Chapter 2Speech soundsContents•How sounds are made?•Consonants and vowels•Phonological processes, phonological rules and distinctive features•Suprasegmentals 超音段•Two major areas for studying speech sounds:phonetics and phonology•Phonetics: it studies how speech sounds are made, transmitted and perceived.•Three branches of phonetics:•Articulatory phonetics发声语音学 is the study of the production of speech sounds.•Acoustic phonetics声学语音学 is the study of the physical properties of the sounds produced in speech.Auditory phonetics听觉语音学 is concerned with the perception of speech sounds•Phonology：it deals with the sound system of a language by treating phoneme 音素 as the point of departure.•It studies the sound patterns and sound systems of languages.•Ultimately it aims to discover the rules that underlie the sound patterns of all languages.How speech sounds are made?• speech organs 言语器官•Speech organs are also known as vocal organs（发音器官）.•Parts of human body involved in the production of speech sounds: lungs, trachea (windpipe) 气管, throat, nose, mouth• organs of speech (Figure 2.2, p.26 on our books)•Three cavities: oral cavity, nasal cavity 鼻腔, pharyngeal cavity (pharynx) 咽腔•Inside the oral cavity: tongue, hard palate 硬腭, soft palate (velum) 软腭, teeth, teeth ridge (alveolus) 齿龈•Inside the pharyngeal cavity: pharynx 咽, larynx喉, vocal folds 声带•Positions of vocal folds 声带••(a) apart•speech sounds which are produced without vibration of the vocal cords are called voiceless 清音.• [p,t,k,f,s]•(b) close together•Speech sounds which are produced with the vocal cords vibrating are called voiced浊音.• [b,d,g,v,z]•When a speech sound which is normally voiced is produced without vibration or only slight vibration, this is called devoicing(清音化).Devoicing of voiced consonants often occurs in English when they areat the end of a word, e.g.• Lid word crab bag• five past has to•(c) totally closed [ ʔ ]• Fatten button packIPA•IPA: International Phonetic Alphabet 国际音标•Principles:• A separate letter for each distinctive sound, and the same symbol should be used for that sound in any language in which it appears. Roman alphabet, new letters and diacritics 语音符号 only necessary•Diacritics 音符:•They are additional symbols or marks used together with the consonant and vowel symbols to indicate nuances of change in their pronunciation.Consonants and vowels•Distinction between consonants and vowels: the obstruction 阻塞 of airstream•Consonants 辅音: obstruction of airstreams; voiced or voiceless •Vowels 元音: no obstruction; voiced•semi-vowel or semi-consonant ：[j] [w]Consonants•consonants are speech sounds where the airstream is blocked somewhere in the mouth or throat to different degrees.•At least 2 articulators are involved：mouth and vocal tract (声道)•Classification of consonants:• Manners of articulation• Places of articulation• Voiced or voicelessManners of articulation•The relationship between the articulators and thus the way in which the air passes through certain parts of the vocal tract •Seven manners of articulation:•1) Stop 塞音 (plosive) 爆破音•three phases in the production of a stop :•the closing phase;•the hold phase;•the release phase•nasal stop (nasal) [n, m, ŋ ]•oral stop (stop) [p, b, t, d, k, g]•2) Fricative (Audible friction) 摩擦音•Close approximation of two articulators, the airstream partially obstructed, turbulent airflow is produced.• [f, v, s, z, h, , ð,∫, ʒ ]•3) (Median) Approximant 近音:•one articulator is close to another, but without the vocal tract being narrowed to such an extent that a turbulent airstream is produced.• Features:•larger gap; no turbulence• Ex. [w, j]•) Lateral (Approximant) 边音:•Obstruction of the airstream at a point along the center of the oral tract, with incomplete closure between one or both sides of the tongue and the roof of the mouth.•Features:• a stricture of open approximation; no noise of friction•Ex. [ l ]: leaf, lead;feel, real, build•5) Trill [r] 颤音： red•6) Tap or flap 触音/ 闪音： [ Ր ]• city letter (Am.)»7) Affricates塞擦音 [ʧʤ] : •involve more than one of these manners of articulation in that they consist of a stop followed immediately afterwards by a fricative at thesame place of articulation.•Ex. [ʧ]: church[ʤ]: jetPlaces of articulation•The places where there is approximation, narrowing, or the obstruction of air.•eleven places of articulation•1) Bilabial 双唇音•Made with two lips•[p, b, m],•[w] (a little different, IPA refers it as labial-velar approximant 唇颚近音) •2) Labiodental 唇齿音•made with the lower lip and the upper front teeth.•[f, v], as in fire and via•3) dental/ interdental齿音•the tongue tip or blade and the upper front teeth•[ , ð]•4) alveolar齿龈音（7个）•the tongue tip or blade and the alveolar ridge•[t, d, n, s, z, ɹ, l]•5) postalveolar (palato-alveolar)后齿龈音: the tongue tip and the back of the alveolar ridge•[∫, ʒ, ʧ, ʤ]•wash garage watch•6) retroflex 卷舌音•the tip or blade curled back (retroflex) so that the underside of the tongue tip or blade forms a stricture with the back of the alveolar ridge or the hard palate•“r” of daughter•7) palatal (only 1) 硬腭音•the front of the tongue and the hard palate•[ j ], as in yes and yet.•8) velar 软腭音•the back of the tongue and the soft palate. (touched)•[k, g]: velar stops, cat, get•[ŋ]: velar nasal, sing•9) uvular 小舌音•10) Pharyngeal 咽音•11) glottal 声门音•the two pieces of vocal folds pushed towards each other•[ h ]: glottal fricative, as in hat, hold•[ ʔ ]: glottal stop, in fat [fæʔt], pack [pæʔk],•Analyze consonants of English•Description of consonants:• 1. voiced or voiceless• 2. place of articulation• 3. manner of articulation• e.g. [p] Voiceless bilabial stop• [b] Voiced bilabial stop• [f] Voiceless labio-dental fricative• [m] Bilabial nasal•Vowels 元音•Vowel: a speech sound in which the airstream from the lungs is not blocked in any way in the mouth or throat, and which is usuallypronounced with vibration of the vocal cords, too.•cardinal vowels 基本元音•The idea of a system of CARDINAL VOWELS was first suggested by A.J. Ellis in 1844 and was taken up by A.M. Bell in his VisibleSpeech(1867)• A set of vowel qualities arbitrarily defined, fixed, and unchanging, intended to provide a frame of reference for the description of theactual vowels of exiting language.•[i] [e] [ ] [a] [α] [ ɔ ] [Օ] [u]•Schwa（非重读央元音•neutral vowel [ə], neither high nor low and neither front nor back•The description of vowels :• 1. The height of tongue raising (high, mid, low)• 2. The position of the highest part of the tongue (front, central, back) • 3. The length or tenseness of the vowel( tense vs. lax or long vs. short) • 4. Lip-rounding (rounded vs. unrounded).••Description of some vowels•[i:] high front tense unrounded vowel•[u] high back lax rounded vowel•[a:] low back tense unrounded vowel•[e] mid front lax unrounded vowel•Vowel glides（元音音渡）•Vowels where the quality remains constant throughout the articulation are called pure or monophthong vowels（纯元音/单元音）.•Vowels where there is an audible change of quality are called vowel glides.•Diphthong（双元音）: a speech sound which is usually considered as one distinctive vowel of a particular language but really involves twovowels, with one vowel gliding to the other.•Triphthong (三合元音）:a term sometimes used for a combination of three vowels.•The sounds of English•Received Pronunciation (RP)标准英语is the type of British STANDARD ENGLISH pronunciation which has been regarded as theprestige variety and which shows no REGIONAL VARIATY.•It is also called by many people as BBC English, Oxford English, King’s English or Queen’s English•General American (GA) 普通美语: the widely accepted accent used by most educated speaker in the USA•Syllable 音节It is defined as the unit which is often longer than one sound and smaller than a whole word.The most common type of syllable in language has a consonant before a vowel (CV). The basic elements of a syllable are the onset (one or more consonants) and the rime/ rhyme 韵音.The rime consists of vowel, which is treated as the nucleus or peak, plus the following consonant, treated as coda 尾音.• syllable structure:• syllable•╱╲• onset rhyme•╱╲• nucleus codaMinimal pairs and minimal setsWhen two words are identical in every way except for a contrast in one sound segment occurring in the same position in the string, the two words are called a minimal pair 最小对立体.E.g: pit and bit junk and chunkban and bin bet and batA minimal pair should follow three conditions: 1) they are different in meaning; 2) they differ only in one sound segment; 3) the different sounds occur in the same position in the strings.E.g:Two pronunciations of the word economicsseed and sit leaf and vealWhen a group of words meet all the above three conditions, they are called a minimal set最小集合 . E.g.:1) bit beat bat bate boot bite bought2) pit bit kit sit fit knit hit3) tin fin thin sin chin gin winFree variation 自由变异When two or more different sounds occur in the same position without any change of meaning, they are said to be in free variation.E.g.: economics, direct, either, neitherPhone, phoneme, allophone•Phone语音: individual sounds as they occur in speech. It appears in square brackets.•Phoneme音素: the smallest unit of sound in a language which can distinguish two words. It appears in two slanting lines.•The allophones音素变体 of a phoneme are the different versions ofa phoneme in actual speech. It appears in square brackets.• A B C• Key ski dictation• Cat scan factory• Ken skeptic deckchair•Sounds [k] are described differently in three columns:•Column A: aspirated• B: unaspirated• C: unreleasedPhonological processesPhonological process: a process in which a target or affected segment undergoes a structural change in certain environments or contexts.Sounds of change: assimilation and elisionAssimilation（同化）:When a speech sound changes, and becomes more like another sound which follows it or precedes it, this is called assimilationE.g.met --- bilabial nasalcomfort --- labiodental nasalElision 省略: the process of not pronouncing a sound segmentE.g.: you and mefriendshiphe must be•Dbinary features:two values denoted by + and –Major distinctive features:voicing,place of articulation,manner of articulationistinctive featuresSuprasegmentals (超音段) or suprasegmental feature (超音段特征) Suprasegmental features:the phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments such as syllables, words and sentences.The main suprasegmental features:stress, tone and intonationStress （重音）It is the pronunciation of a word or syllable with more force than the surrounding words or syllables.1. At the word levelThe location of stress in English distinguishes meaning1) A shift of stress may change the part of speech of a word.'import im'port 'increase in'crease2) Alteration of stress also occurs between a compound noun and a phrase consisting of the same elements.• a 'blackboard a black 'board• a 'greenhouse a green 'house• 2. At the sentence level•Notional words 实义词 are normally stressed while structural words are unstressed.• a. 'John 'bought a 'red 'bicycle.• b. 'JOHN bought a red bicycle.• c. John 'BOUGHT a red bicycle.• d. John bought a 'RED bicycle.• e. John bought a red 'BICYCLE.Tone 声调Height of pitch and change of pitch which is associated with the pronunciation of syllables or words and which affects the meaning of the words.A tone language is a language in which the meaning of a word depends on the tone used when pronouncing it.Mandarin Chinese, a tone language.妈mā high level tone麻 má high rising tone马mǎ fall-rise tone骂 mà high falling toneIntonation语调Intonation involves the occurrence of recurring 循环的 fall-rise patterns, each of which is used with a set of relatively consistent meanings, either on the level of phrase or sentence.E.g.: What did you put in my drink, Jane?What did you put in my drink, Jane?What did you put in my drink, Jane。