Phonetics
Phonetic s the study of sound. To understand the physiolgy of the human
body. Letters represent sound in a rather intricate way. This has advantages
and disadvantages. To represent sounds by letters in an accurate and uniform
way the International Phonetic Alphabet(IPA) was created.
The Analysis of Speech
Sounds
First of all, the continuum of
speech is broken up into a squence of discrete units, which we referred to as
souds. Thus we are analysing language utterancs as sequence of sounds. Right away
we mention that there is an exception. Intonation and stress are an exception
to this. The sentences below ae distinct only in intonation ( falling pitch
versus falling and rising pitch).
·
you
spoke with the maneger.
·
you spoke with the manager?
Naming the Sound
The way to name a sound is by stringing together its attributes. However,
there is a distinction between naming
vowels and consonants. For example, [p] is described as a voiceless, bilabial
stop, [m] is called a (voiced) bilabial nasal. The rules are as follows :
Sometimes
other features are added. If we want to describe [p] we say that it is a
voiceless bilabial aspirate stop. The additional specification ‘aspirated’ is a
manner attribute, so it is put after the place description(but before the
attribute ‘stop’, since the latter is a noun ). For example, the squence’voiced
retroflex fricative’ refers to [z], as can be seen from the IPA chart.
Vowels on the other hand ae always
described as ‘vowel’, and all the other features are attributes. We have for
example the description of[y] as’ high front rounded vowel’. This showes that
the squeance is
- ·
Hight
place lip-attitude [nasality] vowel
Nasality is optional. If nothing is said, the vowel is
not nasal.
On Strict
Transcription
Since IPA tries to symblize a sound with precision, there is a tension
between accuracy and usefulness. As we shall see later, the way a phoneme is
realized changes from environment to environment.
The Sound of English
Phonetic symbol word illustrating
p pope
b barber
m mum
f fife
v vital,
live
t taunt
d deed
n nun
r rare
θ thousandth
Ò this,
breathe
s
source,
fuss
z zanies
∫ shush
