-
1.
phonetics:
the study of how
speech sounds are produced, transmitted,
and perceived. It can be divided into
three main areas of
study
—
articulatory phonetics, acoustic
phonetics and
perceptual/auditory
phonetics.
articulatory
phonetics:
the study of the production
of speech sounds, or
the study of how
speech sounds are produced/made.
phonology:
the study of the
sound patterns and sound systems of
languages. It aims to discover the
principles that govern the way sounds
are organized in languages, and to
explain the variations that occur.
speech organs:
those parts
of the human body involved in the
production of speech, also known as
?vocal organs‘.
voicing:
the vibration of
the vocal folds. When the vocal folds are close
together, the airstream causes them to
vibrate against each other and
the
resultant sound is said to be ?voiced‘. When the
vocal folds are apart
and the air can
pass through easily, the sound produced is said to
be
?voiceless‘.
International Phonetic
Alphabet:
a set of standard phonetic
symbols in
the form of a chart (the IPA
chart), designed by the International
Phonetic Association since 1888. It has
been revised from time to time
to
include new discoveries and changes in phonetic
theory and practice.
The latest version
has been revised in 1993 and updated in
1996.
consonant:
a major category of sound segments, produced by a
closure
in the vocal tract, or by a
narrowing which is so marked that air cannot
escape without producing audible
friction.
vowel:
a major category of sound segments, produced
without
obstruction of the vocal tract
so that air escapes in a relatively
unimpeded way through the mouth or the
nose.
manner of
articulation:
ways in which
articulation of consonants can be
accomplished
—
(a)
the articulators may close off the oral tract for
an
instant or a relatively long period;
(b) they may narrow the space
considerably; or (c) they may simply
modify the shape of the tract by
approaching each other.
place of articulation:
the
point where an obstruction to the flow of air is
made in producing a
consonant.
Cardinal Vowels:
a set of vowel qualities arbitrarily
defined, fixed and
unchanging, intended
to provide a frame of reference for the
description of the actual vowels of
existing languages.
semi-
vowel:
segments that are neither
consonants nor vowels, e.g. [j]
and
[w].
vowel glide:
vowels that involve a change of quality, including
diphthongs, when a single movement of
the tongue is made, and
triphthongs,
where a double movement is perceived.
coarticulation:
simultaneous
or overlapping articulations, as when the
nasal quality of a nasal sound affects
the preceding or following sound
so
that the latter becomes nasalized. If the affected
sound becomes
more like the following
sound, it is known as ?anticipatory
coarticulation‘; if the
sou
nd shows the influence of the
preceding sound,
it is ?perseverative
coarticution‘.
phoneme:
a unit of explicit
sound contrast. If two sounds in a language
make a contrast
between two different words, they are
said to be
different
phonemes.
allophone:
variants of the
same phoneme. If two or more phonetically
different sounds do not make a contrast
in meaning, they are said to be
allophones of the same phoneme. To be
allophones, they must be in
complementary distribution and bear
phonetic similarity.
assimilation:
a process by
which one sound takes on some or all the
characteristics of a neighboring sound,
a term often used synonymously
with
?coarticulation‘. If a following sound is
influencing a preceding
sound, it is
called ?regressive assimilation‘; t
he
converse process, in
which a preceding
sound is influencing a following sound, is known
as
?progressive
assimilation‘.
Elsewhere
Condition:
The more specific rule
applied first. It is applied
when two
or more rules are involved in deriving the surface
form from
the underlying
form.
distinctive
features:
a means of working out a set
of phonological
contrasts or
oppositions to capture particular aspects of
language
sounds, first suggested by
Roman Jacobson in the 1940s and then
developed by numerous other
people.
syllable:
an important unit in the study of suprasegmentals.
A syllable
must have a nucleus or peak,
which is often the task of a vowel or
possibly that of a syllabic consonant,
and often involves an optional set
of
consonants before and/or after the
nucleus.
Maximal Onset
Principle:
a principle for dividing the
syllables when
there is a cluster of
consonants between two vowels, which states that
when there is a choice as to where to
place a consonant, it is put into the
onset rather than the coda.
stress:
the degree of force
used in producing a syllable. When a syllable
is produced with more force and is
therefore more ?prominent‘, it is a
?stressed‘ syllable in contrast to a
less prominent, ?unstressed‘ syllable.
intonation:
the occurrence
of recurring fall-rise patterns, each of which
is used with a set of relatively
consistent meanings, either on single
words or on groups of words of varying
length.
tone:
a
set of fall-rise patterns affecting the meanings
of individual
words.
8.
In
Old English, there are no voiced fricative
phonemes. All voiced
variants, which
appear only between voiced sounds, are allophones
of
their voiceless counterparts.
The
rule can be stated as follows:
fricatives → [+voice] /
[+voice]_____[+voi
ce]
[
–
voice]
in other places
2.
1) voiced
dental fricative
2) voiceless postalveolar
fricative
3) velar nasal
4) voiced alveolar
stop/plosive
5) voiceless
bilabial stop/plosive
6)
voiceless velar stop/plosive
7) (alveolar) lateral
8) high front unrounded lax
vowel
9) high back rounded
tense vowel
10) low back
rounded lax vowel
3.
1)
[f]
2)
[
?
]
3) [j]
4)
[h]
5) [t]
6) [e]
7)
[
?
]
8)
[
?
]
9)
[
?
]
10) [u]
4.
1) On a clear
day you can see for miles.
2) Some people think that first
impressions count for a lot.
5. 1)
Quite a few
human organs are involved in the production of
speech: the
lungs, the trachea (or
windpipe), the throat, the nose, and the
mouth.
The pharynx, mouth,
and nose form the three cavities of the vocal
tract. Speech sounds are produced with
an airstream as their sources of
energy. In most circumstances, the
airstream comes from the lungs. It is
forced out of the lungs and then passes
through the bronchioles and
bronchi, a
series of branching tubes, into the trachea. Then
the air is
modified at various points
in various ways in the larynx, and in the oral
and nasal cavities: the mouth and the
nose are often referred to,
respectively, as the oral cavity and
the nasal cavity.
Inside the
oral cavity, we need to distinguish the tongue and
various
parts of the palate, while
inside the throat, we have to distinguish the
upper part, called pharynx, from the
lower part, known as larynx. The
larynx
opens into a muscular tube, the pharynx, part of
which can be
seen in a mirror. The
upper part of the pharynx connects to the oral and
nasal cavities.
The contents of the mouth are very
important for speech production.
Starting from the front, the upper part
of the mouth includes the upper
lip,
the upper teeth, the alveolar ridge, the hard
palate, the soft palate
(or the velum),
and the uvula. The soft palate can be lowered to
allow air
to pass through the nasal
cavity. When the oral cavity is at the same time
blocked, a nasal sound is
produced.
The bottom part of
the mouth contains the lower lip, the lower teeth,
the tongue, and the
mandible.
At the top of the
trachea is the larynx, the front of which is
protruding
in males and known as the
―Adam‘s Apple‖. The larynx contains the
vocal folds, als
o known as
―vocal cords‖ or ―vocal bands‖. The vocal folds
are a pair of structure that lies
horizontally below the latter and their
front ends are joined together at the
back of the Adam‘s Apple. Their
rear
ends, however, remain separated and can move into
various
positions: inwards, outwards,
forwards, backwards, upwards and
downwards.
5.
2)
This is because
gh
is pronounced as [f] in
enough
,
o
as
[
?
] in
women
,
and
ti
as
[
?
] in
nation
.
5. 3)
In the
production of consonants at least two articulators
are involved.
For example, the initial
sound in
bad
involves both
lips and its final
segment involves the
blade (or the tip) of the tongue and the alveolar
ridge. The categories of consonant,
therefore, are established on the
basis
of several factors. The most important of these
factors are: (a) the
actual
relationship between the articulators and thus the
way in which
the air passes through
certain parts of the vocal tract, and (b) where in
the vocal tract there is approximation,
narrowing, or the obstruction of