Object 1

Speech sounds: from description to classification

Speech sounds
- sounds a speech community decided to use in words
- used as ‘sign’ in language communication
- called phones and studied by phonetics = phones are distinct speech sounds. A phone is
an unanalyzed sound of a language. A phone is a speech segment that possesses distinct
physical or perceptual properties and serves as the basic unit of phonetic speech analysis.
Phones are generally either vowels or consonants.
- A selection from a wider repertoire of sounds humans can produce (and do use for non-
linguistic communication or in other languages)
- Can be described with reference to the body-part movements = articulators
• Lips

• Lips and teeth.

• Tongue and teeth.
• Tongue and alveolar ridge.
• Tongue and palate.
• Tongue and velum.

Sound production
- Source of the airstream: pulmonic outgoing (egressive) – most frequently used for
speech, other option available = Pulmonic egressive sounds are those in which the air
stream is created by the lungs, ribs, and diaphragm. The majority of sounds in most
languages, such as vowels, are both pulmonic and egressive.
- Larynx: vocals fold tense and vibrating = voiced (most frequent), loose and not vibrating
= voiceless sounds
- Soft palate (velum): raised (most frequent) = oral sounds, lowered = nasal (nasalised)
sounds
- Tongue: different parts can be raised or lowered, changing the shape of the oral cavity or
raises making a narrowing or a closure. The way you shape your tongue, makes the
difference in the making of a sound.
- Lips: neutrally open, spread, rounded or tightly closed.
- Lower jaw: controls the opening of the oral cavity.
Sound production: oppositions
- Voiced (vocals fold tense and vibrating) / voiceless (loose and not vibrating)
- Oral (soft palate is raised) / nasal (soft palate is lowered; nasalised sounds)
- Oral cavity open (shape modified by the tongue and lips): vowels
- Oral cavity closed / partly closed by the tongue or the lips: consonants

Sound description: phones

- Phone: a speech sound of a language.
- Described individually or in the context of other sounds.
- The description of phone production gives rise to the terminology used in sound
classification.
- The terminology refers to the action of articulators, but is often generalised for the
purpose of clarity. = In phonetics, a phone is any distinct speech sound or gesture,
regardless of whether the exact sound is critical to the meanings of words. In the context
of spoken languages, a phone is an unanalyzed sound of a language. A phone is a speech
segment that possesses distinct physical or perceptual properties and serves as the basic
unit of phonetic speech analysis. Phones are generally either vowels or consonants.

Sound classification: phonemes

- Phones which hase similar articulation / function can be grouped into language
categories.
- Linguistic function of phones is based on their constrastive function: if they contrast the
meaning they belong to different phonemes, if not – to the same phoneme.
- Phoneme is a theoretical construct, useful in the discussion of the sound system.
- Phoneme, in linguistics, smallest unit of speech distinguishing one word (or word
element) from another, as the element p in “tap,” which separates that word from “tab,”
“tag,” and “tan.” A mental category of phonetically similar sounds.

Sound inventory
- Each language has its own inventory of sound-types (phonemes) and their realisations
(phones).
- Phones and phonemes are represented by means of symbols – in this course we use
symbols proposed by the IPA
Vowels vs. Consonants
- The difference in articulation:
1. modified airflow in vowels vs. An obstruction or narrowing in consonants
2. Vowels are naturally voiced, true consonants are not, they are voiceless or voiced
through muscular effort (with articulators)
- The difference in function: vowels make syllables.
- A vowel is a speech sound made with your mouth fairly open, the nucleus of a spoken
syllable. A consonant is a sound made with your mouth fairly closed.
Classification of vowels
- Steady-state vowel vs vowel with movement = Monophthong vs Diphthong
- Tense (long) vs lax (short) vowel: the tenseness in the lips/cheeks or the tongue
* The short vowels are also known as the lax vowels because your mouth is more relaxed
when you make these sounds. It also feels like the sound is coming from the lower back
part of your mouth when you say the word. /I/ (as i in bit)
1./e/ (as e in bet)
2./æ/ (as a in bat)
3./U/ (as u in put)
4./ô/ (as au in caught)
** tense vowels are relatively longer than lax novels of the same height when all other
factors affecting the vowel length remain the same. For example, /i:/ in we (‘wi: ) is longer
than the /ɪ/ in (‘bɪg). Moreover, tense vowels usually occur at the end of one syllable words
(open syllable words), e.g. spa, law, bay, bee, ray, too
*** What is the difference between Lax and Tense Vowels?
Length:
Lax Vowels: Lax vowels are shorter than tense vowels of the same height.
Tense Vowels: Tense vowels are longer than lax vowels of the same height.

Articulation:
Lax Vowels: The muscles of the vocal apparatus are relatively loose when articulating a
lax vowel.
Tense Vowels: The tongue and other parts of the vocal apparatus are relatively tense
when articulating a tense vowel.

Occurrence:
Lax Vowels: Lax vowels usually occur in one syllable words that end in consonants.
Tense Vowels: Tense vowels usually occur at the end of one syllable words.
 - Lip shape: spread, neutral, round.
- Active part of the tongue: front, centre, back
- Height of the tongue: low, mid, high

Vowels
 Vowels are classified by how high or low the tongue is, if the tongue is in the front or back
of the mouth, and whether or not the lips are rounded
 High vowels: [i] [ɪ] [u] [ʊ]
 Mid vowels: [e] [ɛ] [o] [ə] [ʌ] [ɔ]
 Low vowels: [æ] [a]
 Front vowels: [i] [ɪ] [e] [ɛ] [æ]
 Central vowels: [ə] [ʌ]
 Back vowels: [u] [ɔ] [o] [æ] [a]
 Round vowels: [u] [ʊ] [o] [ɔ]
 Produced by rounding the lips
 English has only back round vowels, but other languages such as French and Swedish
have front round vowels
 Diphthongs: [aɪ] [aʊ] [ɔɪ]
 A sequence of two vowel sounds (as opposed to the monophthongs we have looked at
so far)
 Nasalization:
 Vowels can also be pronounced with a lowered velum, allowing air to pass through the
nose
 In English, speakers nasalize vowels before a nasal sound, such as in the words
beam, bean, and bingo
 The nasalization is represented by a diacritic, an extra mark placed with the symbol: bean
[bîn]
 Tense vowels:
 Are produced with greater tension in the tongue
 May occur at the end of words
 Lax vowels:
 Are produced with less tongue tension
 May not occur at the end of words

Vowels: place of articulation

- based on the area for the most significant tongue position
- point of reference: VOWEL SPACE, symbolically used in the CARDINAL VOWEL
SYSTEM

- For simplicity – vowel space is represented as vowels quadrilateral (vowel diagram^^^)

used originally for primary cardinal vowels, with lip position spread for front, rounded for
back vowels (secondary cardinal vowels – reversed lip position).

Cardinal vowels

Vowels: manner of articulation

Monophthongs in the vowel inventory for English (RP)

Classification of Diphthongs in English

The direction of movement makes it possible to classify diphthongs into the following
groups:
- closing (upwards movement of the tongue, from more open to more close position)
- front closing – with movement towards /ɪ/
- back closing
- centring (the movement is from a more extreme to central, neutral position towards
/schwa/)
Closing diphthongs are found in all dialects of English, centring diphthongs, however, are
used only in those dialects which do not have /r/ pronounced after vowels, e.g. English
English (RP)

Closing diphthongs
Centring diphthongs

Sound classification: terminology

Consonants: manner of articulation

MANNER of ARTICULATION types
- The presence or absence of a complete closure in the oral tract: STOPS –
CONTINUANTS
- The presence or absence of an obstruction / type of voicing: OBSTRUENTS –
SONORANTS
For each narrowing or obstruction there are different manner and place of articulation
freatures possible.
Voicing in obstruents
Voicing is phonemic/contrasive (e.g. the change of a voiced for a voiceless consonant
can change the meaning of a word) only in OBSTRUENTS (true consonants). These
consonants are naturally voiceless and require muscular energy to be voiced,
e.g. /p/b/s/z/ etc.
***Phonemic contrast refers to a minimal phonetic difference, that is, small differences in
speech sounds, that makes a difference in how the sound is perceived by listeners, and
can therefore lead to different mental lexical entries for words. - w skrócie, zmiana w
wymowie ma wpływ na to, w jaki sposób nasza wypowiedź jest postrzegana przed
odbiorcę

***What are obstruents?

Anobstruent is a speech sound such as [k], d͡ ʒ], or [f] that is formed by obstructing airflow.
Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All
obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as consonants.
***What is lenis and fortis?
1) The “fortis” consonants are long, voiceless, and have high intensity noise, while the
“lenis” are short, fluctuate in both voicing and in closure width, and have lower intensity
noise.
2) Pronounced with relatively weak muscular tension and breath pressure, resulting in
weak sound effect: in stressed or unstressed position, (b, d, g, j, v, th̸, z, and zh) are lenis
in English, as compared with (p, t, k, ch, f, th, s, and sh), which are fortis.
3) Lenis - lenis. / (ˈliːnɪs) phonetics / adjective. (of a consonant) articulated with weak
muscular tension.
4) Fortis - articulated with considerable muscular tension of the speech organs or with a
great deal of breath pressure or plosion.

Voicing - sonorants
Sonorant consonants are naturally voiced, they do not have voiced – voiceless pairs.
Spontaneous voicing: voicing in sonorants is the result of vocal fold vibration due to
subglottal and supraglottal pressure differences.
At the classification level, sonorants are all voiced!!! - no need to use the „voiced” label.

***What is a sonorant?
sonorant, in phonetics, any of the nasal, liquid, and glide consonants that are marked by a
continuing resonant sound. Sonorants have more acoustic energy than other consonants.
In English the sonorants are y, w, l, r, m, n, and ng.
Nasal consonants
NASAL consonants – velum is lowered (nasal resonance), the air
stopped in the oral cavity (nasal stops)
Approximants
Sounds in the production of which the articulators „approximate” the roof of the mouth; the
sounds are naturally voiced.
- Liquid
1. lateral liquid /l/
2. non lateral liquid /r/
3. Glides: (semi vowels) /j/ /w/

***What are approximants?

approximant, in phonetics, a sound that is produced by bringing one articulator in the vocal
tract close to another without, however, causing audible friction (see fricative).
Approximants include semivowels, such as the y sound in “yes” or the w sound in “war.”
awdad