Phonetics and Phonology1.Definition to phoneticsPhonetics is the scientific study of the characteristics of human speech sounds and provides methods for their description, classification and transcription or notation . 1.1.Three branches of phonetics:The speech sound can be studied in three different ways, thus in phonetics there are three main branches: articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics and auditory phonetics.Articulatory phonetics (发音语音学): a branch of phonetics which studies the speech organs and their production of speech sounds.Acoustic phonetics (声学语音学): a branch of phonetics which studies the physical properties of speech sounds and how the sound waves are transmitted in the air from the speaker to the hearer. Auditory phonetics(听觉语音学): a branch of phonetics which studies how speech sounds are perceived and identified by the hearer’s ear and brain.1.2 The organs of speechSpeech sounds are produced by the organs of speech. The speech organs are contained in three areas of the body, the chest, the throat and the head. In the chest are the lungs, which are very important in speaking, because all the speech sounds are produced with airstreams flowing from the lungs to the nostrils or the mouth. (oral cavity, nasalcavity,chest,Why?initiate, modify, resonance i.e. function as an audio amplifier)There are, in general, 12 speech organs in all, i.e.1.upper and lower lips;2. upper and lower teeth;3. alveolar ridge;4.hard palate;5.soft palate;6.uvula;7. tip of tongue;8.blade of tongue;9.root of tongue; 10. vocal folds;11.pharynx; 12. nasal cavity.Refer to: The Essentials of Linguistics and Learning Guide by GAO1.3 English speech soundsEnglish speech sounds include two categories: vowels and consonants.V owels (元音) are the speech sounds produced without any obstruction of the air streams. The passage of air is continuous and frictionless. There are 21 English vowels, 13 monophthongs (pure vowels) and 8 diphthongs (combined vowels), such as…Consonants (辅音) are speech sounds with some obstruction of the air streams There are 22 consonants in all, which can be classified into voiced sounds and voiceless sounds. When the vocal cords vibrate, the sound produced is a voiced sound (浊辅音).When the vocal cords do not vibrate, the sound produced is a voiceless sound (清辅音)1.4Descriptive dimensions for consonants:Places of articulation (发音部位): in the production of speech sounds, the organs in the upper part of the mouth may be described as places of articulation.Articulators (发音器官): the organs in the lower part of the mouth referred to as articulators. Manners of articulation(发音方式): When the speech sounds are produced, the air stream is interfered with by the articulators in the lower part of the mouth moving towards the places of articulation in the upper part (active). The opening thus formed is called the manners of articulation of the speech sound (passive).V oicing (浊音化): in the production of speech sounds, whether the vocal cords vibrate or not, if they do it’s referred to as a voiced sound ; if they don’t it’s referred to as a voiceless sound. (+voiced vs.-voiced) For instance, [p]: voiceless, bilabial, stop; [z]: voiced, alveolar, fricative; [f]: voiceless, labio-dental, fricative, etc.1.5The criteria of vowel description:1）Position of tongue: the raised part of the tongue, front, center, or back2）Height of tongue: the extent to which the tongue rises to the palate, high, mid-high, mid-low, low3）Rounded or unrounded: degree of lip rounding or spreading, rounded,unrounded (lip-rounding)4）Tense or lax: a long vowel (represented as [:]) requires more tension of the muscles, so is often referred to as a tense vowel; a short one, as a lax vowel.For instance, [i:]: high, front, tense, unrounded vowel;[u]: high, back, lax, rounded vowel;1.6ConsonantsReceived pronunciation (RP), also called BBC English or Oxford English, is the most common model accent in the teaching of English as a foreign language, which is spoken by the upper-middle and upper classes throughout England.English consonants used by RP speakers can be divided into 6 types according to Manners of Articulation (how) , specifically, Stop (爆破音), Nasal (鼻音), Fricative (摩擦音), Approximant(无摩擦，延续音), Lateral (边音), Affricate (塞擦音);7 types according to Places of Articulation (where), namely, Bilabial (双唇音), Labio-dental (唇齿音), Dental (齿音), Alveolar (齿龈音), Post-alveolar (后齿龈音), Palatal (硬腭音), Velar (软腭音), Glottal(喉音).1.7VowelsSince vowels are produced without any obstruction of the air stream, they do not have a place of articulation in the same sense as consonants. So three speech organs responsible for the changes in quality of vowel sounds are the tongue, lips and the vocal cords. English vowels can be classified as monophthongs (单元音) and diphthongs (双元音); the former is 12 in number, the latter 8 in number. By the position of tongue, English monophthongs (pure vowels) can be classified into front vowel (5), central vowel (3), and back vowel (5);By the openness of mouth, close vowel (4), open vowel (5), semi-open vowel (2), semi-close vowel (2);By rounding of the lips, rounded vowels (4), unrounded vowels (9). Diphtnongs are glides from the first pure vowel to the second one, for instance, [ai], a glide from [a] to [i], [ei], a glide from [e] to [i], etc..1.8Phonetic transcriptionPhonetic transcription (语音标音): is a method of writing down speech sounds in a systematic and consistent way.The best known of these is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which was developed by the International Phonetic Association in 1886, and is now most widely used in the field of linguisticsBroad transcription vs. narrow transcription1>Narrow transcription (严氏标音法): the phonetic transcription with diacritics.2>Broad transcription (宽氏标音法): the phonetic transcription without diacritics, e.g. which is used generally in dictionaries and language textbooks.e.g. pit feel cake tipBT: [pit] [fi:l] [keik] [tip]NT: [pit] [fi:l] [keik] [tip]2.PhonologyBoth phonetics and phonology are concerned with the same aspect of language –the speech sounds. But they approach the subject from two different angles. Phonetics is general, descriptive and classificatory, which studies speech sounds as they are. Phonology studies the sound systems (patterns) of language, it is particular, abstract and distinctive, revealing the functioning of the speech sounds.Phonology (音位/系学): studies the ways in which speech sounds form systems of languages —the inventory of distinctive sounds that occur in a language and the patterns into which they fall.The phonology of a language is then the system and pattern of the speech sounds, usually semantically distinctive, used in that particular language.Approaching from phonetics to phonology is required by the need of meaningful communication since a single sound has no lexical meaning.2.1Phone, phoneme and allophoneA phone (音素): is a minimal sound unit or segment that human speech organs can produce.The speech sounds we hear and produce during linguistic communication are all phones, e.g. [ph] (as in pit) [p] (as in spit) [p7].But phones don’t necessarily distinguish meanings. A phone is a phonetic unit, usually represented by [ ].A phoneme(音位): is a phonological unit, the smallest and abstract collection of phonetic features which can distinguish meanings. For example, pit/bit, differing only in the initial sound; pet/pit, differing only in the vowel. There is no English sound halfway between /e/ and /i/. This is the smallest amount by which the two words could semantically differ from each other and still remain distinctive forms. Therefore. /p/, /b/, /e/, /i/ are all English phonemes, represented by / /. A phoneme is always an abstract unit of sound in a particular language. The English language has a /p/ phoneme and so does Chinese, but the two phonemes are realized differently .A phoneme is an abstract unit but not a particular sound. It may be realized as one phone in one phonetic context and as another different one in another phonetic context. The phoneme /p/, (use slashes to indicate phonemes, square brackets to indicate phones) is represented differently in [ph] (pit), [P7](tip) [p], (spot) [p=]. In Chinese, /p/ is realized differently as in “乒”“冰”, “泼”“拨”, and so on.Allophones (音位变体): the phones that can represent a phoneme are called its allophones. So. [p=]. [ph] and [p7] are the allophones of the same phoneme /p/. [th] and [t=] ,[kh] and [k=]are the allophones of the phonemes /t/, /k/ respectively.In short, allophones are realizations of a phoneme, and are in complementary distribution.2.2Phonemic contrast, complementary distribution and minimal pair Phonemic contrast (音位对立): if two similar sounds occurring in the same place are two distinctive ones in a minimal pair and can distinguish meanings, they are said to be in a phonemic contrast. e.g. /p/ and /b/ in “pit& bit”.Complementary distribution: refers to when two or more than two sounds never occur in the same phonetic environment, and they are members of the same phoneme, they are said to be in complementary contribution. For instance, in English the clear [l] occurs before a vowel ,and dark [l] occurs after a vowel , a voiceless [l] occurs after another voiceless sound, specifically, “clear”[l] as in “light、love、along、million”; “dark”[l] as in “field, felt, little”; voiceless [l] as in “play”, etc.Two conditions of Complementary Distribution:They never occur in identical phonetic environments. In short, where one realization occurs, the others necessarily do not, each of the allophones is responsible for one particular phonetic environment. It is in this sense that the allophones are said to complement each other or to be in complementary distribution. However, CD requires two conditions, realizations of the same phoneme and non-identical environment, otherwise they are not, e.g. [ph] and [th] as in ton/pun, shot/shop, and sitting/sipping. Because although they occur in identical environment, yet not belonging to the same phoneme.Minimal pair (最小对立体/对): when two different forms are identical in every way except for the sound segment which occurs in the same place in the string, the two words are said to have formed a minimal pair. e.g.“pill and bill”，“pill and till”, “till and dill”,“till and kill”, “kill and gill”, etc.e.g.lob and lead (×), two soundsveal and leaf (×), although one soundbut not in the same placeveal and feel (√), one sound the same placeThere are many minimal pairs in English, which makes it relatively easy to know what the English phonemes are. It is of great importance to find the minimal pairs when a phonologist is dealing with the sound system of an unknown language.2.3Some rules of phonologySequential rules （序列规则）To identify the phonemes of a language is only part of the task of a phonologist. He also has to find out in what way the phonemes can be combined. Phonological patterning is rule-governed，e.g. [blik] & [kilb] both sound like possible English words to us, but *[lbki] and *[ilbk] are not. So, The rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language are called sequential rules. In English, if a word begins with a [l] or a [v], then the next must be a vowel. That is why *[lbik] is an impossible combination. It violates the restrictions on the sequencing of phonemes.Sequential rules in English（英语序列规则）Also, if three consonants should cluster together at the beginning of a word. The combination, should obey the following there rules:①the first phoneme must be /s/②the second phoneme must be /p/ or /k/ or /t/③the third phoneme must be /i/ or /r/ or /w/For example, spring. string. squeal, splendid. Such rules as governing the sequencing of phonemes are language-specific, i.e. what is a permissible sequence in one language may not be so in another language.Assimilation rule （同化规则）Assimilation is a process in which a segment takes on a feature or features from a neighboringsegment, thus making the two segments more similar. In English, for example, the endings for the plural, the third person singular, and the past tense take the voicing feature from a preceding consonant. Thus, we find /s/ and /t/ after voiceless consonants, /z/ and /d/ after voiced ones, as in the following examples:e.g. books [s], bags [z], baked [t], subscribed [d], etc.This phenomenon may be accounted for by the rule that within a word a nasal consonant assumes the place of articulation as the following consonant, e.g. bean, tenth, map, net, etc. If a segment changes to become like the segment following it in some way, the assimilation is called regressive assimilation (逆同化) as in “bean, tenth”. If a segment changes to become like the segment preceding it, the assimilation is called progressive one (顺同化), as in “map, net”.Deletion （省略）Deletion is a process which involves the complete disappearance of a segment. In some cases, a segment is to be deleted although it is orthographically represented.e.g. the letter “g”mute in “sign , design, paradigm”but pronounced in “signature, designation, and paradigmatic”.This may be accounted for by the rule: delete a [g] when it occurs before a final nasal consonant.2.4Suprasegmental features –stress, tone, intonation (超切分特征——重音、声调、语调)So far we have been talking about phonemes —sound segments that distinguish meaning. But distinctive features can also be found running over a sequence of two or more phonemic segments. The phonemic features that occur above the level of the segment are called suprasegmental features . Suprsegmental features include stress, tone (pitch) and intonation.Stress (重音)Stress is the degree of loudness given to some phonemes.For example:im`port v. —`import n.con`duct v. —`conduct n.con`vert v. —`convert n.` I saw him (as opposed to you saw him).I `saw him (as opposed to heard him).I saw `him (as opposed to I heard her).In these instances stress can distinguish meanings, serving the same function of a phoneme, but over a larger unit than a word, that’s why it called one of the supersegmental features.Tone (声调)In some language pitch variations that may result in differences of meaning at the word level are called tones.Languages that use the pitch of individual syllables to contrast meaning are called tone language.For example, the Chinese words “ma, má, ma, mà”are four different characters. Tone is therefore phonemic in Chinese. But, tone has no such a function at the word level in English. e.g. cat (with level tone), cat (with falling tone), cat (with rising tone) still mean the same thing “cat”.So English is not a tone language. But tone can be used over a whole phrase or sentence in English. e.g. John is going (falling or rising ), so it is intonation language.Intonation (语调)Intonation is the pattern of changes in pitch taking place during connected speech. It plays an important role in conveying meaning in language. English is an intonation language.There are two basic intonation tunes on English sentences: falling & rising.The falling tune is used:a. statement.b. special question sentence. (WH-word forfarther information)The rising tune is used.a. universal questionb. general question.c. some of Wh-words esp. refer to confirmation or repetitione.g. A. “John has a new girl friend.”B. “Who? ”John I said.。
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