UTSC

LINB09H3
FINAL EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
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LINB09 – Lecture 1
Vocal Anatomy; Articulation of basic English sounds: Consonants
Phonetic Background:
Phonetics: studies speech sounds (sounds used in human language)
• Articulatory phonetics: what humans do within their bodies to produce these sounds
o The physiological mechanisms of speech production
• Acoustic: physical sound waves
o The analysis of the sounds waves produced because of speech
• Auditory: what happens within the ear and what the brain does to interpret the signal.
o How sounds are heard and perceived
Transcription: how speech sounds can be written down.
• Part of phonetics
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA):
• A standard system of sounds that have been used to represent sounds in an utterance.
• Has been around for about 150 years.
• Symbols that represent segments (particular configurations of the vocal tract – vowels
and consonants) and supersegmentals (stress, pitch, length)
• One symbol = one sound
• Square brackets are used to indicate phonetic transcription vs orthography/spelling.
Vocal Anatomy:
3 things are used to produce sound:
1. Air supply: lungs
2. Sound source: larynx (vocal folds/vocal cords)
3. Filters: pharynx, oral cavity, nasal cavity
o The shape of the tube will affect the type
of sound heard.
Von Kemplin Speaking Machine:
• Made in 1793 to show how speech sounds can be
produced mechanically.
Primary Vocal Organs:
• Lungs: source of moving air
• Trachea: connects the lungs to the vocal tract
• Larynx: sound source
o The larynx can also be called the voice box.

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o It contains the Adam’s apple and the vocal folds/vocal cords.

o Glottis: the opening between the vocal folds.
Glottal States:
There are two types of glottal states depending on how the
vocal folds are configured.
• Voiced: vibrating sounds (aaaa, zzzz, vvvv)
o Vocal folds are close together which causes
the folds to vibrate when articulating a sound.
• Voiceless: no vibration (hhhh, sssss, ffff)
o Vocal folds are not close together, which
allows air to pas through without creating a
vibration.
Bernoulli Principle: when the air from the lungs goes pass the vocal cords, it causes them to
close all the way and then causes them to open up again.
The Supralaryngeal Vocal Tract: (“supra” = above)
• Pharynx
• Oral cavity (mouth):
o Lips:
o Teeth
o Alvelolar ridge: just behind the teeth
o Hard palate
o Velum (soft palate): near the end of the
mouth
o Uvula
o Tongue
• Nasal Cavity
The Tongue:
o Tip (apex)
o Blade (lamina): just behind the tip
o Front: main body
o Back (dorsum)
o Root
In the oral cavity, the lower active articulators (lower lip or tongue) move towards the upper
passive articulators.
Vocal Anatomy Exercises:
Which upper and lower articulators are used in the following statements?

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• Peter brown picked a bushel of Burpee’s peppers: The two lips

• Verna found five very fine vines: Bottom lip and upper teeth
• Ethel thinks that this other thin thing is their thread: Upper teeth and tip of the
tongue
• Ed editied it, didn’t he – or did Ted do it?: Tip of the tongue and the alveolar ridge
• King Carl quickly kissed the Greek
queen: Velum and back of the tongue
Velum: it can be raised which makes oral sounds
(velic closure) or lowered which makes nasal
sounds (velic opening) in order to allow or prevent
air to pass through the nasal cavity.
Vocal Anatomy Exercises:
1. Write all the words below whose final
sound is produced with air flowing through the nasal cavity:
• Pin = nasal (n=nasal)
• Tab = non-nasal
• Tame = nasal (m=nasal)
• Sings = ŋ = nasal
• Sign =nasal
• Lamb = nasal (m)
2. Write all the words below whose first sound is produced with a construction at the
alveolar ridge:
• Dumb
• Ten
• Nest
• Lest
• Sin
3. Write all the words below that contain a sound produced with a construction at the
velum:
• Sign (last sound)
• Jug (last sound)
• Care (first sound)
• Lick (last sound)
Basic Sounds of English: Consonants:
Sounds can be divided into two major categories:
Vowels: are sounds that are produced with no obstruction of air
• The air can flow freely through the mouth.
• For example, [gu] ‘goo’

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Consonants: sounds that are produced with some obstruction of air.

• Slight constriction in the vocal tract
• For example, [iz] ‘ease’
Cardinal Vowels:
• [i] “ease” high front
• [u] “goo” high back
• [a] “calm” low back
Consonant Articulation:
• Voicing: voiced or voiceless
• Place of articulation: where is the constriction occurring in the vocal tract; which
articulators are used; is the airstream constricted.
• Manner of articulation: how the airstream is constricted (blocked off, small gap, etc)
Places of Articulations:
• Bilabial: between the two lips
• Labiodental: the lower lip and the teeth
• Dental: tip of the tongue and the upper teeth
• Alveolar: occurs at the alveolar ridge
• Postalveolar:
• Retroflex: the tip of the tongue is turned back
• Palatal:
• Velar:
• Uvular: not in English
• Pharyngeal: not in English
• Glottal:
Manners of Articulations:
• Stops (plosives): sounds made with a complete closure.
o No air is escaping from the mouth.
o For example: p, b, t, d, k, g, ʔ
• Fricatives: sounds made with a narrow opening
o The narrow opening causes the air flowing to produce noise.
o For example: f, v, θ, ð, ʃ ʒ h
o [s z ʃ ʒ] are known as sibilants
▪ Noisy fricatives
• Affricates: sounds made with a slow release of a complete closure
o Basically, a short stop with a short fricative.
o For example: tʃ dʒ
• Approximants: consonants with a greater opening in the vocal tract than fricatives.

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o No friction.
o For example: (w), ɹ, j, (w), l
o Laterals /l/: “lateral” = side
▪ Most sounds are central which means the air is evenly flowing across the
tongue.
▪ These sounds are made with a quick closure at the center of the tongue but
the sides of the tongue are open
o English /ɹ/: Canadian English can produce r in two ways:
▪ Bunched r vs. retroflex r
• Can be known as alveolar approximant.
▪ Rhotics: r-like sounds
o Liquid: refers to lateral and rhotics
o Glide: rapidly articulated vowel-like sound
▪ [j] corresponds to [i] = palatal
▪ [w] corresponds to [u] = labial velar
o Voiceless version of [w], transcribed as [ʍ]
• Nasals: sounds made with a complete constriction in the oral cavity but with a velic
opening to allow air to flow through the nasal cavity.
o For example, , , ŋ
o Nasal consonants are also stops, so they are referred to as nasals and oral stops
are referred to as stops.

The places of articulations on the chart move from the front of the mouth to the back of the
mouth.

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LINB09 – Lecture 2
Vowels:
Describing Vowels and Basic Vowels Sounds in English:
Vowels: are sounds that are produced with no obstruction in the vocal tract, which allows air to
flow freely.
• Vowels are usually voiced and oral.
o However, voiceless vowels exist in some languages other than English.
o Nasal vowels can also be produced.
• It is assumed that vowels are voiced and oral segments unless otherwise marked using
diacritics.
o [ i ̥ ] = voiceless
o [ i ͂ ] = nasal
▪ ~ = tilda
Describing Vowels:
Vowels are described using 3 dimensions:
1. Height: refers to the placement of the tongue in the mouth.
• The body of the tongue can be high or low, or in the middle
(mid)
• High and low can be also referred to as close and open.
2. Backness: refers to the placement of the tongue in the mouth.
• Can be moved to the back of the mouth or the front of the
mouth, or even in between (central).
3. Rounding: when producing vowels, the lips can be in a neutral
position (unrounded); or can be brought forwards into an O shape
(rounded)
• Rounding lengthens the oral cavity which is why back vowels
are also rounded vowels.
• Front vowels are usually unrounded.

Cardinal Vowel: in IPA, it refers to a specific point on the IPA vowel quadrilateral.

• Since vowels are continuous, the vowels in a language may not exactly coincide with the
reference points on the quadrilateral.

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o However, linguists will use the symbol closest to the average pronunciation of the
vowel.
• In detailed phonetic descriptions, diacritics can be added to the cardinal vowel symbol.

English Vowels:

• Monophthongs: are vowels that occur due to the tongue being in a steady position while
the vowel of a syllable is being produced.
o The same place of articulation throughout the production of the vowel.

o Caught-cot merger: vowel distinctions that aren’t found in Canadian English:

▪ /ɔ/ mid back rounded
▪ / / low back rounded
• GA = general American
• RP = received pronunciation
(British)
• Diphthongs: are vowels that occur from the tongue moving during the production of the
vowel sound during a syllable.

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Transcribing Diphthongs:

The different ways to transcribe diphthongs are due to the difference in phonetic and
phonological detail.

• [ai] [au] can be used to differentiate in phonology between vowels and consonants.
• [aɪ] [aʊ] are used to emphasize the actual phonetic quality of the second segment (that it
is closer to [ɪ ʊ] rather than [i u]).
• [aɪ̯ ] [aʊ̯] are used to emphasize that the two sounds are a sequence of vowel + semivowel,
rather than two vowels in hiatus.
• Vowel + glide sequences are used to show diphthongs – [aj] [aw]

Average Vowel Qualities in RP and GA:

Syllables:

• Native speakers of any language will have strong intuitions that words are made of
syllables.
o Syllables: are pronounceable parts.
▪ In ter con ti nen tal
• Intercontinental
• Linguists divide the syllable into three parts:

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o The position of a segment within a syllable influences the way it’s pronounced.

Tense/Lax Distinction:

There isn’t a consistent phonetic property for these terms but are used to label sets of vowels that
behave different with respect to the phonotactics (patterns within syllables) of English.

• Tense: i, ej, aj, aw, u, ow, , ɔj, ( ɔ )

o ( ɔ ) can appear in open syllables in dialects of English other than Canadian
English.
• Lax: ɪ, ɛ, æ, ʌ, ʊ, ǝ
o Might be slightly lower than the tense vowels

Phonotactic restrictions:

• Tense vowels can occur in open syllables (ending in a vowel; don’t have a coda) or in
closed syllables (ending in a consonant).
• Lax vowels can only occur in closed syllables (need a consonant after the vowel)
o Schwa [ǝ] is the exception. It is a lax vowel that can occur in open syllables.
▪ For example, sofa [sowfa]

Vowels found before /ɹ/:

• Only some vowels can occur before /ɹ/:

o / ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ ə aj aw ɔj /
• Before syllable-final /ɹ/, there is no contrast between vowels that have the same height
and backness (i/I and u/ʊ)
o The actual vowel quality in words like beer and poor is in between the two vowel
sounds
o [I] and [ʊ] will be used to represent the sounds.
▪ For example, fear [fʊ] and poor [pʊɹ]
• There is no contrast between [o], [ow], and [ɔ] before /ɹ/ in Canadian English.
o [ɔ] is used to represent a mid-back rounded vowel before [ɹ] since it’s the closest
symbol to what is pronounced.

Stress: refers to the syllable in a word which is more prominent than another.

• English has three properties:

o Greater loudness

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o Higher pitch
o Greater length
• Primary stress is indicated with a raised line before the stressed syllable.
o For example, I want to make a salad, so I need to buy some produce. /ˈpɹowdus/
▪ In this course, we’ll learn how to produce different speech sounds.
/pɹəˈdus/
• Some words will have secondary stress, which is indicated with a lowered vertical line
before the stressed syllable.
o For example, Helicopter /ˈhɛlɪˌk ptəɹ/

Schwa [ə] vs. Caret [ʌ]:

• [ə] is a mid-central unrounded vowel that occurs in unstressed syllables.

o It is known as a reduced vowel since it’s shorter than other vowels.
o The only time it is transcribed in stressed syllables is when it is followed by /ɹ/
▪ For example, turn [təɹn]
• [^] is a mid-central unrounded vowel in stressed syllables

Broad vs. Narrow Transcription:

• Only utterances can be transcribed; not words.

o For example, how Joanna pronounced the word cat at 12:18 pm on September
12th.
o Every time the word is pronounced, it will be slightly different.
• If you want to go into more detail, then you need to make abstractions, which are what
details to include and ignore.
• Two types of transcription:
o Narrow: tries to encompass as many aspects of a pronunciation as possible.
▪ With IPɑ’s diacritics, it is possible to make distinctions between sounds.
o Broad: ignores many details; uses enough aspects to determine how the
pronunciation of a word is different from others.
▪ Language specific
▪ How words are different than others in a language

Phonemes and Allophones:

• Two sounds are contrastive if they create a difference in meaning in a given language.
o For example, [i] and [u]
▪ Bead vs. Booed
▪ Deed vs. Dude
▪ Mean vs. Moon
o Phonemes: sounds that are contrastive in a given language.
• Not all sounds can create a difference in meaning.

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o When two sounds sound similar, so it is hard to distinguish the sounds in the
word.
o Allophones: sounds that don’t contrast in a language.
▪ For example, in Canadian English, [ɔ] is used before /ɹ/ instead of [ow].
• Even if the word is pronounced with “oar” [ɔɹ]/[owɹ], it would
sound the same to a Canadian English speaker.
▪ The phoneme /ow/ in Canadian English has two allophones: [ɔ] which
occurs before /ɹ/ and [ow] which occurs elsewhere

Length:

• Tense vowels and diphthongs are always longer than lax vowels.
o For simple vowels, this length can be showed with a
raised dot in narrow transcription.
o For diphthongs, the length is not shown by using a raised dot but instead by the
use of two symbols in the representation of the diphthong.
• All vowels are lengthened when they occur before a voiced consonant or syllable finally.
o This is known as contextual length since it depends upon the phonetic
environment in which the vowels occur.
o It is also shown with a raised dot.
▪ If a vowel already has inherent length, it will get
two dots.
▪ When diphthongs get contextual length, it is
shown with a raised dot following the vowel portion of the diphthong.
• Only stressed vowels will have length
o Unstressed vowels will become schwa.

Canadian Raising:

• The diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ begin at a higher place of articulation when they occur
before voiceless sounds in Canadian English.
o For example:
▪ [ʌj] = right, like, wife
▪ [aj] = ride, lie, wives
o Raised before voiceless consonants
o Regular vowels before a voiced consonant

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Nasalization:

• Velum will be lowered to allow air to pass through the nasal cavity.
• Vowels are partly nasal when adjacent to a nasal consonant.
o The degree of nasalization can be greater when the vowel is before a nasal
consonant than when a vowel is after a nasal consonant.
• ~ = tilde
• For example, December [dǝˈsɛmbǝɹ]

Narrow vs. Broad Transcription – Redefined:

• Broad Transcription: all the regular contrasts in Canadian English plus:

o Schwa in unstressed syllables
o Vowel distinctions before /r/
o Primary stress on words of more than one syllable
o Uses /…/
• Narrow Transcription: will include details such as,
o Length (inherent and contextual)
o Nasalization
o Canadian raising
o Uses […]

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LINB09 – Lecture 3
English Consonants
Vowels:
• Are described with 3 things:
o Height
o Backness
o Rounding
• Vowels in English can also be tense or lax
• Vowels can be monophthongs or diphthongs
o [ɔ] is considered as lax since it occurs in closed syllables in Canadian English.
o [o] is tense
o [ɔj] is tense
▪ All diphthongs are tense.
Allophonic Differences in Canadian English Vowels:
• Tense vowels are longer than lax vowels
o Inherent length
• Vowels that occur before voiced sounds and word-finally are longer than vowels that
occur before voiceless sounds
o Contextual length
• Diphthongs [aj] and [aw] are raised to [ʌj] and [ʌw] before voiceless sounds
• Vowels are nasalized a bit when adjacent to a nasal consonant
• Most vowels are reduced to [ə] in unstressed syllables.
Consonants: can be described in 3 ways:
• Voicing:
• Place of Articulation:
o Labial, coronal, and dorsal are the major places of articulation.
• Manner of Articulation:
o Approximants can be glides or liquids
o Liquids can be laterals or rhotics
o Manner of articulation is the combination of:
▪ Articulatory constriction: how narrow or wide the gap is for stops and
fricatives.
▪ Nasal vs. oral airflow
▪ Lateral vs. central airflow
Phonemes and Allophones:
• Phonemes: sounds that are contrastive in a specific language.
o Two sounds in a language are contrastive if they can make a difference in
meaning.

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o For example, [i] and [u] are contrastive in English (separate phonemes)
▪ Bead vs. booed
▪ Deed vs. dude
▪ Mean vs. moon
• Allophones: sounds that don’t contʃast in a language.
o Doesn’t cʃeate a diffeʃence in meaning
Allophonic Details of Consonant Pronunciation in English:

Connected Speech:
• Segments are sometimes not produced discretely.
o Even if one segment isn’t finished being pʃoduced, the next segment may be
produced.
o Coarticulation: when more than one articulator is active.
• Due to this, speech sounds that are in a sequence can go through many processes. This is
because of:
o Efficiency: to help produce the word more easily
o Distinction: to help distinguish the word
▪ Make the sounds as distinct as possible by changing it slightly
o These are called allophonic alternations
Examples of Coarticulation:
• Overlapping: if two stops occur adjacent to one another, the closure for the second stop
may occur before the release of the first stop. For example, apt /æpt/ [æp͡t]

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• Yod Coalescence: across word boundaries, /j/ comes together with alveolar obstruents
and causes a specific type of palatalization.
o For example,
▪ get you /g t ju/ [ˈg ʧu]
▪ miss you /m s ju/ [ˈm u]
o This caused historical changes to occur in English
o This may occur in quicker and faster speech
Assimilation:
• When a segment becomes more similar to other segments around it.
• One segment affects anotheʃ’s place, manneʃ, oʃ voicing
Assimilation to Neighbouring Consonants:
• Dentalization: the alveolars /t, d, n, l/ are realized as dentals [t, d, n, l] when they occur
before the dental fricatives /θ, ð/.
o For example,
▪ tenth /t nθ/ [t nθ]
▪ wealth /w lθ/ [w lθ]
• Labiodental Nasals: bilabial /m/ becomes labiodental [ɱ] before /f, v/.
o For example, symphony /s mfǝni/ [s ɱfǝni]
• Retroflexion: alveolars become retroflex when they follow /ɹ/.
o For example,
▪ huʃt /hǝɹt/ [h ʈ]
▪ barn /bɑɹn/ [bɑɹɳ]
o /t/ and /d/ before /ɹ/ is often known as retroflex affricates. For example,
▪ tree /tɹi/ [ʈ ɹi]
▪ dream /dɹim/ [ɖʐɹim]
Notes on Broad Transcription:
• Yod Dropping: Canadian English speakeʃs usually don’t pʃonounce [j] when it is in a
stressed syllable with a coronal consonant followed by [ju].
o For example,
▪ Tune /tjun/  /tun/
▪ new /nu/
▪ sue /su/
• Homorganic Nasals: nasal consonants assimilate to the place of articulation of a
following consonant.
o Broad transcription should have /m/ before labials and /ŋ/ before velars.
Assimilation to Neighbouring Vowels:
• Allophones of /h/: the voiceless palatal fricative [ç] is an allophone of /h/ that occurs
before /j/. Foʃ example, human /hjumǝn/ [çjumǝn]

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o /h/ is realized as [ɦ] when it occurs between vowels.

o For example, ahead /əh d/ [əɦ d]
o [ɦ] is a murmured version of the following vowel produced with some vocal fold
vibration but the vocal folds are still far enough to allow air through.
• Velar Fronting: velars are produced with an articulation towards the front of the mouth
when they come before a front vowel.
o For example,
▪ key /ki/ [k̟i]
• Add a + sign underneath the consonant
▪ car /kɑɹ/ [kɑɹ]
• Rounding: consonants are pronounced with lip-rounding when they come before round
vowels. For example,
o kit /k t/ [k t]
o cool /kul/ [kʷul]
▪ Add a ‘w’ in fʃont of the consonant
Inherent Aspects of Consonants:
• Inherent rounding: in English, some consonants are produced with rounded vowels,
regardless of what vowel comes after it.
o Postalveolars: [ ʷ] [t ʷ] [ʒʷ] [dʒʷ]
o /ɹ/: [ɹʷ]
o The retroflex affricates we get before /ɹ/ are also rounded:
▪ tree /tɹi/ [ʈ ʷɹʷi]
▪ dream /dɹim/ [ɖʐʷɹʷim]
Syllable-dependent Allophonic Variation:
• Syllabic consonants: every syllable must have a nucleus, and the nucleus is usually a
vowel.
o Sometimes a sonorant (nasal or liquid) may become the nucleus. For example,
▪ sudden [ ˈsʌdn ]
▪ buckle [ ˈbʌk ]
▪ When /ɹ/ functions as a nucleus, we could transcribe it as [ɹ] or [ ] (a
rhoticized schwa)Schwar [ɚ]:
• Canadian English speakeʃs will pʃoduce a single “ʃ-colouʃed” oʃ
rhotacized vowel [ ].
• Aspiration: voiceless stops are aspirated at the beginning of a stressed syllable.
o For example,
▪ pit /p t/ [ph t] vs. spit /sp t/ [sp t]
▪ kill /k l/ [kh l] vs. skill /sk l/ [sk l]
• Devoicing: approximants are devoiced when they follow aspirated stops.
o For example,
▪ play /plej/ [ph l̥ ej] vs. splay /splej/ [splej]
▪ queen /kwin/ [khw̥in] vs. squeal /skwil/ [skwi ]

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o Word-final devoicing: voiced obstruents are partially voiceless word finally and
word initially. For example,
▪ fuzz /fʌz/ [fʌzz̥]
▪ spud /spʌd/ [spʌdd̥]
• Dark and light /l/: the lateral approximant is produced with the tongue dorsum raised
towards the velum syllable
finally.
o For example,
▪ tell /t l/ [th ]
▪ let /l t/ [l t]
• Tapping: the alveolar stops /t/
and /d/ are realized as voiced
alveolar tap in English,
especially when they occur
between two vowels and the
second vowel is unstressed. For
example, city /s ti/ [s ɾi] body /bɑdi/ [bɑɾi]
o A sequence of /nt/ between vowels is often known as nasal tap. For example,
winter /w ntəɹ/ [w ɾ ]
• Glottal Stop: not phonemic in English but can be optional before a vowel initially.
o It also occurs as an allophone of /t/ for some speakers. For example, button [bʌʔn]
Allophonic Processes:

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Instrumental Methods (how to know how the tongue feels a specific place):
• X-rays:

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o Results of x-ray investigations are usually presented as trace drawings.

▪ It takes a lot of experience to interpret the photographs
▪ Radiation risk to the speaker

• Ultrasound: has been used more recently to image the tongue during speech production.
o The method uses a property of ultra-high speed sound waves to propagate and
reflect from surfaces of object, such as the surface of the tongue.

• MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging):

o Resulting images are much clearer
o Slower and more difficult to get
moving pictures

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Vowels before /ɹ/:

• There is no tense/lax distinction before /ɹ/.
o The real vowel quality before /ɹ/ is something between tense and lax. However,
we use lax for the following vowels.
▪ / ɹ/
▪ /ʊɹ/
▪ / ɹ/
▪ /ɔɹ/
▪ /ǝɹ/  [ ]

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LINB09 – Lecture 4
Dialects of English
Inherent and Contextual Length:
• In stressed syllables, a length difference can be observed between tense and lax vowels,
where tense vowels are slightly longer.
o Before voiceless consonants
• Vowels are longer before voiced consonants and syllable-finally.
• Tense vowels that come before voiced consonants get ‘:’
Top Ten Countries with English Speakers:

Major Dialect Features - Consonants:

1. Presence of /h/:
• In the past, English /h/ appeared in onset clusters. These are not permissible
nowadays.
o hn-, hl-, and hr- are not found in
the onset in any dialect of English.
• The difference between [w] and [ʍ] is
basically allowing for the presence of /h/
before /w/.
o /h/ and /w/ merge to become [hw]
and are pronounced as [ʍ].
• In other dialects such as Irish English and Scottish English:

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o Which and witch are distinct

o /hj/ clusters are allowed
o /h/ can occur independently in an
onset.
• In Canadian English and Received Pronunciation (British English):
o There isn’t a difference between voiced w and voiceless w (witch and
which).
o /hj/ clusters are allowed
o /h/ can be at the beginning of a
syllable (in the onset), followed by a
vowel.
• In Newfoundland English:
o There isn’t a difference between the
voiced and voiceless [w]
o /hj/ cannot occur as a cluster
o /h/ can occur as an onset.
o In Cockney English, Australian English, and the West Indies English,
there is no /h/ at all.
• Onsets that are allowed in dialects
usually have a glide as the second part
of the onset, /hw/ and /hj/.
o The more sonorous an element, the more likely it is to be allowed to occur
after /h/ in an onset.
2. Rhotacism:
• Many English dialects do not allow /ɹ/ in the coda position. This is called non-
rhotic. For example, car  /ka/
o Non-rhotic dialects include. British
English (RP  Received Pronounciation),
West Indian, Australian, New Zealand,
Southern U.S, and African American
Vernacular English (AAVE).
• Some non-rhotic dialetcs have a linking /ɹ/, which
is when a word has a vowel that is in the coda and
then a vowel is the onset of the next word. Non-
rhotic speakers insert the /ɹ/ between the two
vowels.
• In rhotic dialects, /ɹ/ occurs in the coda position
o Rhotic dialects include, Canadian
English (CE), General American (GA),
Irish, and Scottish.
• In Scottish English, the rhotic becomes a tap or trill. For example,

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3. Intervocalic /t/:
• /t/ is realized as a voiced alveolar tap /ɾ/ in
GA, CE, and South African, and New
Zealand English.
• In RP, /t/ is glottalized or becomes a
glottal stop
• In Belfast English and Australian English,
/t/ is voiced.
• In Canadian English, /t/ and /d/ become [ɾ], when they occur between two vowels
and the second vowel is unstressed.

• A sequence of /nt/ between vowels often

becomes a nasal tap.
• Some speakers use a glottal stop before syllabic [n].
4. Other dialectal differences involving consonants
• Articulation of /l/: all of these vowels are back vowels/glides.
o Australian English would use a dark l in all positions  [ɫ]
o Cockney English uses another type of l  [o̯]
o General American used a symbol before fricatives  [ɤ̯]
o Newfoundland  [ɰ]
• Pronunciation of /t, d/:
o Could be dental [ t̪ d̪ ] instead of alveolar
o Could be retroflex [ ʈ ɖ ] instead of alveolar
• Pronounciation of / θ ð /:
o Becomes labiodental fricatives [f v] instead of interdental
o Could become dental stops [ t̪ d̪ ] instead of fricative.
Major Dialect Features – Vowels:
1. Mid-tense vowels:
• In CE, mid-tense vowels are realized as
diphthongs
• In Scottish English and West Indian English, the
mid-vowels are monophthongs

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• In New Zealand, the vowels are realized as diphthongs that begin with a central
articulation, which is similar to the variants of /aj/ and /aw/ found in CE before
voiceless segments
2. Back vowels or the caught-cot distinction:
• CE has the same vowel in the words caught and cot
o Caught /kat/
o Cot /kat/
o Calm /kam/
• In GA, they are distinct
• In RP, the vowels are distinguished but the vowel in cot is a low, back, rounded
vowel /ɒ/, which is not found in GA.
3. Front vowels or merry-marry-Mary
distinction:
• In CE and GA, all the words are the same
• In RP, they all have distinct vowels
• North American varieties of English do
have different phonemes /æ/ and /ɛ/ and /e/. The difference between these sounds
are neutralized before /ɹ/.
Vowel mergers and vowel chain shifts:
• Merger: The loss of distinction between caught-cot and merry-marry-Mary is known as
a merger.
o A vowel merger occurs when vowels with different articulations merge and
become one similar place of articulation.
▪ They are not phonologically different anymore.
• Chain shifts: one vowel moves in a certain direction, which causes the other vowels to
move as well.
o The change in the place of articulation of one vowel causes the surrounding
vowels to shift as well.
Canadian Shift:
• The way that Canadians pronounce their vowels is different than other dialects.
• More room was created for distinctions in the low-back area of the vowel space.

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Northern Cities Vowel Shift vs. Canadian Shift:

Northern cities shift is going up and front

Merger and Chain Shifter Case Study:

You are in a hospital waiting room. You want to assess whether another patient is from
Niagara Falls, New York or from the Niagara region of southern Ontario. You notice that
he’s holding his stomach and looking a little green, so you ask him if he’s been able to eat
any [salədz] (where [a] represents a low central vowel—in between [æ] and [ɑ]). He looks
at you a little funny, and then he says, “No, I’ve only been able to eat toast with cheese.”
Where is this patient from? How do you know?
• The patient heard salads instead of solids.
• He did the Canadian Shift
Canadian English Accents:
• Canadian Raising is not the same across Canada.
• The vowel sounds /aj/ and /aw/ are articulated higher when they are in words where the
vowel is followed by a voiceless consonant such as /p t k s f/

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• /ɑɹ/ fronting/retraction:

• /æ/ raising:
o /æ/ may be pronounced higher when it is in words where a vowel is followed by a
nasal /m n/ or velar /k g/.

• /u/ fronting:
o Young Canadian speakers will make a /u/ sounds more front that older Canadian
speakers or speakers of other English dialects.
▪ The vowel before /l/ does not front.

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• /ow/ fronting:
o It is like /u/ fronting, but not as extreme

Canadian Regional Dialects:

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LINB09 – Lecture 5
Dialects of English & Instrumental Methods
Northern English vs. Canadian English:
• Northern Cities Shift is going up
and front
• Canadian is going down and mid
• A Canadian speaker saying “map”
may sound the same as an
American speaker saying “mop”

Vowels by Canadian English Speakers:

Canadian English Accents:

• Canadian Raising is not the same across
Canada.
• The vowel sounds /aj/ and /aw/ are
articulated higher when they are in words
where the vowel is followed by a
voiceless consonant such as /p t k s f/

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• /ɑɹ/ fronting/retraction:

• /æ/ raising:
o /æ/ may be pronounced higher when it is in words where a vowel is followed by a
nasal /m n/ or velar /k g/.

• /u/ fronting:
o Young Canadian speakers will make /u/ sounds (for example, goose) more front
than older Canadian speakers or speakers of other English dialects.
▪ The vowel before /l/ does not front. For example, pool

• /ow/ fronting:
o It is like /u/ fronting, but not as extreme

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Canadian Regional Dialects:

Methods of Phonetic Research:

Palataography: pictures of the roof of the mouth; has been used by phoneticians for over a
century to study the details of consonant and vowel articulations
• It involves painting the tongue with a black stain, such as charcoal, producing a word
with the specific sound of interest, and photographing the
contact of the tongue with the roof of the mouth.
o Can see which area the tongue actually touched in
the mouth
Linguograms: painting the roof of the mouth instead to see
which parts of the tongue touch it.

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Palatograms:
1. Stops and Affricates:
• Dotted lines are the exaggerated
pronounciation of the words
• The dark areas are the areas that the
tongue touched the palate.
• /tʃ/ is not as close to the front of the
mouth as /t/ is
2. Velar stops:

3. Sibilant Fricatives: look at the central opening

4. Liquids:

Electropalatography:
• This is used to track the contact of the tongue
with the roof of the mouth (the alveolar ridge
and palate) in time
• It needs a custom-made artificial palate with a
lot of electrodes built inside

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Midterm Review:
Instrumental methods:
• You should be able to recognize the speech sounds (mainly from the sagittal section
imagery or plataograms)
• You should also be able to point out the different features of sagittal section images and
palatograms
English Dialects:
• Know how the dialects differ from one another
• Know the 6 main features and the 6 minor ones
o Rhoticism
o Presence of /h/
o Pronunciation of mid-tense vowels
o Cot vs. caught
o Mary-merry-marry merger
o Pronunciation of interdentals
o Variations of /l/
• Know the characteristics of Canadian English with respect to the above-mentioned
features and how other dialects can be different
o You don’t need to know the features of other dialects other than Canadian English
• Midterm questions could ask to point out a specific feature of a transcription or phrase
that can identify the dialect.
o For example, Could “white” be produced as [ jt] by a Canadian English
speaker? Why or why not?
▪ Yes, because an older speaker might say it
o For instance, What can a speaker’s pronunciation of “Sarah Perry” tell us about
their dialect?
▪ Front vowel merger
• Low, mid-lax, etc
English Allophonic Processes and Narrow Transcription:
Know the allophonic processes and how to transform a broad transcription into a narrow one.
Articulation of Consonants and Vowels:
• Know how to describe the articulation of sounds using terminology from the vocal
anatomy.
o For example, what sounds match the following descriptions?
a) The lips are closed, the velum is lowered, the vocal folds are vibrating 
/m/

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b) The lamina approaches the area just behind the alveolar ridge leaving a
small gap for air to pass through, the velum is raised, the vocal folds are
not vibrating  /tʃ/
c) The tongue tip is curled back slightly and approaches the area just behind
the alveolar ridge leaving a wide gap for air to pass through while the
sides of the tongue are raised, the velum is raised, the vocal folds are
vibrating  /ɹ/
• Know how to give a phonetic description of an IPA symbol or give an IPA symbol to
match a description.
o For example, nasalized low back unrounded vowel = [ ɑ̃ ]
o This should be done for symbols representing phonemes and allophones of
English
• Consonants are described in terms of voicing, place, and manner (specific order)
• Vowels are described in terms of height, backness, and rounding (specific order)

Not on the midterm:

Acoustic Phonetics:
• Spectrogram: is a display that is particularly useful when examining speech sounds.
o It has 3 dimensions:
▪ Time: plotted on the x-axis
▪ Frequency: perceived as pitch
▪ Intensity: how loud a sound is
Types of Spectrogram displays:
• Narrow-band: horizontal lines
• Wide-band: vertical lines
How to read spectrograms:
• Every speech sound has a unique acoustic pattern
Fricatives: are characterized by random noise
• Sibilant fricatives tend to be darker

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LINB09 – Lecture 7
Acoustic Phonetics
Speech sounds can be described in terms of:
• How they are produced by manipulating the vocal tract
• How they can be transcribed with IPA symbols
• They can also be described as how we hear them, which is the acoustic structure.
o Acoustics: the science of the physical properties of sounds
o Acoustic Phonetics: the science of the physical properties of speech sounds
Reasons to describe acoustics of speech sounds:
• For an explanation of why certain sounds are confused with other sounds
• Certain details of speech aren’t explainable if only articulation is considered
• Vowels are better described in acoustic terms than articulatory terms
• Vital information for designing automatic speech recognition devices (speech synthesis
by computers)
• Insight into sound recognition by humans (perception)
• Audio data of speech is the easiest to obtain
Sound Waves: is a travelling pressure fluctuation that
propagates through a medium. For example, air.
• The pressure fluctuation is caused by the pulling
apart and pushing together of air molecules
o The molecules can be compressed and pull
apart, which can lead to the formation of
sounds.
• Pressure fluctuations impinging on the eardrum produce the sound
• Pressure fluctuations are usually cyclic,
repetitive at regular intervals.
• A sound wave fluctuates with time, with
peaks of rarefaction and compression.
o For example, a line of people
waiting to buy tickets to a concert is a useful
analogy of a sound wave.
▪ The movement of the person at the
front of the line creates a gap, which
travels through the line
• Rarefraction: pulling apart
▪ Then the first person is shoved back
into the second person, creating more

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crowdedness. The crowdedness also travels through the line.

• Compression: pushing together
• Sound waves are based on two variables:
o Amplitude: the degree of variation in air pressure from neutral to higher/lower.
▪ Measured in hPa (hector-Pascal) or mb (millibar)
o Frequency: the speed with which the wave travels
Simple Periodic Waves:
• Waveform: of the pressure variation has the same shape as that of the movement of an
air molecule
o It is represented with time on the horizontal axis and amplitude on the vertical
axis.
o Pure tones will appear as sine waves, which are simple periodic waves.
▪ They are smooth and symmetrical s-shaped waves.

Amplitude and Intensity:

• Amplitude and intensity are physical properties of sound
waves that correlate with the psychological property of
loudness.
o The greater the amplitude of a sound wave, the
louder the sound.
o The greater the intensity of a sound wave, the
louder the sound.
• Intensity: is the power transmitted by the wave
o Measured in dB (decibels)
Frequency: is a physical property of
sounds waves that correlates with the
psychological property of pitch
• The greater the frequency, the
higher the pitch of the sound
• Frequency is measured in terms of
the number of cycles per second.
o Measured in Hertz (Hz)

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Calculating Frequency and Cycle Length:

Intensity and Frequency:

Some intensities:
• 0 dB = threshold of audibility
• 30 dB = whispered conversation
• 60 dB = normal conversation
• 110 dB = rock concert
• 120 dB = threshold of pain
Some frequencies:
• 20, 000 Hz = highest perceptible
• 265 Hz = average child’s speech
• 225 Hz = average woman’s speech
• 120 Hz = average man’s speech
• 20 Hz = lowest perceptible
Properties of Speech Sounds:
• Speech sounds are not simple sound waves. They are made up of complex waves and
noise.
• When we speak, the release of air passing from our lungs through the glottis causes a
complex wave.
Complex Repetitive Waves: is a combination of the two waves (100 Hz and 1000 Hz).
• At each point in time, the amplitude of the
two component waves is added to derive
the amplitude of the complex wave.
• Fourier analysis: is a mathematical
technique capable of analyzing all

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complex repetitive waves as combinations of simple sine waves.

o For example, the human ear

Harmonics: individual component waves of a complex waves

• Fundamental: is the harmonic with the lowest frequency.
o Its frequency is referred to as the fundamental frequency or F-Zero (F0)
• The frequency of the complex wave as a whole is the same as the frequency of the
fundamental.
• All harmonics above the fundamental have a frequency that is a whole multiple of the
fundamental
• The fundamental frequency, F0, or 1st harmonic, of the complex wave is 100 Hz.
• The frequency of the other harmonics are multiples of the fundamental:
o The second harmonic is 200 Hz
o The third harmonic is 300 Hz
o The fourth harmonic is 400 Hz

Spectrum: is a display that shows the

amplitude or intensity of each harmonic.

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• Shows the intensity of a complex wave at different frequencies.

• It can be drawn as a series of vertical lines or spikes, or smoothed out as a continuous
line.

Resonance: is the natural tendency of a body to vibrate at a certain frequency

• Glottal wave (glottal pulse): is the flow of air through the glottis as the vocal folds are
opening and closing
o This will appear on a spectrum as a series of
harmonics occurring at regular intervals (with each
harmonic being a multiple of a fundamental)
o The harmonics will gradually decrease in intensity
as they become higher in frequency
• When a glottal wave
passes through the vocal
tract, the particular shape
of the vocal tract causes
some harmonics to be
reinforced (made louder),
or other frequencies to be
filtered out (made quieter)
• By changing the shape of the vocal tract, the
resonating properties of the vocal tract can also
change

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• Formants: are the clusters of harmonics that are reinforced by the resonating properties
of the vocal tract
o The formants are the features that clearly differentiate many speech sounds

Noise:
• Periodic sounds: are sounds that can be characterized in
terms of a repeating waveform, such as the voiced sounds
produced by the vocal folds
• Aperiodic waves (noise): are waves that show random
fluctuations of amplitude or intensity
o Rather than being generated by repetitive
vibrations, these are due to random turbulence in
the airflow caused by an abrupt narrowing of the
vocal tract, such as during the production of a fricative
• Many sounds are combinations of periodic and aperiodic waves.
Spectrograms: is a display that is especially useful when examining speech sounds. There are 3
dimensions:
1. Time: plotted on the x-axis
2. Frequency: plotted on the y-axis
3. Intensity: darkness of the representation (greater intensity = darkness)

Spectrogram Types:
• Narrow-band: make it easy to distinguish individual harmonics

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• Wide-band: make it easy to see formants as well as individual cycles of waves (due to
fine temporal resolution)

How to read spectrograms:

• Every speech sound has a unique acoustic pattern that can be identified on a spectrogram
• The manner of articulation is a characteristic of speech sounds that is very easily
distinguished.
o Vowels: are characterized by a series of very dark stipes starting at low
frequencies.
▪ These dark stripes are the formants, the clusters of harmonics that are
reinforced by the resonating properties of the vocal tract
o Glides: are like rapidly articulated vowels
▪ They will look just like vowels and are often difficult to find where on a
spectrogram a vowel ends, and a glide starts, or vice versa
o Fricatives: are characterized by random noise
▪ Large areas of intensity, no formants
▪ Usually at high frequencies
▪ The sibilant fricatives (s, z, ʃ, ʒ) are much darker and easier to see than
other fricatives (f, v, etc)
▪ Light formants that match the formants of the following vowel are
indicative of the glottal fricative /h/.
o Stops: are characterized by a
period of silence, often
followed by a short burst of
energy
▪ A sharp vertical line
▪ Aspirated stops: will
be followed by a
longer period of
fricative-like noise
with light formants that
match the formants of
the following vowel.

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o Affricates: look like a stop

followed by a fricative
o Nasals & Liquid approximants:
weaker formant patterns than
vowels

Acoustics of Vowels:
• Spectra and spectrograms of different vowels are distinguished from one another on the
basis of formants
• The configuration of the vocal tract differs for each vowel leading to different formant
frequencies for each vowel

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• The lowest formants F1 and F2 give us the most information about distinguishing
vowels:
o F1: is determined by the resonating frequency of the back cavity.
▪ It is lower for high vowels (larger back cavity, lower resonating
frequency)
▪ It is higher for low vowels (smaller back cavity, higher resonating
frequency)
o F2: is determined by the resonating frequency of the front cavity.
▪ It is higher for front vowels (smaller front cavity, higher resonating
frequency)
▪ It is lower for back vowels (larger front cavity, lower resonating
frequency)
▪ F2 is even lower for rounded vowels because the front cavity is increased
by lip protrusion.

• Ina spectrogram, there are 3 formants:

o F1 is lower for high vowels and higher
for low vowels
o F2 is higher for front vowels and lower
for back vowels
o F3 is similar to F2 but higher

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Diphthongs: are vowels that involve a change in vowel quality during their articulation
• They can be recognized on spectrograms due to their change in their formants
• /aj/: begins with a relatively high F1 on account of the initial low vowel articulation and a
relatively low F2 on account of it being a central vowel
o Then the formants move to the low F1 and high F2 of the high front vowel /i/
• /aw/: being similarily as it also begins with a low vowel articulation. The formants then
change with F1 lowering in accordance with the vowel heigher of the /u/ portion of the
diphthong and F2 lowering as well on account of the /u/ being farther back in articulation
than the central /a/.
• /ɔj/: beings with the two formants relatively low and close together and then they spread
apart into the typical low F1 and high F2 of the high front vowel articulation.

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LINB09 – Lecture 8
Vowels of the World’s Languages
Recap:
Sound waves: are the result of a pressure fluctuation caused by the pulling apart and pushing
together of air molecules. This has a specific amplitude and frequency.
• Amplitude: the degree of variation in air pressure from neutral to higher/lower
o Felt as loudness. The higher the amplitude, the louder an object will be.
• Frequency: the speed with which the wave travels.
o Felt as pitch. The faster the frequency, the greater the pitch
Calculating Frequency:
• Frequency is measured in terms of the number of cycles per second, measured in Hertz
(Hz).

Speech Sounds:
• Speech sounds are made up of complex waves and noise.
o Complex waves: are formed when air is released when speaking, which passes
from the lungs through the glottis.
o Fundamental frequency (Fo): is the frequency of a complex wave
o Fourier analysis: can break down the complex wave into many simple waves.
Each simple wave has a frequency that is a whole multiple of the fundamental.
▪ Harmonic: is each simple wave that has a complex wave; waves at certain
frequencies.

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Harmonics:
• Harmonics decrease in amplitude and intensity when they become higher in frequency
• When a complex wave travels through the vocal tract, the shape of the vocal tract can
cause some harmonics to either be reinforced (made louder) or filtered out (made
quieter)

• Formants: are groups of harmonics that are louder than surrounding harmonics.
• Spectrum: shows the intensity of a complex wave at different frequencies.
o It can be draw as a series of vertical lines or spikes, or a continuous line

Spectrogram: is a representation of speech sounds which

can show the time on the y-axis, frequency of the x-axis,
and the intensity by the representation of darkness.
Formants:
• The two lowest formants give us information about
how to distinguish vowels from one another.
• F1: is lower for high vowels and higher for low
vowels
• F2: are higher for front vowels and lower for back vowels

Vowel Articulation:
• Vowels are described in terms of height, backness,
and rounding.
• Vowels found in English are specified in the chart
on the right. However, there isn’t a one to one
correspondence when compared to the IPA chart.
• The IPA has a different way of organizing the symbols for English.
• The IPA also has a full diagram for all the symbols used to describe vowels in all
languages.

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Articulatory and Acoustic Properties of Vowels:

• Articulatory description of vowels use the parameters of height, backness, and
rounding.
o These correlate with the highest point of the tongue in the mouth. However, they
are based on the intuitions of traditional phoneticians who didn’t have access to
technologies, such as x-ray technology or other methods to determine the
placement of the tongue.
▪ MRI imagery
▪ Ultrasound imagery
• Acoustic descriptions of vowels ae based on the frequencies of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
formants
• The diagram below shows the highest
point of the tongue in the mouth for GA
vowels.
o The position of the vowels does
not resemble the traditional
vowel descriptions.
o For example, head (ɛ) and who’d
(u), the vowels are actually apart
from one another but in this
diagram, they are quite near one
another.
• If the acoustic properties were
determined and plotted on a chart, in comparison, it matches the traditional descriptions
better than articulatory properties of vowels.
o F2 is on the horizontal axis from right to left
▪ Lowest F2 is closest to the right edge
o F1 is on the vertical axis from top to bottom

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Cardinal Vowels: was designed to provide reference points in the description of vowels
• Vowels in specific languages can be
described by referencing to cardinal
vowels.
• While having the vowels at the extreme
corners, there is a vertical line that divides
the quadrilateral through the center, as well
as two horizonal lines equidistant from one
another.
• Each of the horizontal lines have cardinal
vowels at the front and back extreme
• Schwa is at the very center of the vowel space
• Average frequencies of F1 and F2 for cardinal vowels (in Hz)

• Cardinal vowels can be grouped into primary and secondary sets of vowels
o Primary vowels are more common than secondary vowels
o Primary front vowels are all unrounded, while most primary back vowels are
rounded

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• Lip rounding for back vowels is made by protruding the lips.

• Lip rounding for front vowels is made by narrowing the lips,
without pushing them forward
o In the diagram, the Swedish high front vowel [y] has
lip protrusion, while high central rounded [ ] has lip
compression
• Adding lip rounding to front vowels lowers both formants,
but especially F2
• Since a high F2 is a characteristic of front vowels, the effect of rounding gives the
impression that the high front rounded vowel [y] is between [i] and [u].
Vowel Systems:
• Vowel systems of a language are generally transcribed by using the cardinal vowel
symbol that is closest to each vowel in a language.

• Even when the vowel systems of languages are the same, their articulation may be a little
bit different.

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Additional Vowel Symbols:

• When languages are being compared in additional precision is needed, diacritics can be
placed under the vowel symbol to show that the vowel is more front, more back, higher
or lower than the cardinal symbol being used.
o + = front
o - = back
o T = lower
o Upside down T = higher
• Additional symbols are needed for some languages if necessary.
o If a language has 5 unrounded front vowels, there isn’t enough cardinal vowel
symbols to represent every
vowel
• For vowel systems with large vowel
inventories, more symbols are used
Vowel Systems:
• Language specific transcriptions traditions are also different than the cardinal vowel
usage.
o This is because it was harder to type on a type writer. Thus, it is easier to type a
vowel that is more readily found.
o In phonology, using a specific symbol might make sense from the perspective of
how vowels patterns are in the language
Additional Vowel Qualities:
Nasalization:
• Nasal vowels are produced with a lowered velum and
air passing through the mouth and nose
o English vowels are allophonically nasalized
when they are adjacent to nasal consonants
• Some languages use nasalization of vowels
contrastively
• Nasalization is represented with a tilde (~) on top of the symbol.
o For example,

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Expansion:
• Some languages have a contrast between vowels with an expanded pharynx and vowels
with a non-expanded pharynx.
o For the expanded pharynx, the tongue root is pulled forward and the larynx is
lowered
o For the non-expanded pharynx, the tongue root is back and the larynx is not
lowered.
• The body of the tongue is at the same
position, it just depends on how front or
back the tongue is.
• Solid line shows the x-tray tracing for an
expanded pharynx
• Dashes line shows the x-tray tracing for
a non-expanded pharynx
• Expanded vowels have a lowered F1 because of the greater size of the pharyngeal cavity.

• Advanced tongue
root (ATR): for
the expanded vowels
o Diacritic is a T facing the left side
• Retracted tongue root (RTR): for non-expanded vowels
o Diacritic is a T facing the right side

Tense - Lax:
• This distinction is used to describe phonological classes of English vowels. However,
phonetically, there is no articulatory or acoustic trait that can distinbguish tense from lax
vowels
• Sometimes the terms and symbols are used interchangeably, but the tense-lax distinction
isn’t the same as ATR and RTR.

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o Some languages that have ATR

distinctions will use [i u e o] to
represent advanced tongue root
vowels and [ ɪ ɛ ɔ ] to represent
vowels with a retracted tongue
root.
• Usually, a larger pharyngeal cavity
doesn’t occur when English laʉ vowels
are articulated.
o Dark line showing the tense
vowel
o Dash line showing the lax vowel
o The body of the tongue is lower
for the lax vowel than the high
vowel.

Rhoticization:
• Vowels are rhotacized when the tip of the
tongue is curled back or by retracting the
tongue tip into the body of the tongue
• Rhoticized vowels have a hollowing of the
tongue body, which means the tongue looks
like a bowl shape.
• It causes the F3 to drop, which may also
cause the F2 to drop.
• Schwar looks like this on a diagram:
o There is no change in the production of the vowel

• Schwar is the only rhotacized vowel in English.

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• Badaga (Dravidian) has a rhotacized vowel, which is plain and half-rhoticized while also
being fully rhotacized.

Length:
• Has different positions in different languages for short and long vowels.
Glides: are non-syllabic counterparts of vowels

• Any vowel symbol can be made to represent a glide by using a subscript arch [ ̯]
• However, the high vowels all have special glide symbols:

• French has three glides:

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LINB09 – Lecture 9
Consonants of the World:
Review:
• Consonants can be described in three major characteristics:
o Place of articulation: where in the vocal tract and with what articulators is the
airstream constricted?
o Manner of articulation: how is the airstream constricted in the oral or nasal
cavity?
o Voicing: is it voiced or voiceless?
• The consonant sounds used in English are only a few of the consonants that are found in
the world.

Place of Articulation: where in the vocal tract and with what articulators is the airstream
constricted?
• Labial: made with one or both
lips
• Coronal: made with the tip or
the blade of the tongue
• Dorsal: made with the front or
back of the tongue

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Labial:
• Bilabial: are sounds made when there is a constriction between the two
lips.
o In Ewe,bilabial fricatives and labiodental fricatives are
contrastive
o / β/

• Labiodental: are fricatives that can appear allophonically in English when an

/m/ comes before an /f/ or /v/.
o These fricatives are common crosslingusitically.
• Linguolabial: are sounds that are made when the tip or blade of the tongue
touches the upper lip.
o These sounds are rare to hear but easy to produce

o They are represented by the diacritic [ ̼ ]

o The sounds sɹown are from tɹe lanɸuaɸe V’enen
Taut

Coronals:
• Dental:
o Interdental fricatives:
▪ Dental sounds are represented with the diacritic [ ̪ ]
▪ Sometimes it is necessary to distinguish interdental fricatives [ θ ð
] from dental fricatives [ s̪ z̪ ]
o Voiced and voiceless stops are also common at the dental place of
articulation
o Most languages will have either dental or alveolar articulation for coronal
stops

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• Alveolar: are sounds made when the tip of the tongue or blade forms a
constriction with the alveolar ridge
o /t d n s z l/
o Some languages contrast dental and alveolar places of articulation
for stops.
▪ In this case, one place of articulation is usually laminal,
while the other is apical (made with the tip of the
tongue)
• Postalveolar: are made with the construction between the blade of the
tongue and the bordering area on the alveolar ridge and palate.
o The postal fricatives /ʃ, / and affricates /ʧ, ʤ/ are common cross-
linguistically
• Alveolar vs. Postalveolar:
o Evidence from X-rays show that alveolar and postalveolar fricatives
can be produced with many tongue shapes. Thus, a clear articulatory definition
cannot be given.
o When /s z/ are produced, the airstream must hit the upper teeth, while the
airstream produced when making /ʃ / must hit the lower teeth.
• Retroflex: are sounds that are produced when the tongue is curled back and creates a
constriction between the tongue top and the area on the alveolar ridge and the hard palate.
o These consonants can acoustically lower F3 adjacent vowels
o Depending on the language, the body of the
tongue can be different according to X-ray
imagery.
▪ Also the amount of curling back of the
tongue can also vary
• Alveolo-palatal: are sounds that are produced when
the tongue tip is behind the lower teeth and the blade of the tongue forms a constriction
with the back part of the alveolar ridge.
o For postalveolars, the body of the tongue is the same but the position of the tip of
the tongue is different.

o Alveolo-palatal fricative symbols are /ɕ, /

o Polish has a contrast between alveolar, alveolo-palatal and retroflex fricatives.

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Dorsals:
• Palatal: are sounds produced with a constriction between the front of the
tongue and the hard palate.
o In English, the only palatal sound is the glide /j/.
o The palatal nasal and voiceless fricative occur allophonically
• Dorsal: the textbook uses this to refer to sounds made with the front,
back, or root of the tongue. It is usually used to refer to sounds made with the back of the
tongue.
o Palatals are made with the front of the tongue and can pattern with coronals in
some language, but with dorsals in others.
• Palatal:
o Palatal nasals: occur in French, Spanish and other languages
▪ Spanish = (e.g. señor [seɲoɾ] ‘sir’)
o Voiced and voiceless palatal stops are present in Twi.

o German has a voiceless palatal fricative that contrasts with the postalveolar
fricative

• Dorsal:
o Dorso-velar: are made when the dorsum (back of the tongue)
touches the velum.
▪ Voiced, voiceless, and nasal velar stops are found in
English
▪ Voiced and voiceless velar fricatives are found in some
languages.
o Dorso-uvular: when the dorsum of the tongue touches the uvula.

Other places of Articulation:

• Pharyngeal: when there is constriction between the root of the tongue
and the pharyngeal wall.
o The root of the tongue moves back towards the pharynx.
o It is hard to produce a complete closure of this place of articulation
o Fricatives are found cross-linguistically
o Voiced and voiceless pharyngeal fricatives are found in Arabic
• Glottal: are sounds that are made with holding the vocal folds to create a complete
obstruction of airflow at the vocal folds.
o /h/ and /ɦ/ are other glottal consonants.

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▪ /h/ functions as a consonant phonologically but is described phonetically

as a voiceless vowel
▪ / / is a breathy voiced vowel
Some Place Contrasts:
• Malayalam has contrasts between labial, dental, alveolar, retroflex, palatal, and velar
places of articulation.

Double Articulations and Secondary Articulation:

• Double Articulations: consists of two articulations of the same manner that occur
simultaneously at two different places of articulation
o For example,

• Secondary articulations: have less constrictions

o These can be thought of adding a vowel quality to a consonant.
▪ Lanɸuaɸe don’t usually ɹave velarization and pɹarynɸealization.
▪ The same diacritic is used to represent both [ l̴ ]

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Manner of Articulation: consonant segments are based on the degree of stricture

• Vowels: have stricture no greater than that used in the production of the high front vowel
[i]
• Consonants: have a more significant constriction and can be divided into categories
based on their stricture:
o Stops: have a complete closure
o Fricatives: have a narrow enough stricture that friction is caused when air passes
through the oral cavity.
o Approximants: have little obstruction and no friction
Acoustics of Stops:
• During stops, there is a complete closure of the vocal tract so no air passes through.
o On a spectrogram, they are shown as a gap with no sound
o To determine the place of articulation of stops, the formant transitions of the
surrounding vowels are viewed.
▪ Labial consonants: lower F2 of surrounding vowels
▪ Alveolar consonants: have relatively level formants in the vowel
transitions
▪ Velar consonants: raise F2 and lower F3
• Brings F2 ad F3 together, which is called velar pinch

• Voiceless stops can be distinguished from voiced stops.

o Voiced stops have a low frequency voice bar
o However, this can be faint
• Aspirated voiceless stops end in a burst of high frequency noise

Acoustics of Fricatives:

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• Fricatives are usually the easiest to see on a spectrogram because of the random noise
pattern in high frequencies.
• Sibilants /s, z, ʃ, / have great intensity
• The alveolars /s/ and /z/ have random noise patterns visible in the 4000 to 8000 Hz range.
• The postalveolars have lower frequencies in the 2000 to 6000 Hz range

• Labiodentals and dental fricatives are weaker and have a lower intensity than sibilants.

• /h/ is described as a voiceless fricative.

o Acoustically, /h/ is closer to what a vowel would be than what a fricative would
be
▪ A voiceless vowel
o It has weak formant patterns that are associated with the following vowel
properties and formants
o It has weak random noise patterns like fricatives

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Affricates: consist of a stop followed by a homorganic fricative.

• /t g/ are affricates before high, front vowels in Quebec French

• German has the affricate /pf/

• Affricates are seen as a stop portion that is seen as a gap, and a fricative portion that is
seen as high frequency random noise.

Nasals: are made with a complete closure in the oral cavity, however the velum is lowered so air
can pass through.
• In English, there are labial, alveolar and velar nasal stops.
• Prenasalized stops: a short homorganic nasal preceding a stop. The stop closure is made
in the oral cavity, the soft palate is lowered for the articulation of the nasal, and then the
soft palate is raised to form a stop.
o For example,

• Nasals are voiced but have weak formant patterns with some
energy around 500 Hz and some visible energy at 2500 – 3000
Hz

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• Places of articulation of nasals are

most apparent in transitions from
neighbouring vowels.
o The arrows on the
spectrogram indicate the
oral closures that form the
nasal consonants
Approximants: have little obstruction and no friction
• Glide: is an approximant that corresponds to a vowel sound
o Palatal [j] corresponds to high front unrounded vowel articulations
o Labial-velar [w] corresponds to high back rounded vowel articulations
o Labial-palatal [ ] corresponds to high front rounded vowel articulations
o Velar [ɰ] corresponds to high back unrounded vowel articulations
• There are also other additions:

Laterals: are sounds made with air passing around one or both sides of the tongue.
• Lateral approximants:

• Lateral fricatives:

Liquids: any lateral approximant or rhotic

Rhotic: refers to any r-like sound
• This includes taps, trills, as well as alveolar, retroflex, and uvular approximants
• This is an idiosyncratic, non-phonemic category
o Not all rhotics are approximants
o Not all approximants are rhotics
• Some rhotics are:

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Acoustics of Liquids:
• / / has a lowering effect on the F2 and F3 of surrounding vowels
• /l/ has weak formant patterns.
o Light [l] has the formant patterns of a high front vowel [i]
o Dark [ɫ] has the formant patterns of a high back vowel [u], with a low F2

Trills: is a manner of articulation in which one articulator vibrates against another in a rapid
series of closures and releases.

• Czech has an alveolar fricative trill [r̝]which sounds like the production of [ʒ] and [r]
together.
o The alveolar trill symbol is combined with the raised diacritic to produce the
alveolar fricative trill.

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Tap: is a manner of articulation in which a lower articulator touches an upper articulator in a

quick closure and release.
• ɥɹe speaker doesn’t control tɹe movement of tɹe articulator after tɹe sound is initiated.
o [ɾ] is a voiced apical tap
Flap: is an articulation in which the articulator begins in one position, touch the place of
articulation in passing and ends in a different position.

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LINB09 – Lecture 10
Review:
x ͡t ɛ j (Joanna’s last name)
x = velar fricative
= mid back rounded vowel
͡t = voiceless fricative alveolopalatal

ɛ = front mid-low unrounded vowel

j = palatal central approximant
IPA Chart:
• White spaces are sounds that are uncommon
• Grey spaces are sounds that cannot be produced

• The vowel chart for each speaker will

be different, even if they are from the
same area.

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Consonant and Vowel Systems of the World’s Languages:

Illustrations of the IPA: profiles of a specific studied language (explains the consonants/vowels
and any important findings.)
Every language is different, but there are going to be similarities
Some languages have a complex vowel system, while others have a simpler one
• French:
o ʁ is not found in English
▪ It is a voiced uvular
fricative
o j can be found after a
fricative, which is not found
in English
▪ sjɛ̃  ‘his, hers’
o There are 3 nasalized vowels
(contrastive nasalization)
▪ ɑ̃ ̃ ɛ̃
o Almost all the primary cardinal vowels occur in French

• Mandarin (Beijing Dialect):

o /p/ vs. /ph/
o Aspirated stops
o There are a lot of diphthongs, compared to English
o Triphthongs occur in Mandarin
o There are not a lot of monophthongs

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• Cantonese (Hong Kong):

o Labialization (rounding)
on /k/
o There are a lot of
monophthongs
o Some vowels can be in
closed syllables

• Spanish (Castillian):

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• Tamil:

• Hindi:

• Arabic:

• Japanese:

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• Russian:

• German:

• Korean:

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• Farsi:

• Italian:

• Bengali:

• Amharic:

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Phonation - States of the Glottis:

• There are various types of cartilage that are attached
to the vocal cords.

There are 6 main states of the glottis:

o Glottal stop [ʔ]:
▪ The vocal folds are pulled close together so
that no air can pass through
▪ It isn’t phonemic in ɕnglish, although it can
occur allophonically in some dialects as well
as occurs in exclamation words. For example,
• uh-oh [ʔʌʔow]
• d’oh [dowʔ]
• button [bʌʔn]
o Modal Voice: the vocal folds are vibrating. This can
cause the vocal folds to repeatedly come together and
then open, which allows air to pass through in small
bursts.
▪ Some voiced sounds in English are: [b, d, g, z,
v, ð, ʒ, ʤ, l, m, n, w, ej]
o Voiceless: the vocal folds are partially open and can
allow the air to pass through without any vibration.
▪ A lot of languages have voiced and voiceless
obstruents, which are stops, fricatives, and
affricates.
▪ Most sounds that are voiceless have symbols.
• [p, t, k, s, f, θ, ʃ, ʧ, h]
• Yet, there are some sounds that need
a diacritic [ ̥] to show voicelessness.

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o It is usually placed below the symbol, but can also be

placed above when there is already a symbol at the bottom.
▪ Voiceless Nasals in Burmese:

o Whisper: it is a non-linguistic sound

▪ There is constriction in the glottis, but there is an
opening between the arytenoid cartilages, while the
vocal folds are tightly closed
▪ Only voiced sounds can be whispered
o Breathy voice: are sounds that are murmured.
For example, the glottal fricative.
▪ There is a vibration, but there is also
breathiness
▪ The vocal folds are positioned to be
farther apart than in modal voicing; the
vocal folds do not close when vibrating.
▪ Another way is for the vocal folds to be slackly close together and the
arytenoid cartilages are pulled apart to allow air to pass through
▪ Laryngitis results in a breathy voice
▪ In English, there is a breathy version of /h/, which is [ɦ].

▪ The diacritic for breathy voice is [ ̤]

▪ In a breathy voiced stop, the vocal folds have a breathy voiced position
after the release of a stop, while the stop has regular voicing.
• They can be represented as aspirated voiced stops
▪ Breathy voiced stops in Hindi:

o Creaky voice: is between glottal stop and modal voicing.

▪ It can be known as vocal fry or laryngealization.
▪ The arytenoids are tightly closed, with only a small
portion of the vocal folds vibrating.

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▪ The voiced sounds have a low pitched

vibration
▪ These sounds don’t occur distinctively
in English, but some speakers use it at
the end of a sentence
▪ The diacritic used is a tilde [~]
Phonation – Voice Onset Time (VOT):
• Voicing and aspiration can be described in terms of VOT, which is the amount of time
from the release of the stop until voicing begins
o A negative VOT indicates that voicing has begun before the closure is released
• In some languages, obstruents can be classified in two sets of voicing, but in other
languages there is a three-way contrast. For example, Thai has a three-way contrast
between voiced, voiceless and aspirated stops

• Voicing contrast can be different for languages, can be classified in terms of VOT.
o In English, stops that are voiced are partially voiced, while stops that are voiceless
are aspirated and have a positive VOT
o In Spanish, voiced stops are fully voiced and voiceless stops are unaspirated (have
a low VOT)
• In English, voiceless aspirated
stops occur at the beginning of a
word, while voiceless aspirated
stops occur after /s/.
• VOT can be
determined from a
spectrogram:

• VOT has voicing on

a continuum instead of binary distinction.

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LINB09 – Lecture 11
Review:
The vocal folds can be positioned in different ways to produce various sounds.
• A: the vocal folds are tightly closed, which represents a glottal stop /ʔ/
• B: the vocal folds are loosely closed, which represents a trill (modal voicing)
• C: the vocal folds are tightly closed but the cartilages is spread, so air can spread in
between. This represents a whisper.
• D: the vocal folds are open a little bit, which represents a breathy voice.
• E: the vocal folds are more open than D, which represents
• F: the vocal folds are more open than E, which represents

When the vocal folds are starched out, a higher pitch occurs.
Voice Onset Time:
• Negative onset time shows that the vocal folds are vibrating before the release of the stop
• Positive onset time shows that the vocal folds are vibrating after the release of the stop

Airstream Mechanisms:
• All articulations depend on manipulating a flow of air across the articulators in the vocal
tract
• The air flow occurs due to a difference in the air pressures of the body and outside of the
body.
• Air flows from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure
• When speaking, air is taken in to the body and the size of the space it is contained in is
changed.
o Ingressive airstream: if the space
expands, then the air pressure decreases,
and the air will flow inwards
▪ Air goes inside
o Exgressive airstream: if the space in the
lungs is small and contracts, then the air
pressure in the body will increase and the
air will go out.
▪ Air going out
• Pulmonic: sounds made with the lungs (contracting, etc)
o Pulmonic egressive sounds are used in all languages

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o Pulmonic ingressive sounds are rarely used

• Glottalic: the glottis can be raised or lowered
o Glottalic egressive sounds are made, which are
called ejectives.
o Glottalic ingressive sounds are made, which are
implosives
• Velaric: made with air trapped in front of the
dorsovelar closure
o Ingressive click sounds are made

Pulmonic Egressive:
• Most sounds are made with the pulmonic egressive airstream
mechanism, which forces air out of the body due to the contraction of the
lungs
Pulmonic Ingressive:
• Air is taken into the body by expanding the lungs. For example, when
you’re breathless but still trying to talk
• They are rarely used in speech.
o Used in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Sweden for the word
“yes”
• An example of a pulmonic egressive in Lakhota is:

Glottalic Egressive:

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• In these sounds, the vocal folds are closed while the larynx is raised. This
forces air to flow out of the supralaryngeal vocal tract.
• These sounds are transcribed with a voiceless symbol followed by an
apostrophe [ʼ]
• Ejectives: glottalic egressive sounds are called ejectives.

• In Lakhota, an example of a glottal egressive is:

• Examples of ejectives in English are in the word “think” and “back”

o They use velar ejectives for ‘k’ when before a pause
Examples of Ejectives:

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Glottalic Ingressive:
• These sounds are made when the glottis is closed and then the
larynx is lowered before the glottal closure is released
o Pure glottalic ingressive sounds are rare in speech
Implosives:
• Implosives are similar to glottalic ingressive sounds. For
implosives, the larynx is also moved down which causes the vocal
folds to vibrate. However, air doesn’t rush into the vocal tract.
• Implosives are transcribed with symbols that are similar to the
pulmonic egressive voiced stops, but with a diacritic that is a
rightward-pointing hook.
• Examples in Sindhi are:

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Velaric Ingressive:
• These sounds are produced by making a dorsovelar closure and another
closure (labial or coronal) in front of it.
• The enclosed area expands, which lowers the air pressure
• When the front closure (labial or coronal) is released, the air flows in
• Velar ingressive sounds are known as clicks.

• The symbols for clicks are according to the place of articulation of

the front closure
o These symbols can be used with the symbols for velar
sounds to indicate voicing and the nasality of the sound
• Some languages like Nama/Khoeko use clicks a lot:

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Airstream Processes:

Suprasegmentals: above/independent of the segment

1. Stress: a stressed syllable is one that is more prominent than the surrounding syllables
o In phonetics, stress shows greater loudness, greater length, and higher pitch
o In many languages, stress is predictable. For example, in French

o In other languages, stress is unpredictable. For example, in

Russian.
▪ This causes contrasts to occur between lexical items

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2. Pitch: the pitch of a sound is affected by a lot of factors:

o The length of the vocal cords (for example, the size of the larynx)
▪ Children = ~265Hz
▪ Women= ~225Hz
▪ Men: ~120Hz
o The tension of the vocal cords (how stretched out they are)

3. Length:
o Syllable at the end of an utterance are usually naturally longer than the syllables
in the middle of an utterance.
o Languages can contrast vowel length as well as consonant length.
▪ Long consonants are known as geminate consonants
4. Tone & Intonation:
o Changes in the fundamental frequency of speech sounds can be seen as changes in
pitch
o Pitch is also known as tone, especially when pitch is used as an independent
property of segments or syllables
o Tone languages around the world:

o In languages that have tone, lexical items can be distinguished just on the basis of
their tone or pitch.

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▪ For example, Mandarin has 4 different tones and Cantonese has 6 different
tones:

• In these tone languages, the tones have a specific shape at a specific pitch level.
o This is called contour tones
• Register tones: are always level.
o Register tone languages usually only distinguish two or three different tone levels
o For example, in Margi

• Gliding tones:
o Some tone languages use contour tones so that the pitch on one syllable is raising
or falling, but this is usually phonetically analyzed as two register tones that are
associated with one syllable.
o This, it is called gliding tones
o For example, Ibibio tones
• Diacritics:
o Register tone languages – diacritics:
o Contour tone languages:
▪ Pitch movement is represented on a 5-point scale (1=lowest and
5=highest).
▪ This is due to the tone letters, which have a vertical reference line on the
right which is preceded by a line indicating pitch.

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Other uses of Pitch:

• Pitch can also be used in languages to distinguish between words, however these differ
from tone languages:
o In tone languages, each syllable has its own independent tone
o In other languages, there is an overall tonal pattern for words, which is different
than word-stress
Pitch Accent:
• Japanese is a pitch accent with the following pattern:
o The accented (stressed) syllable has a high pitch
o All syllables after the accented syllable have low pitch
o Unless it is accented, the first syllable has low pitch
o Not all words have a pitch accent.
▪ It can be realized as low pitch, followed by a consecutive high pitch

Pitch Accent/Tone in Swedish:

• In some Swedish dialects, some words are distinguished between their pitch patterns.

o These pitch differences are separate from the stress patterns

Intonation:

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• Intonantion patterns in languages are not related to differences in word meaning.

• Instead, they show syntactic/semantic properties of the sentence
o This is because they indicate differences between questions and statements
o Also to indicate completedness
• Different languages/dialects may use different intonation patterns for different purposes

Acoustics of Stress:
• Loudness can be manipulated by increasing the amount of air being pushed out of the
lungs.
o This can also be accompanied with an increase in pitch
• English uses the properties of loudness, length, and pitch to indicate stress.

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LINB09 – Lecture 12
Review:
Airstream Mechanisms:
• Pulmonic egressive: Lung air pushed out
under the control of the respiratory muscles
• Glottalic egressive: the pharynx air is
compressed by the upward movement of the
closed glottis
• Glottalic ingressive: the downward movement
of the vibrating glottis
o Pulmonic egressive airstream may also
be involved
• Velaric ingressive: the mouth air is rarified by
the backward and downward movement of the
tongue
o Manipulated by a closure at the velum
o Clicks can be made with nasals
Suprasegmentals:
• Stress can manifest through pitch, length, and loudness
• The purpose of stress in language is:
o For semantic reasons (differences in meaning)
o For emphasis
o For stress, there are two types of languages:
▪ One type is where stress places an important role on distinguishing words
from one another
▪ Another type is the regular stress in a language
• For example, French always has stress on the last syllable
• For different languages, pitch changes:
o As an indication of stress
o As tone – which carries lexical or grammatical meaning in tone languages
o As intonation, which is meaningful for conversation
• Pitch is also dependent on the vocal folds
o When the vocal folds are stretched, the pitch is high
o The looser the vocal folds, the pitch will be low

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Interaction of Tone and Intonation:

• In this article, they’re looking at pitch
differences when stating words vs.
statements.
o Pitch rises in questions when
compared to words
• Another article studied the perception of
tone and intonation in Cantonese.
• The last study looks at the perceptual effect of lexical tones on the identity of intonation.

Exam Review:
• Vocal anatomy
• IPA symbols:
o Consonants
o Vowels
o Diacritics
o English allophonic processes
• English accents
• Instrumental methods
• Acoustics:
o Spectra
o Spectrograms
▪ Noise, formants, amplitude, pitch, length
• Phonation
• Air-stream mechanisms
• Suprasegmentals
Final Exam Review:
• The exam is cumulative
o ¼ of the exam will cover topics from before the midterm
• Questions on the exam will be based on:
o Anatomy and mechanics of sound articulation
o Narrow transcription of English
o Dialect features
o Instrumental methods (palatography)
• Questions can also be based on non-English sounds in:
o Anatomy
o Mechanics of sounds articulation
o Instrumental imagery
To study:

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1. Acoustics phonetics (1/4 of final exam):

o Interpret waves, spectra, and spectrograms
o Know the differences between these types of representations
o Understand the relationship between articulatory and acoustics events

o Have the ability to interpret spectrograms:

▪ Forman patterns of vowels (monophthongs and diphthongs)
▪ Lower-intensity energy profiles of sonorant consonants
▪ Noise generated by fricatives
▪ Periods of silence followed by bursts of stops (aspiration)
▪ Formant transitions induced by consonants with different places of
articulation
▪ Voicing of voiced obstruents
▪ Lowering of F3 caused by [ɹ]
▪ Weak formant patterns of [h]
▪ The effect of stress on duration, intensity, and F0
2. Consonants of the world’s languages: (1/4 of the exam)
o Know all the places and manners of articulation
o Recognize and write IPA symbols and diacritics used to represent different
sounds
3. Vowels of the world’s languages:
o Know the cardinal vowel system
▪ On the exam, assume that a vowel symbol is based on the Cardinal vowel
system, unless the question specifically asks about English.
▪ For example, the symbol [^] should be described as low-mid back
unrounded if the question doesn’t mention English (not mid central
unrounded)
o Recognize and write IPA symbols and diacritics used to represent different vowel
sounds
4. Phonation: (1/4 of the exam)
o Understand the recognize the vocal fold configurations responsible for whisper,
breathy voiced, creaky voiced, voiceless, modal voice, and glottal stop
o Know the concept of VOT and how voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops have
different VOT in different languages
5. Airstream mechanisms:
o Know the different ways airflow can be created:
▪ Pulmonic egressive

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▪ Glottalic egressive (ejectives)

▪ Glottalic ingressive (implosive)
▪ Velaric ingressive (clicks)
6. Suprasegmentals:
o Know the concept of stress, and the three ways stress can be realized phonetically
▪ Loudness
▪ Pitch
▪ Stress
o English uses all three characteristics, and spectrograms will have all of these
characteristics
o Know the mechanisms between pitch differences and how these are used
linguistically
• Recognize and write the IPA symbols and diacritics used to represent sounds made with
various phonation types, airstream mechanisms, and tones

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LINB09 – Chapter 1 Notes

Acoustics: is the scientific study of sounds in general.
Phonetics: is the scientific study of sounds used in language.
• Concerned with the sounds in speech, how the sounds are produced, how the sounds are
transferred from speaker to hearer as sound wave, how the sounds are heard and
perceived.
Linguistics: is the study of language as a whole.
Branches of Phonetics: there are 3 types of phonetics:
1. Articulatory Phonetics: deals with production of sounds.
• The vocal organs (parts of our body) involved with speech production are: the
lungs, the windpipe, the vocal folds, the throat, the mouth, and the nose.
• To make different sounds, the shape of the vocal organs must be changed.
2. Acoustic Phonetics: studies the vibrations in speech sounds.
• Various instruments can observe and measure aspects of sound.
3. Auditory Phonetics: studies how sounds are heard and perceived.
Articulatory Phonetics:
• To start the process of speech production, the
lungs push the air upwards.
• The vocal folds, which are located in the
larynx behind the Adam’s apple may vibrate,
causing the air flowing between them to
vibrate as well.
• The vibrating airstream is modified
according to the shape of the vocal tract,
which includes the throat, mouth, and nasal
cavity.
• When the tongue or lips move, various
modifications are made on the vibrating air
stream, which causes various sounds.
Vocal Organs:
• Lungs: are cone-shaped structures in the chest which are composed of spongy, elastic
material.
o Consists of alveoli, small air sacs in which oxygen from the fresh air is exchanged
for carbon dioxide in the blood.
o Inhalation: when the lungs expand due to air.
o Exhalation: when air is compressed
• Trachea:

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o Bronchi: composed of the small tubes of the lungs that merge with one another to
form two large tubes.
▪ One bronchus comes from the left lung and the other from the right.
o Trachea: the two bronchi merge into one vertical straight tube called the trachea.
o The top of the trachea is just behind the notch at the top of the breastbone.
o The bronchi and trachea function as tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs.
• Larynx: is a structure composed of many cartilages which are held together by ligaments
and other supporting muscles. It is cylindrical in shape and is on top of the trachea.
o Adam’s apple: is the front part of the larynx that sticks out
o Vocal folds: are two horizontal lines of ligament and muscle which are across the
air passage.
▪ They open and close, which allows air to come in and out from the lungs.
▪ They are inside the larynx, right behind the Adam’s apple.
▪ Glottis: the opening between the vocal folds.
• Glottal: is used to describe the vocal fold’s activity
o Laryngeal: used to describe the activity of the larynx.
• Subglottal: is the area below the vocal folds.
• Supralaryngeal: is the area above the larynx.
▪ Glottal stop: When air cannot enter or leave the lungs since the vocal
folds are closed. This can be done by holding your breath with your mouth
open, which closes the vocal folds.
• Voiceless: is when the vocal folds are separated. For example, /h/.
• Voiced: when the vocal folds vibrate; the vocal folds are close
enough so that the air which passes through causes them to vibrate
by opening and close quickly. For example, /z/
• Pharynx: is the tube that comes from the larynx. It connects the larynx with the oral and
nasal cavities.
o Pharyngeal wall: is the back of the
throat.
o The pharynx can be divided into 3
areas:
▪ Oral Pharynx: the back of
the mouth
▪ Nasal Pharynx: leading into
the nasal cavity
▪ Laryngeal Pharynx: above
the vocal folds
▪ Esophagus: is a tube that
leads to the stomach. It is
behind the trachea.
• Oral Cavity: when the shape of the mouth is altered, many different sounds can be
produced.

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o Articulators: the different areas of the oral cavity. The lower articulators move
with the upper articulators to make an obstruction in the air pathway.
▪ Upper articulators: are composed of the upper lip, upper teeth, the upper
surface of the mouth, and the pharyngeal wall.
▪ Lower articulators: are the lower lip, lower teeth, and the tongue.
o Sagittal section: this is the type of image that shows the inside of the head as if it
were split from the middle from the front to the back.
o Lips: are the outermost articulators.
▪ Bilabial: when the lips articulate with
one another, bilabial sounds are
produced. For example, [p] in pea and
[b] in bee
▪ Labiodental: when the lower lip
articulates with the upper teeth to create
such sounds. For example, [f] in fee and
[v] in vow
o Teeth:
▪ Dental: are the sounds that are produced when the front of the
tongue articulates with the upper teeth. For example, [θ] in thin
and [ð] in then.
o Alveolar ridge: is the bumpy area behind the upper teeth.
▪ Alveolar: are sounds made at the alveolar ridge with the tip of
the tongue. For example, [d] in doe, [t] in toe, [n] in no, [s] in
so, [z] in zoo, and [l] in low.
▪ Postalveolar: are sounds that are made with the blade of the
tongue touching the back of the alveolar ridge while the front of
the tongue touches the palate. For example, [ʃ]
in she, [tʃ] in cheese, [dʒ] in judge, and the [ʒ]
sound in pleasure.
▪ Retroflex: are sounds that are made with the
tip of the tongue which is curled back to touch
the area behind the alveolar ridge. For example,
[ɹ] in red.
o Palate (hard palate): is a bony structure at the roof of the mouth which is
thinly covered.
▪ It ranges from the alveolar ridge to the soft palate (velum).
▪ Palatal: are the sounds which are made at the hard palate. For
example, [j] in yes.
o Velum (soft palate): is the area near the back of the roof of
the mouth, which is not supported by bone.

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▪ Velar: are sounds which are made using the lower surface
of the velum as the upper articulator and the back of the
tongue. For example, [k] in luck, [g] in lug, and [ŋ] in
lung.
o Uvula: is the long, thin structure at the back of the mouth.
▪ Uvular: are sounds made with the uvular. English does
not make uvular sounds.
o Tongue: is a large organ which is used in
producing almost all sounds. It can be divided into
5 parts:
▪ Tip (apex): is the front-most part of the
tongue.
• Apical: are sounds made with the
tip of the tongue.
• Apico-dental: are sounds made
with the tip of the tongue
articulating with the upper teeth. For
example, [θ] in thin and [ð] in then.
• Apico-alveolars: are sounds made with the tip of the tongue
articulating with the alveolar ridge. For example, [t] in toe, [d] in
dead, and [n] in nun.
▪ Blade (lamina): is right behind the tip of the tongue.
• Laminal: are sounds made with the blade of the tongue. For
example, [ʃ] in shoe and ship are postalveolars that use the blade of
the tongue to touch the alveolar ridge.
▪ Front: is the area right behind the tip and the blade.
• Palatal: are the sounds that are made with the front of the tongue.
The front of the tongue touches the palate. For example, [j] in yes.
▪ Back (dorsum): is the hind-most part of the horizonal surface of the
tongue.
• Dorso-velar: are the sounds that are produced when the back of
the tongue touches the velum. For example, [k] in tick, [g] in dog
and [ŋ] in sang.
▪ Root: is the rear vertical surface of the tongue which faces the pharyngeal
wall.
o Epiglottis: is a spoon-shaped cartilage which ranges up and back from the larynx.
▪ In phonetics, it is of no use since it hangs over the larynx, which makes it
hard to observe.
▪ However, recent research shows that it may be important in some
languages.
• Nasal Cavity: the pharynx opens upwards into the nasal cavity.
o Velic surface: is the upper surface of the velum which moves against the
pharyngeal wall.

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▪ Velar: is the lower surface of the velum which articulates with the back of
the tongue.
• Velic and velar are different.
o Velic opening: is when the velum is lowered and air can pass through the nose.
▪ Nasal: are sounds made with a velic opening. For example, [m] in ram,
[n] in ran, and [ŋ] in rang.
o Velic closing: is when the velum is raised and air cannot pass through the nose.
▪ Oral: are sounds made with a velic closure.

English Places of Articulation:

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LINB09 – Chapter 2 Notes

The basic sounds of English:
Sounds can be divided into two categories:
1. Segments: are composed of vowels and consonants.
• Vowels: include the sounds that do not have a major obstruction in the vocal tract.
o The air passes through the mouth easily.
o For example, [o], [u]
• Consonants: are sounds that have obstruction in the vocal tract. For example, /p n
g s l/
2. Suprasegmentals: involve sound components such as stress, pitch, intonation and length.
Transcription:
• Orthography: is the spelling of a word.
o In English, words that sound different from one another are written quite similar.
For example, tough, though, trough, through, thorough.
▪ All of the words have -ough, but they are all pronounced differently.
o Words that sound similar are written differently. For example, sew, sow, so
o Due to this inconsistency, it cannot be used for phonetics.
• Transcription: uses phonetic symbols to write down how a word is pronounced and
uttered.
o Utterance: is a stretch of speech.
o Transcribe: is the ability to accurately write down an utterance.
o IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet): is a set of symbols used to represent
sounds. Every sound has a symbol.
o Segmentation: is when an utterance is divided into many consonants and vowels.
▪ Speech is a series of segments since there are vowels and consonants in
words.
• It is difficult to know where the vowel ends and where the
consonant begins.
Accents of English: English is a native language for over 377 million people around the world.
• Dialects: the different varieties of a single language.
• Accents: the features of a dialect, regarding pronunciation.
• Received Pronunciation (RP): is the accent of the royal court as well as the upper-class
in London in the 1400s.
o It has little regional variation as it is spoken as a native accent by only 3 – 5% of
the population.
• General American (GA): is the accent of the central and western areas of America.
Consonants: are sounds that involve a major obstruction in the vocal tract. Consonants can be
classified in 3 ways: voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation.

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1. Voicing:
• Voiceless sounds are made with the vocal folds being away from each other. For
example, /f s/
• Voiced sounds are made with the vocal folds being close together, which causes
them to vibrate. For example, /v z/
2. Place of Articulation: is where the obstruction of the consonant occurs in the vocal tract.
• Bilabial: are the sounds that occur when the lower lip articulates against the
upper lip. For example, /p b m/ in pea, bee, and me.
o /p/ is voiceless whereas /b m/ are voiced.
o /w/ used both labial and velar articulators, which is called labial-velar.
• Labiodental: are the sounds that occur when the lower lip articulates with the
upper teeth. For example, /f v/ in fun and veal.
o /f/ is voiceless and /v/ is voiced.
o Labial: includes bilabial and labiodental sounds.
• Dental: are the sounds that occur when the tip (apex) of the tongue touches the
rear surface of the teeth. These sounds are known as apical. For example, /θ ð/ in
thin and then.
o /θ/ is voiceless and /ð/ is voiced.
• Alveolar: are the sounds that occur when the tip of the tongue articulates with the
alveolar ridge. For example, /t d s z n l/
• Postalveolar: are the sounds that occur
when the blade of the tongue touches
the postalveolar area which is near the
end of the alveolar ridge. For example,
/ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ/.
• Retroflex: is the sound made when the tip of the tongue is curled up and back
towards the rear edge of the alveolar ridge. For example, /ɹ/ in red.
o Bunched /ɹ/: is when the tip of the tongue is down and the body of the
tongue is pulled up and back. The articulation occurs between the rear
portion of the blade and the alveolar ridge.
▪ Some people make this type of /ɹ/ instead of a retroflex /ɹ/.
• Palatal: is the sound made when the front of the tongue articulates against the
hard palate. For example, /j/ in yes.
• Velar: are the sounds made when the back of the tongue articulates against the
velum. These sounds are called dorso-velar. For example, /k g ŋ/ in locker, sang,
and bang.
o Kinaesthetic: is the ability to perceive the muscle movement of one’s
own body.
▪ A lot of people cannot differentiate this for velars.
• Glottal: is the sound that is produced in the larynx when the vocal folds are close
together so no air escapes. For example, /ʔ/ in uh-oh.
o This can be done when holding your breath with your mouth open.

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• Labial-velar: are the sounds that occur at both the labial and velar places of
articulation. In these sounds, the lips are rounded and the back of the tongue is
raised towards the velum. For example, /w ʍ/ in wet and anywhere.
o /ʍ/ is voiceless while /w/ is voiced.
3. Manner of Articulation: describes the nature of the obstruction; the degree and type of
construction.
• Stops: involves a complete closure so that no air leaves the mouth. The sounds
are /p t k b d g/.
o Nasal stops: are a type of stop. The sounds are /m n ŋ/
• Fricatives: are sounds that are produced with a small opening in the vocal tract,
which allows air to escape. The sounds produced are /f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʍ/.
o Friction: when the air escapes, it produces a noisy friction-like sound.
• Approximants: are consonants that have a greater opening in the vocal tract than
in fricatives. There is no friction. The sounds are /l ɹ w j/.
o All approximants are voiced.
o Fricatives and approximants are continuants
o Retroflex: /ɹ/ is a retroflex consonant
o Laterals: are sounds that are made when only the middle part of the
articulators touch.
▪ /l/ is a lateral sound.
▪ The sides of the tongue are pulled down away from the roof of the
mouth so that the air can escape from the sides.
o Central: is when the air escapes from the center of the tongue.
o Glides: are considered as consonants, but also as moving vowels. For
example, /j w/
• Affricates: are a sequence of a stop and then a fricative. For example, /tʃ dʒ/ are
considered postalveolar affricates.
• Nasals: are sounds that have a velic opening, which allows air to flow through the
nose. The sounds are /m n ŋ/
• Obstruent: have an obstruction in the vocal tract, which causes friction. It
includes stops, fricatives, and affricates.
• Sonorants: have a more open vocal tract, with more air-flow. They are nasal
stops, approximants, glides, and vowels.
• Sibilants: /s z/ are referred to as sibilants.
o /ʃ ʒ/ can also be considered as sibilants.
• Liquids: are composed of laterals and r-like sounds. For example, /l ɹ/.

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English Consonants:

Vowels: are sounds made with a very open vocal tract.

• In producing vowels, the position of the tongue in the mouth and
the shape of the lips are very important.
• A chart was made to describe the position of the tongue in the
mouth when pronouncing different vowels.
Articulatory qualities of vowels: there are 3 basic qualities of vowels
1. Height: refers to the position of the tongue in the mouth.
• /i/ is a high vowel
• /æ/ is a low vowel
• /ɪ/ is higher than / /
• / / is higher than /æ/
• / / is a mid-vowel
2. Backness: refers to the position of the tongue in the mouth – front,
back, center.
• /æ/ is a front vowel
• /ɑ/ is a back vowel
3. Rounding: is when the lips are either rounded or unrounded.
• /u/ is rounded
• /i/ is unrounded

Glides: are considered as moving vowels since they move from one vowel position to another.
• They can be consonants before a vowel or the
final portion of a syllable nucleus after a vowel.

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Diphthongs: is a sequence of a simple vowel and a glide.

• There are two parts of the vowel. For example, /aw/. It starts off
as low and moves upwards.

The RP Vowel System:

• The schwa /ə/ only occurs in unstressed syllables. For
example, sofa.
• RP diphthongs:
o Low diphthongs: /aw aj ɔj/
o Mid diphthongs: /ej əj/
o Centring diphthongs: /ɪə ə ʊə/

The GP Vowel System:

• The schwa /ə/ is a mid central unrounded vowel.
o It only occurs in unstressed syllables and before /ɹ/. For
example, sofa.
• GP Diphthongs:
o Low diphthongs: /aw aj ɔj/
• /aw/  cow, ouch, mouth
• /aj/  my, sigh, bite
• /ɔj/  boy, joy, noise
o Mid diphthongs: /ej ow/
• /ej/  pay, bait, break
• /ow/  go, boad, note

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RP and GA: /h/

• /h/ is a voiceless vowel in terms of its production but it functions as a consonant,
when at the beginning of the syllable.
• It is usually found at the beginning of a word.

Stress:
• Primary stress: is stress at the beginning of a syllable. For example, the first syllables of
sofa and lady have primary stress.
o It is represented by a superscript vertical mark before the stressed syllable.

• Unstressed: when a syllable is not stressed. It is not represented by anything.

• In English, stress is a combination of greater loudness, higher pitch, and longer duration.
o For example, survey.
▪ In the first sentence, it is a noun and the first syllable has primary stress.
▪ In the second sentence, it is a verb and the second syllable has primary
stress.

• Secondary stress: is when there is another type of stress.

Comparison of RP and GA:

• Inventory:
o RP has a loss of /ɹ/ at the ends of syllables.
▪ RP  /kɑ/
▪ GA  /kɑɹ/
o RP vowel / / corresponds to GA /əɹ/
o RP diphthongs /ɪə ə ʊə/ correspond to GA /ɪɹ ɹ ʊɹ/
o GA has voiceless /ʍ/ while RP merged it with /w/

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