable way to understand written text than their actual spoken form. Thus, phonetics is the study of speech sounds of language in the form of written text which involves speech organs to pronounce the sounds. b. Voiced and Voiceless Sounds When we concern about articulatory phonetics, we will discuss about voiced and voicedless sounds. The sounds of a language become voiced if when the vocal cords are drawn together and the air from the lung repeteadly pushes them apart as it passes through. We will feel vibration when we pronounce these voiced sounds as in [z] or [v]. The sounds become voiceless if the vocal cords are separated, and the air from the lung passes between them unimpeded. Because they are voiceless sound, there will be no vibration when we pronounce it as in [s] and [f].

c. Place of Articulation

Bilabials The initial sounds of pat, bat, mat are bilabials. They are presented by the symbol [p], [b], and [m]. These initial sounds are produced using both bi (upper) and labia (lower lips). Another sounds that can be produced by these organs is [w] as in walk, work and way. Labiodentals Labia (lower lips) and dental (upper teeth) produce sounds [f] which is voiceless and [v] which is voiced as in life and live. In addition, there are words that are not represented by [f] but it pronounce as its sounds. Notice the final sound of laugh and cough. Dentals The dental sounds are formed with the upper front teeth and the tounge tip behind it. The symbol [θ] represent voiceless dental sound. We can find this sound in the words thin, think, three, etc. The initial sound of these words are voiceless dental sounds. Meanwhile, voiced dental sound, which is represented by symbol [ð), can be found in the words the, that, thus, etc. The sound ‘eth’ can

be found in the initial words, but the word father has the sound in the middle of the word. Alveolars These sounds are form with the front part of the tounge on the alveolar ridge and the upper teeth. The sounds produced are [t] and [s] as voiceless, and [d], [z] and [n] as voiced. We can find these sounds in the initial words of top, sit, deep, zoo and nut. Another sounds that belong to alveolar sounds are [l] as in left and [r] as in right. Palatals Palatal is also known as alveolar palatal. It means that the sounds produced involved behind alveolar ridge and hard part in the roof of our mouth. The examples of voiceless palatals are in the intial sounds of words shout and shoe, and child and choose which are represented by symbols [ʃ] and [ʧ]. Palatal voiceless sounds can also be found in the end of the word brush and church. Voiced palatals sounds are represented by symbols [ʒ] which can be found in the middle of the words treasure and plasure. Another palatal sounds are represented by symbols [ʤ] as in the initial words of joke, germ, George, and [j] as in you and yet. Velars Beyond the hard palate, there is a soft area, which is know as soft palate (velum). When the back of the tounge meets velum, it will produce velar sounds. This sound is represented by symbol [k], for example in kid, kill, cat or cold as voiceless velar sounds. The words cook, kick, and coke have voiceless alveolar sounds in their initial and final sounds. Voiced velar sounds can be found in the intial words of go, give, glad, etc. These initial sounds are represented by symbol [g]. In bag, tag, and plague, the velar sounds are found by the end of the words. Another voiced velar sound is represented by symbol [ŋ] and we can find this sound in words such as sing, tongue, and ring.

Glottals Glottal sounds are represented by symbol [h] and produced without active use of any parts of the mouth. The examples of the glottal sounds are who, have, house, etc. d. Manner of Articulation In addition to voiced and voiceless sounds, we can pronounce the phonetic symbols in various sounds. These ways are called manner of articulation and it deals with consonants. Stops In this manner, we start and finish the air completely. Sounds can be articulately stop when they block the air flow and then suddenly released. For example when we say [p], [b],[t],[d],[k], and [g]. The process is also known as plosive. We can find these set of plosive sounds in word such as ten and kid. The word bed begins and ends with plosive. The glottal stop is represented by symbol [ʔ]. It occurs when the space between the vocal cords is completely closed then released, for example when we pronounce uh-uh which means ‘no’. Between the first uh and the second uh, we do glottal [h] and then stops. Fricatives When we let the air comes out trough a very narrow passage and it creates friction, it is called as fricative. The sounds produced in this manners are [f], [v], [θ], [ð], [s], [z], [ʃ], and [ʒ]. We can find these sounds as in fade, value, thick, there, size, rose, ship, vision , etc. Affricatives The affricate sound is the combination of stops sounds and fricative. The air is completly blocked and then abruptly release it. The symbols that represent this articulations are [ʧ] and [ʤ] which are the combination of stops and fricative. The symbol [ʧ] is the combination of stops [t] and fricative [ʃ], and the symbol

[ʤ] is the combination of stop [d] and fricative [ʒ]. A good illustration words of this articulation are cheap and jeep. Nasals Nasals sounds is produced by pushing out air from the nose. In English we have three sounds, that are [m], [n], and [ŋ]. The words that begin and end with nasals can be found in morning, knitting, and name. Liquids (Approximant) Liquids or approximant refers to the articulatory that involved approaches each other but they do not really touch. This manner is devided into lateral approximant and retoflex approximant. The first describe a process when the air passes trough the back tongue to the front tongue with a little block of the front tongue. The sound produced in lateral approximant is [l] as in led. The second describes a process when the air from the back part of the tongue come to the front tongue trough oral cavity and produced the sound [r]. This sound can be found in word red. Glides (Semi-vowels) Glides is a sound between consonant and vowel sounds. This manner is also called as semi-vowels. It is represented by symbol [w] and [j]. The examples are wet and yes.

The following chart is the voiced and voiceless consonant sounds :

e. Vowels The common characteristic of vowel is where nothing blocks the air passes through upper and lower teeth. The sounds produced are formed with the shape of the lips and mouth. Vowels are typically voiced. Vowels are vary in quality, tone, intonation, and stress. It is produced with an open vocal tract. The followign chart will describe the variation of vowels.

We usually hear these vowel sounds in the following words : [i] eat, key, see

[u] move, two, too

[ ] hit, myth, women

[υ] could, foot, put

[e] great, tail, weight

[o] no, road, toe

[ε] dead, pet, said

[ɔ] ball, caught, raw

[æ] ban, laugh, sat

[a] bomb, cot, swan

[ə] above, sofa, support

[aj] buy, eye, my

[ʌ] blood, putt, tough

[aw] cow, doubt, loud [ɔɔj] boy, noise, void

f. Diphthongs A vowel symbol that has more than one sound is called as diphthong. In pronouncing diphthong, our vocal organs is assumed form one vocalic position to another as we produce the sound. The most important thing about diphthong is the first part of the sounds takes much longer and stronger than the second part. For example the sounds [ou]. The sound [o] is longer produced than the sound [u] as in the word go [go B. Phonology a. Definition If phonetic deals with the speech sounds, phonology deals with the organization of these speech sounds in language (Davenport and Hannahs, 2005:2). It arranges the sounds patterns of a particular language (Yule, 2006:43) to differenciate the meaning in language (Hickey, ...:2). Therefore, phonology is the study of sounds pattern of a particular language to differenciate its meaning. b. Phonemes, Phones and Allophones The smallest unit of language that distinguish its pronunciation and meaning from another word is called as phoneme. It is an abstract representation of speech sounds. Phoneme can be either a consonant or a vowel. The symbols of a phoneme are inside twin slash / / as a bracket, for example /s/ and /r/. The /s/ in soar differentiate it with the /r/ in roar. The /s/ in sing is different from the /r/ in ring. Another examples are : -

/s/ in kiss and /l/ in kill

-

/p/ in pat and /c/ in cat

-

/æ/ in bag and /ı/ in big

As we can see that substituting one phoneme to another may result different meaning. Generally, English has 44 phonemes as in the following chart :

There are different version of a phoneme that are produced in actual speech. The different version is called ad phones. For example, the sound [t] in the word top will be produced with a puff in the air (aspirated). Let’s compare with the sound [t] in the word stop (unaspirated). The puff is not as strong as in the word top eventough both words have consonant [t]. We can put our palm in front of our mouth when we say top and stop then we will be able to differenciate between the pronunciation of [t] sound in these two words. The aspirated version is represented by [tʰ] as one phone. Eventhough the word top is pronounced without aspirated, it will not change the meaning. The [t] sound in the word writer becomes flap since it is placed between two vowels, [i] and [e]. The sounds produced is represented as [D]. It becomes

another phone of [t]. The word eighth (/etθ/) is ended by dental sound [θ] which can be presented by [ṱ]. This is also another phone of [t]. These variation sound [tʰ], [D], and [ṱ] are called as allophone. The substitution of allophone does not change the meaning, it only result in a different pronunciation of the same word. Minimal Pairs and Sets Minimals pairs is a test to examine whether a set of words belong to phoneme or allophone. If a pair of words is contrast in a language, it belongs to phoneme. For instance, the word pig and big which are contrast in phone [p] and [b]. The substutution of the phones results in different meaning of these words. A set of words as pig, big, rig, dig, wig and fig is called as a minimal set. Meanwhile, if [p] in the word pig is pronounced in aspirated or in unaspirated and it does not change the meaning, it is called as allophone. c. Phonotactics Phonotatics is part of phonological knowledge which concerns with the reconstruction of sounds in a language. it serves freedom of which sound preceed or follow the other sounds or which consonants are allowed to be in a cluster. Each language has its own pattern that differ it from another language. English does not have combination sounds as [fs] or [vs], but may be this combonation exists in other languages. English combines [c] and [h] symbols and it turns into /ʧ/ or /k/, (t] and [h] that turns into /θ/ or /ð/, etc. Syllables and Cluster : Consonant Cluster A syllable might contain a consonant and a vowel where the consonant usually precede the vowel (CV). When a consonant goes before a a vowel, it is treated as onset (it may consist of one consonant or more). Technically, a syllable consists of an onset and a rhyme. A rhyme consists of a vowel, which is treated as nucleus and a following consosnant, treated as coda. For example the words no, go, and to. These words contains an onset and a nucleus. We can not find coda in these words. The coda appears in words up,

cup, or hat. The basic structure can be found in English words such as eggs (VCC), green (CCVC), them (CVC), not (CVC), etc. The basic structure of syllabel can be observed through the following diagram.

Both onset and coda may consists of more than one consonant that is called as consonant cluster. The combonation of onset can be found in the word stick /st/ which is [CC], and the combination of /st/ as coda can be found in the word first. There are many combinations in English phonotactic, for example in the words speak /spı:ĸ/, steak /steıĸ/, sweep /swi:p/, smell /smel/, and snake /sneık/. The fricative /s/ in English can be combined with plosive, nasals, and glides. The longer combination of this consonant cluster (CCC0)can be found in splash, black, scream, square, etc. d. Co-Articulation Effects The preceeding discussion seems to describe as if those words are pronounced carefully and delibratelly. In fact, most of our talks are done spontaneously by our articulators, and sometimes without stopping. The process of making one sound almost at the same time as the next sounds is called as co-articulation. There are two effects caused by co-articulation. Assimilation Assimilation focus on a process when two sounds segment in sequence and some aspects of the segment are copied or taken by the other. The word can may be pronounced as /kæn/. However, when we say I can go, the velar [g] influence the alveolar nasal sound [n] comes out as [ŋ]. Thus, the sound of I can go becomes [ajkǝŋgo]. This process is called as asimilation. This process can also be described in the word

Elision The process of elision means elicit a certain sounds influenced by its environment. The word and [ænd] is ended by [d]. However, when we say you and me, it is transited as [yuǝnmi]. The [d] is not trancripted. It also happend in he must be, transcripted as [himǝsbi]. The [t] in the word must merge with [b] in be. Summary Phonetics focuses on sounds of language, and phonology focuses on the sounds pattern of a language. Phonetics discusses place of articulation, i.e bilabials, labiodentals, dentals, alveolar, palatals, velars and glotals, and manner of articulation, i.e stops, fricatives, affricates, nasals, liquids and glides. Phonology discusses phoneme, allophone, phonotactic and co-articulation effect. These are the process of sounds combination of a language. Exercise 1. What is the difference between acoustic phonetic and auditory phonetic? 2. Identify the manner of articulation of the final sounds in the following words Cherry _____________

Funny _____________

Marry _____________

3. Using symbols introduced in this chapter, write a basic phonetic transcription of the most common pronunciation in the following words Doubt _____________

Phone _____________

Thought _____________

4. What is the difference between an phoneme and allophone? 5. What is an aspirated sound? 6. What is meant by the phonotactic of a language?