UNIT ONE

English Phonetics

1 Introduction to Phonetics

1.1 Speech

What is speech exactly? The expression ca lot of hot air' is rather a good starting point. Speech is made
by modulating air in various ways inside our bodies. The organs of speech - the lungs, throat, tongue,
nose, lips and so on can be moved into many different configurations to produce the different sounds we
perceive when listening to spoken language. A study of the ways in which these articulators of speech
behave is called articulatory phonetics. Basically, air is pushed out of the body and disturbs the outside
air between the speaker and anyone in the vicinity who can hear him/her. These disturbances are known
as pressure fluctuations, which in turn cause the hearers eardrum to move. The molecules of the air move
together and then apart in various ways, producing a sound wave. The study of the physical nature of
sound waves is acoustic phonetics. The third way of considering speech, auditory phonetics, deals with
the ways in which speech affects and is interpreted by the hearer (s). This aspect of the investigation of
speech will not be considered in this book. To simplify, the three separate but interacting aspects of
speech relate to the speaker (articulation), the hearer (audition) and what happens between the speaker
and the hearer (acoustics).

1.2 Speech versus writing

Another way in which untrained people describe and discuss speech is by means of seeing it as a (funny)
version of writing. Of course, it is equally possible to see writing as another form of speech, but writing
tends to be given central, superior status as a means of linguistic expression. In such a view, letters
represent the sounds that people utter, in some unspecified way, and so spelling must be a reliable guide
to pronunciation. This view of speech took hold of all forms of linguistic description in particular during
the eighteenth century (for a fascinating discussion of this period in England, see Beal, 1999). Indeed for
many people, written language has come to represent the Veal' language, a basis on which one is in a
position to determine all other aspects of a language. As a consequence many people believe that a
language can be captured and set in stone in an authoritative dictionary, for example, the Oxford English

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Dictionary. What belongs to English is what is in the dictionary; what is not in the dictionary is not worth
bothering with in serious studies. This is an untenable position. Not only do we find considerable
variation across different written languages, but even within one language we find variability in the
representation of sounds in the orthographic (i.e., writing) system; consider, for example, the different
sounds represented by ch in English, French and German, and consider the different values of the letter c
in receive, conduct, indict and cappucino. It is also the case that in two important senses, speech is prior
to writing. First, when children acquire language naturally, it is the spoken language that is acquired.
Children will not acquire the ability to write with the Roman alphabet (or any other kind) naturally with
no adult intervention in the form of teaching. Second, in the development of human beings, speech
evolved and then writing was invented much later when the social need arose. So, to understand all the
facets of language, we need to study both speech and writing. The differences between speech and
writing should be considered in some detail here: for example, speech is transient, while writing is
permanent.

Spoken Written

-represented phonetically - represented orthographically

-properties like tone, intonation, stress, etc - properties like spelling, structure, etc
-laudness or softness of voice - grammaticalness and ungrammaticalness
-temporary, uttered - permanent, written
-property of pronunciation - grammar, punctuation mark, etc
-represented by phones/phonemes - represented by symbols/graphemes

Phonetics is a descriptive tool which is concerned with how sounds are produced, transmitted and
perceived. It deals with speech sounds of language.

Descriptive phonetics seeks to understand the speech articulations used in the production of sounds in
individual languages/dialects and the corresponding acoustic properties of such
sounds.

Explanatory phonetics seeks to explain linguistic patterns in terms of phonetic principles.

Both fields interested in the cognitive representation of sound. Phoneticians still more interested in the
articulatory constraints on speech timing, speech aerodynamics, and the acoustic representation of speech

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sounds. Phonologists still interested in speech segments as abstract units which are sensitive to linguistic
structural constraints but now with increased interest in aspects of speech processing (e.g. memory
demands, frequency effects).

1.3 Phonetics as Explanatory

Phonetic constraints on speech can explain phonological patterns. Mechanical constraints on speech
production or general cognitive biases in perception of sound types will constrain phonology. If the
biological characteristics of the speech anatomy determine what is possible in phonology, then this is a
simpler explanation for phonological patterns than one relying on abstract rules or constraints pertaining
only to language. In science, we should rely on general explanations before looking to create specific
ones.

Consonants are distinguished in terms of place of articulation, manner of articulation, and voicing.
Vowels are distinguished in terms of height, backness, and rounding. Secondary articulations are also
used in many languages (phonation type, nasality, strength, airstream mechanism, etc).

1.3.1 Articulatory phonetics

 How are speech sounds produced?
 How do we classify and transcribe speech sounds?

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Articulatory phonetics is a branch of phonetics which is largely based on data provided by other
sciences, among which the most important are human anatomy and physiology. This is a result of the fact
that human beings do not possess organs that are exclusively used to produce speech sounds, all organs
involved in the uttering of sounds having in fact, primarily, other functions such as eating, chewing, and
swallowing food, and respiration. However, you also need these organs in order to speak, to sing - to
produce sounds in general, and this is why those parts of the body below are said to be part of the so
called vocal tract.

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Source of the picture: jccarreras.homestead.com

Have a good look at the picture on the left hand side and try to step inside your own body to figure out
the positions of the several speech organs. This might also help you to find the German translation of
more unfamiliar terms such as pharynx and larynx.

Fundamental physiological processes like those mentioned above (eating, breathing, etc.) take place
simultaneously or alternatively with the production of speech sounds. We can hardly think of speaking as
being separated from the activity of breathing, as the air that is breathed in and out of the lungs has a
crucial role in the process of uttering sounds. Just read i.e. this last passage out loud and pay attention to
the airstream floating out of your mouth or the moment of your breathing in.

You surely realize that breathing is a rhythmic process including two successive stages: inspiration and
expiration. The majority of sounds used in most languages are produced with air that is pushed up from
the lungs through the windpipe, or trachea, and leaves the body through the mouth and sometimes
through the nose. Because we speak while we expel the air from our lungs, the sounds that we produce

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are called egressive and the movement of air is called an egressive pulmonic air-stream (egressive
"outwards", pulmonic "of the lungs"). Virtually all English sounds are produced by such an egressive
pulmonic air-stream mechanism.

The lungs then can be said to be the starting point of our journey along the vocal tract. In order to speak
you need air and this air, being pushed out of your lungs, can be manipulated at various places and in
various ways to form different sounds. The next station on the air's way up from the lungs through the
trachea is the place where the production of sounds really starts: the larynx.

1.3.2 Acoustic Phonetics

 The acoustic properties of speech sounds are analyzed by period, amplitude, frequency and
wavelength in a sound production.

The branch of phonetics that studies the physical parametres of speech sounds is called acoustic
phonetics. It is the most “technical” of all disciplines concerned with the study of verbal communication
and one of the fundamental questions acoustic phonetics answers is the question of: "What is sound"?

Several types of events in the world produce the sensation of sounds. Just think of door slamming,
violins, wind, and human voices. All these examples involve, when you think about it, movement of
some sort. Now, these movements cause pressure fluctuations in the surrounding air (or some other
medium, because sound can travel not only through air, but also water, wood, metal, or any other

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material. In fact the only place in which sound cannot travel is a vacuum). When pressure fluctuations or
in other words, vibrations, reach our eardrum, they cause it to move, and our auditory system translates
these movements into neural impulses, which we experience as sound. Thus, sound is produced when
pressure fluctuations impinge upon the eardrum.

Sound can travel across relatively long distances and different frequencies can move more easily and
faster through certain substances than others. Approaching a concert, for example, you may well hear the
thumping of the bass drum before all else. This is because a sound produced at one place, say a
loudspeaker, sets up a sound wave that travels through the acoustic medium. A sound wave is travelling
pressure fluctuation that propagates through any medium that is elastic enough to allow molecules to
crowd together and move apart.

Source of the picture: podcomplex.com

There are four main properties of a sound wave, that also linguists make use of, when they analyze
speech sounds: Wavelength, period, amplitude, and frequency.

The wavelength is the distance between crests of a waveform. That means that the wavelength is the
horizontal length of one cycle of the wave.

The period of a wave is the time required for one complete cycle of the wave to pass by a point. So, the
period is the amount of time it takes for a wave to travel a distance of one wavelength.

The amplitude of a sound is represented by the height of the wave. When there is a loud sound, the wave
is high and the amplitude is large. Conversely, a smaller amplitude represents a softer sound. A decibel is

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a scientific unit that measures the intensity of sounds. The softest sound that a human can hear is the zero
point. When the sound is twice as loud, the decibel level goes up by six. Humans speak normally at 60
decibels.

The frequency of a wave is the number of cycles that pass a set point in a second, and is measured in
Hertz (Hz). Frequency is intimately connected to pitch, although they are not exactly synonymous; the A
above middle C is a vibration at a rate of 440 Hz. Lower frequency vibrations are perceived as being
lower in pitch, and higher frequencies seem higher in pitch.

How the brain interprets the frequency of an emitted sound is called the pitch. We already know that the
number of sound waves passing a point per second is the frequency. The faster the vibrations the emitted
sound makes (or the higher the frequency), the higher the pitch. Therefore, when the frequency is low,
the sound is lower.

Terms and concepts such as amplitude, frequency and pitch will be useful in your further studies on
phonetics and phonology, so make sure to acquire a basic understanding of these concepts before you
move on. The following exercises will help you to get a better understanding of the physical properties of
sound, and you can also use the "read more" button, to extend your knowledge.

1.3.3 Auditory Phonetics

If articulatory phonetics studies the way in which speech sounds are produced, auditory phonetics focuses
on the perception of sounds or the way in which sounds are heard and interpreted. Thus, we may say that
while articulatory phonetics is mainly concerned with the speaker, auditory phonetics deals with the other
important participant in verbal communication, the listener.

It is again, obviously, a field of linguistic study which has to rely heavily on biology and more
specifically on anatomy and physiology. In auditory phonetics, we are dealing with two distinct
operations which are closely interrelated and influence each other: on the one hand we can talk about
audition proper, that is the perception of sounds by our auditory apparatus and the transforming of the
information into a neural sign and its sending to the brain and, on the other hand, we can talk about the
analysis of this information by the brain which eventually leads to the decoding of the message, the
understanding of the verbal message.

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As a beginner however, it will be sufficient for you to get a basic idea of how our auditory system and the
general hearing process work. Have a close look at the picture below, then read through the brief
description that follows.

Source of the picture: jefferson.edu

Keeping it very simple, we can state, that any sound coming from any source, be it a door slamming or
someone speaking to you, is spreading from that source as a sound wave, causing the molecules on its
way to crowd together and move apart again or in other words, to vibrate. When these vibrating air
molecules reach your ear, they cause the eardrum in your middle ear to vibrate, too and this vibration is
then carried on from the eardrum to the three little bones: mallet, incus and stirrup.

From the stirrup, the vibration is carried on to the inner ear, and into the cochlea, a little coil-like organ
filled with liquid. Inside the cochlea there are two membranes: the vestibular membrane and the basilar
membrane. It is the latter that plays a central role in the act of audition, because this is, where the
auditory receptor cells are located.

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Depending on the frequency of the sound coming in, a different part with different receptor cells of the
basilar membrane is stimulated. Thus, low-frequency (grave) sounds will make the membrane vibrate at
the less stiff (upper) end, while high-frequency (acute) sounds will cause the lower and stiffer end of the
membrane to vibrate. The cells on the basilar membrane convert these vibrations into neural signals that
are transmitted via the auditory nerves to the central receptor and controller of the entire process, the
brain, where we identify the incoming sound as actual sound with a specific pitch.

You can now move on to do some exercises within the field of auditory phonetics, or you can click on the
"read more" button, in case you want a detailed description of how the human hearing process works.

1.4Speech Production Mechanism

• Airstream process:
– The ways in which the lung (or the closed glottis, even the tongue) pushes air out or sucks
it in during speech.
– Egressive sounds: air is pushed out.
– Ingreessive sounds: air is sucked in.

• Phonation process:
– The actions of the vocal folds.

• Articulatory process:
– The movements of the tongue and the lips interacting with the roof of the mouth and the
pharynx.

1.4.1 Initiation

To produce any kind of sound, there must be movement of air. To produce sounds
that people today can interpret as words, the movement of air must pass through
the vocal chords, up through the throat and, into the mouth or nose to then leave
the body. Different sounds are formed by different positions of the mouth—or, as
linguists call it, "the oral cavity" (to distinguish it from the nasal cavity).

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Airstream Mechanisms

There are three types of airstream mechanisms:

a) Pulmonic airflow - air is pushed out of the lungs by downward movement of rib cage and/or
upward movement of diaphragm.It means air movement that arises from changes in the internal
pressure in the lungs. We can lower the diaphragm and the external intercostal
muscles contract to increase the volume of the lung cavity and the reduced
pressure inside the lungs draws in air through the mouth and nose. We can then
raise the diaphragm or contract the external intercostal muscles to decrease the
lung cavity volume and then the increased pressure in the lungs forces air back
out. Typically we speak on an outward going or egressive flow of air, but it is
also possible to speak on the inward or ingressive flow.
A pulmonic air stream can cause sound generation by causing vibration in the vocal tract, either
phonation in the larynx or a trill of the uvular, tongue tip or lips. In addition, a
pulmonic flow can be directed through a narrowing or constriction at different
places in the vocal tract causing turbulence to arise.
While speech is possible on a pulmonic ingressive air-stream, the ingressive-egressive difference is
not thought to operate contrastively in any world language. There are however
paralinguistic uses: contrast [j↑ɛ↑s↑] with [j↓ɛ↓s↑] for "yes" (usinɡ ↑ for
eɡressive and ↓ for ingressive).
b) Glottalic airflow - we can move different bodies of air.You’ll push air out of the mouth
by moving a closed glottis up. We can also move closed glottis down so that
air will be sucked into the mouth. The air movement that arises from changes in the height of the
larynx (with the glottis closed). A typical sequence of events would be (i)
lower the larynx and close the glottis, (ii) form an oral closure, (iii) raise the
larynx (compressing the trapped air), (iv) suddenly release the oral closure.
Two Types of Glottalic Airstream Mechanism
(i) Glottalic Egressive Airstream - glottis acts as a kind of piston
- compressing air in the pharynx
- compressed air released when tongue body is lowered, i.e.
when stop is released
- Glottalic egressive sound [k’]

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 - These sounds are also called EJECTIVES
- Hausa and Lakota are just languages with ejectives.
(ii) Glottalic Ingressive Airstream - glottis moves downward
- sucking air inwards
- but the glottis is not completely closed
- some pulmonic air is still being pushed out
- keeping the vocal cords vibrating
- Bilabial implosive
- Glottalic ingressive stops are also called IMPLOSIVES
- Sindhi is an example of a language with implosives
- Voiced implosives are found to contrast with voiced plosives
in some languages, for example in Zulu:
b) Velaric airflow - this is the mechanism used to make clicks!!They involve trapping a body of air
rarefying it (adding a pinch of salt for taste) and then releasing it, resulting in a click. It means air
movement that arises from the rarefaction of air trapped above the tongue
between the velum and some anterior location. A typical sequence of events
would be (i) make a velar closure with the back of the tongue, (ii) make a second
closure forward of the velum using the tip or blade of the tongue, or the lips, (iii)
draw the tongue body down reducing the pressure in the air cavity between
tongue and palate, (iv) suddenly release the forward closure causing a rapid
inward flow of air. Sounds made with an ingressive velaric air-stream mechanism
are called clicks. Although an egressivevelaric air-stream mechanism would be
possible, there are no reports of its linguistic use. Clicks are used contrastively in
a number of languages, including the Khoisan and Bantu languages of Southern
Africa, and the Sandawe and Hadzapi languages of East Africa. The IPA
recognizes five clicks.
1.4.2 Phonation
The dominant method of sound generation is phonation in the larynx. The vocal folds in the larynx are
brought together, tensed and a pulmonic egressive air-flow from the lungs is blown between them. This
causes a repetitive vibration of the folds which interrupts the flow of air into a series of pulses. When the

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flow of air is disrupted in this way, low pressure events are caused once per cycle which propagates as
sound. [Next week we will look at phonation in detail].

Modes of Phonation

• Phonation:larynx function as a source

• Larynx function:
– (1) generate airstream
– (2) serve as an articulator
• Phonation modes are categories in which laryngeal muscles manipulate the folds
• Five phonation modes:
– Voiceless: vocal folds far apart
– Whisper:
• vocal folds adducted (closed)
• opening between arytenod cartilage
• air forced
– Breathy:
• incomplete close of glottalic cycle
• Muscle of arytenoids remain apart
– Voice:
• Vibration of vocal folds
– Creak:
• Low frequency vibration of vocal folds
• Folds open briefly
• Vibration is irregular from cycle to cycle

Glottal stop
– Combinatory Phonation Modes:
• Breathy + Creaky
- creak accompanied by breathy leakage

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 1.4.3 Articulation
TheSpeech Organs

All the organs shown on the figure above contribute to the production of speech. All
the sounds of English are made using air on its way out from the lungs. The lungs
pull in and push out air, helped by the diaphragm. The air goes out via the trachea,
where the first obstruction it meets is the larynx, which it has to pass through.
Inside the larynx the air passes by the vocal folds, which, if they vibrate, make the
sound voiced. Afterwards the air goes up through the pharynx, and escapes via
either the oral or the nasal cavity.

Linguistic sounds are produced by pushing air from the lungs out through the mouth, sometimes by way
of the nasal cavity. The movement of the air can then be manipulated by the anatomy of the mouth and
throat to produce different sounds. In actual writing, the same sound may often be spelt different ways.
For instance, George Bernard Shaw once pointed out that the word fish could as easily be spelt ghoti,

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since gh has the same sound in enough, o has the same sound in women, and ti has the same sound in
nation. This makes sounds very hard to study without a more precise indication of what sounds we are
referring to. The solution is to adopt a phonetic alphabet which always has the same spelling for the same
sound. Linguists use phonetic alphabet called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The word fish is
transcribed as [fɪʃ]. Many IPA letters are the same as those of theEnglish alphabet, so we place IPA
spellings in square brackets to indicate that they are phonetic spellings. Note that many dictionaries give
phonetic spellings as pronunciation guides, but not all dictionaries use the IPA. Likewise, the system of
Phonics does not use the IPA. When looking at phonetic spellings, make sure you know what system you
are using. Note also that linguists in the United States do not always follow the accepted international
standard. For instance, most linguists in the United States would transcribe fish as [fɪš]. The individual
differences will be described under the section on Phonology below.

Consonants
Consonants are produced by restricting and then releasing the flow of air in three ways: vibrating the
vocal cords, changing the part of the anatomy which restricts the air flow, and changing the extent to
which the air flow is restricted. Consonants with relatively little vibration of the vocal cords are called
voiceless consonants. Consonants with relatively more vibration of the vocal cords are called voiced.
Consonants fall into the following categories, depending on what part of the anatomy is used to restrict
the air flow. Consonants are often classified by being given a so-called VPM-label. VPM
stands for Voicing, Place and Manner:
- voicing means that the vocal folds are used; if they are not, the sound is voiceless
(note that vowels always imply the use of vocal folds).
- place of articulation is the place where the air flow will be more or less
obstructed.
- manner is concerned with the nature of the obstruction.
Voicing
The larynx is in the neck, at a point commonly called Adam's apple. It is like a box,
inside which are the vocal folds, two thick flaps of muscle. In a normal position, the
vocal folds are apart and we say that the glottis is open (figure a). When the edges
of the vocal folds touch each other, air passing through the glottis will usually cause

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vibration (figure b). This opening and closing is repeated regularly and gives what is
called voicing.
The only distinction between the first sounds of sueand zoo,for example, is that [s]
is voiceless, [z] is voiced. The same goes for few and view, [f] is voiceless, [v] is
voiced. If you now say [ssssszzzzzsssss] or [fffffvvvvvfffff] you can either hear the
vibrations of the [zzzzz] or [vvvvv] by sticking your fingers into your ears, or you
can feel them by touching the front of your larynx (the Adam's Apple).
This distinction is quite important in English, as there are many pairs of sounds that
differ only in voicing. In the examples below the first sound is voiceless, the other is
voiced: pie/buy, try/dry, clue/glue, chew/Jew, thigh/thy. This distinction can also be
made in between two vowels: rapid/rabid, metal/medal, or at the end of a word:
pick/pig, leaf/leave, rich/ridge.
 In English the following consonants are voiced: b, d, g, v, ð, z, ʒ, l, r, j, w, ʤ,
m, n, ŋ
 The following ones are unvoiced: p, t, k, f, θ, s, ʃ, h, ʧ
Places of Articulation.
As we saw above [p,t,k] are all voiceless, so there must be another way to
distinguish between them, otherwise we would not be able to tell try apart from pry
or cry, or pick from tick or kick . Apart from the behavior of the vocal folds, sounds
can also be distinguished as to where in the oral cavity they are articulated (i.e.
where in the mouth there is most obstruction when they are pronounced)
 Labial - Air flow is restricted with the lips.Bilabial sounds are produced when the lips
are brought
together. Examples are [p], which is voiceless, as in pay or [b] and [m] which
are voiced,
as in bay, may.
 Dental - Air flow is restricted with the teeth. Dental sounds are produced by touching
the upper
front teeth with the tip of the tongue. Examples are [S] oath (voiceless) and
[C] clothe
(voiced).

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 Labiodental - Air flow is restricted with the top teeth on the bottom lip. Labiodental sounds
are
made when the lower lip is raised towards the upper front teeth. Examples are
[f]
safe(voiceless) and [v] save (voiced).
 Alveolar - Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the hard plate (alveolum) behind the top
front teeth.Alveolar sounds are made by raising the tip of the tongue towards the
ridge
that is right behind the upper front teeth, called the alveolar ridge. Examples
are [ t,s ]
too,sue, both voiceless, and [d,z,n,l,r ] do, zoo, nook, look, rook, all voiced.
 Palatal - Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the soft palate behind the
alveolum.Palatal
sounds are very similar to palatoalveolar ones, they are just produced further
back towards
the velum. The only palatal sound in English is [j] as in yes, yellow, beauty,
new and it is
voiced.
 Palatoalveolar - Palatoalveolarsounds are made by raising the blade of the
tongue towards the
part of the palate just behind the alveolar ridge. Examples [ʃ,ʧ] pressure,
batch
(voiceless) and [ʒ,ʤ] pleasure, badge (voiced).
 Velar - Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue far back in the mouth.Velar sounds are
made
by raising the back of the tongue towards the soft palate, called the velum.
Examples [k]
back, voiceless, and [g, ŋ] both voiced bag, bang. [w] is a velar which is
accompanied with lip
rounding.
 Uvular - articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in

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 the mouth than velar consonants. These consonants are [N], [q], [G], [χ], [ʁ], [R].
 Pharyngeal - articulated with the back of the tongue against the pharynx. These are [ʕ], [ħ]
 Glottal - Air flow is restricted by tightening the folds in the vocal cords (glottis).Glottal sounds
are
produced when the air passes through the glottis as it is narrowed: [h] as in

high.

Manner of Articulation

Consonants can also be categorized by the extent to which the air flow is restricted. We can now
distinguish between English consonants from two points of view, that of voicing,
and that of place. We can see that [b] and [t] are different in both respects, [b] is
voiced and bilabial, and [t] is voiceless and alveolar. [p] differs from [b] only in
being voiceless, as both are bilabial, and [p] differs from [t] only in being bilabial, as
both are voiceless.

There are still pairs of sounds where we cannot yet describe the difference of one
from the other, e.g. [b,m] bend, mend as both are voiced and bilabial, and [t,s] ton,
son which both are voiceless and alveolar. As the examples show, we can however
tell the words apart, and this is because the sounds are different in a way we have
not yet discussed, and that is with respect to their manner of articulation.

The manner of articulation has to do with the kind of obstruction the air meets on
its way out, after it has passed the vocal folds. It may meet a complete closure
(plosives), an almost complete closure (fricatives), or a smaller degree of closure
(approximants), or the air might escape in more exceptional ways, around the sides
of the tongue (laterals), or through the nasal cavity (nasals).

 Stop - Air flow is stopped and released quickly. Consonants articulated in this manner are also
called plosives. Plosives are sounds in which there is a complete closure in the
mouth, so

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 that the air is blocked for a fraction of a second and then released with a small
burst of
sound, called a plosion (it sounds like a very small explosion). Plosives may be
bilabial
[p,b] park, bark, alveolar [t,d] tar, dark or velar [k,g] car, guard. There is a
fourth kind of
plosive, the glottal stop. The word football can be pronounced without
interruption in the
middle as in [fʊtbɔ:l] or with a complete closure of the glottis instead of [t]:
[fʊɁbɔ:l].
In English a voiceless plosive that occurs at the begining of a word and is
followed by a
vowel, is rather special in the sense that at the release of a plosion one can
hear a slight puff
of air (called aspiration) before the vowel is articulated. Hence in “pen “we
hear [phen].
These aspirated voiceless plosives are not considered to be different sounds
from
unaspirated voiceless plosives from the point of view of how they function in
the sound
system. This difference, which can be clearly heard, is said to be phonetic.
 Fricative - Air flow is released gradually.Fricatives have a closure which is not quite
complete.
This means that the air is not blocked at any point, and therefore there is no
plosion. On
the other hand the obstruction is big enough for the air to make a noise when
it passes
through it, because of the friction. This effect is similar to the wind whistling
around the
corner of a house. Fricatives may be labiodental [f,v] wife, wives, dental [θ,ð]
breath,

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 breathe, alveolar [s,z] sink, zinc, palato-alveolar [ʃ, ʒ] nation, evasion, or glottal
[h]
help. [h] is a glottal fricative. As it has no closure anywhere else, and as all air
passes
between the vocal folds, this means that [h] is like aspiration unaccompanied
by any
obstruction.
A distinction may be made between sibilant and non-sibilant fricatives. Sibilant
sounds
are the fricatives with a clear "hissing" noise, [s,z,ʃ,ʒ] and the two affricates [ʧ,
ʤ]
choke,joke.
 Affricate - Air flow is stopped and released gradually.Affricates are a combination of a
plosive
and a fricative (sometimes they are called "affricated plosives"). They begin
like a
plosive, with a complete closure, but instead of a plosion, they have a very
slow release,
moving backwards to a place where a friction can be heard (palatoalveolar).
The two
English affricates are both palatoalveolar, [ʧ] which is voiceless, chin, rich, and
[ʤ]
which is voiced, gin, ridge. The way an affricate resembles a plosive followed
by a
fricative is mirrored in the symbols. Both consist of a plosive symbol followed
by a
fricative one: [t+ʃ], [d+ʒ].
 Nasal - Air flow is channeled through the nasal cavity.Nasals resemble plosives, except
that there
is a complete closure in the mouth, but as the velum is lowered the air can
escape through

20
 the nasal cavity. Though most sounds are produced with the velum raised, the
normal
position for the velum is lowered, as this is the position for breathing (your
velum is
probably lowered right now when you are reading this). The three English
nasals are all
voiced, and [m] is bilabial, ram, [n] is alveolar, ran, and [ŋ] velar, rang. In the
section on
places, the dotted line on the pictures of bilabial, alveolar, and velar
articulations illustrate
the three nasals.
 Laterals –lateral sounds are sounds where the air escapes around the sides of
the tongue. There is
only one lateral in English, [l], a voiced alveolar lateral. It occurs in two
versions, the so
called "clear l" before vowels, light, long, and the "dark l" in other cases, milk,
ball.
Words like little, lateral have one of each type. "Dark l" may be written with
the symbol
[ɫ]. "Clear l" is pronounced with the top of the tongue raised, whereas for "dark
l " it is
the back of the tongue which is raised. Here again, as with aspirated and
unaspirated
voiceless plosives, even though "clear l" and "dark l" are phonetically
different, they
cannot be said to be different sounds from the point of view of how they
function in the
sound system. If you produce a "dark l" where usually you have a "clear l", for
example
at the beginning of the word long, your pronunciation will sound odd but
nobody will

21
 understand a different word.
 Approximants - are sounds where the tongue only approaches the roof of the
mouth, so that there
is not enough obstruction to create any friction. English has three
approximants,
which are all voiced. [r] is alveolar, right, brown, sometimes called post-
alveolar,
because it is slightly further back that the other alveolar sounds [t,d,s,l]. [j] is
a
palatal approximant, use, youth, and [w] is a velar approximant, why, twin,
square.
[w] always has lip-rounding as well, and therefore it is sometimes called labio-
velar.
[r] only occurs before vowels in southern British English, whereas other
accents,
e.g. Scottish, Irish, and most American ones, also can have it after vowels.
Therefore those accents can make a distinction between e.g. saw and sore,
which
are pronounced exactly alike in southern British English.
 Liquid - Air flow is channeled around the sides of the tongue.
 Glide - Air flow is only partially restricted (these sounds are often called semi-vowels).

Some languages have other categories, but only the ones above are the only ones that occur in English.
Individual consonants can be made up of nearly any combination of the features above. For instance, [b]
is a voiced labial stop and /s/ is a voiceless alveolar fricative.
Vowels
Vowels are produced by directing the flow of air into different parts of the mouth. They can be adjusted
by changing the position of the tongue, by rounding of the lips, and by the degree of opening of the
mouth. All vowels are voiced.
The position of the tongue can be described in terms of how far forward the tongue is and how high it is.
Vowels are categorized as follows, depending on the position of the tongue:

22
 Front - The tongue is in the front of the mouth.
Central - The tongue is further back in the mouth.
Back - The tongue is in the back of the mouth.
High - The tongue is high in the mouth.
Mid - The tongue is lower in the mouth
Low - The tongue is low in the mouth.

All vowels can be described in terms of their location on both vertical and horizontal axes.If you
pronounce the High and Mid Back Vowels, you will find that you round your lips. These are called
rounded vowels.

According to:
- tongue position: how high in the mouth is the tongue, and which part of the
tongue is the highest?
- length: are the vowels long or short?
- rounding: are the lips rounded or not?
- nasality: is there free passage of air through the nose?
- diphthongs: are they steady, or do they somehow change in character?

English Vowel Sounds

IPA examples

ɪ it dish /ɪt/ /dɪʃ/

23
i she green machine ʊ put book should
/ʃi/ /g in/ /mæʃin/ /pʊt/ /bʊk/ /ʃʊd/

sunny ski please u room who through

/sʌni/ /ski/ /pliz/ /rum/ /hu/ /θru/

ɛ red head said you shoe

/ ɛd/ /hɛd/ /sɛd/ /ju/ /ʃu/

any
/ɛni/
ʌ up tough
æ and plaid /ʌp/ /tʌf/
/ænd/ /plæd/
ə sofa enemy incredible
ɑ ho t father /səʊfə/ /ɛnəmi/ /ɪnkrɛdəbl/
/hɑt/ /fɑðʊ/
gallop focus
ɔ August thaw bought /gæləp/ /fəʊkəs/
/ɔgʌst/ /θɔ/ /bɔt/
The əsymbol is called a schwa.
girl turn
ɜ /gɜ:l/ /rɜ:n

Diphthongs

eɪ they gray aid why bye lie

/ðeɪ/ /g eɪ /eɪd/ /waɪɪ/ /baɪ/ /laɪ/
/
buy guid
ate great freight /baɪ/ e
/eɪt/ /greɪt /freɪt/ /gaɪd/
/
ɔɪ toy noise
aɪ fine aisle sight /tɔɪ/ /nɔɪz/
/faɪn/ /aɪl/ /saɪt/

24
 ɑʊ cow hous /hɛloʊ/ /toʊ/ /soʊp/
/kɑʊ/ e
/hɑʊs/ ju unite humi few
/junaɪt/ d /fju/
o snowin sew though /hjum
ʊ g /soʊ/ /ðoʊ/ ɪ/
/snoʊwɪ
ŋ/ ewe yout eulogy
/ju/ h /juləgi/
hello toe soap /juθ/

EXERCISES

Using the phonetic alphabet, rewrite the word according to the way that it sounds.

1.

2. sign 8. assure

3. bomb 9. cold

4. door 10. cheese

5. girl 11. phone

6. baby 12. look

7. bath 13. buy

UNIT TWO
English Phonology
2. Introduction to English Phonology
2.1 Overview

25
A person can make nonsense noises all day long, and that is all that they would be,
nonsense, but when you add meaning to those sounds you have PHONEMES, and
the study of these phonemes is called PHONOLOGY. You must look beyond the
letters themselves on paper and concentrate on the sounds of these sounds like
vowel sounds (AEIOU) and consonants (BCTRD). Isolating these sounds will help in
the learning process of phonology. Phonology is a very broad study and goes into
great detail. The objectives that have been focused on will give you a general idea
of what phonology is all about.

Phonology is the study of the sound system of languages. It is a huge area of

language theory and it is difficult to do more on a general language course than to
have an outline knowledge of what it includes. At one extreme, phonology is
concerned with anatomy and physiology - the organs of speech and how we learn
to use them. At another extreme, phonology shades into socio-linguistics as we
consider social attitudes to features of sound such as accent and intonation. And
part of the subject is concerned with finding objective standard ways of recording
speech, and representing this symbolically.

You may have known for some time that the suffix “-phone” is to do with sounds.
Think, for instance, of telephone, microphone, gramophone and xylophone. The
morpheme comes from Greek phonema, which means “a sound”.

 Telephone means “distant sound”

 Microphone means “small sound” (because it sends an input to an amplifier

which in turn drives loudspeakers - so the original sound is small compared to
the output sound)

 Gramophone was originally a trade name. It comes from inverting the original
form, phonograph (=sound-writing) - so called because the sound caused a
needle to trace a pattern on a wax cylinder. The process is reversed for
playing the sound back

26
  Xylophone means “wood sound” (because the instrument is one of very few
where the musical note is produced simply by making wood resonate)

Phonology is the description of the systems and patterns of sounds that occur in the
language. It has been defined as the study of sound systems, in other words, the
study of how speech sounds function in the language. Phonology involves studying
a language to determine its distinctive sounds, that is, those sounds that can be
used to distinguish different meanings. These distinctive sounds are called
Phonemes.

2.2 The Concepts of Phone, Phoneme and Allophone

2.2.1 Phone

A phone is an unanalyzed sound of a language. It is the smallest identifiable unit

found in a stream of speech that is able to be transcribed with an IPA symbol.A
phone is a unit of speech sound. It may refer to any speech sound or gesture
without regard of its place in phonology of a language.A "phone" is just a sound.
You can produce a lot of sounds that don't have any meaning. Clicks, for example,
are not part of the alphabet in English (although they are used in other languages).
It is a physical representation of a phoneme while phoneme is an abstract meaning
distinguishing unit forming minimal pairs.

2.2.2 Phoneme

Phonemes are distinctive sounds, vowels and consonants can change the FORM
AND MEANING of a word. Form and meaning go hand in hand. In order to
understand a language, one must learn both. Even if you know the meaning of a
word, you may not know how to pronounce it; likewise, if you know how to
pronounce a word, you don't necessarily know what that word means. The words
dine and line differ from each another in meaning. The difference between dine and
line is that the initial sound of dine is /d/ and the initial sound in line is /l/. The
sounds of these two words are identical except for the initial sounds, which are

27
consonants. Each of these consonants is considered a phoneme.A phoneme is the
smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language.

A phoneme is a basic unit of a language's phonology, which is combined with other

phonemes to form meaningful units such as words or morphemes. The phoneme
can be described as "The smallest contrastive linguistic unit which may bring about
a change of meaning".In this way the difference in meaning between the English
words kill and kiss is a result of the exchange of the phoneme /l/ for the phoneme
/s/. Two words that differ in meaning through a contrast of a single phoneme form a
minimal pair.

Within linguistics there are differing views as to exactly what phonemes are and
how a given language should be analyzed in phonemic (or phonematic) terms.
However, a phoneme is generally regarded as an abstraction of a set (or
equivalence class) of speech sounds (phones) which are perceived as equivalent to
each other in a given language. For example, in English, the "k" sounds in the
words kit and skill are not identical (as described below), but they are distributional
variants of a single phoneme /k/. Different speech sounds that are realizations of
the same phoneme are known as allophones. Allophonic variation may be
conditioned, in which case a certain phoneme is realized as a certain allophone in
particular phonological environments, or it may be free in which case it may vary
randomly. In this way, phonemes are often considered to constitute an abstract
underlying representation for segments of words, while speech sounds make up the
corresponding phonetic realization, or surface form.

Phonemes are conventionally placed between slashes in transcription, whereas

speech sounds (phones) are placed between square brackets. Thus /pʊʃ/ represents
a sequence of three phonemes /p/, /ʊ/, /ʃ/ (the word push in standard English), while
[pʰʊʃ] represents the phonetic sequence of sounds [pʰ] (aspirated"p"), [ʊ], [ʃ] (the
usual pronunciation of push).(Another similar convention is the use of angle
brackets to enclose the units of orthography, namely graphemes; for example, ⟨f⟩
represents the written letter (grapheme) f.)

28
Phone Phoneme

- One of many possible sounds in a language - A contrastive unit in a sound

system of a particular
Language.

- The smallest identifiable unit found in a - A minimal unit that serves to

distinguish between
stream of speech. meanings of words.

- Pronounced in a defined way. - Pronounced in one or more

ways, depending on
the number of allophones.

- Represented between brackets by convention. -Represented between slashes by convention.

Example: [b], [j], [o]Example: /b/, /j/, /o/

2.2.3 Allophones

Allophones are different physical realizations of a single phoneme. Allophone is one of the
phonetically distinct variants of a phoneme. The occurrence of one allophone rather than another is
usually determined by its position in the word (initial, final, medial, etc.) or by its phonetic
environment. Speakers of a language often have difficulty in hearing the phonetic differences between
allophones of the same phoneme, because these differences do not serve to distinguish one word from
another. In English the t sounds in the words “hit,” “tip,” and “little” are allophones; phonemically
they are considered to be the same sound although they are different phonetically in terms of
aspiration, voicing, and point of articulation. In Japanese and some dialects of Chinese, the sounds f
and h are allophones.
Example: [z]/- voiced
Plural phoneme /s/ [ɪz]/-sibilants

[s]/-elsewhere

Phonemes are realized as Allophones

29
Phonemes Allophones
- significant - non-significant
- unpredictable - predictable
- contrastive distribution - complementary distribution
- broad transcription /.../ - narrow transcription [...]

2.3 Discovery Procedures

We use the method of building minimal pairs to discover whether a sound is a

significant one or not. By using discovery procedure, the structuralists formulated
some principles to group phones into phonemes. Notable principles are the
following: (i) The principle of Contrastive Distribution, (ii) The principle of
Complementary Distribution, (iii) The principle of Free Variation.Separate phonemes
and allophones of the same phoneme can be distinguished by the following
properties.

2.3.1 Contrastive distribution, Complementary distribution and Free

Variation

 Contrastive Distribution - minimal pair (two words which differ in only one
sound in a given
Position)
- phonemes occur in contrastive distribution creating minimal pairs.
Example: /mæt/ and /bæt/
- minimal set(more than two words differ in only
one sound in a
given position) beat/bi:t/, feet/fi:t/, seat/si:t/, meet/mi:t/
- Phonemes are unpredictable since they occur
to make a new
meaning with only one phoneme difference.

30
  Complementary distribution - allophones (variant phonetic realizations of
one and the same
Phoneme)
- occur in complementary distribution - two sounds or phones
found in mutually exclusive environment
- allophones are predictable phones with
phonetic similarity
because the environment can be identified.
Example: /ɱ/, /ŋ/, /n/ phonetically similar [n] but context varies.
 free variation - two phones which may appear in the same context without
causing
a change in meaning.
- there is no contextual influence and meaning variation
when two phones are
used in exchangeable way.
Example: Oromo /ɗakaa/ and /ɗagaa/

2.3.2 Phonetic and Phonemic Transcription

Phonetic transcription or phonetic notation is the visual representation of speech

sounds (or phones). The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a
phonetic alphabet, such as the International Phonetic Alphabet.Phonetic
transcription can provide a function that orthography cannot. Some words may vary
in their meanings while their orthography is the same. For instance, /mɪnɪt/
and /mɑɪnju:t/. These two separate words are quite similar in their orthography
‘minute’ but their pronunciation is different and so does their meaning. The
Phonetic transcription solves such problems of orthographic overlaps.

Phonetic transcription may aim to transcribe the phonology of a language, or it may

wish to go further and specify the precise phonetic realization. In all systems of
transcription we may therefore distinguish between broad transcription and narrow
transcription. Broad transcription indicates only the more noticeable phonetic

31
features of an utterance, whereas narrow transcription encodes more information
about the phonetic variations of the specific allophones in the utterance. The
difference between broad and narrow is a continuum. One particular form of a
broad transcription is a phonemic transcription, which disregards all allophonic
difference, and, as the name implies, is not really a phonetic transcription at all, but
a representation of phonemic structure.

For example, one particular pronunciation of the English word little may be
transcribed using the IPA as /ˈlɪtəl/ or [ˈlɪɾɫ̩]; the broad, phonemic transcription,
placed between slashes, indicates merely that the word ends with phoneme /l/, but
the narrow, allophonic transcription, placed between square brackets, indicates
that this final /l/ ([ɫ]) is dark (velarized).

How does phonemic transcription work? Suppose we have two different English
sounds. Should we give them separate symbols in transcriptions? In phonemic
transcription, the answer is “yes” only if there is an English word where saying one
sound instead of another changes the meaning.

For example, saying “d” instead of “t” in the word bet changes the meaning (the
word becomes bed), therefore we use separate symbols for “d” and “t” in phonemic
transcriptions. In other words, we say that “t” and “d” are two separate phonemes.
On the other hand, the “flap t” (in this pronunciation of the word letter) and the
regular “t” (in this one) are two very different sounds. However, there are no
English words where saying the “flap t” instead of the regular “t” (or the other way
around) changes the meaning. Therefore, in phonemic transcription, we use the
same symbol for the “flap t” and the regular “t”. In other words, we say that the
“flap t” and the regular “t” are the same phoneme.

Phonemic TranscriptionPhonetic Transcription

- broad transcription- narrow transcription
- related with orthography - related with speech (involves detail of
pronunciation)
- involves the necessary sounds - IPA symbols used

32
 - enclosed in /…/ eg. [lɪtəl] - enclosed in […] eg. [ˈlɪɾɫ̩]

Exercises

1. Decide whether the following pairs of words are minimal pairs or not and give
reasons!
o hope : hop
o rand : rat
o cad : rat
o bitten : beaten
o butch : butcher
o act : fact
o moose : goose
o milch : mild
o peace : cease
o weg : steg
o chunk : hunk
2. Transcribe the word Kingkong phonemically and phonetically, giving as much
detail as you can for the phonetic transcript.
3. In English, are [h] and [ŋ] phonemes or allophones of one phoneme? Find
arguments for and against each classification by using
o minimal pairs
o contexts in which they occur (complementary distribution?)
o phonetic similarity
Make a decision and give your reasons!
Answer: In English, you will not find a minimal pair for the phonemes /h/ and /ŋ/.
Also, you will find that /h/ never occurs in word-final position and /ŋ/ never in word-
initial position. Still, they are phonetically different in terms of their articulation: /h/
is a voiceless glottal fricative and /ŋ/ is a voiced velar nasal. Thus, they do not fulfill

33
the phonetic similarity criterion which is required for allophones and therefore they
have to be considered phonemes.

2.4 Phonological Processes

Phonological Processes are changes that occur when we produce and

combine sounds into words or in larger linguistic forms in the chain of
speech.The linguistic sounds suffer a great quantity of changes, valuable
both in the normal flow of the language and in the course of the time, and
such changes are known as Phonological Processes. The most common phonological
processes are assimilation, dissimilation, deletion, metathesis, epenthesis
and vowel harmony.

2.4.1 Assimilation

Assimilations are processes where sounds are made more similar that
means that a segment adapts at least one aspect of a neighboring
segment this makes articulation easier, since the sounds become
phonetically more similar. They are the most frequent type of
phonological processes. In such processes, phonetics of a speech
segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a
word boundary). This segmental assimilation reflects ease of
articulation.In assimilation, there are two sounds- one which causes
the assimilation and the other which undergoes the assimilation.
Eg. /afɘntʃ’a/ →[afɘɲtʃ’a]
ntʃ’ → ɲtʃ’
Cause = tʃ’ Changed = n (to ɲ)

34
Assimilation categorization is done on the based on degree, direction
and proximity.
i) Degree of Assimilation – the extent of assimilation.
- Two types of assimilation based on degree
assimilation.
(a) Partial assimilation –Segments are assimilated only in one or
two features.
Example: in-possible
→impossible /ɪmpɒsɪbl/ /n/ → /m/
(b) Total assimilation – All features of the sound is assimilated to the influencer.
Example: in-legal → illegal /ɪli:gl/ /n/ → /l/
- offering all features to the influenced and making total
change towards itself.

ii) Direction of Assimilation– right to left or left to right direction

from the influencer
to the influenced sound.

(a) Regressive Assimilation

(Right-To-Left, Anticipatory)
A sound becomes more like a following sound. Some prefer to
use the term anticipatory assimilation, as the sound which
changes anticipates the following sound in some way. It is also
called “regressive assimilation”.
Example: The English /in-/ prefix, as in “import”, “irregular”,
“illegal”.
(b)Progressive Assimilation(Left-to-Right, Perseverative)
A sound becomes more like the preceding sound. This is an
example of progressive assimilation.

35
 Example: The English plural is either /z/ or /s/ when it occurs
after a non-sibilant
sound. The voicing feature is taken from the final consonant of
the
base.
In Oromo, barne→barre
(c) Reciprocal (coalescence) – bidirectional assimilation.
Example: don’t you /dəʊntjʊ/
[dəʊntʃʊ]
tj → tʃ

iii) Proximity of Assimilation – is about if the features assimilated are

influencing the sound is
in contact with the influenced or apart.

(a) Contact (contagious) assimilation – the feature of a sound

influences that of
the other in contact.
Example: angle /aŋl/ /n/ → /ŋ/
(b)Distant (non-contagious) assimilation – influencing features
with no direct
contact moving beyond other sound(s)
Example: Dawro language, ti-father; go-
son
tigo = tido ‘father and son’

2.4.2 Dissimilation

Dissimilationis a rule where two close or adjacent sounds become less alike
with respect to some properties. These differences between sounds are

36
enhanced so that sounds become more auditorily distinct make speech
perception easier.
Example: In Oromo, guddaa ‘big’ →gudguddaa (pl)
→gurguddaa (pl)
/d/ →
/r/
Beekte→beeyte‘she knew’
/k/ → /y/
2.4.3 Deletion
Segments get deleted in some words. It could occurword initially, medially or
finally.
Example: hour /auǝ/ - initial /h/ and final /r/

2.4.4 Epenthesis (Insertion)

To break heavy consonant cluster any sound can be inserted. It is usually
made to avoid impermissible sequences.
Example: sport → in Amharic [ɘsport]; in Oromo [ispoortii]

2.4.5 Metathesis
This process is reordering the sound sequences in a word, or it is just
transposition of sounds in a word for the ease of speech in a language.
Example: In Oromo, qamalee/qalamee ‘ape’
durba/dubra‘girl’
In Amharic, kɨbrit/kɨrbit ‘match’

2.4.5 Vowel Harmony

Vowel harmony is about the influence of one vowel sound in a word onto the
other one so that smooth way to utter the word. It is a sense of assimilation.
Example: in Amharic, mǝto→ [mɑto]
bɨrtukan→ [burtukan]

37
 2.5 Natural Class

A natural class is a set of sounds that have certain phonetic features in

common.All the members of a natural class are affected in the same way in
the same environment. Similarly, all members of a natural class have the
same effect on other sounds that occur in their environment.A given natural
class is described using the minimum number of features needed to include
all sounds within the class and exclude all sounds outside the class.
We can derive a natural class by grouping segments into their shared
features. The phonetic features and the phonological features can be
considered for having a set of segments in one natural class.
Example: Sibilant sounds /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/,/ʧ/, /ʤ/
Sonorants /y/, /w/, /l/, /r/, /m/, /n/,/ŋ/
Voiced, Plosive, Consonants /b/, /d/, /g/
[+Voice], [-Sonorant] /b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, /z/

2.6 Distinctive Features

An alternate way to analyze sounds makes use of the concept of binary or

paired features where there is an opposition between the presence or
absence of a feature in a particular sound. A notation is used for features in
which the name of the feature is capitalized and enclosed in square
brackets; the presence of the feature is indicated by a plus sign and its
absence by a minus sign.
For example, if we consider the features of voicing and nasality:
/t/ is [–VOICE] [–NASAL]
/d/ is [+VOICE] [–NASAL]
/n/ is [+VOICE] [+NASAL]

The smallest units of linguistic structure, from which larger units are built,
sometimes seen as the attributes by which phonemes can differ. The idea is

38
fundamental in phonology, where many generalizations are standardly
stated in terms of features. Here are some major distinctive features:
 natural class o [LABIAL]
 distinctive features  [± round]
o [± consonantal] o [CORONAL]
o [± sonorant]  [± distributed]
o [± approximant]  [± anterior]
o [± voice]  [± strident]
o [± spread glottis] o [DORSAL]
o [± constricted glottis]  [± high]
o [± continuant]  [± low]
o [± nasal]  [± back]
o [± lateral]  [± tense]
o [RADICAL]
Uses for Distinctive Features:
• To specify a phoneme
• To specify a class of phonemes
• To describe the set of speech sounds used in a particular language or dialect
• To write concise rules of phonetic change
• To characterize a speech disorder
– e.g. substitution, often involving a change of feature)
• Features are binary (+ or - values)
• Each speech sound may be described as a “bundle” of features
• Each member of every pair of phones is distinguished from the other member by
at least one
feature value
• Features are universal, but a given language may use a subset of features as
distinctive
While the inventory of features is continually undergoing revision, we may identify
the following features of consonants, many of which we have encountered before:

39
 made with closure in the vocal tract greater than that
[CONSONANTAL] necessary for glides, resulting in an impediment in the flow of
air
[SONORANT] involving a regular pattern of vibration and lack of "noise",
musical sounds that can be sung or held on pitch
[SYLLABIC] functioning as the nucleus of a syllable and potentially
carrying stress
[CONTINUANT] made with incomplete closure in the oral cavity
[NASAL] made with the velum lowered
[LATERAL] made with the lateral flow of air
[VOICE] made with vibration of the vocal cords
[SIBILANT] made with a groove or trough along the center line of the
tongue, resulting in a strong hissing sound
[DELAYED RELEASE] made with the slow release of a stop
For place of articulation, in order to establish a binary opposition, we must
introduce some distinctions that differ from the traditional places such as alveolar
or velar:
[ANTERIOR] made on or in front of the alveolar ridge
[CORONAL] made with the tip or blade of the tongue
raised
[HIGH] made with the tongue raised in the palatal or
velar regions
[BACK] articulated behind the palatal region

See the feature grid for English consonants below.

p b m t d n k g ŋ f v s z θ ð ʃ ʒ tʃ d l r y w h ʔ
ʒ
[SYLLABIC] – – ± – – ±– – ±– – – – – – – – – – ±±– – – –
[CONSONANTAL] +++ +++++++++++++++ + ++– – – –
[SONORANT] – – + – – +– – +– – – – – – – – – – ++++ – –

40
 [NASAL] – – + – – +– – +– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
[ANTERIOR] +++ +++– – – ++++++– – – – ++– – – –
[CORONAL] – – – +++– – – – – +++++++ + ++– – – –
[HIGH] – – – – – – +++– – – – – – – – – – – – ++ – –
[BACK] – – – – – – +++– – – – – – – – – – – – – + – –
[CONTINUANT] – – – – – – – – – ++++++++– – ++++ +–
[DELAYED RELEASE] – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – + + – – – – – –
[SIBILANT] – – – – – – – – – – – ++– – +++ + – – – – – –
[VOICE] – ++ – ++– ++– +– +– +– +– + ++++ – –
[LATERAL] – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – +– – – – –

For vowels, the following features may be identified, which are used along with the
place features [HIGH] and [BACK]:
made with the tongue lowered from the neutral,
[LOW]
central position
[ROUND] produced with lip rounding
[TENSE] articulated with increased tension in the tongue
[REDUCED]
/ə/

See the feature grid for the basic English vowels below:
i ɪ e ɛ æə ʌ u ʊ o ɔ ɑ
[HIGH] ++– – – – – ++– – –
[LOW] – – – – +– – – – – – +
[BACK] – – – – – +++++++
[ROUND] – – – – – – – +++++
[TENSE] +– +– – – – +– +±+
[REDUCED
– – – – – +– – – – – –
]

41
Exercise
1. What feature or features distinguish each of the following sets of sounds?
(a /f/, (e /
) /v/ ) u/,
/ʊ/
(b /r/, /j/ (f) /z/,
) /ð/
(c) /f/, (g /
/θ/ ) g/,
/ŋ/
(d / (h /t/,
) e/, ) /s/
/o/

2. Give a list of distinctive features for each of the following sounds. Which are necessary
to distinguish the sound
from all other sounds?
(a /w/ (c /l/
) )
(b / (d /
) dʒ/ ) ɑ/
3. Write the distinctive features of the following sounds in terms of their place
features:
(a) /p/ (c) /ʧ/
(b) /t/ (d) /k/

UNIT THREE
3. English Suprasegmental (Prosodic) Features
3.1 Pitch, Tone and Intonation
The segments of spoken language are the vowels and the consonants, which
combine to produce syllables, words, and sentences, but at the same time as we

42
articulate these segments, our pronunciation varies in other respects. We make use
of a wide range of tones of voice, which change the meaning of what we way in a
variety of different ways. Suprasegmental features operate over longer stretches of
speech, such as rhythm and voice quality as opposed to segmental features, which
are the individual sounds. Phonetic properties that transcend the segment are
suprasegmentals whereas segment corresponds to a unit of contrast representable
by an alphabetic symbol.Suprasegmentals include stress, tone, intonation and
pitch.

3.1.1 Pitch
Pitch is the high or low quality of the voice caused by the rate of vibration of the
vocal cords.The pitch of the voice rises and falls during an utterance, creating a
melody or intonation contour.Pitch as part of language includes both intonation
and tone.Pitch refers to the physical state. Pitch differences are the differences in
the rate of the vibration of the vocal folds.High pitch means faster vibration, low
pitch means slower vibration.

If pitch variations are used phonemically or grammatically to differentiate meaning,

then we say the different pitches are tones.

3.1.2 Tone

A language is said to have tone or be a tone language when differences in word

meaning are signaled by differences in pitch. Not all of the languages have tone, for
example, English is not a tone language because when a speaker says a cˊar ?with
a rising pitch, the word car doesn’t mean anything different from the same form
pronounced in lower pitch.
There are two kind of tone in languages:
 Register tones: tone shows at only certain pitch levels that signals
meaning differences.
 Contour tones: moving pitches that signal meaning differences.
We can find tone language in Mandarin Chinese.

43
 Example:
ma [mˋa] low pitch means ‘scold’
ma [mˊa] high pitch means ‘hemp’.
Level or register tones simple variations in pitch
Contour tonesː complex tones, which are combinations of the different levels
Level tones could be analyzed as Contour tones:
Extra lowȅê falling
Lowèě rising
Mid ē
Highé
Extrahighe̋
Noteː Tone languages may have HL, HML, ElLH etc.

3.1.3 Intonation

Intonation is the musical tone of what we speak. It has four basic tones: normal,
high, low and extra high. The most important intonation is at the end of a sentence
and there is a high note that corresponds to the last sentence stress. Rising
intonation (the voice goes up) gives the idea that the speaker is not finished; that
the idea is incomplete. Rising-falling intonation (the voice first goes up and then
down), on the other hand, gives the feeling of completion.
Pitch movement in spoken utterances that is not related to differences in word
meaning.
Example: there is no difference in meaning when English says ‘seven’ whether
it is pronounced with
rising pitch or a falling pitch.
Intonation serves to convey information of a broadly meaningful nature. For
example, the falling pitch we hear at the end of the statement signals that the
utterance is complete.
Intonation means when, why, and how a speaker chooses to raise or lower or
sustain the pitch of her or his voice at particular points while speaking.

44
3.2 Stress

Stress is the force used to say one syllable compared to another. It has usually a
higher pitch (or tone) and a longer vowel. Stress tends to recur at regular intervals.
The more unstressed syllables there are between stressed syllables, the faster they
are pronounced. Finally, when sentence stress falls on a word of more than one
syllable, it always falls on the syllable which normally receives “word stress”.Stress,
in English words of more than one syllable said in isolation, the vowels (nuclei of
syllables) vary in prominence; one syllable is more noticeable than the others.
Others are less prominent and, in English, some are very weak and difficult to hear.
These differences in prominence are due to differences in the stress with which
syllables are spoken.

Fixed and Free Stress Languages.

Traditionally, languages have been classified on the basis of whether they have
fixed or free stress. In fixed-stress languages, like French, strongest stress always
falls on a predictable syllable in polysyllabic words. In free-stress languages, like
English or Spanish, the primary stress may appear on any syllable of a word, the
first syllable, a medial syllable, or the last syllable.
Stress is produced by pushing more air out of the lungs. In addition, a stressed
syllable is usually louder than an unstressed one. It is also often accompanied by a
higher pitch.
Stress is a cover term for the combined effects of pitch, loudness, and length. In
general, English stressed vowels are higher in pitch, longer and louder than
unstressed ones.
Differing stress placement in English
(an) éxport [ékspɔ:ˋt] (to) expoˊrt. [ekspɔ:ˊt]
(a) Présent [prézənt] (to) presént [prizént]
télegràpgh [théləgræf]
telégraphy [thəlégrəfi]

45
The word stress means loudness. Stress is a term that we apply to words in
isolation which have more that one syllable. It refers to the property that certain
syllables carry which makes them stand out from the rest of the word.
The job of stress is to create contrast.
verbnoun
convert /kən’vɜ:t/ /’kǝnvɜ:t/

Rules of Stress
Word Stress Patterns
(a) Monosyllabic words – monosyllabic words do not have stress patterns
(b)Bi-syllabic words
(c) Multi-syllabic words
 Bi-syllabic words
If the second syllable of the bi-syllabic verb contains a long vowel or diphthong,
then the second syllable is stressed. Take the following examples: increase /ɪŋ’kri:s/
If the bi-syllabic verb ends with more than one consonant, then the second syllable
is stressed. Take the following examples: collapse /kə’læps/ condense
/kən’dens/
If the final syllable contains a short vowel and one or no final consonant, then
usually, the first syllable will be stressed. Take these examples: open /’əʊpən/
envy /’envɪ/

Bi-syllabic nouns generally follow a different stress placement pattern.

If the second syllable contains a short vowel, then the stress usually comes on the
first syllable. Take these examples: labrum /’leɪbrəm/ chimney /’ʧɪmnɪ/
If the bi-syllabic noun does not go by rule 1, its stress will have to be placed on the
second syllable. Nouns that fall in this category are very rare. Take this example:
increase /ɪŋ’kri:s/
 Multi syllable words
Prefixes and the adverbial suffix -ly (used to make adverbs) usually do not change
the pattern of stress. Take the following examples: capitulate /kə’pɪʧəleɪt/

46
recapitulate /ˌri:kə’pɪʧəleɪt/
moderate /’mɒdərət/
moderately /’mɒdərətlɪ/
Verbs that end in –ate or –ize receive stress on their antepenultimate (i.e., last but
two, or the third from right) syllables. Notice that the endings are pronounced as
/eɪt/ and /aɪz/ respectively. Take the following examples:
conviscate/’kɒnfɪskeɪt/
demonstrate/’demənstreɪt/
recognize/’rekəgnaɪz/

UNIT FOUR
4. English Phonotactics
4.1 Introduction to Phonotactics
4.1.1 What is phonotactics?
Phonotactics is part of the phonology of a language. It restricts the possible sound
sequences and syllable structures in a language. Phonotactic constraint refers to
any specific restriction.Phonotactics at its simplest is concerned with the freedoms
and restrictions that languages allow in terms of syllable structure. Which sounds
can precede and follow which other sounds; whether consonant clusters are
allowed, and what sorts are allowed; whether a language has syllabic consonants,
and if so which ones; whether length is contrastive in vowels; which sounds can
occur in a syllable coda: these are all examples of phonotactic restrictions that can
appear in a language.
For instance, in English we can characterise the following words (all of which are
one syllable long) according to their phonotactic patterns:

47
4.1.2Phonotactic shapes in English
Word Syllable shape Description
seeCV: simple onset, no coda
seatCV:C simple onset, simple coda
treeCCV: complex onset, no coda
streetCCCV:C very complex onset, simple coda
treatsCCV:CC complex onset, complex coda

We can see that at least two of the variables in English are the maximum size of
the onset (three consonants, in the examples above), and the maximum size of the
coda (only two consonants in the examples given here, though three are possible).
It is relevant to examine the kinds of consonants that can occur in different
positions: these examples show the privileged status that liquids enjoy as the
second element in clusters, and the privileges that are associated with /s/ in the
'outermost' (furthest from the vowel) member of clusters, both in the onset and in
the coda.

Similarly, there is great variation in the permissability of certain kinds of segments

in different positions: many languages restrict plosives in codas to unaspirated
voiceless stops, for instance, or disallow velar nasals in onset position. Both of
these are variables that can be applied as filters to the database.

We have included information of a non-phonotactic nature, such as the presence

(and number) of tonal contrasts, and the number of contrastive vowels qualities
present in the languages, to allow users to check for correlations between
phonotactic variables and variables elsewhere in the phonology.

4.2 Distribution of Speech Sounds

The English syllable (and word) twelfths /twɛlfθs/ is divided into the onset /tw/, the
nucleus /ɛ/, and the coda /lfθs/, and it can thus be described as CCVCCCC (C =
consonant, V = vowel). On this basis it is possible to form rules for which

48
representations of phoneme classes may fill the cluster. For instance, English allows
at most three consonants in an onset.
In English, there exist fourteen constraints on phonotactics:
1) All syllables have a nucleus
2) No geminates
3) No onset /ŋ/
4) No /h/ in the syllable coda
5) No affricates in complex onsets
6) The first consonant in a complex onset must be an obstruent
7) The second consonant in a complex onset must not be a voiced obstruent
8) If the first consonant in a complex onset is not an /s/, the second must be a liquid
or a glide
9) Every subsequence contained within a sequence of consonants must obey all the
relevant phonotactic
rules (the substring principle)
10) No glides in codas
11) If there is a complex coda, the second consonant must not be /ŋ/, /ʒ/, or /ð/
12) If the second consonant in a complex coda is voiced, so is the first
13) Non-alveolar nasals must be homorganic with the next segment
14) Two obstruents in the same coda must share voicing

4.3 Permissible and Impermissible Consonant Clusters

Possible English words:plabforchbeegshumpstazhibbercrongtrab
Impossible English words: fmortglsikrmakmsilevlashzpinngotchptud
The Impossible English words violate the so calledphonotactic rules of the
language.
Language-specific constraints
Languages differ in the kinds of onsets they allow:

49
 /kn/ /skw/ /sb/ /vr/

English no yes no no
German yes no no no
French no no no yes
Italian no no yes no
All languages have phonotactic rules; in Oromo and Amharic, no two consonants
word initially. In English most phonotactoc constraints are meant for the onset.
Example: /f/ is followed by approximants
gl or gr
cl or cr the sounds /g/, /c/, /p/, /b/ are followed by /l/ or /r/
pl or pr
bl or br

/s/ - can be followed by almost all sounds in English

/k/ - occurs alone on the onset so that a syllable like form ‘klep’ in English is
considered
illegal violating the phonotactic constraints.

There are several consonant sequences on the coda, but onset

restricts:
Example: mp as ‘jump’, ‘lamp’ is okay on coda but impermissible
on the onset.

Accidental gaps – seemingly correct sequences but impermissible in the

constraints.
Example: fr- is permissible on the onset as in ‘frog’
-nt is permissible on the coda as in ‘element’.
However, the word ‘frent’ is non word.

4.4Syllable as Phonological Unit

50
The syllable is a basic unit of speech studied on both the phonetic and phonological
levels of analysis. No matter how easy it can be for people and even for children to
count the number of syllables in a sequence in their native language, still there are
no universally agreed upon phonetic definitions of what a syllable is.
Phonetically syllables “are usually described as consisting of a centre which has
little or no obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively loud; before and
after that centre (…) there will be greater obstruction to airflow and/or less loud
sound” (Roach, 2000: 70). In the monosyllable (one-syllable word) cat /kæt/, the
vowel /æ/ is the “centre” at which little obstruction takes place, whereas we have
complete obstruction to the airflow for the surrounding plosives /k/ and /t/.
Laver (1994: 114) defines the phonological syllable as “a complex unit made up of
nuclear and marginal elements”. Nuclear elements are the vowels or syllabic
segments; marginal elements are the consonants or non-syllabic segments. In the
syllable paint /peɪnt/, the diphthong /eɪ/ is the nuclear element, while initial
consonant /p/ and the final cluster /nt/ are marginal elements.
The chest pulse theory discusses the syllable in the context of muscular activities
and lung movements in the process of speech. Experiments have shown that the
number of chest pulses, accompanied by increase of air pressure can determine the
number of syllables produced (Gimson, 1980: 56), thus allowing to associate the
number of syllables with the number of chest pulses. This approach, however,
cannot account for cases when 2 vowels occur one after the other – for example in
words like being /ˈbi:ɪŋ/ or playing /ˈpleɪɪŋ/ the second chest pulse might be almost
irrelevant and thus lead erroneously to the conclusion that such English words
consist of one syllable only.
Another approach is presented by sonority theory according to which the pulses of
pulmonic air stream in speech “correspond to peaks in sonority” (Giegerich, 1992:
132). The sonority of a speech sound is discussed as “its relative loudness
compared to other sounds” (Giegerich, 1992: 132) and each syllable corresponds to
a peak in the flow rate of pulmonic air. Thus nuclear elements, or syllabic segments
can be described as intrinsically more sonorous than marginal, or non-syllabic
elements.

51
Speech sounds can be ranked in terms of their intrinsic sonority according to a
sonority scale. The sonority scale for English is given below (although in principle it
is also valid for other languages). Voiced segments are more sonorous than
voiceless ones and sonorants are more sonorous than obstruents; vowels are more
sonorous than consonants, open vowels being more sonorous than close ones.
4.4.1Phonotactic Constraints
As a general definition, syllable refers to an elementary sound uttered together in a
single impulse of voice. It may constitute a word or part of a word.
Here are some points related with syllables:
- syllables usually have single vowel with no consonant.
Example: I /ɑɪ/
- syllable may contain one vowel with several consonants
Example: spend /spend/
- No syllable has more than one vowels except in orthography like table /teibl/.
- a syllable may have varied number of consonants before or after the vowel; it is
language specific.
Example: CCCVCC ‘spring’
In English the maximum number of consonants that can make up the syllabic onset
at the beginning of an isolated word is three. The first can only be /s/, the second
has to be /p, t, k/, and the third has to be an approximant /w, j, r, l/.
eg. splayed strayed scrape
spew stewed skewed
squish squawk squeal
These are all CCCVC
When the third consonant is /w/ then the first two must be /sk/
Whilst /spr/ and /str/ are permitted syllable-initially, /spw/ and /stw/ are not
permitted syllable-initially in English.
Most languages do not allow as many as three consonants in the syllabic onset
however there are some that allow up to six.
Restrictions in the coda are often the mirror image of those in the onset, egpl ~ lp
due to the sonority principle. However there are many exceptions eg /nd/ in "end"

52
but not /dn/.
The number of final consonants in an English rhyme can range from one to four.
eg. /sɪk/ sick, /sɪks/ six, /siksθ/ sixth, /siksθs/ sixths
Languages differ in the structures that they permit. English permits complex codas
and onsets. Languages like Hawaiian, for instance, only allow a single consonant in
the onset and none in the coda, so every syllable ends in a vowel.

There are two types of syllable:

Open Syllable – ending in vowel (eg. buy /bɑɪ/, see /si:/, saw /sɔ:/, so /sǝʊ/).
Closed Syllable – has at least one consonant at the end (eg. in /ɪn/, old /ɒld/,
length /leŋgө/).
Standard Chinese allows only nasal consonants in the coda, so syllables are either
open or closed with a nasal.
Syllables consist of vowels and consonants. Syllables can be split into an onset,
nucleus and coda. All syllables have a nucleus.
Syllable Structure

syllable

onsetrime

nucleuscoda

Syllable Structure Examples

syllablesyllablesyllable

rimeC rime CCC rime

V V CV CCC

English Syllable shape types

V CV CCV CCCV
VC CVC CCVC CCCVC
VCC CVCC CCVCC CCCVCC

53
VCCC CVCCC CCVCCC CCCVCCC

Syllables have internal structure: they can be divided into parts. The parts are
onset and rhyme; within the rhyme we find the nucleus and coda. Not all syllables
have all parts; the smallest possible syllable contains a nucleus only. A syllable may
or may not have an onset and a coda.
Onset: the beginning sounds of the syllable; the ones preceding the nucleus. These
are always consonants in English. The nucleus is a vowel in most cases, although
the consonants [ r ], [ l ], [ m ], [ n ], and the velar nasal (the 'ng' sound) can also
be the nucleus of a syllable. In the following words, the onset is in bold; the rest
underlined.
read
flop
strap
If a word contains more than one syllable, each syllable will have the usual syllable
parts:
win.dow
to.ma.to
pre.pos.te.rous
fun.da.men.tal
Rhyme (or rime): the rest of the syllable, after the onset (the underlined portions of
the words above). The rhyme can also be divided up:
Rhyme = nucleus + coda
The nucleus, as the term suggests, is the core or essential part of a syllable. A
nucleus must be present in order for a syllable to be present. Syllable nuclei are
most often highly 'sonorant' or resonant sounds that can be relatively loud and
carry a clear pitch level. In English and most other languages, most syllable nuclei
are vowels. In English, in certain cases, the liquids [ l r ] and nasals [ m n ] and the
velar nasal usually spelled 'ng' can also be syllable nuclei.
buyσ

O R

54
 N C Open syllable
bɑɪ -

ex-pand σσ

O RO R Closed Syllable

N C N C

- e k s p æ n d

telecommunication

Exercise

Separate the following words into their syllables

1. acceptance
2. understand
3. civilization
4. popularity
5. single
6. month
7. neat
8. beautiful
9. admiration
10. gorgeous

Exercise Two

Draw syllabic tree structure for each of the above words.

acceptance σσσ

O R O R
O R

55
 N C N C
N C

understand

4.5Major Applications of English Phonology in ELT

Linguists state that phonology is applied in English language teaching classrooms in

many ways. Some of them are as follows:
- Phonology is the basis for grammatical forms in the language. This can be seen
in connection with
phonological processes and morphemic occurrences.
- Phonology, or the general linguistics, is the base for lexical meanings and phrasal
or other units in
asunder or in combination.
- Since phonology deals with the system of sounds and sound patterns, teaching
of pronunciation and
related aspects of the language needs application of phonology.
Phonology related teaching may involve how sound patterns change over time and
how languages differ in their sound patterns. The individual speakers use different
pronunciations and the way people learn pronunciation can also be dealt with
undertaking the issue of phonology. Phonology is the base for conveying meaning

56
in lexical, grammatical and utterance levels. Therefore, phonology is applied in one
way or another in teaching of English language.

57