Chapter Two The Sounds of Language

1. What is phonetics?Phonetics—the study of speech sounds that occur in all human languages. It is a branch of linguistics which studies human speech sounds and provides methods for the description, classification and transcription of these sounds.

Three branches of phonetics(p.26): 1) articulatory phonetics—the study of how speech sounds are produced or the study of the way in which speech sounds are produced by our vocal organs.2) acoustic phonetics—the study of the transmission of speech sounds through the air or the study of the physical properties of speech sounds as they are transmitted between mouth and ear. 3) auditory phonetics—dealing with how speech sounds are perceived by the listener or by the human ear.

1.1 Phonetic featuresSpeech sounds can be classified into four types: voiced and voiceless, nasal and oral. (p.31)1) Voiced and voiceless sounds (pp.29-30)Voiced sounds—sounds produced in the way that the airstream forces its way through and causes vocal cords to vibrate. Voiceless sounds—sounds produced in the way that the airstream is not obstructed at the place between vocal cords.

2) Nasal and oral sounds (p. 31)Nasal sounds—sounds produced in the way that air escapes through the nose as well as the mouth.Oral sounds—sounds produced in the way that air escapes only through the mouth. 1.2 Consonants and Vowels1) ConsonantsConsonants—speech sounds in the production of which there is one kind or another obstruction in the throat, nose or mouth, when the airstream comes from the lungs.

Consonants in English can be classified in two ways: the manner of articulation and the place of articulation. What is the manner of articulation? (p.32)What is the place of articulation? (p.32)e.g. the consonant [t] can be described as plosive, alveolar and voiceless.

2) VowelsVowels—speech sounds in the production of which the airstream from the lungs is not blocked in any way in the mouth or nose, and the vocal cords are usually vibrated.a. Which part of the tongue is raised?front vowels—central vowels—back vowelsb. What is the shape of the lips?

rounded vowels—unrounded vowelsc. Whether is the mouth open?open vowel—closed vowel; semi-open vowels—semi-closed vowelsd. What is the length of the vowels? long vowels—short vowelse.g. the vowel [i:] can be described as front, unrounded, closed and long.

1.3 Variations of sounds1) liaison (linking)—the linking of words in speech, in particular when the second word begin with a vowel. And these words belong to the same sense-group.e.g. stand up, above all, look at it, first of all, a number of, here is it, Where is it?2) elision—the leaving out of a sound or sounds in speech.e.g. kindness [kaindnis]—[kainnis], sit down, most probably, don’t know, with that, some more tea, 我们 [uomen]—[uomn]/[uom], 豆腐 [toufu]—[touf]

3) assimilation—the process of substituting one phoneme by another, or turning two neighbouring phonemes into a new one, under the influence of the surrounding sounds.e.g. news /nju:z/, newspaper /nju:speip/, five /faiv/, fivepence /faifpans/, used /juzd/, used to /ju:st tu/, in bed [inbed]—[imbed], 难免[nanmian]—[nammian], 电报 [tianpao]—[tiampao], 关门 [kuanmen]—[guammen]2. What is Phonology?Phonology—the study or description of the distinctive sound units of a language and their relationship.

The differences: 1) phonetics—general, descriptive and classificatory; phonology—particular and functional2) phonetics—actual physical articulations of speech sounds; phonology—the abstract aspect of the sounds in a language3) phonetics—the means for describing speech sounds; phonology—the way in which speech sounds are combined, organized, and convey meaning in particular languages

phonetics phonology sounds of language functioning of

sounds as part of a language

universal language-specific

concrete abstract

parole language system

phone: [ ] phoneme: //

2.1 Phone, Phoneme, and Allophone1) phone—a phonetic unit, which does not necessarily distinguish meaning.e.g. pit spit (five phones)2) phoneme—a phonological unit, it is the smallest unit of sound in a language that can distinguish two words/meanings. e.g. pan ban /p/ /b/ bet bit /e/ /i/ bet bed /t/ /d/Some points to be noticed:a. the number of phonemes varies from one language to another.

b. a phone may be a phoneme in one language but may not in another language.In English the two phones [s], [] are two phonemes “sin—thin” /s/, //. But in Chinese the phone [s] is a phoneme, but [] is not a phoneme. Also in English aspirated and unaspirated phones are not two phonemes but one, each occurring in a different position e.g. peak—speak. But in Chinese they are two different phonemes: 铺—部 , 突—都 , and in Chinese 卷舌—不卷舌 are two phonemes but they are not in English. 司长—师长 , 交代—招待 , study—shtudy

3) allophones—phones which are phonetically similar but not the same and which are treated as the same in linguistic communication; or the sounds which are phonetically different but do not make one word different from another in meaning.e.g. lip—play—feel lip—is made by raising the front of the tongue to the hard palate, while the vocal cords are vibrating;

play—is made with the same tongue position but the vocal cords are not vibrating;feel—is made by raising not only the front but also the back of the tongue while the vocal cords are vibrating.sad (long)—pat (short)—can (nasalized)phoneme and allophone:A phoneme is an abstract unit, not any particular sound.It may be realized by a certain phone in a certain phonetic context.

And the different phones that represent the same phoneme are its allophones. e.g., the phoneme /p/ can be realized by the following phones in different phonetic context:[p]—articulated with aspiration when followed by a stressed vowel as in “put”[p]—articulated with little aspiration when followed by an unstressed vowel as in “paper”[p]—articulated with no aspiration when the [s] is before it as in “speak”top—stop—pit—city (voiced)

A major difference between phonemes and allophones lies in the respective roles they play within the phonological system of the language. Phonemes are constructive sound units: they make a difference in words. Substituting one phoneme for another will usually result in a word of another meaning. e.g. /t/ and /d/ are different phonemes because "time" is different word than "dime". Allophones, on the other hand, are non-constructive. Substituting one allophone for another will not result in a different word, but rather the same word with an unusual pronunciation.

2.2 Minimal pairs and sets 1) minimal pair—a pair of words that differ by only a single sound in the same position. (p.335) In other words, when two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment that occurs in the same place in the string, the two words are called minimal pairs.e.g. bear—pear bed—bad lead—leakfan—van bet—bat site—side

2) minimal set e.g. pill—bill—till—dill—killThese words can be differentiated by changing only one phoneme. All these words together constitute a minimal set. 2.3 Free variation Free variation—when the same word has two or more sounds which occur in the same position without change of meaning, these sounds are called free variation. e.g. direction: [dai’rekn], [di’rekn]

2.4 Distinctive featuresDistinctive feature—the phonetic feature that distinguishes one phoneme from another in a language. The minimal pair given bellow illustrate a distinctive feature in the phonological system of English: bat/matThe difference in meaning between the two is due only to the difference in nasality between [b] and [m]. [b] and [m] are identical in all features except for the fact that [b] is oral ([ － nasal]) and [m] is nasal ([+nasal]). Thus, nasality is a distinctive feature of English consonants.

2.5 Syllables and consonant clustersSyllable—a unit in speech which is usually longer than one sound and smaller than a whole word, e.g. terminology Consonant cluster—a sequence of two or more consonants in one syllable. Different languages may have different syllable structures. In English, the onset position may be empty or filled by a cluster of as many as three consonants (spray, scream, strange, thread), while coda position may be filled by as many as four consonants (as in sixths).

The English syllable may be represented as (((C)C)C)V(((C)C)C)C). Four basic patterns of syllables structures in English:a. V—I b. CV—tea c. VC—oil d. CVC—tongueThe Chinese syllable, however, allows at most one consonant in the onset position and only nasals in the coda. Thus the Chinese syllable is represented as (C)V(C).

2.6 Suprasegmental FeaturesSuprasegmental Features are the phonological properties that occur in the sound units larger than one segment (phoneme), such as syllable, word, sentence. Suprasegmental Features include stress, tone, intonation, pause (juncture), etc. Here we just deal with two of them: stress and intonation.

2.6.1 StressStress—the pronunciation of a word or syllable with more force than the surrounding words or syllables.In English there are three kinds of stress:a. Primary stress (marked with superscript)b. Secondary stress (marked with subcript)c. Unstress (unmarked)

Word stress and sentence stress1) Word Stress—the kind of stress that falls on one syllable of a word. Some languages have fixed word stress. e.g., in German, Finnish and Hungarian, the stress always falls on the first syllable of a word; and in French, Turkish and Polish, it falls on the last syllable. But in English the stress is not fixed on any particular syllable of a word. It may falls on the first syllable in some words, on the second in others, on the third in still others. e.g. 'answer a'bove mana'gerial incompre'hensive industrali'zation

2) Sentence stress—the kind of stress that falls on certain word or words in a sentence.(1) a. 我不会讲法语 ( 他会讲 )b. 我不会讲法语 ( 谁说我会讲 )c. 我不会讲法语 ( 不是不肯讲 )d. 我不会讲法语 ( 但会写 )e. 我不会讲法语 ( 讲俄语吧 !)

(2) a. 吃饭吃面他都无所谓。(Noodles or rice doesn’t make any difference to him.)b. 吃饭吃面他都无所谓。 (He doesn’t mind eating noodles or rice.)c. 吃饭吃面他都无所谓。 (There is no difference to him whether to eat noodles or rice.)

2.6.2 Intonation Intonation—the variation of the general movement of the pitch of the voice, or the rise and fall of the voice when speaking. The frequently used types of intonation in English are as follows:1) falling intonation—finality, definiteness, assertion, command, etc.2) rising intonation—non-finality or continuation, implication, request, uncertainty, reservation, encouragement, etc.3) fall-rise intonation—doubt, hesitation, contradiction, concession, impatience

e.g. (1) a. I thought it would↗rain. (and it has) 我料想会下雨。（真的下了）b. I thought it would↘rain.(and it hasn’t) 我以为会下雨。（结果没有下）(2) a. She doesn’t speak to↘ anyone. (She speaks to no one.)b. She doesn’t speak to ↘↗anyone. (She speaks only to some people.)(3) You can’t give a baby ↘↗any food. (you must be selective: some kinds of food are appropriate, but not all.)