Introduction To Phonetics For Teachers of English

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)
Brent Davis, Ph.D.

Senior Lecturer
Sleyman Demirel University
Introduction to the Phonetics of English

for Teachers of English as a Foreign
Language
Almaty 2011
Introduction to Phonetics
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................5
I. Articulatory Phonetics.............................................................................8
Test yourself........................................................................11
Classes of Phones (Segments)........................................................12
Consonants...........................................................................13
Obstruents.........................................................................................................14
Plosive (Stop)..............................................................................................14
Tap (also called Flap)..................................................................................15
Fricatives.....................................................................................................15
Affricates.....................................................................................................16
Test yourself......................................................................................................17
Sonorants...........................................................................................................18
Nasals..........................................................................................................18
Approximants..............................................................................................18
Lateral Approximant....................................................................................19
Test yourself......................................................................................................20
Vowels..................................................................................21
Test yourself......................................................................................................23
Diacritics..............................................................................24
Test yourself......................................................................................................25
Coarticulation and Reduction.........................................................26
Test yourself........................................................................27
II. Acoustic Phonetics.................................................................................28
Test yourself........................................................................33
Prosody (Suprasegmentals).............................................................33
Syllable structure ................................................................34
Stress.................................................................................................................35
Tone group...........................................................................36
Intonation.............................................................................36
Test yourself........................................................................36
Features...........................................................................................37
Test Yourself........................................................................43
III. Auditory Phonetics and Speech Perception..........................................44
Speech perception...........................................................................45
Categorical perception.........................................................46
Test Yourself........................................................................47
2

IV. Sound Change and English Dialects.....................................................48
Phonetic variation in English..........................................................48
A short history of English...............................................................48
Test Yourself...................................................................................52
Appendix I: Full IPA Chart........................................................................54
Appendix II: Pronunciation Exercises........................................................55
Tongue Twisters..............................................................................55
Dental 'th'.............................................................................55
Retroflex 'r'..........................................................................55
Flapped 'tt'............................................................................55
S and sh................................................................................55
Short 'I'.................................................................................56
Lateral approximant 'l'.........................................................56
Most vowels.........................................................................56
Minimal pairs..................................................................................56
Coarticulation exercises..................................................................57
Appendix III. History of Phonetics ...........................................................60
Appendix IV. A Note on Phonology...........................................................63
End notes....................................................................................................74
Bibliography...................................................................................74
Illustration Index
Illustration 1: Articulators in the vocal tract...............................................9
Illustration 2: The vocal cords, shown open for breathing.........................10
Illustration 3: Detail of articulators showing tongue divisions..................12
Illustration 4: Closure points for plosives (stops)......................................14
Illustration 5: Initial position of tongue at the postalveolar place of articulation for the
affricate /t/.................................................................................................17
Illustration 6: Schematic of velar nasal (arrow shows airflow).................18
Illustration 7: Vocal cord and vocal tract frequency spectra......................31
Illustration 8: Plot of formants (F1 vs F2) for a close front vowel. ..........32
Illustration 9: American vowels (male) .....................................................33
Illustration 10: Tree structure of a syllable................................................34
Illustration 11: Tone group with tonic syllable marked by asterisk...........35
Illustration 12: Partial tree of Articulator Theory features.........................39
Illustration 13: Diagram of the three sections of the ear............................44
Illustration 14: Map of Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain........................49
Index of Tables
Table 1: English vowel chart using IPA terms (except [a] is shifted) back to represent its
acoustic position in English)......................................................................23
Table 2: Types of features..........................................................................42
Table 3: The Great Vowel Shift..................................................................51
Introduction
Phonetics1 is the study of speech sounds. Speech, in turn is spoken
language, and the study of language is linguistics. So then phonetics is a
branch of linguistics. Speech is also an acoustic phenomenon and its
production and perception are also branches of physiology. There are also
applications in communications engineering. Thus, there are a lot of
disciplines involved in phonetics; however, in this course we will focus on
the linguistic connection while considering the others as well, where they
affect the teaching of pronunciation. By understanding speech sounds
better we can help our students to pronounce English more correctly.
For students who are just beginning their studies of language as a
theoretical discipline, a few more words of introduction will be useful.
Basic to any scientific study are the notions of concept and relationship.
Concepts in phonetics are labeled by technical terms, e.g. phone, bilabial,
fricative. Sets of concepts form complex concepts in which the
relationships between the simple concepts are explained by theory.i A
theory, therefore, is an explanation (or description) of the relationships
between concepts backed by evidence from scientific research. For
example, the source-filter theory (or model) speech production in
phonetics explains how the acoustic properties of speech sounds are
produced in the vocal tract. It explains the relationship between
articulator positions and formant frequencies, and then the relationship
between formant frequencies and vowel quality which are all concepts that
will be explained in this text. By understanding the theory you will
understand how speech sounds are produced and what students need to do
to change their pronunciation.
It is also important as a language professional to know about the people
who have made important contributions to our understanding of language.
1
Words in bold italic are defined in the glossary.
In the history2 of the scientific study of language (especially phonetics),

three names stand out for their classifications of concepts and theories of
relationships: Saussureii, Jakobsoniii and Chomskyiv. Saussure focused the
attention of linguists on language at a point in time (synchronic) rather
than studying the historical development of a language (diachronic). A
fundamental principle he developed is that differences in meaning are
related to differences in language structure. Two types of differences can
be observed, paradigmatic and syntagmatic. Paradigmatic differences are
those which distinguish members of the same category due to to
differences in internal structure. For example, /p/ can be distinguished
from /b/ by the feature voicing. A syntagmatic difference relates to with
which other units can the unit co-occur. For example, in English, /s/ can
be followed by /p/, but not by /b/. In terms of our earlier discussion,
paradigmatic describes sets of concepts and syntagmatic describes the
relationships that may occur between different members of a set.
Jakobson and colleagues thoroughly developed the system of distinctions
used in describing phonetics. The basic concept (unit) in phonetics is the
feature3. These features are grouped into physiological or acoustic
categories. And within these groupings we will find smaller groupings
such as place of articulation and manner of articulation. By learning
how to produce these distinctions we can pronounce any speech sound
(with practice). If a feature is simply used for description it is called a
phonetic feature. If it determines the distinction between two phonemes it
is a distinctive feature.
The feature system applies to all languages, but which features are
distinctive relates to individual languages and their respective sets of
phonemes. Phonemes are sounds (phones) which determine morphemes
(meaningful parts of words). For example, in various English dialects
there are different ways to pronounce the 't' in 'bottle,' but these are not
distinctive so they are one phoneme (but different phones). In other
2
3
See Appendix III for the history of phonetics.

See the section on features and
http://clas.mq.edu.au/phonetics/phonology/features/index.html
words, the set of phones continues to refer to the object with the label
bottle, it is still the same morpheme. If we change the 'o' to 'a' we get a
new morpheme: battle. So 'o' and 'a' are different phonemes.v Knowing
how to pronounce the phonemes of a language is foundational to properly
speaking the language.
Chomsky contributed the notion of generative rules to explain language.
Phonetics proper does not make a great deal of use of these rules, but in
syntax they are crucial. They can also be used to explain phonology4
which we will use in this course when useful for studying pronunciation.
Rules tell us why certain phonemes occur in certain contexts and also what
changes are made in the pronunciation of phonemes due to the preceding
and following phones.
Some students are natural mimics and will have little need of phonetic
descriptions or exercises to improve pronunciation, but most students will
benefit from explanations and feedback on their pronunciation. This
introduction also includes a disc with a speech analysis program which
will illustrate speech sounds and allows you to give visual feedback to
yourself on your pronunciation.
This brief introduction is divided into four parts, consisting of the three
main divisions of phonetics and one relating more to phonology of
English: articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, auditory phonetics
(speech perception), and English dialects in historical perspective. Some
topics, even in the phonetics section may be more properly part of
phonology (since they relate to specific points of English phonemes and
sound rules), but all these topics, I trust, will be useful to teachers of
English. By the same criterion of usefulness, the level of detail is
somewhat limited. For a more general phonetics course readers should
consult Ladefoged (1993). Teachers will find Ball (2008), Avery and
Ehrlich (1992), Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin (1996), Kelly (2000),
and Sokolova et al. (2000) useful. This text covers some topics not in
Ball, but is limited to English. Kelly has more pronunciation exercises,
4
See Appendix IV
but less on acoustics and dialects. Avery and Ehrlich focuses on American
English which is also emphasized in this text, but British English is also
addressed. Sokolova et al. discusses differences between English and
Russian which will be helpful for students whose first language is Russian.
They focus only on the British RP variant of English.
I. Articulatory Phonetics
Let us start by looking at the process by which a speech sound is created.
Sound is what we perceive when air (or another sound-propagating
substance) is in motion. We hear, for example, the wind blowing, books
falling and people speaking. All these sounds are our perception of the
motion of our ear drums due to moving air pressing on them (which
motion is then converted to neural signals and processed in the brain).
In speech, there are two types of sounds: voiced and unvoiced (voiceless).
Unvoiced sounds are caused by random motion, noise. Voiced sounds are
caused by periodic (wave) motion in the air. Voicing is the first phonetic
feature we will use to help understand pronunciation.
These two types of sound (noise and wave motion) depend mainly on the
state of our vocal cords and secondarily on tongue and lip positions. Any
English speech sound can be made by putting the vocal cords, tongue, jaw
(teeth, etc.), velum and lips in the right places at the right times and
sending one's breath through them at the appropriate pressure5. Thus the
trick to correct pronunciation is to simply learn the correct sequence of
movements.
In English, the air always comes from the lungs, but other languages may use other
possibilities: ingressive, clicks, etc.
alveolar ridge
palate
velum
lips
uvula
teeth
pharynx
jaw
vocalcords
Illustration 1: Articulators in the vocal
tract
Before going further, let us locate these speech organs in our vocal tract.
These organs are the articulators we use in speech. Where two
articulators come together (or create a constriction) or where the tongue
most nearly approaches the upper jaw we have a place of articulation.
For example, when the constriction is between the two lips, we have a
bilabial place of articulation. The places of articulation are traditionally
ordered from left-to-right starting with the lips and ending at the glottis
(the space between the vocal cords). The articulators and their respective
place are: lips (bilabial), lip and teeth (labiodental), teeth and tongue tip
(dental), alveolar ridge and tongue tip (alveolar), forward part of hard
palate and tongue tip (postalveolar), hard palate and retroflexed tongue
(retroflex), rear part of hard palate and blade of tongue (palatal), soft
palate or velum and back of tongue (velar), uvula and back of tongue
(uvular), back of throat and root of tongue (pharyngeal), and vocal cords
9
(glottal). The tongue itself can be considered to be a group of articulators

since different muscles and locations are used. Sounds made with the tip
of the tongue are called apical, with the top (blade), laminal, and with the
back (dorsum), dorsal.
As air comes out of the lungs it passes between the vocal cords. This is
called the pulmonic airstream mechanism6. If they are fully open, as in
normal breathing, there is very little sound. In speech, the vocal cords are
partly closed which causes the airstream to either become agitated and
noisy or vibrate in time with the vibration of the vocal cords (periodic,
wave motion), depending on the amount of closure and air pressure. That
is, the tension and amount of closure of the vocal cords determines which
will happen: noise (voiceless sound) or periodic wave motion (voiced
sound).
You can feel the vibration of the vocal cords by placing your fingers on
your throat where it makes a bump (the larynx or Adams apple) and
Illustration 2: The vocal cords, shown open for breathing

6
10
Other languages may use glottalic (Hausa, Sindhi) or velaric (Zulu) airstream
mechanisms (Ladefoged, 130-138).
saying ah strongly for a second or two. The vocal cords can be held
slightly further apart (from the voiced position) which causes the air to be
noisy (not vibrating). This unvoiced, breathy voice is what you hear in the
sound (or phone) /h/.
vi
As noted above, the space between the vocal cords is called the glottis
and sounds primarily produced there (i.e. no greater constrictions are
found in the vocal tract) are called glottal. If the glottis is slightly
constricted (resulting in vocal cord vibration) and if the tongue is at rest
and the mouth somewhat open the sound you hear is the neutral vowel
called schwa[symbol: ].
Schwa falls in the class of vowels, as just noted. Speech has two major
kinds of sounds, vowels and consonants. Vowels are open, voiced (wave)
sounds while consonants vary in their degree of closure (and often come in
pairs of voiced and unvoiced). Vowels (and some voiced, open
consonants) can be the nuclei of syllables; consonants serve as the onset or
coda (end) of a syllable. The nucleus plus the coda is called the rhyme of
a syllable.
Test yourself
1.
Phonetics is the study of a. speech sounds b. language c. distinctive

features d. happiness
2.
Saussure noted that differences in meaning depended upon

differences in a. language change b. syntagmatic and paradigmatic
differences c. syllables d. generative rules.
3.
List the three areas of phonetics: ___________,

_______________, and _____________ phonetics.
11
4.
Voicing is caused by a. noise b. speech c. periodic vibrations d.

breathing.
5.
List the articulators: lips, _______, ___________ ________,
tongue, ________ and _________.

6.
Correct pronunciation depends on putting the articulators in the

right place at the right time with the right amount of breath. True
False
7.
The space between the vocal cords is a. the larynx b. the abyss c.
the wave d. the glottis.
8.
While holding your finger to your larynx say /s/ and /z/. Which
one is voiced? ________
9.
Voicing is a. a distinctive feature b. an articulator c. a high-pitched

sound d. a rhyme.
10.
Vowels can serve as the a. onset b. coda c. nucleus d. stress of a

syllable.
Classes of Phones (Segments)

As noted in the introduction, there are two large sub-categories of phones:
consonants and vowels. Vowels are the longer, more open sounds which
carry some information, while consonants generally serve as the main
carriers of information. The first alphabets only indicated consonants as
the vowels were quite predictable in those languages. By placing the
articulators
in different
positions a
Velum
very wide
Blade
(corona)
Tip
variety of
Back
(apex)
consonant
(dorsum)
sounds can
Side
be produced.
(rims)
The
articulators
Vocal cords
are more
constricted in
12
Illustration 3: Detail of articulators showing tongue

divisions
consonants than all but the most constricted vowels.

Consonants
Phonemes are described using features. Features which distinguish among
phonemes are distinctive features. To completely describe the set of
distinctive features which assign a consonant to a particular phoneme one
must know three features: voicing, place of articulation and manner of
articulation. Also, in terms of distinctive features, all consonants are
considered (-) Syllabic (that is, cannot be nuclei [middle parts] of a
syllable7). The manner of articulation depends on the degree of closure of
one or more of six articulators. The six articulators are the four parts of
the tongue (used in English), the velum and the vocal cords.
Consonants are also generally oral (air passes through the mouth), except
for the obviously non-oral nasal phones. The air also normally passes
through the center (central airflow feature) of the oral cavity except for
the lateral approximants where air flows around the sides of the tongue
(the central passage being blocked by the tongue tip at the alveolar
position). In this case we speak of lateral airflow through the oral cavity.
Chomsky and Halle refer to nasal and lateral as secondary apertures
(opening).viiConsonants (in English) can be subdivided into two subgroups: obstruents and sonorants. The first term refers to sounds with
restricted airflow while the second refers to loudness which also tends to
relate to degree of openness so that these terms generally refer to different
classes of sounds. However, the categorization is not sharp as there are
gradations of openness resulting in some borderline cases. It is also not
such a nice distinction theoretically since one is an articulatory feature and
the other is an acoustic feature. However, they are traditionally used to
label these classes of consonants so we will do likewise.
13
In the section on reduced speech we will see that sonorants can be syllable nuclei.
Also note that feature labels are capitalized.
Obstruents
Plosive (Stop)
The easiest class of
consonants to describe is
the stop manner (more
correctly called plosives)
alveolar
since there is a full
velar
closure. Other
bilabial
consonants have greater
or lesser degrees of
approximation of the
articulators and their
glot al
precise degree is more
Illustration 4: Closure points for plosives (stops) difficult to explain to the
learner. As the name,
stop, suggests, the sound
begins with the vocal tract completely closed either by the lips, the tongue
or the glottis. Then the closure is released with a small puff of air (unless it
is the second consonant in a cluster: compare the sound of /p/ in 'spit' and
'pit'). If the vocal cords are vibrating at the same time as the closure, the
sound is voiced, otherwise unvoiced. In English, there are four points of
closure (places of articulation) for plosives: the lips (bilabial), the
alveolar ridge (alveolar), the velum (velar) and the glottis (glottal).
Alveolar closure is accomplished by placing the tongue tip just above the
back of the front teeth, while velar closure is done with the back of the
tongue. Bilabial plosives are made of course by just pressing the lips
together and the glottal plosive is made by pressing the vocal cords
together. Listen to the sounds (phones) on the recording on the disc in the
cover and practice them.
These phones are transcribed, using the International Phonetic
Alphabetviii (IPA), as follows:
14
Unvoiced (voiceless) bilabial plosive (stop): [p]

Voiced bilabial plosive: [b]
Unvoiced alveolar plosive: [t]
Voiced alveolar plosive: [d]
Unvoiced velar plosive: [k]
Voiced velar plosive: [g]
Voiced glottal plosive: []
Tap (also called Flap8)
This is a very rapid [d]. It is often spelled as tt (e.g. Betty). Listen for it
in the phrase: Betty bought a bit of butter. This sound is more common
in American speech than British.
At this point let us discuss the four variants (allophones) of /t/ in
American English. The normal aspirated /tST/ is heard in word initial, word
final and at the beginning of syllables with stressed vowelsix. Examples:
'two,' 'set,' and 'attack.' In intervocalic position before an unstressed
vowel Americans will pronounce the tap. Example: 'letter' /l/. After /s/
the /t/ is usually unaspirated (no /h/ like puff after the /t/. Example: 'stunt.'
The last allophone is a retroflex //. Note the longer tail in the transcription
symbol. This is pronounced before a retroflex 'r' //. Example: 'trip.' All of
these allophones are positional variantsx
The tap is transcribed as:
Voiced alveolar tap: []
Fricatives
Fricatives are made by placing two articulators very close to another one,
8
15
Technically a flap is a retroflex tap (according to Ladefoged, 168) or a incidental, less

deliberate closure (Clark, Yallop & Fletcher, 48).
but allowing air to squeeze through. This creates a hissing sound as the air
goes by. If voicing is added (vocal cord vibration) then the sound has a
buzzing quality. In English, the an active articulator (lips or tongue) is
placed near a passive articulator such as the teeth or palate. The one
exception in standard dialects is /h/ where the vocal cords form both
articulators. Particular attention should be paid to the dental fricatives
since most non-native speakers have difficulty with them. These are made
by placing the tip of the tongue between the teeth. In spelling this is
written th, but there are both voiced and unvoiced varieties: thin
(unvoiced); that (voiced). I have included /x/ for use in discussing
Scottish.
Transcription:
Unvoiced labiodental fricative: [f]
Voiced labiodental fricative: [v]
Unvoiced dental fricative: []
Voiced dental fricative: []
Unvoiced alveolar fricative: [s]
Voiced alveolar fricative: [z]
Unvoiced postalveolar fricative: []
Voiced postalveolar fricative: []
Unvoiced velar fricative: [x]
Unvoiced glottal fricative: [h]
Affricates
Some phoneticians also discuss affricates. These may be represented by
one letter in orthography, but are simply combinations of two phones,
phonetically. The ones in English are 'j' /d/, 'ch' /t/ and 'x' /ks/. You will
16
postalveolar
palatal
alveolar ridge
lip
tongue tip
Illustration 5: Initial position of tongue at the postalveolar

place of articulation for the affricate /t/
notice these are all stops followed by a fricative. Historically, some of
these sounds were velar, but due to coarticulation the place of articulation
shifted so that the two sounds are both postalveolar or palatal (see
palatalization).
Test yourself
Fill in the blanks with the correct voicing, place and manner of
articulation.
1. /p/ _____________ ______________ _______________
2. /b/ _____________ ______________ _______________
3. /f/ _____________ ______________ _______________
4. /v/ _____________ ______________ _______________
5. // _____________ ______________ _______________
6. // _____________ ______________ _______________
7. // _____________ ______________ _______________
8. /h/ _____________ ______________ _______________
17
9. In the lateral airstream air passes through the a. over center of the
tongue b. over the sides of the tongue.
10. List the three parts of the tongue: _____________ ______________
_______________
Sonorants
Sonorants as noted earlier are rather loud, open sounds and are all voiced
(except, of course, in whispered speech.)
Nasals
The nasal sounds are made in the same places as many of the plosive
sounds, but with the velum lowered. They are also all voiced so they are
rather loud sounds and thus classed as sonorants. 9The velum is the back
part of the palate and acts as a trap door to allow air flow through the nasal
passages. Since, nasals are voiced it is not necessary to mention voicing in
the phonetic description. To maintain consistency with other sections,
however, voicing is noted below.
They are transcribed as:
Voiced bilabial nasal: [m]
Voiced alveolar nasal: [n]
Voiced velar nasal: []
Approximants
Illustration 6: Schematic of
velar nasal (arrow shows
airflow)
9
18
Ladefoged, 246.
These are the most open consonant sounds
(stops are the most closed). Students learning phonetic transcription often
confuse some of them with close vowels. In fact another name for some
of these sounds (/j/ and /w/) is semivowels. All English approximants are
voiced. Two of these sounds may be slightly difficult for non-native
speakers of American English: the labial-velar approximant and the
retroflex approximant.
The labial-velar approximant requires the speaker to round the lips and
raise the back of the tongue as in a back vowel (see the vowel section
below). There is no real difference except that the labial-velar
approximant is always followed by another vowel which functions as the
syllable nucleus (see syllable structure below). In terms of features
though, it lacks the Syllabic feature which all vowels have.
The retroflex approximant is made by curving the tip of the tongue back
over the blade of the tongue. For students who do not have retroflex
sounds in their native languages this will require some practice10.
Transcription:
Voiced retroflex approximant []
Voiced palatal approximant [j]
Voiced labial(ized) velar approximant [w]
Lateral Approximant
This brings us to the last manner of articulation used in English: the lateral
approximant. Normally the airstream travels through the center of the
vocal tract as noted earlier, this is called the central airflow. In lateral
approximants the center of the vocal tract is blocked (by the tongue tip)
and the air travels laterally, along the sides of the vocal tract. Thus, to be
comprehensive, four types of distinctive features are needed to distinguish
consonants, but as all are central save for /l/, it is simpler to treat this
phone as an exception (instead of listing 'Central' for every other non-nasal
10
19
The Scottish dialect has a trilled r [r] which we will not discuss as trills represent a
whole other class not used in General American or Received Pronunciation.
consonant).
This sound is made by touching the tip of the tongue to the alveolar ridge
as in a [d], but keeping the sides of the tongue below the upper jaw so that
air can stream around the edge of the tip of the tongue.
At this point, let us again discuss the notion of an allophone. Sounds used
in language are called phones or segments, the set of sounds used in a
particular language and recognized as distinct by native speakers is called
the set of phonemes (phones with meaning). Recall that a phone which
differs by manner, place or voicing from the target phoneme, but is
perceived by native speakers as still being that target phoneme is called an
allophone. The lateral approximant has an allophone which is always
found after the vowel (nucleus) of a syllable. This allophone is velarized,
that is the back of the tongue is slightly raised (towards the velum). Try
saying /w/ and /l/ at the same time and then unround your lips. This is the
velarized (dark) 'l.' Again, the dark 'l' is always in the rhyme (end of a
syllable) while the light 'l' is always at the onset (beginning) of a syllable.
Transcription:
Alveolar lateral approximant [l]
Velarized alveolar lateral approximant []
In summary, a consonant is characterized by three categories of features:
voicing, place of articulation and manner of articulation.
Test yourself
Write the voicing, place of articulation and manner of articulation for each
phone.
20
1. /n/ ___________ ____________ ____________

2. /m/___________ ____________ ____________
3. /l/ ___________ ____________ ____________
4. /j/ ___________ ____________ ____________
5.
// ___________ ____________ ____________
6.
/w/ ___________ labial-velar ____________
7.
// is always a. at the beginning of a syllable b. end of a syllable
8. Obstruents are a. more closed b. more open

9. Sonorants are a. quieter b. louder
10.
Consonants are described by a. voicing b. place of articulation c.

manner of articulation d. all of the above
Vowels
Vowels are fairly open sounds much like approximants and form the nuclei
of syllables. A syllable is the smallest part of speech that carries
referential meaning. That is it can be a part of speech (noun, verb, etc.).
For example, the syllable /ht/ refers to a head covering. Words or
morphemes may be only one syllable. There are, it should be noted, a few
exceptions to the rule that a syllable must have a vowel. These exceptions
are mostly found in reduced (informal) speech (see below).
The distinctive qualities that make each vowel sound different will be
discussed in the acoustic phonetics section (below). These qualities are
produced by the sound being affected by the position of the tongue's
height and degree of backness. One additional factor is the position of the
lips: rounded, unrounded, or spread. The actual position of the tongue
varies according to the consonants that accompany it (coarticulation).
When pronounced carefully, however, we need six degrees of height and
five degrees of backness to identify the location of each unique English
21
vowel. Actually, the vowel system only needs three degrees of backness
to distinguish between vowels, but we will use the two intermediate
columns to help us get the tongue in a more precise position for proper
pronunciation. The height, backness and rounding of a vowel give it its
unique sound or vowel quality. The English vowels are placed in the chart
below. Recall that the mid-central vowel is called schwa. Other vowels
are referred to by their sound or description.
To summarize, in order to assign a vowel to a unique English phoneme
one must know three distinctive features: height, backness and rounding.
Additional features may be shown using diacritics. For example,
American English has a set of rhotacized vowels: //, /a/, //, /u/, etc.
Another modified vowel is the long 'u' which is palatalized in certain
contexts: /u/. Example: 'pew' /pu/.
The recorded vowels on the disk accompanying this book have each
vowel's (V) sound in the syllable /hVp/. Some vowels are only heard at the
beginning of diphthongs (vowel combinations). A diphthong is a glide
from one vowel position to another (examples /a/, /a/, / /.11 In a
diphthong, or long vowel (especially /i/), the lips are exaggerated, that is
more spread or more rounded. Failure to do so is part of what causes nonnative speakers to sound foreign.
Close
nearclose
11
22
Front
Central
Back
u
Some phoneticians also discuss triphthongs, but in almost all cases there are two
syllables, a diphthong and a monophthong. A true diphthong is the nucleus of only
one syllable.
Closemid
Mid
Openmid
nearopen
Open
Table 1: English vowel chart using IPA terms (except [a] is shifted) back
to represent its acoustic position in English)
Where two vowels occupy the same cell (same column and row), the one
on the right is rounded. All back vowels which are unique to a cell are
rounded. Rounding is done by pursing the lips as in /w/.
When practicing these vowels, be very careful with the high vowels as
small movements of the tongue (1 mm) can change the vowel quality. For
low vowels, even large movements (up to 1 cm) may not affect the vowel
quality.
Test yourself
23
1.
Vowels have height and a. affricates b. reference c. approximation

d. backness.
2.
Back vowels tend to be a. rounded b. spread c. unrounded d.
uvular.
3.
What is the name for the neutral (mid-central) vowel? a. null b.

schwa c. /a/ d. Barney
4.
Describe the vowel /u/ using the three features discussed: _______
________ _______
5.
Vowel quality refers to the a. length b. sound c. timbre d. pitch of

the vowel.
6. Rounding is done by a. spreading the lips as in a smile b. pursing

the lips as in a kiss.
7. Spreading tends to be more pronounced in diphthongs than
monophthongs. True False
8. For questions 8-10 give rounding, height and backness: [i]
__________ ___________ _______________
9. [u] ____________ __________ _________________
10.
[] ____________ ______________ _____________
Diacritics
The IPA specifies a number of symbols or superscript letters which can be
added to an IPA letter to indicate the presence (or absence) of a feature not
associated with the plain symbol itself. So far we have encountered a few
of these: [] added after a vowel to indicate rhoticity; [] to indicate
palatalization; and [~] to indicate velarization.
If a consonant is rounded it is called labialization: []. Thus, although the
action is the same, the label is different: vowels are rounded, consonants
labialized. You would use this transcription in, for example, the word
'wrong': [].
24
The symbol [] after a consonant indicates aspiration. In general,

aspiration distinguishes allophones rather than phonemes12 so we will not be
using it often. However, some pronunciation textbooks use it so it is good to
know. A table-shaped mark under a consonant indicates that the place of
articulation has become dental: [nnt ].
Sometimes, a sonorant can serve as the nucleus of a syllable instead of a
vowel. The feature syllabic is indicated with a small mark under the
transcription: []. Similarly, a tie bar can be used to link two phones to
indicate that they form one affricate: /vw ks/.
To indicate a long vowel we can put [] after a vowel, e.g. /i/. Note that
length is considered a suprasegmental feature and is located in a different
section of the IPA chart from other diacritics (see Appendix I). Also note
that this phone can be transcribed as [ij], a sort of diphthong. Other
suprasegmental diacritics will be discussed in a later chapter.
Test yourself
1. Select the symbol for labialization: a. b. c. d.
2. Which vowel is rhotacized? a. /a/ b. /u/ c. // d. //
3. Which vowel is long? a. // b. /i/ c. /a/ d. /u/
4. Which vowel is palatalized? a. // b. / u/ c. // d. //
5. Which consonant is functioning as the nucleus of a syllable? a. /n/
b.Sv| vSc.SvvSd.Svwv
12
25
'pit' is /pt/ but 'spit' is /spt/ without aspiration.
Coarticulation and Reduction

So far we have discussed the target, or isolated, values of phones.
In actual speech, sounds influence each other. This is called
coarticulation. Coarticulation is the influence of an adjacent phone on the
pronunciation of another phone. Often the effect is to change the voicing
of a phone. For example, in the word 'dropped' the 'd' at the end is
pronounced as /t/ due to the voiceless /p/ sound preceding it. This is called
perseveratory coarticulation. To clarify further, one or more features
(voicing, place, or manner) carry over from one phone to the next
(following).
The opposite effect is when a phone adopts one (or more) of the features
of a following phone. For example, the word 'tenth,' the 'n' is dental:vtntv
(recall the diacritic under the 'n' indicates dental). Here, the place of
articulation anticpates the following dental fricative. This is called
anticipatory coarticulationxi. In words with consonant clusters containing
// the preceding consonants tend to be retroflex as well: try /a/,
dropped /pt/. Historically, as will be discussed in the section on
dialects, a phone may drop out because the assimilation of one of its
features onto another phone makes it redundant. Wright /at/ (recall the
superscript 'w' symbol means labialized [=rounded]).
Reduction is when one or more phones are dropped to make pronunciation
easier. For example, 'what are you going to do' when pronounced
carefully is: /hwt aju go tu du/, but /hwt gn du/ when reduced in
casual speech. A vowel may be replaced by a sonorous consonant
(usually the coda consonant) in a syllable. For example, /vSreducesStoSvn||v
(the diacritic indicates the feature syllabic).
26
Note that coarticulation and reduction are more pronounced (more

noticeable) in informal speaking. A common error of second-language
speakers is to use reduction in formal settings, and unreduced
pronunciations in informal settings. This gives the impression of lack of
respect on the one hand or snobbishness on the other.
The principle of ease of articulation helps to explain coarticulation
and reduction. Also, when one is speaking to people you know well, less
information needs to explicitly stated or even pronounced for listeners to
understand. The reverse principle is that of sufficient perceptual
separation.xii One cannot reduce everything to one phone or there will be
no communication! When there is unfamiliarity between speakers or
noise, one must minimize coarticulation and reduction to create more
perceptual separation to ensure good communication. For example in the
word seizes the 'e' is pronounced although it is silent in seize. In this
way the suffix is distinct from the last phone of the root. This is the
opposite of assimilation and is called dissimilation.
Test yourself
1.
Coarticulation refers to changes in the pronunciation of phones due

to the influence of adjacent ones. True false
2.
Reduction refers to eliminating sounds to make pronunciation

easier. True false
3.
In anticipatory coarticulation the phone adjusts to be more like a.

the preceding phone b. the following phone.
4.
In a reduced syllable, a sonorous consonant may replace the vowel

as nucleus. True false
5. Reduction is more common in formal speech. True false

27
II. Acoustic Phonetics

Many things about speech can be learned from studying the speech signal
itself. In particular the vowel system and intonation are much easier to
understand when presented acoustically. This information can also be
used as feedback for the learner of English so as to improve his/her
pronunciation.
Although, not strictly necessary for using acoustic information, to get the
full benefit one should understand something about the acoustics of the
speech signal. Certainly, this is absolutely necessary for understanding the
theory of phonetics.
We noted in the introduction that speech consists of combinations of
periodic and aperiodic (noisy) sounds. These sounds are primarily
produced at the glottis, with secondary features added at other points of
constriction in the vocal tract. When there is a constriction, air particles
are forced nearer to each other. When there is less constriction, the
particles tend to move apart.
We all know that speech sounds carry meaning and from our previous
study of articulatory phonetics we know that the changes in speech
sounds are due to precise movements of the articulators. How do these
movements modify the sounds coming from the glottal area? What then,
exactly, is the meaning attached to each type of sound? Phoneticians use
the following terms to describe the (possible) information-carrying
characteristics of speech sound: duration, fundamental frequency
(perceived as pitch), amplitude, harmonics, resonant frequency, spectra,
and formants. In order to find these we need to measure three aspects of
sound: duration, amplitude, and frequency. In order to consistently
measure something, scientists need a common unit of measurement. The
unit for duration is usually seconds (s), for amplitude, deciBels (dB), and
for frequency Hertz (Hz).
28
To explain things another way, the places and manners of articulation that
we discussed previously have acoustic correlates. That is, we can say that
a particular vocal tract configuration causes a particular set of duration,
amplitude and frequency parameters. The set of parameters that
correspond to a particular phoneme are called the set of distinctive
features for that phoneme. Changes which are not distinctive for that
phoneme simply create allophones or stylistic variants. A phoneme is,
thus, a theoretical center for the various pronunciations one encounters in
actual speech.
Now, as we look at different (normal) speakers we can see that people
have different sizes of vocal tracts. This means some people have higher
voices than others. In order for people with different voices to make the
same phoneme, it is necessary that the acoustic features not be dependent
on absolute measurements of frequency, but on relative measurements. So
then, other than duration, which is not dependent on vocal tract length, all
other features require some normalization of the speech signal in order to
be recognized.
For example, a vowel cannot be uniquely identified simply by measuring
one frequency of its sound. One identifies it by measuring the difference
between two particular frequencies vs. the first frequency (or more simply,
just the difference between the first two frequencies in a normalized
space13).
Before we can say what those frequencies are we need to explain the
notion of frequency in sound. To begin with, we hear sound when air
pressure changes cause the ear drum to move. These changes are
transmitted to the inner ear through the middle ear. The inner ear contains
a tube which reacts to sound in such a way that a particular wave
frequency activates a particular nerve. We will discuss this more in the
auditory acoustics section.
So then, what is the frequency of a wave? Frequency (abbr. f) is the
13
29
See Figures 7 and 8.
measure of how often something happens. The frequency of your birthday

is once per year (f=1/yr). Anything that repeats after a certain period of
time has a frequency. In a sound wave, what repeats are pressure peaks in
the air (or other sound conducting medium). Sound that does not have
regularly recurring peaks is called noise. Note, also, that the inverse of
frequency (f) is wavelength (): f = 1/ . In other words, the distance
between peaks in speech is wavelength.
In your throat, as air passes through the glottis it may find the vocal cords
tense and partially closed. When this happens the air gets somewhat
chaotic as it passes through making noise. This is how you make the /h/
sound. On the other hand, the vocal cords may be almost closed, but not
very tense and the air pressure causes them to flap back and forth rapidly
(over a hundred times per second). This in turn causes the air to pulse
regularly in a wave motion. This is what we called voicing.
The fundamental frequency (F0) sets the pitch of your voice. However,
multiple frequencies of this wave are also generated (in normal voicing).
That is your vocal These are called harmonics. As these harmonics pass
through the vocal tract some are reflected back and forth becoming
stronger, like waves in a cup when you carry it. Others reach an obstacle
(or constriction) at the low point of their cycle and weaken (dampen). The
strongest frequencies are called resonant frequencies or formants.
The first two formants are used to establish vowel height and backness.
The vowels go from close to open as the first formant frequency increases.
The vowels go from back to front as the second formant increases. The
third formant is somewhat connected with rounding, but we will not use it
here.
To summarize, the vocal cord vibrations create a set of frequencies that
resonate through the vocal tract. Initially, there is a fairly uniform slope to
the strength of the harmonics, but as the lengths of areas of the vocal tract
reinforce or dampen the wavelengths of the harmonics, peaks and troughs
develop in the frequency spectrum. The peaks are called formants. The
first two formants are related to vowel height and backness. The model of
30
speech sounds as modifications of the spectrum of sound from the glottis

is called the source-filter model.xiii
Vocal cord frequency spectrum showing

fundamental frequency and harmonics
Vocal tract frequency response curve.

Illustration 7: Vocal cord and vocal tract
frequency spectra
31
These points can be illustrated using the speech analyzer program: see
Illustration 8.
Students learning English often have trouble with certain vowels. It can
be helpful to many learners if you plot their vowels and compare them
with native speakers' positions. Then use the training exercises in the
appendix to help them correct their pronunciation.
Illustration 8: Plot of formants (F1 vs F2) for a close front

vowel.
F2
2300 2200 2000 1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200
i
u
32
200 F1
250
300
350
400
450
500
550
600
650
700
750
800
850
900
1000
1150
xiv
Illustration 9: American vowels (male)

Test yourself
1.
Write the definition for frequency: _________________________________
2.
What is the inverse of frequency? ____________
3.
What is an harmonic? ______________________
4.
What effect do the resonance characteristics of the vocal tract have

on the frequency spectrum of vocal cord harmonics?
__________________________________________________________________
5.
What is a formant?
______________________________________________________
____________
6.
Which formant relates to vowel height (closeness)? a. F0 b. F1 c. F2 d. F3
7.
Would the value of F2 for back vowels be smaller of greater than for
front vowels? _______________
8.
A low F1 indicates a. close b. open c neither d. both
9.
What is the unit of measurement for frequency and its abbreviation? _____ __
10.
What is the unit of measurement (and abbrev.) for amplitude? ________

___
Prosody (Suprasegmentals)
So far we have focused on units called segments or phones now we are
going to look at larger units called syllables and tone groups. Thus
another name for these features is suprasegmentals. After that we will
look at distinctive features, which is a way to categorize all the phonetic
distinctions we use in language.
33
Syllable structure
The main part of a syllable is called the nucleus. Usually, the nucleus is a
vowel, but in some cases there is just a long (sonorant) consonant.
Approximants can easily become nuclei because they have almost the
same articulation as vowels. Stops (plosives) on the other hand can never
be nuclei (at least in English). They and most consonants occur as onsets
and codas to the nucleus. The nucleus and the coda can be considered
together to form the rhyme.
Syllable
Onset
Rhym
e
Nucleus
Coda
Illustration 10: Tree structure of a

syllable
The syllable obviously has the

articulations of the individual
segments, but it has some its own,
duration and pitch, as a unit.
These can be seen in a
spectrogram and pitch track.
In the next figure we see the phrase a syllable. This phrase has four
syllables. We can find the syllable boundaries by looking for changes in
pitch and regions of lower amplitude. In most cases there is a
discontinuity in the pitch track followed by jump in pitch. The only
exception is the boundary between syl and la. Here we have
continuity, but the change in syllables in marked by a change in pitch
direction.
34
a *syl
la
ble
Stress
In general one can see a

rather regular pattern of
peaks and dips in the
Illustration 11: Tone group with tonic syllable
pitch track. This is due
marked by asterisk
to the English stress
pattern. The peaks correspond to stressed syllables. Stressed syllables
tend to alternate with unstressed, but there may be two or three unstressed
syllables between stressed ones. Those unstressed syllables will however
be compressed in time so that the stressed syllables tend to fall on the
same interval of time. English, thus, is a stress-timed language.
In stressed syllables the vowels will be Tense, that is they will tend to
require greater tongue movement than unstressed syllables. Usually they
are front or back, but there are one or two central vowels sometimes found
in stressed vowels. Unstressed vowels, in contrast, are always central (that
is Lax or -Tense), usually 'schwa.'
Note that alternating stressed (Tense vowels) and unstressed (Lax) vowels
is another example of how the ease of articulation and the sufficient
perceptual separation principles work together to balance the need for
efficiency in speech production with the need for adequate acoustic
information in perception (Ladefoged, 1993, 267-268). Another example
is vowel harmony in languages like Kazakh (Junisbek, 2009, 24). In these
languages all phones are fronted or backed which makes for easier
articulation.
35
Stress is marked in transcription with a short vertical line before the onset
of the syllable: [].
Secondary stress is marked by a subscript line also before the onset: [].
Example: /mm/.
A sequence of a stressed syllable and accompanying unstressed syllable(s)
is a foot14.
Tone group
A phrase is called a tone group. That is, a tone group is an utterance
without a pause, which usually corresponds to a phrase. The syllable with
the highest pitch (most stress) is usually the tonic syllable. Tonic syllables
are marked in transcription with an asterisk '*'. Tone groups are also
called intonational phrases. A tonic syllable is similar to what is termed
sentence stress in other books.
Intonation
Intonation is the overall 'melody' of an utterance. Intonation indicates the
completion of an utterance, and also positive and negative feelings.
English generally has falling intonation at the end of an utterance, but uses
rising intonation at the end to signal a yes-no question.
In conclusion, segments form syllables; a stressed syllable and
accompanying unstressed syllables form feet, and feet form tone groups
which also have intonation.
Test yourself
1.
14
36
The main part of a syllable is the ____________.
In poetry a foot may be two syllables both stressed or unstressed (Sire, 1978).
2.
The beginning of a syllable is the a. onset b. coda c. rhyme d. none

of these
3.
Besides its segments (phones) an English syllable has duration and

a. pitch b. tone c. intonation d. quality
4.
Yes-no questions are signaled by a. falling intonation b. rising

intonation.
5.
Tonic syllables are marked by a. & b. % c. * d. #
6.
Unstressed vowels are always a. front b. back c. central
7.
Stress is marked by a greater degree of a. tongue movement b.

pitch c. neither d. both a and b.
8.
English is a a. stress-timed language b. event-timed c. untimed d.

tone-timed.
9.
The equivalent ease of articulation mechanism in Kazakh to stress

in English is a. tone b. pitch-timing c. vowel harmony d. laxness
10.
The principle that balances ease of articulation is a. sufficient

perceptual separation b. tenseness c. vowel harmony d. rhyme
Features
As noted in the introduction, all segments can be described as possessing
certain features. These phonetic features may be described articulatorially
or acoustically or in terms of syllable structure. The features we are
mainly concerned with are distinctive because they distinguish phonemes.
Features which can be observed, but do not distinguish phonemes are
simply phonetic features.xv
For example, in English, all segments are either voiced or unvoiced that
is all segments have the feature Voicing [+ (or) -]. Features are
traditionally capitalized and followed by the options in brackets. Most
features are binary and the options are [+], meaning that the segment has
37
the feature or [], meaning it lacks that feature. Other features relate to the
place and manners of articulation. For example, Stricture has three options
[stop] [fricative] and [approximant]. Syllabic [+ -] refers to whether a
segment may function as a syllable nucleus. In other words, whether it is a
vowel or an consonant. As noted above, vowels can be +Tense or -Tense
(= Lax).
Features may be defined acoustically (Jakobson) or articulatorially
(Chomsky and Halle), or a combination. In this text, we use a
combination, but the majority of features are articulatory (see table
below). Features may apply to a segment or suprasegmentally, but are
usually considered as components of a phone. In coarticulation, some
features spread across adjacent segments so it is clear that features are
suprasegmental in some cases. Older models presented features as lists,
but newer theories organize the features in trees. For example, a more
recent theory of features is called Revised Articulator Theory (Halle, Vaux
& Wolfe, 2000). In this model features are organized in a tree diagram
with articulators as main branches.
38
[round]
[labial]
[anterior]
[distributed]
[coronal]
[high]
[low]
[back]
[dorsal]
Lips
Tongue Blade
Place
Tongue Body
Illustration 12: Partial tree of Articulator

Theory features
Feature trees are organized from broad distinctions to narrow distinctions.
Historically the broadest distinction was between vowels and consonants,
but that is difficult to define phonetically. Features such as Syllabic or
Continuant are used instead. Newer models attempt to simplify the
inventory of classes15 by treating consonants and vowels similarly, feature theories
propose that features also capture in some sense the motor nerve commands that control
the articulators.
Sokolova et al.(2006)xvi present a very nice classification of phonetic

features in terms of distinctive (determining the set of phonemes),
contextual (determining the set of allophones), stylistic (determining the
set of variants), and personal (determing the full set of phones). Thus,
distinctive features, as noted earlier, get their name because they
distinguish between phonemes. This is also a convenient place to note
that broad phonetic transcription which only notes the phonemes without
additional detail is called phonemic transcription. Phonemic transcriptions
are placed between slash marks: /fonim/.
15
39
Classes is a technical term for categories or objects like features.
Contextual features are derived from phonological rules that specify how
segments change features depending upon the preceding or following
segments. Usually, they reflect current or historical coarticulatory effects.
An example of such a rule would be the change from a plosive to a tap in
intervocalic position (in American English). In phonology, (the study of
context-sensitive rules is properly phonology rather than phonetics) such
rules are typically written as X Y / Z __Q: read as x becomes y in
contexts where x would be between z and q.xvii Thus our intervocalic tap
rule would be written as: [t] []/V_V. VtV is of course a sequence of
segments. As we have touched on the topic of permissible sequences of
phonemes in a language, let us note that such studies are called
phonotactics.
Stylistic features are those that represent meaningful variation due to
social and pragmatic considerations. For example, the reduction in
informal speech would represent a stylistic variant.
Personal features cover the remaining sources of variation which account
for our ability to recognize the speech of a particular individual and to
make such speech a concrete object. A transcription that attempts to
record all speech variation is a narrow phonetic transcription and is
enclosed in square brackets:[].
Features are the most general descriptive system (taxonomy) for
categorizing phonetic objects. This is because it is intended to classify all
possible speech variations. A first step towards theory in any science is to
develop a set of concepts to describe all variation that is of interest to that
field of study.
Articulatory
40
Acoustic segmental features
Suprasegmental features
segmental
features
Stricture
Duration
Stress [pri., sec.,-]
Airstream
Amplitude
Harmony [front, back]
Pitch
Intonation
[central
lateral]
Manner of
articulation
Obstruent [+-]
Place of
articulation
Tongue
features
Rounding
[spread,
unrounded,
rounded]
Backness
[front,
central,
back]
Height
[close,
mid, open]
Coronal
Tense [+, =Lax]
41
Sonority
Voicing [+, -]
Syllabic [+,-]
Table 2: Types of features

In feature theory the phonetician is primarily concerned with description.
All the relevant articulatory or acoustic phenomena need to be described
with features. Secondarily, the phonetician is trying to show relationships
by grouping features into categories which share a more abstract feature.
For example, we may use a feature Flap to label one of the allophones of
/t/ (General American intervocalic), but how is that allophone related to
the others? The allophones of /t/ are distinguished from /d/ by a lack of
voicing. The American intervocalic /t/ and RP /t/ differ in place from the
Cockney which is glottal. What is the difference between RP and
American? By pronouncing both variants, we can determine that
articulatorially the flap has briefer contact with the alveolar ridge. On the
other hand since the flap is so brief, the voicing may not be interrupted so
what distinguishes the [] from the [d]? This seems to be duration of
contact which leads us back to proposing a feature like Rapidity (or
Duration of Closure) to distinguish the two. At this point the phonetician
would want to do some experiments to test voice onset time (VOT) versus
duration and attempt to get a firm conclusion as to the relevant feature.
The teacher of pronunciation will want to do some testing to determine if
explaining this concept will help students to pronounce both variants more
correctly.xviii This illustrates the different emphases of the theoretical
researcher and the pedagogical practictioner.
We can show sub-categories of features like this:
Manner
[Stricture
[Airstream
[Vibrationxix
42
Another way to look at features is as the smallest unit of phonetic analysis.

Phonemes are comprised of features. Syllables are comprised of
phonemes. And, tone groups are comprised of syllables.
Test Yourself
1.
In English, all segments (phones) have the feature Voicing. True

False
2.
A segments with the feature + Syllabic could function as a syllable

a. onset b. nucleus c. coda
3.
The feature Tense applies to a. plosives b. vowels c. syllables d.

tone groups
4.
[approximant] is an option for which feature: a. Stricture b.

Voicing c. Tense d. Lax
5.
Features are the most general system for categorizing phonetic

objects. True False
6.
What is phonotactics? a. permissible sequences of phonemes b.

permissible sequences of variants c. sequences of rules d. rhetorical
tactics
7.
The intervocalic tap rule would be written as: a. [t] []/V_V b.

[t] []/V_V.
8.
Contextual features determine the set of a. phonemes b. allophones

c. variants d. phones.
9. Phonemic transcriptions are placed within a. // b. [] c. {} d. \\

10. Features may apply to a segment or suprasegmentally. True False
43
III. Auditory Phonetics and Speech Perception

In this section we shall look at how the ear processes sound and some
interesting perceptual effects.
Middle
ear
Amplifie
s sound
Ear
and drum
transmits
it to the
inner ear
(cochlea)
Cochlea
A curled
tube lined
with
nerves.
Vibration
s in the
fluid
cause
nerves at
different
frequency
locations
to fire.
The illustration above

shows the three sections
of the ear xx. In the outer
ear sound enters and the
tube shape of the ear
Outer
canal emphasizes
ear
frequencies around 3000
Trans
mits
Hzxxi which is good for
sound
picking up the rather
to the
weak third formant.
eardru
Next sound is
m
Illustration 13: Diagram of the three sections of transmitted through the
the ear
eardrum to a set of three
small bones. These bones (and the membrane connecting to the inner ear
amplify the sound by about 30 dBxxii. Finally, the sound is transferred to
the Organ of Corti in the cochlea (or inner ear). According to Bekesy, the
Organ of Corti separates the frequencies by a series of neurons which line
the tube and respond more strongly to certain frequencies based on their
location on the tube. The rate of nerve firing is also related to the
frequency of the soundxxiii This information is then conveyed to the
auditory nerve.
The auditory nerve conveys the sound information to the brain where it is
44
further processed by the auditory cortex there. From the study of aphasias,
injuries to the brain that affect language, we know that areas named after
Broca and Wernicke are involved, but the brain is very plastic and it is
hard to pinpoint exactly what does what in the brain. Functionally,
however, we can move on to the study of speech perception.
Speech perceptionxxiv
A theory of speech perception needs to account for how humans get
language information from the speech signal. We know that context
supplies some information, but something must be recognized from speech
itself. The original assumption of phoneticians was that each segment was
said in almost the same way each time. In actual, connected speech,
however, coarticulation causes a lot of variance in how segments are
produced, so phoneticians looked for other places there might be
invariance in speech production.
The first theory of speech perception is called the motor theory. Liberman
and his colleagues believed that speech features matched articulatory
descriptions better than acoustic cues. Thus, they postulated that there was
a special processing center in the brain that matched speech patterns to
articulation commands and used those identifications to process speech.
The articulatory patterns they were considering were motor nerve patterns,
hence the name.
The second theory we will consider is the direct realist theory. This theory
originates with C. Fowler and is similar to the motor theory (MT) in that it
hypothesizes that the objects of perception are speech gestures.xxv It
differs in that the vocal tract shape rather than the motor commands are
considered to be the particular objects. Also it contends that general
perceptual processing is used, not a special module as in MT.
45
Next came the general approach (GA).xxvi Among a number of researchers

pursuing this idea is Diehl (2004). This approach contends that no gestural
perception is involved and that the objects of perception are sounds
themselves and that they are perceived using general auditory processing.
It is called an approach rather than a theory because it is more of a reaction
to the two theories above and lacks a testable set of hypotheses. From our
earlier discussion, it is clear that for this approach to work the brain needs
to do extra processing to match the coarticulated sound with the target
phoneme.
Categorical perception
Although the acoustic signal may vary continuously, people will tend to
hear all the variations up to a certain limit point as one category of sounds
and all those variations after that point as another category. Research on
infants has shown that newborns tend to react to many variations in
speech, but older infants react as adults do, in categories.xxvii For example,
one can gradually change the time when voicing begins in a voiced
consonant (voice onset time) to gradually change it from unvoiced to
voiced, but the perception will be unvoiced up to a certain point and
voiced beyond that point. One can change the vowel frequencies
gradually, but the vowel will be heard as one vowel until a certain point is
reached and as another vowel after that. There is disagreement about
where in the speech perception process this categorization is made, but it
most certainly does occur.
Another type of categorical perception is with vowels. With vowels
people can detect gradual differences (as in accents), but the phoneme
assignment will tend to be categorical. When one language has two
phonemes in the space occupied by only one in the other language learners
coming from the second language to the first will experience interference
(negative transfer)xxviii.
These results suggest that language teachers will need to train learners to
distinguish new categories of phones before teaching them to pronounce
them correctly. A method to do this the use of minimal pairs. For
46
example, 'bead' and 'bid' differ only by the vowel sound. The teacher can
say these words and label them '1' or '2.' When the students can accurately
distinguish the two sounds, he or she can go on to teach the pronunciation.
For a more general test of perception see the Perception of Spoken English
Test.xxix Also if you have a student who is having exceptional difficulty,
have his or her hearing tested.
Test Yourself
1. The ear is divided into a. three sections b. two sections c. four
sections
2.
What is the function of the Organ of Corti? a. sound transmission

b. frequency separation c. speech articulation
3. Aphasias are losses of skills due to

a. ear injury b. brain injury c. laziness
4.
What is the problem with matching speech segments to phonemes?

a. aphasias b. noise c. coarticulation
5. According to the motor theory invariant segments can be found in

a. motor nerve patterns b. acoustic cues c. neither
6. The direct realist theory differs from the motor theory in that a.
vocal tract configurations are matched b. general sound perception
abilities are used c. both a and b
7. The general approach is not a theory because it does not have
testable predictions. True False
8. Gradually changing voice onset time will result in a. gradual
changes in perceptions b. sharp changes at a boundary point c.
neither
9.
47
While vowels can be distinguished non-categorically they are

categorically assigned to certain phonemes based on first language
acquisition. True False
10.
Minimal pairs cannot be used to train second-language learners to

make new phonemic classifications. True False
IV. Sound Change and English Dialects

Phonetic variation in English
There are two types of variation in pronunciation which the teacher of
English should be aware of: regional16 and situational. The first type is
termed dialect and is due to basic cultural influences while acquiring the
mother tongue. Where these differences affect segments, the dialect
phoneme is considered an allophone of the standard pronunciation. The
second is due to various phonetic, discourse and social factors which vary
according to the situation and the interplay of prestige and solidarity in the
communicative act. These changes are called variants of the phoneme
when they affect segments. Suprasegmental changes are also often due to
situational factors. For example, lengthening to indicate hesitation is a
suprasegmental, situational variant.
Dialect accents are due to particular immigration patterns and/or
geographical or social isolation. Certain vowels and consonants are more
likely to vary than others. In this course we will look at a few phones that
have different allophones in dialects of English and discuss in more detail
phonetic aspects of a few interesting dialects. In discussing vowels we
will mention the Great Vowel Shift, as certain dialects may reflect earlier
vowel patterns. Due to the brevity of the section some generalization and
simplification is necessary.
A short history of English
The roots of the English language lie in the angle between Holland,
16
48
Social class dialects can still be viewed as local by examining immigration patterns or
neighborhoods in cities. Perhaps cultural is a more precise term than regional, but is
not commonly used.
Germany and Denmark. As the Roman Empire collapsed, some of the

Saxons living in this area were invited to serve in Britain (a Celticspeaking land at the time). They came, took over the territory of the
Celtic-speaking British and formed their own kingdoms. The Angle tribe
had lived in the angle of Denmark. Angles settled in Northumbria while
Saxons settled in Sussex and Wessex. A third group with connections to
the Franks called the Jutes settled in Kent, the former territory of the
Celtic Cantii (Ross, 2006: 30,31)xxx. xxxi
Centuries later the Norse Vikings invaded and ruled large areas of northern
Illustration 14: Map of Anglo-Saxon settlement in

Britain
England, the Danelaw. As a result, these dialects were influenced by
Danish. Finally, a French-speaking group of Norsemen from their Duchy
of Normandy in France conquered England and added the large French
component (Old Norman French) to modern English. Their influence was
greater in the south the opposite of the original Norse (Danish)
influence.
49
In the colonial period of the British Empire, English was spread to Ireland,
North America, and Australia by emigration and became an official
language in many others.
During the period of Old English (Anglo-Saxon) sound changed due to
assimilation. One type of assimilation is called umlaut. In umlaut a back
vowel assimilates to a front vowel. For example, a reconstructed plural
*ft-i of 'foot' became /fit/xxxii. This movement of back vowels to front is
also called palatalization.
Another similar morphological change is called ablaut In ablaut vowels
alternate as in the pattern sing, sang, sung, song. In some patterns a
vowel completely disappears (reduction). As we can see from the
example, there are height changes as well as backing changes in ablaut.xxxiii
Regional (or social dialects) can be interesting as examples of
conservatism or innovation.
Two interesting dialects in England are Geordie and Cockney. Geordie is
spoken in North-East England in what was once the kingdom of
Northumbria. This dialect still preserves the old pronunciation for long i
/i/ which has become /ai/ in southern English dialects (including Received
Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA). This difference is due
to the Great Vowel Shift which occurred in Middle English in the south,
but not (as strongly) in the north. Dring the 15th and 16th centuries the
vowels moved from their Old English values to near the values found in
most midland-southern English and American dialects.
Before
(front)
after
example
Before
(back)
after
example
time
au
loud
keep
moon
beat
50
snow
a
a
tail
hope
tale
au
draw
Table 3: The Great Vowel Shiftxxxiv

Cockney is the lower-class dialect of London. It is noted for glottal stops
and diphthongs which begin in a mid-central position, like: /tk/ for 'take'
andSvbn|vSforS'button.'SSInStheSmusicalSMy Fair Lady a phonetician teaches
a Cockney speaker RP speech. Cockney has had an influence on
Australian English as well. The pronunciations in Cockney are nonstandard, but earlier innovations in lower-class dialects eventually had
influence on standard English.
We will conclude our very brief dialect survey with a look at United States
dialects.
The Eastern United States has four fairly distinct dialect areas and a
notable, historical, social dialect -- Gullah. Again immigration patterns
laid the foundations for these dialects. In the north-east the early settlers
came from East Anglia, which in turn had been settled by the Anglesxxxv.
Some of their descendants settled Chicago and influenced its dialectxxxvi.
In general though, westward expansion of this dialect was hindered by the
Great Lakes and the political boundary with Canada.
The city of New York was originally New Amsterdam, settled by Dutch
colonists. After it became a British colony, the Dutch accent still
influenced the local dialect. People from Brooklyn are famous for saying
'toity toid street' for 'thirty-third street.' Again, the spread of this dialect
was limited for various reasons.
To the south of New York, in Pennsylvania most of the immigrants came
from the British Midlands. Midlands dialect continued to use the
retroflex 'r' which was lost in dialects further south (like RP) and which
was expressed as a trill in dialects further north like Scottish.
Geographically, it was easy for these speakers to spread West and this
dialect became the basis for General American (GA). Besides the
51
retroflex 'r', many speakers of American English have a tap for the
alveolar stop (in RP) between vowels.
Finally, in Virginia (south of Pennsylvania), many of the immigrants were
'gentlemen' from southern England and their dialect predominated,
becoming the Southern United States dialect. As these speakers
maintained close contact with England, the dialect changed along with the
southern English dialect for some period of time. In this dialect one hears
something more like /laak/ for /lak/ in GA.
Gullah was the dialect spoken by African-Americans along the Carolina
coast. It can be considered one of the influences on African-American
Vernacular English (AAVE). This dialect has some features of African
languages. One of the notable differences from GA is that // becomes /t/
in this dialect.
For a brief survey of American dialects (but more in depth than this one)
see:
http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test3materials/AmericanDialects
.htm
For other English dialects see:
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/research/gsound/Eng/Database/Phonetics/English
es/Home/HomeMainFrameHolder.htm
Test Yourself
1. Name the two types of pronunciation variation : _____________
and _______________.
2. Name the three Germanic tribes that invaded Britain: ________,
__________, and _____________.
3.
Northern English dialects were subsequently affected by a. Danish

b. Norman French c. Dutch d. Gullah
4. The great vowel shift affected a. southern b. northern c. western d.

eastern dialects.
52
5. Ablaut is a change in the vowel of different forms of a word. True

False
6. Umlaut is a palatalization of a. back vowels b. front vowels c.
central vowels
7.
During the Great Vowel Shift, i changed to a. a b. c. a d. e
8. Dutch influenced the dialect in a. London b. Chicago c. New York

d. Australia
9. One of the contributors to AAVE was a. Cockney b. Geordie c.
Danish d. Gullah
10. In Cockney, glottal stop is used to pronounce: a. 'b' b. 't' c. 'k' d. 'q'
53
Appendix I: Full IPA Chart
This is the full phonetic alphabet including many symbols not used in
English.
http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/IPA_chart_%28C%292005.pdf
54
Appendix II: Pronunciation Exercises

There are two ways to approach pronunciation and both are useful. The
first is to focus on segments and then build up. The second is to focus on
intonation and stress, focusing on segments as needed. The first is easier
to systematize in a curriculum while the second actually is more similar to
how native English speakers acquire correct pronunciation.
Tongue Twisters
Tongue twisters can be used to focus on difficult sounds. For
example, few languages have the 'th' sound of English. One can practice
this sound with:
Dental 'th'
Thin Thelma Thackeray threw thirty thick thistles through the thicket.
Retroflex 'r'
Round the rocks the ragged rascal ran (from Singing in the Rain)
Flapped 'tt'
Betty Botter bought a bit of butter, but the bit of butter Betty bought was
bitter so Betty bought a bit of better butter to make the bitter butter (or
batter) better.
S and sh
Sally sells seashells by the seashore
55
Short 'I'
Inky imps issued interesting, inner interdicts.
(This will also work with glottal plosives)
Lateral approximant 'l'

Lily Lolly lulls lullabies lackadaisically.
Most vowels
Bill Botter bit bites of butternut squash, oblong boots, battered artichokes,
and boiled beaver bait.
Minimal pairs
When two phonemes of the second language are merely allophones of one
phoneme in the first language, minimal pair practice will help the learner
to hear the difference.
Long 'e' and short 'I' (one phoneme in Russian and thus difficult for
Russian speakers)
1 long 'e' /i/
2 short 'I' //
seep
sip
beet
bit
heap
hip
deep
dip
sleep
slip
Begin the exercise by saying the words. Then say a word in random order
56
and have the students indicate if it was from column one or two. When
the students can consistently hear the difference, one can move on to
production of the sounds.
Coarticulation exercises
To practice the -ed endings use:
Dirty Derek dropped, robbed, darted and laded.
-s ending
Sally sells, stacks and seizes soluble celery sticks.
Some reduced phrases:
I dunno. [I don't know]
Whacha got? [What have you got?]
Where'dja go? [Where did you go?]
Woulda coulda shoulda done it. [Would have done it.]
All around practice:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers; a peck of pickled peppers,
Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
Intonation
Do you like phonetics? (rising)
Yes, I do.
Kind of.
57
No, I don't.
Why?
Where is it?
I feel great!
I feel sick.
antidisestablishmentarianism
Nonsense:
Having students write transcriptions of nonsense forces them to attend to
the actual sounds and not what they would expect from previous exposure
to English.
Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carrollxxxvii
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought -So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
58
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
59
Appendix III. History of Phonetics

Ancient observations and development of alphabets.
The first phonetician was someone who used Egyptian hieroglyphs to
represent one phoneme. This occurred sometime in the Middle Kingdom
and perhaps by a Semitic speaker not an Egyptian speaker (Lemaire, 4617;
Goldwasser 18). principal used was acrophony, tking the first phoneme of
a word (represented by a pictogram) and putting the phonemes together to
spell a word not related to the pictograms at all.
Some 2500 years ago, the Adhyy of Pini
discussed the articulation of Sanskrit sounds.19
The first Turkic alphabet was apparently adapted from the Aramaic
alphabet used in the adjacent Persian Empire. A notable adaptation was
the use of different letters to indicate front and back harmony 20
For the European study of phonetics we may begin with Wolfgang von
17
Lemaire, Andre. The Spread of Alphabetic Scripts (c. 1700500 BCE). Diogenes 218
(2008): 4457 http://www.digitorient.com/wp/wpcontent/uploads/2009/01/AlphabetDiog%C3%A8ne%20.pdf Accessed 2 Feb., 2011.
18
Goldwasser, Orly. How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs. Biblical
Archaeology Review. 36:02, Mar/Apr 2010 . http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?
PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=02&ArticleID=06&Page=0 Accessed 3 Feb.,
2011.
19
Pini. Adhyy of Pini (Trans. Sumitra Katre). Delhi: U Texas Press, 1989.
http://books.google.kz/books?
id=iSDakY97XckC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=panini+articulatory&source=bl&ots=ueOe
Ts000e&sig=yf5hUB8oKUAhBwb65keiK1cvXaw&hl=kk&ei=Z7ZKTYWuAYeUOvHfBk&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CDIQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q
&f=false Accessed 3 Feb., 2011.
20
Doug Hitch, Aramaic Script Derivatives in Central Eurasia Sino-Platonic Papers, 198
(February 2010), p. 9. http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp198_aramaic_script.pdf
Accessed 3 Feb., 2011.
60
Kempelen who devised a mechanical device to make vowel sounds and

published research with it in 1791.21
The modern phonetics tradition begins with the 19th century
Neogrammarians. They were mainly interested in the history of
languages. In phonetics (or phonology) they developed rules for sound
change such as Grimm's law. One of the well-known neogrammarians was
Hermann Paul.22
Alexander Melville Bell, father of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of
the telephone, developed a phonetic system for teaching the deaf. Henry
Sweet was the first to develop phonetics for teaching English as a Foreign
Language. 23
Otto Jesperson became one of the first members of the Phonetic Teacher's
Association in 1886.24 He wrote a phonetics textbook in 1904.
Daniel Jones was a student of Passy, one of the founders of the
International Phonetics Association (successor to the Phonetic Teacher's
Association. He devekoped the idea of cardinal vowels for language
description and teaching.
Trubetzkoy originated the theory of distinctive features with other figures
in the 'Prague school' such as Roman Jakobson.
Gordon Peterson was an engineer who specialized in speech. His study of
vowel formants is of continuing interest.
21
22
23
24
61
Ohala, John J. Phonetics and Phonology then, and then and now. Phoneticshist.htm
Paul, Hermann. Principles of the history of language. (reprint) New York: McGrath
Pub., 1970. http://books.google.kz/books?
id=t3v8aOCTO40C&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:t3v8aOCTO40C&hl=en&ei=
2rpKTZTCA8ObOsmQlDc&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC
QQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false Accessed 3 Feb., 2011.
Howatt, A. P. R. A History of English Language Teaching. Oxford: OUP, 1984,p.
172,3.
Howatt, p. 170.
Jakobson, Fant and Halle wrote a book on features. Jakobson developed

the concept of markedness which came out of the Prague school. Fant
developed the source-filter theory of speech production. Halle
collaborated with Chomsky on the most influential book on features,
Sound Patterns of English (SPE).
These are a few of the noteworthy researchers in the history of phonetics.
62
Appendix IV. A Note on Phonology

Phonology is defined as the study of the sound structure of units within a
particular language (Anderson). Phonetics and phonology are linked by
the concept of feature. A feature can be simply descriptive (and therefore
phonetic) or distinctive (in a system of oppositions for a particular
language) thus forming the building blocks for phonological rules.
Features allow the defining of natural classes (of phonemes) upon which
phonological rules should operate in a theoretically transparent manner.
Modern phonology owes a great deal to the Prague school which included
Trubetzkoy and Jakobson.
Trubetzkoy discussed a phonological system of oppositions.25
Jakobson and Halle developed feature theory after Trubetzkoy.
Chomsky and Halle's Sound Patterns of English (SPE) was one of,
perhaps the most influential works in phonology. As part of generative
grammar it proposed generative phonology. In general an abstract
underlying form is realized as a surface form by the application of rules.
These forms can be understood as sequences of segments which are
feature matrices. Two problems arise in this view, one is that features may
affect more than one segment, (suprasegmental problem) and the other is
that segments may not need to have a value for a certain feature
(underspecification).26 Attempts to deal with the suprasegmental problem
led to autosegmental theory which allowed features to operate at levels
above and below the segment.
One development from Generative Phonology was Metrical Phonology
viewed stress as degrees of prominence rather than as a feature. In
general, phrases were analyzed into strong and weak units in this school.
Another reaction to Generative Phonology is Optimality Theory. Instead of
25
26
63
Feature theory
This is somewhat over-simplified. See feature theory.
having ordered applications of rules, there are universal constraints which

prohibit certain rules if a language values the constraint highly or allows
them if the constraint is not valued.
A recent development in feature theory is Feature Geometryxxxviii. The
initial proposal was Clements (1985)27. Feature Geometry uses tree
structures to link particular features to particular articulators.
These are a few of the principal schools of phonology. For further reading
see Roach (2009) for a practical course focusing on English28. For a focus
on phonology in second language acquisition see: Hansen Edwards and
Zampini (2008).29
27
28
29
64
Clements, N. (1985) The geometry of phonological features.

Phonology Yearbook 2: 225-252.
Roach, Peter. English phonetics and phonology:
a practical course. Cambridge: CUP, 2009.
http://books.google.com/books?
id=dDVR_zh5wkMC&lpg=PP1&dq=phonology&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Accessed 18 July, 2011
Hansen Edwards, Jette G & Mary L. Zampini. Phonology and second language
acquisition. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2008.
http://books.google.com/books?id=kwgQkGx68wC&lpg=PP1&dq=phonology&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q&f=false Accessed 18
July, 2011.
Glossary of English Kazakh Phonetic Terms

--
xxxix
Ablaut/: a change in vowel quality across forms of a verb, or related word-forms

such as: 'sing' and 'song'.
Acoustic phonetics/ {} : study of the

production and physical characteristics of the speech waveform.
Affricate/{}: a combination of adjacent consonants
which are distinctively one phoneme.
Airflow/ : the path through which air flows to the outside:
oral through the mouth cavity and nasal through the nasal cavity.
Additionally the oral airflow is divided into central or lateral by the shape and
location of the tongue
Allophone/: an allophone is a variant of a phoneme which differs
from the model phone in one or more features, but does not change the
phonemic value of the phone. For example, [z] is an allophone of 's' in the
word 'bags.' That is you hear [z] (voiced), but consider it to be the plural
suffix '-s.' The model phone for this morpheme is of course [s] (voiceless).
Alveolar/: the place of articulation where the tongue touches
or approaches the ridge behind the upper teeth (upper gum line).
Alveolar ridge/ : ridge behind the upper teeth where
the teeth fit into the jaw. Constrictions are made here with the tongue tip/
.
Amplitude/: the volume of a sound; vertical height on a
waveform.
Anticipatory coarticulation/- : the change in one or
more phonetic features of a segment to match those of the following segment.
Approximant/ { }: manner of
articulation; the most open category of consonants. In English, it consists of
the semivowels [j] and [w] and two varieties of 'r': [] (mainly British) and []
65
(mainly American).
Articulator/ {} : something which can be used to
change the shape of the vocal tract by constriction or lengthening.
Articulatory phonetics/ {}(
) : study of the anatomy and physiology of
speech.
Assimilation/ {}: progressive a.
(perseverative coarticulation) refers to a phone becoming more like the
preceding in one or more features. Regressive (anticipatory
coarticulation) refers to a phone being more like the following phone.
Auditory phonetics-speech perception/{}
: study of the transmission, and neural processing (perception)
of speech sounds in the ear and brain.
Back/: a feature of vowels determined by how far back in the vocal
tract the tongue-palate constriction occurs. It correlates with the second
formant acoustically.
Bilabial/-: made with two lips.
Coarticulation/{}: the influence of a preceding or
following segment's voicing, place or manner of articulation on the
articulation of a given segment. See assimilation. Coarticulation refers more
to the physiology while assimilation refers more to the acoustic result.
Coarticulation can simply mean overlapping articulation of two phones.
Coda/ : the consonant(s) closing a syllable.
Semivowels may be considered part of the nucleus (see diphthong).
Concept/ : in science a concept is a classification of
phenomena. A concept that is developed from theory is a construct.
'Features' in phonetics are the most basic concepts used to describe
phenomena.
Consonant/: a constricted sound (or stoppage of sound) which
carries speech information and is connected to a vowel to form a syllable.
Ordinary consonants serve as the onset or coda of a syllable. Consonants fall
into natural categories depending on the air-stream mechanism (manner of
articulation) used to produce them.
Constriction/: a full or partial obstruction of the air stream in the
vocal tract which determines a formant frequency or type of air flow (e.g.
66
friction). Adj.: constricted.

Coronal/ ()-: pertaining to either the tip or blade of
the tongue; phonetic feature.
Dental/: the place of articulation where the constriction is at the teeth
(tongue touches or approaches the teeth).
Diphthong/ {}: a long vowel (or combination of vowels)
which begins in one place and ends in another (that is a glide).
Dialect/: a variety of speech including vocabulary and pronunciation
which is peculiar to a particular geographic region or social class, but
generally understandable to speakers of other varieties of the same language.
Distinctive/: a change in speech sounds which affects meaning. For
example, in English, a dental nasal is not distinctive with regards to an
alveolar nasal, but a velar nasal is: The word 'bin' is perceived in the first two,
but 'bing' in the last.
Ease of articulation/ : principle that one
seeks to conserve effort when speaking.
Epiglottis/: cartilage behind the tongue.
Filter/: a tube through which sound travels and whose length and
shape determines the formant frequencies of the sound. A digital filter is a
computer program which changes digitized speech in the same way as a
change in the vocal tract would change sounds coming out of the glottis. In
general, an acoustic filter selects for certain sound frequencies.
Flap/: a manner of articulation where the tongue makes a very rapid
closure and then releases. It is distinguished from a tap in that the tongue is
retroflexed, or according to some phoneticians is more incidental.
Foot/ : a foot is a stressed
syllable along with one or more unstressed syllables, usually in a polysyllabic
word. It is an important unit in metrical phonology.xlFormant/
: a point of resonance (peak) on the spectrum of a speech
sound. They are labelled from lowest frequency to highest as F1, F2, F3, .
Fortis/ { }: a consonant with strong air
pressure due to a more open glottis= voiceless.
Fricative/ ( ) {}: manner of articulation; a
hissing (voiceless) or buzzing (voiced) noise caused by turbulent air flow
through a constriction in the vocal tract.
67
Fundamental frequency/ : the rate of vibration of the glottis

equals the pitch of the voice.
Generative rules/ : rules which generate
(automatically derive) the grammar of a language. Developed by N.
Chomsky.
Glottal/ : the place of articulation where the
vocal folds form the point of constriction for the speech sound.
Glottis/ : space between the vocal cords.
Harmonic/ {}: a multiple of the fundamental
frequency.
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)/
: the internationally agreed upon set of symbols used to transcribe
speech. See Appendix A.
Intonation/: the rising and falling of the fundamental frequency
over an utterance.
Jaw/: part of skull which contains the teeth and tongue. The
openness of the lower jaw affects the sound of vowels.
Labiodental/-: the place of articulation where a lip touches or
approaches the teeth.
Larynx/: the cartilaginous structure containing the vocal cords.
Lateral/: distinguished from other oral sounds in that the air flow is
around the sides of the tongue while the tip is blocking the center.
Lax/: the opposite of tense. True of unstressed, central vowels.
Lenis/ {-}: a consonant with less air power due to
voicing = voiced.
Lip/: edge of mouth which can assume various shapes and interact with
other articulators.
Manner of articulation/ : the type of constriction
which the articulators make.
Monophthong/: a vowel which maintains a steady, target position.
Morpheme/: the smallest unit of language with a semantic referent.
That is it is a lexical item (word) or an affix.
Nasal/ : manner of articulation; voiced sound made with the
velum lowered so that most of the air goes through the nose. Opp. Oral.
Neutral vowel/ : the vowel 'schwa' formed by a tube
68
with no intermediate constrictions []. It is heard in unstressed syllables.

Normalized space/ : a mathematical way to show
the vowels of different persons in the same relative positions.
Noise/: aperiodic (not periodic) sound. Breathy.
Nucleus/: the center of something, especially a syllable.
Onset/ : the consonant(s) beginning a syllable.
Oral/: pertaining to the mouth; a phonetic feature of airflow. Opp.
Nasal.
Oral airflow/ : the flow of air is primarily through the mouth.
True of all English phones except nasal.
Orthography/: the normal writing system as opposed to
phonetic transcription. Orthography tends to be phonemic, but in English is a
very poor guide to pronunciation.
Palatal/: the place of articulation in the center of the herd palate,
behind retroflex and before velar. Verb: palatalize.
Palatalization/ : (1) to indicate that [] has been added to a
phone. (2) label for the movement historically of velar phonemes to palatal or
postalveolar locations.
Palate/: usually refers to the hard palate/ . In
articulation, the blade of the tongue/ will form constrictions with
it.
Paradigmatic/: the observation that speech units fall into
categories whose members are related to each other by sharing certain
characteristics while differing in others which allow them to be distinguished
from each other.
Period/ : the time between repeating points of a wave.
Perseveratory coarticulation/
: change in subsequent segments due to the values of one or more
phonetic features of the initial segment. This is the basis of vowel harmony;
see coarticulation.
Pharyngeal/: the place of articulation where the tongue root
approaches the back of the throat. Not used in English.
Phone/: a consonant or vowel; see segment.
Phoneme/: a phone (or set of features) that is in the set of
distinctive speech sounds of a language. It consists of the set of allophones
69
that are all understood as variations of one segment. Example: For English
speakers [l] and [] are allophones of one phoneme 'l' (in orthography). The
first one is always in the onset of a syllable, while the latter is always in the
rhyme.
Phonetics/: the branch of linguistics which explains how speech
sounds are made, transmitted and perceived.
Phonology/: the branch of linguistics which deals with the rules
combining or modifying speech sounds in a particular language.
Place of articulation/ : the point at which an
articulator creates a constriction. English uses eight places of articulation:
bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, postalveolar (palato-alveolar), retroflex,
palatal, velar, glottal going from the lips back to the vocal cords.
Plosive/: manner of articulation; a sound made by closing the
airflow with two articulators and then releasing it, usually with a /h/-like puff
of air. Some phoneticians consider palato-alveolar to lie between postalveolar
and palatal (Matthews, 2007, p. 311)
Postalveolar/ : the place of articulation immediately
after the alveolar ridge.
Resonance/ : the strengthening of a sound caused by
reflection of the sound wave from a point of constriction.
Resonant frequency/ : a frequency
that has a wavelength equal to the length of a resonance cavity and therefore
moves back and forth in the cavity becoming stronger as additional waves
enter the cavity.
Retroflex/ : the place on the palate nearest
the tip of the tongue when it is curled back to make the // sound. Note this is
a place of articulation (between postalveolar and palatal).
Rhotacized (r-colored)/- : in American English a vowel
made with the tongue in the 'r' position (usually retroflexed).
Rounded/: vowel made with the lips pushed out in a tube shape.
Rhyme/: the nucleus and coda of a syllable combined. Two words
whose final vowels and codas are the same rhyme. Example: hick and tick.
Schwa/: the name of the English neutral (unstressed, mid-central) vowel.
Segment/: a consonant or a vowel. Usually synonymous with phone.
Semivowels/ : traditional name for the approximants /w/
70
and /j/.
Spectrum/: a frequency chart often showing the resonance
characteristics of a filter.
Sonority/ {} : the quality of a strong, voiced
consonant which can be said for a long period of time.
Source/ : the origin of a sound, usually the glottis.
Source-filter model/ - : model suggested by G.
Fant that explains speech sounds as deriving from the acoustic qualities of the
glottal sound as filtered by the tube(s) in the vocal tract.
Spectrogram/: a representation of speech indicating time
horizontally, frequency vertically and amplitude by density of color.
Spread/ : lips are tightly pulled back as in a smile. Describes long
[i] in English.
Stop/: see plosive.
Stress/: the degree of pitch, relative length and neutrality of the vowel
in a syllable (or word).
Stressed/: Vowels can be considered as belonging to one of four
quadrants: front-close (-), front-open (-), backclose (-), back-open (-). Unstressed vowels are
centralized, neutral vowels.
Stricture/: relative degree of closure of the articulators. As a
phonetic feature it has three degrees: closed (plosive), fricative, and
approximant.
Sufficient perceptual separation/ :
principle that important units for understanding speech must be different
enough to correctly perceived.
Suprasegmental/ : a phonetic feature occurring over a
syllable or longer utterance.
Syllabic/: feature expressing whether a segment can function as a
vowel nucleus.
Syllable/: a nuclear vowel or diphthong, possibly with preceding and/or
closing consonants. Syllables are stressed or unstressed in English.
Syntagmatic/: the observation that members of a category
hold certain relations with members of other categories.
Tap: an obstruent with a rapid closure briefer than that in a plosive; see Flap.
71
Tense/-: a phonetic feature of stressed vowels: more effort is

put into tongue motion.
Tonic syllable/ : the syllable in an utterance which has the
greatest stress (usually highest pitch).
Tongue/: tip , blade , back , sides .
Transcription/ {}: the special alphabet and
diacritics/ used to make an exact written representation of the
sounds of speech.
Trill/: manner of articulation; vibration of the tongue tip causing a
variety of 'r' used in Scottish English.
Unvoiced/ {}: sound made without vocal cord vibration.
Utterance/ (): a portion of speech, often equivalent to
a sentence.
Uvula/: the bulb hanging from the back of the velum
Uvular/: the place of articulation where the tongue touches or
approaches the uvula. Only used in certain non-standard dialects of English.
Velar/ : the place of articulation where the back of the
tongue approaches or touches the soft palate.
Velum (soft palate)/ : the back part of the palate which is
lowered in normal breathing and for nasals. It is muscle rather than bone as in
the hard palate.
Vocal cords/ {}: a pair of membrane
flaps in the larynx which can be tensed so as to vibrate which is the source of
voiced sounds.
Voiced/- {-}: sounds made with vocal cord
vibration.
Voicing/ : the state of the vocal cords,
vibrating or relatively open.
Vowel/: a relatively unobstructed sound caused by the pattern of
formant frequencies in the vocal tract which carries speech information and
serves as the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are open, voiced (wave) sounds
while consonants vary in their degree of closure. Vowels (and some open
consonants) can be the nuclei of syllables.
Vowel harmony/: a type of coarticulation where all the
segments of a word are backed or rounded to ease articulation. This is typical
72
of many Turkic languages, but not of Indo-European ones where the stress
system is more typical.
Vowel quality/ : the particular combination of
height, backing, and rounding which determine a certain vowel's distinctive
acoustic sound.
73
End notes
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Language and Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP, in preparation.
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Avery, Peter and Susan Ehrlich. Teaching American English
Pronunciation. Oxford: OUP, 1992.
Ball, R. Introduction to Phonetics for Students of English, French,
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Celce-Murcia, Marianne, Donna M. Brinton & Janet M. Goodwin.
Teaching Pronunciation: a reference for teachers of English to
speakers of other languages. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.
Clark, John Ellery, Colin Yallop & Janet Fletcher. An introduction to
phonetics and phonology (3rd ed.). Blackwell: Malden, MA. 2007.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?
id=dX5P5mxtYYIC&pg=PA436&lpg=PA436&dq=tap+plosive+trill&source=bl&
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Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic Structures. Mouton: The Hague, 1957.
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Diehl, Randy L., Andrew J. Lotto, Lori L. Holt.Speech perception.

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76
Alphabetical Index
acoustic phonetics........................................................................................................28, 65
acoustics.............................................................................................................................75
acoustics.................................................................................................................................
amplitude........................................................................................28, 29, 33, 34, 65, 71
amplitude measure............................................................................................................
deciBel....................................................................................................................28
aperiodic.................................................................................................................28, 69
frequency................................................................................................................29, 30
noise..............................................................................................................................69
normalized space..........................................................................................................69
periodic...........................................................................................................................8
wavelength....................................................................................................................30
airflow....................................................................................................................................
nasal..............................................................................................................................13
oral..........................................................................................................................68, 69
oral....................................................................................................................................
central...............................................................................................................13, 19
lateral................................................................................................................13, 19
lateral .....................................................................................................................19
airstream mechanism..............................................................................................................
glottalic.........................................................................................................................10
pulmonic.......................................................................................................................10
velaric...........................................................................................................................10
alveolar ridge................................................................................................9, 14, 20, 65, 70
aphasia................................................................................................................................45
articulators..................................................................5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 28, 66, 68, 70, 71
jaw............................................................................................................8, 9, 20, 65, 68
lip..........................................................................8, 9, 11, 14, 19, 20, 21, 66, 68, 70, 71
palate..............................................................................................................................9
teeth..............................................................................................8, 9, 14, 16, 65, 67, 68
tongue 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 35, 37, 55, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70,
72
uvula.........................................................................................................................9, 72
velum............................................................................................8, 9, 14, 18, 20, 68, 72
77
vocal cords..................................................................8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 30, 68, 70, 72
articulatory phonetics...................................................................................................28, 66
brain.......................................................................................................................................
auditory cortex..............................................................................................................45
coarticulation................................................................17, 21, 26, 27, 45, 57, 65, 66, 69, 72
coarticulation..........................................................................................................................
anticipatory coarticulation................................................................................27, 65, 66
anticipatory coarticulationxi.........................................................................................26
assimilation.................................................................................................26, 27, 50, 66
dissimilation.................................................................................................................27
perseveratory coarticulation...................................................................................26, 69
coarticulationxi...................................................................................................................26
concept...............................................................................................................................66
constriction.....................................................................9, 11, 28, 30, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70
construct.............................................................................................................................66
diachronic.............................................................................................................................6
dialect...............................................................................7, 8, 26, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 67, 72
dialects...................................................................................................................................
American......................................................................................................................15
African-American Vernacular English...................................................................52
American English.................................................................................19, 22, 52, 70
General American.................................................................................19, 50, 51, 52
Gullah...............................................................................................................51, 52
Australian English........................................................................................................51
British...............................................................................................................................
Cockney............................................................................................................50, 51
Geordie...................................................................................................................50
Midlands.................................................................................................................51
Received Pronunciation........................................................................19, 50, 51, 52
Scottish...................................................................................................................51
southern English.....................................................................................................50
Old Norman French......................................................................................................49
regional.........................................................................................................................50
Scottish...................................................................................................................16, 72
social.............................................................................................................................50
distinctive feature.......................................................................6, 11, 12, 13, 19, 29, 33, 67
airstream flow...................................................................................................................
central airstream......................................................................................................19
close-mid-open.................................................................................................................
tongue height........................................................................................22, 23, 30, 33
78

consonant..........................................................................................................................
sonorous..................................................................................................................27
front-central-back.............................................................................................................
tongue backness..........................................................................................22, 23, 30
manner of articulation............................................................................................13, 20
obstruent...........................................................................................................13, 14, 21
place of articulation................................................................................................13, 20
Rounding......................................................................................................................22
sonorant........................................................................................................................13
sonorous........................................................................................................................27
Syllabic...........................................................................................13, 19, 26, 38, 43, 71
tongue backness......................................................................................................21, 22
tongue height..........................................................................................................21, 22
Voicing..................................................................................................11, 12, 13, 18, 20
vowel................................................................................................................................
central.....................................................................................................................35
Lax....................................................................................................................35, 37
Rounding.................................................................................................................22
Tense.................................................................................................................35, 37
distinctive features.................................................................................................22, 37, 39
duration..................................................................................................................................
second...........................................................................................................................28
ear.......................................................................................................................8, 29, 44, 66
ear...........................................................................................................................................
auditory nerve...............................................................................................................44
Organ of Corti........................................................................................................44, 47
ease of articulation.............................................................................................................72
epiglottis.............................................................................................................................67
feature.............................................................................................................6, 8, 66, 69, 72
feature3.................................................................................................................................6
features. .6, 11, 13, 19, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 29, 33, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 52, 61, 62, 63,
69, 75
filter..............................................................................................................................31, 62
frequency........................................................................................28, 30, 33, 67, 68, 70, 71
filter....................................................................................................................5, 67, 71
formant...........................................................................5, 28, 30, 33, 44, 61, 66, 67, 72
fundamental......................................................................................................28, 30, 68
fundamental frequency.................................................................................................68
harmonics.........................................................................................................28, 30, 33
periodic.........................................................................................................................69
79
resonant..................................................................................................................28, 70
spectrum...............................................................................................28, 33, 34, 67, 71
frequency measure.................................................................................................................
Hertz.............................................................................................................................28
fundamental frequency...........................................................................................................
pitch........................................................................24, 28, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, 68, 71, 72
glottis....................................................................................9, 11, 12, 14, 28, 30, 67, 68, 71
international phonetic alphabet..........................................................................................24
diacritic.................................................................................................22, 24, 25, 26, 72
International Phonetics Association...................................................................................61
languages................................................................................................................................
Danish...........................................................................................................................49
Dutch......................................................................................................................51, 52
Indo-European..............................................................................................................73
Middle English.............................................................................................................50
Old English...................................................................................................................50
Turkic...........................................................................................................................73
larynx...........................................................................................................................10, 68
lenis....................................................................................................................................68
manner of articulation............................................................................................................
approximant............................................................13, 18, 19, 20, 21, 34, 38, 43, 65, 70
approximant......................................................................................................................
lateral................................................................................................................13, 19
lateral approximant.................................................................................................20
obstruent...........................................................................................................................
fricative.....................................................................................15, 16, 17, 26, 38, 67
plosive.................................................................................14, 15, 18, 43, 56, 70, 71
tap...........................................................................................................................15
plosive..........................................................................................................................14
stop....................................................................14, 15, 17, 19, 34, 38, 51, 52, 66, 71
sonorant............................................................................................................................
nasal..........................................................................................13, 18, 67, 68, 69, 72
tap...............................................................................................................15, 43, 52, 71
flap............................................................................................15, 30, 55, 67, 71, 72
trill..........................................................................................................................51, 72
markedness.........................................................................................................................62
minimal pair.................................................................................................................46, 56
morpheme.......................................................................................................................7, 68
affix..............................................................................................................................68
morphemes...........................................................................................................................6
80

neutral vowel..........................................................................................................................
schwa......................................................................................................................11, 70
Northumbria.................................................................................................................49, 50
oral tract.............................................................................................................................13
orthography..................................................................................................................69, 70
palatalization......................................................................................................................69
palate..................................................................................................................................69
paradigmatic.........................................................................................................................6
Perception of Spoken English Test....................................................................................47
periodic...................................................................................................................10, 11, 28
phone............7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 26, 27, 29, 33, 37, 43, 46, 48, 65, 66, 69, 70, 89
phone .....................................................................................................................................
segment.................................................12, 20, 34, 37, 38, 43, 55, 65, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72
phoneme...................................................6, 7, 13, 20, 22, 25, 27, 29, 43, 48, 56, 65, 69, 70
phonemes.......................................................................6, 20, 37, 43, 46, 47, 56, 60, 63, 69
allophone............................................................................15, 20, 29, 48, 56, 65, 69, 70
allophones...............................................................................................................25, 43
consonant................11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 21, 26, 27, 34, 46, 48, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72
consonant......................................................................................................................38
phonemic......................................................................................................................69
vowel...11, 12, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 43,
46, 47, 48, 50, 52, 56, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73
vowel................................................................................................................................
central.....................................................................................................................51
phonemic............................................................................................................................65
phones..................................................................................................................................6
phonetic feature..................................................................................................................72
acoustic correlate..........................................................................................................29
airflow..........................................................................................................................65
lateral................................................................................................................13, 68
aspiration......................................................................................................................25
close-mid-open.................................................................................................................
tongue height....................................................................................................65, 73
consonant..........................................................................................................................
Sonorous.................................................................................................................26
constriction...................................................................................................................66
contextual features........................................................................................................43
feature...........................................................................................................................65
features.........................................................................................................................66
manner of articulation......................6, 17, 19, 20, 21, 26, 29, 42, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 72
81
oral airflow.......................................................................................................................
Central.....................................................................................................................19
palatalization................................................................................................................24
palatalized.....................................................................................................................22
place of articulation............................6, 9, 14, 17, 20, 21, 26, 29, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72
rhoticity........................................................................................................................24
Rounding......................................................................................................................23
rounded...................................................................................................................26
sonorant............................................................................................................18, 25, 34
Stricture........................................................................................................................38
suprasegmental.............................................................................................................25
syllabic..........................................................................................................................25
tongue...............................................................................................................................
coronal....................................................................................................................67
Voicing................................................6, 8, 16, 17, 20, 21, 26, 30, 37, 43, 46, 66, 68, 72
vowel................................................................................................................................
back.........................................................................................................................66
central.....................................................................................................................68
labialized.................................................................................................................26
Lax........................................................................................................35, 38, 43, 68
rhoticity.............................................................................................................22, 70
Rounding.................................................................................................................73
tense........................................................................................................................72
Tense...............................................................................................35, 38, 43, 68, 72
vowels...............................................................................................................................
central.....................................................................................................................70
feature..........................................................................................................................65
phonetic features..........................................................................................................37, 39
contextual features........................................................................................................39
distinctive features........................................................................................................39
personal features...........................................................................................................39
place of articulation..........................................................................................................
dental.......................................................................................................................55
glottal......................................................................................................................56
retroflex...................................................................................................................55
Stricture........................................................................................................................71
stylistic features............................................................................................................39
phonetic object.............................................................................................................40, 43
phonetic object.......................................................................................................................
duration.......................................................................................................28, 29, 34, 37
82

phonetician.................................................................................................16, 28, 45, 51, 70
phonetics..........................1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 21, 28, 44, 52, 57, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 70, 75
phonetics................................................................................................................................
acoustic.....................................................................................................................7, 21
articulatory..................................................................................................................7, 8
auditory...............................................................................................................7, 44, 66
phonological rules........................................................................................................40, 63
phonology......................................................................................................................7, 70
ablaut............................................................................................................................50
ease of articulation......................................................................................27, 35, 37, 67
feature...........................................................................................................................63
generative rule..........................................................................................................7, 68
metrical phonology.......................................................................................................67
palatalization................................................................................................................17
sufficient perceptual separation..................................................................27, 35, 37, 71
syllable........11, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 43, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72
syllable7........................................................................................................................13
phonology4..........................................................................................................................7
phonotactics.................................................................................................................40, 43
place of articulation................................................................................................................
alveolar.....................................................................9, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 52, 65, 67, 70
bilabial..............................................................................................9, 14, 15, 18, 66, 70
dental................................................................................................9, 16, 26, 67, 68, 70
glottal......................................................................10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 28, 51, 68, 70, 71
labial-velar..............................................................................................................19, 21
labiodental....................................................................................................9, 16, 68, 70
palatal.....................................................................................................9, 17, 19, 69, 70
pharyngeal................................................................................................................9, 69
postalveolar............................................................................................9, 16, 17, 69, 70
retroflex................................................................................9, 15, 19, 26, 51, 52, 69, 70
uvular..................................................................................................................9, 24, 72
velar....................................................................9, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 67, 69, 70, 72
plosive....................................................................................................................................
fricative.............................................................................................................................
affricate.......................................................................................................16, 23, 65
pronunciation...............5, 7, 8, 12, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 47, 50, 55, 67, 69, 74, 75, 76
prosody...............................................................................................................................33
reduction.......................................................................................................................26, 50
Rounding................................................................................................................................
rounded.................................................................................................21, 23, 24, 70, 72
83
spread......................................................................................................................21, 71
unrounded...............................................................................................................21, 23
secondary place of articulation..............................................................................................
labialization..................................................................................................................24
velarization...................................................................................................................24
velarized.......................................................................................................................20
semantic.............................................................................................................................68
semivowel....................................................................................................................19, 66
semivowels.........................................................................................................................70
sound change......................................................................................................................61
ablaut................................................................................................................50, 53, 65
Great Vowel Shift...................................................................................................48, 50
palatalization................................................................................................................50
umlaut...........................................................................................................................50
speech perception...................................................................................7, 44, 45, 46, 66, 75
speech perception...................................................................................................................
categorical perception...................................................................................................46
direct realist theory.......................................................................................................45
general approach...........................................................................................................46
motor theory.................................................................................................................45
speech production........................................................................................................35, 45
source-filter..................................................................................................................31
source-filter model.......................................................................................................71
source-filter theory.........................................................................................................5
stress.............................................................................................................................72, 73
stress.......................................................................................................................................
stressed.......................................................................................................15, 35, 71, 72
unstressed.................................................................................15, 35, 37, 68, 69, 70, 71
stress-timed........................................................................................................................37
suprasegmental.......................................................................................................................
foot....................................................................................................................36, 50, 67
intonation........................................................................................28, 36, 37, 55, 57, 68
stress.......................................................................................................................37, 71
stress.................................................................................................................................
unstressed................................................................................................................35
stress-timed...................................................................................................................35
tone group.....................................................................................................................36
tone groups...................................................................................................................33
vowel harmony...........................................................................................35, 37, 69, 72
syllable...................................................................................................................................
84

coda.....................................................................................11, 12, 26, 34, 37, 43, 66, 70
nucleus/i..............................11, 12, 13, 19, 20, 21, 25, 27, 34, 38, 43, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72
onset....................................................................................11, 12, 34, 37, 43, 66, 69, 70
rhyme....................................................................................................11, 12, 34, 37, 70
tonic........................................................................................................................36, 72
synchronic............................................................................................................................6
syntagmatic....................................................................................................................6, 71
tone.....................................................................................................................................37
tongue.................................................................................................................................70
apical............................................................................................................................10
back..........................................................................................................................9, 72
blade.......................................................................................................9, 10, 19, 69, 72
coronal..............................................................................................................................
tip............................................................................................................................20
dorsal............................................................................................................................10
laminal..........................................................................................................................10
sides..............................................................................................................................72
tip....................................................................................9, 10, 14, 16, 19, 65, 68, 70, 72
transcription.......................................................................................................................72
transcription...........................................................................................................................
phonemic................................................................................................................39, 43
phonetic............................................................................................................19, 39, 69
utterance.............................................................................................................................72
velarized lateral approximant.................................................................................................
dark l.............................................................................................................................20
vocal tract.................................................................................................................5, 29, 66
voice onset time.................................................................................................................46
Voicing...................................................................................................................................
unvoiced...............................................................................8, 11, 14, 15, 16, 37, 46, 72
unvoiced...........................................................................................................................
voiceless......................................................................................8, 10, 15, 26, 65, 67
voiced...................................8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 37, 46, 65, 67, 68, 71, 72
vowel............................................................................................................................23, 67
back..............................................................................................................................23
backed...........................................................................................................................72
backing.........................................................................................................................50
central...............................................................................................................................
schwa......................................................................................................................22
diphthong..............................................................................................22, 51, 66, 67, 71
height............................................................................................................................50
85
mid-central........................................................................................................................
schwa......................................................................................................................24
monophthong................................................................................................................68
neutral...............................................................................................................................
schwa......................................................................................................................35
neutral vowel..............................................................................................11, 24, 68, 71
reduction.................................................................................................................26, 27
schwa......................................................................................................................11, 68
schwa................................................................................................................................
mid-central..............................................................................................................22
vowel quality..............................................................................................22, 23, 24, 73
vowel quality .................................................................................................................5
86
ii
iii
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http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/Canadian/canphon2.html and
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%20SPE&f=false Accessed 29 January, 2011.
, . ., et al, 2006, pp. 110,111.
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xix
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H4a8VcYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=flap+voicing+duration+aspirati
on&source=bl&ots=ClvOJhzvwc&sig=zTh1BOYPAijW1_r1yuQaHiRy
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&DELIVERY_RULE_ID=6&search_terms=SYS%20=
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accessed 22 April 2010.
xxvi
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-auditory/supplement.html
accessed 22 April, 2010.
also Diehl.Lotto.Holt.speech.percptn.AnnlRevPsy2003 above.
xxvii
Pickett, 1999, p. 187.
xxviii
Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin, p. 20.
xxix
http://www.eslactivities.com/pt/preview.php Accessed 29 April 2010.
xxx
Ross, David.
xxxi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anglo_saxon_jute_575ad.jpg Accessed
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xxxii
Mathews, p. 418.
xxxiii
, .., .. and .. . 2006, pp. 158,159.
xxxiv
Adapted from , ..
. Moscow: , 1976, p.82.
xxxv
http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/EnglandEastAnglia.htm
Accessed March 2010
xxxvi
Linguistics 201: The Dialects of American English
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tm Accessed 29 April 2010
xxxvii
http://www.jabberwocky.com/
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xxxviii
xxxix
Kazakh terms in glossary checked, where possible, with:

, . . : , 2009.
, . . : , 2005.
, ., , ., . , .
. : ., 2003.
, . : . : , 2000.
, . (2nd ed.). : , 1996.
Note that the translations are functional equivalents referring to the same
phenomena or class of phones, but are not always literal translations.
xl
http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsMetric
alPhonology.htm Accessed June 7, 2011.

Introduction To Phonetics For Teachers of English

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Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

Brent Davis, Ph.D.

Introduction to the Phonetics of English

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

Words in bold italic are defined in the glossary.

In the history2 of the scientific study of language (especially phonetics),

See Appendix III for the history of phonetics.

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

(glottal). The tongue itself can be considered to be a group of articulators

Illustration 2: The vocal cords, shown open for breathing

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

Phonetics is the study of a. speech sounds b. language c. distinctive

Saussure noted that differences in meaning depended upon

List the three areas of phonetics: ___________,

Voicing is caused by a. noise b. speech c. periodic vibrations d.

List the articulators: lips, _______, ___________ ________,

tongue, ________ and _________.

Correct pronunciation depends on putting the articulators in the

Voicing is a. a distinctive feature b. an articulator c. a high-pitched

Vowels can serve as the a. onset b. coda c. nucleus d. stress of a

Classes of Phones (Segments)

Illustration 3: Detail of articulators showing tongue

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

consonants than all but the most constricted vowels.

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

Unvoiced (voiceless) bilabial plosive (stop): [p]

Technically a flap is a retroflex tap (according to Ladefoged, 168) or a incidental, less

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

Illustration 5: Initial position of tongue at the postalveolar

These are the most open consonant sounds

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

1. /n/ ___________ ____________ ____________

// ___________ ____________ ____________

/w/ ___________ labial-velar ____________

// is always a. at the beginning of a syllable b. end of a syllable

8. Obstruents are a. more closed b. more open

Consonants are described by a. voicing b. place of articulation c.

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

Vowels have height and a. affricates b. reference c. approximation

Back vowels tend to be a. rounded b. spread c. unrounded d.

What is the name for the neutral (mid-central) vowel? a. null b.

Vowel quality refers to the a. length b. sound c. timbre d. pitch of

6. Rounding is done by a. spreading the lips as in a smile b. pursing

[] ____________ ______________ _____________

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

The symbol [] after a consonant indicates aspiration. In general,

'pit' is /pt/ but 'spit' is /spt/ without aspiration.

Coarticulation and Reduction

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

Note that coarticulation and reduction are more pronounced (more

Coarticulation refers to changes in the pronunciation of phones due

Reduction refers to eliminating sounds to make pronunciation

In anticipatory coarticulation the phone adjusts to be more like a.

In a reduced syllable, a sonorous consonant may replace the vowel

5. Reduction is more common in formal speech. True false

II. Acoustic Phonetics

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

See Figures 7 and 8.

measure of how often something happens. The frequency of your birthday

Introduction to Phonetics ( Brent Davis, 2011)

List the articulators: lips, _, _ ____,

tongue, and _.

1. /n/ _ __

// _ __

/w/ _ labial-velar __

[] ___