Module 2

Dr. Ravi Bhatt

VIT BHOPAL
ENG3001
Phonetics
Outline
1. Introduction
2. Phonetics
2.1. The organs of Speech
2.2. IPA
2.2. Descriptive and Classification of consonants and
Vowels
2.3. How consonants & Vowels are articulated ?
3. Phones-Phonemes-Allophones
4. Phonology
4.1. Phonological rules
5. Syllable and Syllabification
6. Minimal Pairs
1. Introduction
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Finally, which rhymes with enough, tough, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!
Cont…

Weak but predictable word stress in Hindi

Hindi speakers are disinclined to 'swallow' unstressed syllables

such as the rst syllables in the words intelligent, remember, etc.

Often try to clearly articulate short, common words that are

usually weakly stressed in English: has, and, was, to, etc.
fi
GENERAL ISSUES
1. Complex nature of the English Phonological system
2. Differences between English and Hindi sounds
3. Variety of English Accents
2. Phonetics
Phonetics: studies the physical characteristics of sounds.
Phonetics (pronounced /fəˈnɛtɪks/, from the Greek: φωνή, phōnē,
'sound, voice') is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study
of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign
languages -the equivalent aspects of sign.
Some other definitions:
The general study off the characteristics of speech sounds (Yule, 2006:30 )
The study of speech sounds (Fromkin et.al., 2005:222)
The inventory and structure of the sounds speech ( O’Grady et. Al,
2005:15 )
The concrete, instrumentally measurable physical properties and
production of speech sounds ( Odden, 2005:4)
The study of production, transmission and reception of speech sounds
(Todd, 1995:13)
 The field of phonetics is a multi-layered subject of linguistics
that focuses on speech. In the case of oral languages there are
three basic areas to study:

1. Articulatory
2. Auditory
3. Acoustics
2.1. Organs of Speech
2.2. International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
A set of symbols used for representing the phonemes and
sounds of all languages.

The phonetic transcription of words is provided by some

bilingual and and by all monolingual dictionaries.

Phoneme symbols are enclosed within slant brackets /p/

Vowel Sounds (Monophthongs) with IPA
Vowel Sounds (Diphthongs) with
IPA
Consonants with IPA
IPA symbols
Examples
2.2 Description and Classification of Consonants
Description and Classification of Vowels
Exterior look of the Oral tract (Mouth)
2.3. How consonants & vowels are articulated ?
/p/
Lips tight, the air is stopped at the lips, then the lips open
There should be a puff of air that comes out.
/b/
Lips are closed; the air is stopped at the lips, then the lips open
There should not be a puff of air.
/t/
The tip of the tongue is placed behind the upper front teeth
Air is stopped briefly at the gum ridge, and then released. There should
be a puff of air

/d/
The tip of the tongue is placed behind the upper front teeth on the front
end of gum ridge
The air is stopped briefly at the gum ridge and then released pushing
the tongue away
/k/
Raise the back of the tongue to touch the soft part at the back
of the roof of the mouth
Stop the air there and release quickly

/g/
raise the tongue to touch the back of the mouth,
Release air quickly, breaking the contact
/s/
Raise the tip of tongue to the upper gum ridge constricting the air
stream producing a sharp ‘hissing’ sound
Eg. Sunny sails the seven seas

/z/
Raise the tip of the tongue to the upper gum ridge and then vibrate
the vocal cords by making a buzzing sound
/ʃ/ (sh)
Push out the lips (the tip of the tongue forms a groove close to
the gum ridge but not touching it), push out the air.

/ʒ/ - (zh)
Push out the lips
Raise the front of the tongue to the upper gum ridge making
voiced buzzing sound
 /f/
Hold the upper front teeth lightly against the bottom lip and push the air
out

/v/
Place the upper front teeth on the bottom lip and push air out

/w/
Push the lips forward and blow out air to produce a voiced sound
/m/
Place lips together
The air flows into the nasal cavity and produces a voiced humming sound

/n/
Raise the tip of the tongue to the upper gum ridge
Push the air into nasal cavity sending out a voiced sound through the nose

/ŋ/
Slightly open your mouth and then breathe through your nose. Now vibrate the
vocal cords
/tʃ/ - (ch)
Combination of /t/ and (sh) sounds
Raise the front of the tongue firmly to the gum ridge for the /t/
sound
Lips protrude while the air stream is restricted here, the (sh)
sound is added before releasing the (ch) sound.
/dʒ/
/The tip of the tongue touches behind the ridge behind the upper
teeth
Lips are pushed out
/θ/
Place the tip of the tongue firmly against the cutting
edge of the upper front teeth and puff air out
While the air is pushed out, make a voiceless sound
/ð/
Place the tip of the tongue against the cutting edge of
the upper front teeth
Air is pushed out making the vocal cords vibrate
/l/
Place the tongue tip behind the upper front teeth, against the
gum ridge.
Lower the sides of the tongue in order to allow the voice to
pass around the sides of the tongue.
 Production of Vowel Sounds Monopthongs
/ɪ/
Raise the tongue high and to the front of the relaxed mouth
Open the mouth slightly and make a voiced sound

/i:/
The tongue is high, leaving only a tiny space with the mouth almost shut
The teeth are close together with a tense chin and mouth
The lips form a smile and the sound is voiced
/u/
Lips are pushed out and slightly rounded
The tongue is mid way and a short voiced sound is made

/u:/ (oo)
Lips are rounded with tongue midway in the mouth
Make a long voiced sound
/e/
The relaxed tongue is in the middle of the mouth
The jaw and face are also relaxed
Open the mouth and drop the lower jaw slightly making a voiced
sound

/æ/
The tongue is relaxed, flat and low behind the lower teeth
The bottom jaw drops and voiced sound is produced
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated
with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are [p],
pronounced with the lips; [t], pronounced with the front of the tongue; [k],
pronounced with the back of the tongue; [h], pronounced in the throat; [f]
and [s], pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives);
and [m] and [n], which have air flowing through the nose (nasals).
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language,
such as an English ah! /ɑː/ or oh! /oʊ/, pronounced
with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of
air pressure at any point above the glottis.
3. Phone-Phonemes-Allophones

Phone: Any distinct speech sound which has no relation with the
exact sound of a meaningful word. They are not specific rather
absolute. E.g. /pin/ vs /spin/ in English, /pal/ vs /phal/ in Hindi.
Phoneme: A minimal speech sound that is realised in a given
language. E.g. /kid/ vs /kit/ or /pin/ vs /bin/.
Allophone: The phonetic variants of a phoneme is an allophone. E.g.
[t] (as in stop [stɒp]) and the aspirated form [tʰ] (as in top [ˈtʰɒp]) are
allophones for the phoneme /t/.
4. Phonology
Motivation is to discover the principles that govern the way sounds are
organised in languages, and to explain the variations that occur.

(Phonetics) Human Vocal apparatus is capable of producing a wide

variety of sounds

(Vs) But

(Phonology) A small number if these sounds are used to construct

words and sentences.
4.1 Phonological Rules
[telegraph vs telegraphy]
[microscope vs microscopy]
1. General statements about the relationships between sounds, or classes of
sound.
E.g. [/bəl/ vs /dʒəb/]

+consonantal +consonantal
-nasal -nasal
+voice -voice
 Distinctive Features (P Rules)

Under phonemic analysis, it is important to understand the relation between two set of sounds.
Comparing any two contrasting segments on the basis of their place and manner of articulation.
a. English /p/ and /b/ only differs in voicing. [they are bilabial, plosive, oral, pulmonic egressive]
b. /p/ and /g/ differ in two respects; there is a contrast of voicing and place of articulation [bilabial vs
velar]
c. /p/ and /z/ differ in three respects; manner of articulation [plosive vs fricative], voicing and place.
[p] {+consonantal, -nasal, -voiced, -continuant etc.}

[refer consonantal and seven-vowel matrix-Jakobson and Halle, 1956]

Some more phonological rules:

# Change of [n] to [m]

In ‘ten boys’ because of the influence of following [b].
PR: an alveolar nasal becomes bilabial before a following bilabial consonant.

# Adding or deleting segments

Film-[filəm] (an English accent add vowels between certain consonant segments)
I am –[I’m] ( when a vowel segments are regularly omitted from such phrases.
would + you- [wʊdʒu:] (combing two segments into one)

Note: The Phonological rules are not restricted to understand the sound patterns in a language rather it
can beyond different language families as well.
The formulation of phonological rules is an important step towards discovering universal principles
governing the use of sound in a language.
Complementary Distribution
Complementary distribution is the mutually exclusive relationship
between two phonetically similar segments. It exists when one
segment occurs in an environment where the other segment never
occurs.
The rationale for complementary distribution comes from one of the
principles of phonemics:
Sounds tend to be modified by their environments.
A phoneme is made up of certain features that are basic to it. When
this phoneme occurs in certain phonetic environments, one or more
of its features may undergo changes caused by those environments.
5. Syllable & Syllabification
A syllable is a unit that is larger than a single segment and smaller than a
word.
Three major components of syllable is important to understand.
Onset [C]
Nucleus (Peak) [V]
Coda [C] alligator: a+li+ga+tor
A syllable can be identified as CV, VC, CVC or only V.
6. Minimal Pairs
A minimal pair or close pair consists of two words with sounds that are
very similar but have different meanings.
For example, rot and lot may sound similar, especially to some non-native
English speakers.

Some more example:

https://www.speech-language-therapy.com/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=134:mp2&catid=9:resources&Item
id=108
Activities
Phonetic Transcriptions