If you’d like a Textbook to reference, David Odden’s “Introducing Phonology” (ISBN 978-1107627970) is a great choice

All homeworks are now due on Fridays (starting with HW1 next week)

The syllabus has been updated

Grab an IPA/Features Handout by the door!

All Office Hours are now set

• Will: Wednesday 10:00-11:00am, Friday 1:15-2:30pm, AP&M 4151

• Kati: Monday 10:00-11:00am, AP&M 4432

• Michael: Friday 12-1pm, AP&M 3351A

Phonetics in Review

Will Styler - LIGN 111

Today’s Plan

• Reviewing the IPA and other speech concepts

• General Phonetic Concepts for phonology

• Phonetics and Naturalness

How do we describe how speech sounds are made?

We break the world into two kinds of speech sounds

• Consonants: Constrict, obstruct, or divert air in the vocal tract when being produced

• Vowels: Shape the (unobstructed) vocal tract to change the sound emitted

Describing Consonants

Can’t figure out where in the mouth that is?

Ask Sammy the Interactive Sagittal Section!

So, that’s consonants.

Vowels!

Vowels are created by shaping your vocal tract

• A vowel is voicing passing through (and resonating in) an unobstructed vocal tract!

• If we change the position of the tongue, we change the resonances

Vowels are different from consonants

• They’re always* voiced

• They can (and do) occur on their own. I.

• We describe vowels using different characteristics

Describing Vowels

• For vowels, we talk about three additional dimensions

• 1. Where is the tongue in terms of height?
  • (High, Low, or Mid)
  • Also “Closed, Open, or Mid”
• 2. Where is the tongue in terms of horizontal space?
  • (Front, Central, or Back)
• 3. Are your lips rounded or not?

The IPA Vowel Chart

Diphthongs

• Vowels where the tongue moves through the mouth

• Start at one vowel, move to another vowel

• Things like “boy” (/ɔj/), “buy” (/aj/), “bay” (/ej/), “boat” (/ow/), “cow” (/aw/)

• Others are monophthongs

‘Other Symbols’

Non-Pulmonics

Suprasegmentals

Tones

Diacritics

This is how phoneticians describe sounds

A few phenomena meriting additional discussion

Aspiration and other Laryngeal Stuff

Thanks to Odden’s Introducing Phonology

Nasalization

Impossible Consonants

Impossible vowels?

There are some common bits of non-standard IPA

• /r/ could mean /r/ or /ɹ/

• š for /ʃ/

• ž for /ʒ/

• č for /tʃ/

• ǰ for /dʒ/

Non-Standard IPA continued

• y for /j/

• ñ for /ɲ/

• Subscript dots for retroflexes

• : and ː are both used for length

• Numerical tone markings (e.g. bi1 vs. bi5 vs. bi15 vs. bi31)

Always be on the lookout for “This symbol refers to [sound description]”

General Phonetic Concepts for Phonology

Not all of phonology believes that it needs phonetics

• Government Phonology (c.f. Kaye, Lowenstamm, and Vergnaud 1985) builds a phonology almost devoid of phonetics

• Words are built from six primitives, (A), (I), (U), (ʔ), (L) and (H), which are cognitive, not acoustic or articulatory

• Individual sounds are generated via licensing, and interactions among primitives

(GP is fascinating, but this is the last time we’ll talk about it)

Phonological rules can be approached phonetically

Phonology is not just ‘algebra with symbols’

• ♇ turns into 🜍 before ☋

• /n/ turns into /ŋ/ before /g/

Think about the articulatory space

Think about concepts like coarticulation

• Why would /k/ be fronted before /i/?

Think about overlap

• Why would /l/ become voiceless after /pʰ/

Think about perception

• Why would adjacent spirants be undesirable? (e.g. why isn’t the plural of ‘kiss’ /kɪss/?)

Think about jaw movement

• Why is /plʌmp/ legal while /lpʌpm/ wouldn’t be?

  • This is called ‘sonority’, and is very cool

Think about laziness

• Why would an /n/ become an /m/ before /b/?

Think about similarity

• Are /t/, /b/ and /h/ likely to be three alternate forms of the same sound?

• How do we know /ŋ/ and /h/ are different sounds in English?

Much of the concept of “Naturalness” derives from articulation

• /m/ often becomes /b/, seldom /k/

• Natural Classes are a phonetic concept

Phonetics can have very subtle effects

• Backing favors voicelessness

• Geminate consonants are more likely to be voiceless

  • … and voiced ones are more likely to be fronted

• C.f. Ohala Aerodynamics of Phonology

  • Ohala, J. J. (1997, August). Aerodynamics of phonology. In Proceedings of the Seoul International Conference on Linguistics (Vol. 92, p. 97).

… but not all phonological phenomena are phonetically intuitive

• Post-nasal devoicing?

• Intervocalic devoicing?

• Final voicing?

• p -> b and k -> g but t -> l (e.g. Lakota)

• Often, this is sound change in process

You can’t expect all rules to make sense, phonetically

• Consider it a “hint”, not a rule

Homework 1 will be a quick reminder of phonetic concepts with an eye towards phonology

Next time…

• We’ll get naturally classy

Thank you!