Manners of articulation
Place of articulation refers to where the narrowing occurs -- which active articulator gets close to which passive articulator. Constriction degree refers to how close they get. The main constriction degrees are:
- stop: the active articulator touches the passive articulator and completely cuts off the airflow through the mouth. English stops include: [p], [d], [k], [m].
- fricative: the active articulator doesn't touch the passive articulator, but gets close enough that the airflow through the opening becomes turbulent. English fricatives include [f], [ ], [z].
- approximant: the active articulator approaches the passive articulator, but doesn't even get close enough for the airflow to become turbulent. English approximants include [j], [w], [ ], and [l].
- affricate: Affricates can be seen as a sequence of a stop and a fricative which have the same or similar places of articulation. They are transcribed using the symbols for the stop and the fricative. If one wants to emphasize the affricate as a "single" sound, a tie symbol can be used to join the stop and the fricative (sometimes the fricative is written as a superscript).
Notes:
- A stop cuts off airflow through the mouth. Airflow through the nose does not matter -- you can have both oral and nasal stops. Oral stops are often called plosives, including in the IPA chart. Nasal stops are usually just called nasals.
- Approximants that are apical or laminal are often called liquids [l]. Approximants that correspond to vowels are often called glides [j].
- English has the affricates [t] and [d]. The stop and the fricative halves of these affricates are at the same place of articulation: the stop is in fact postal-aveolar rather than alveolar. We could be explicit about this and underline the [t] and [d] (in IPA, a minus sign under a symbol is a diacritic meaning "pronounced further back in the mouth"), but most phoneticians believe this difference in the place of articulation is so predictable that it doesn't have to be marked.
State of the glottis
For now, we can simply use the terms "voiced" and "voiceless" to answer the question of what the vocal cords are doing:
- In voiced sounds, the vocal cords are vibrating.
- In voiceless sounds, the vocal cords are not vibrating.
Ultimately, we will see there are different ways of being voiced or voiceless. The vocal cords can do a number of things. They can:
- be held so wide apart that the air makes no sound passing through them. (This is nice when you have to breathe 24 hours a day, but not as useful for speaking.)
- be held closer together, so that the air passing through them becomes turbulent. This quality of sound is called breathiness. It is what is happening in apsiration and in the sound [h].
- be held together so that the air passing through them causes them to vibrate. This is called voicing.
- be held together so tightly that no air can pass through at all, as in a glottal stop.
(By varying their tension and position, the vocal cords can also produce many other effects like breathy voicing, creaky voicing, and falsetto.)
What the vocal cords are doing is independent of what the higher parts of the vocal tract are doing. For any place of articulation and any degree of stricture, you can get two different sounds: voiced and voiceless. For example, [t] and [d] are formed identically in the mouth; the difference is that the vocal cords vibrate during a [d] but not during a [t]. (The obvious exception is the glottal place of articulation -- you can't vibrate your vocal cords while making a glottal stop.)
In each cell of the IPA chart, the symbol for the voiceless sound is shown to the left and that for the voiced sound to the right. Some rows only have voiced symbols (e.g., nasals and approximants). You can write the corresponding voiceless sound using the voiceless diacritic (a circle under the voiced symbol).
Nasality
The soft palate can be lowered, allowing air to flow out through the nose, or it can be raised to block nasal airflow. As was the case with the vocal cords, what the soft palate is doing is independent the other articulators. For almost any place of articulation, there are pairs of stops that differ only in whether the soft palate is raised, as in the oral stop [d], or lowered, as in the nasal stop [n].
Laterality
When you form an [l], your tongue tip touches your alveolar ridge (or maybe your upper teeth) but it doesn't create a stop because one or both sides of the tongue are lowered so that air can flow out along the side. Sounds like this with airflow along the sides of the tongue are called lateral, all others are called central (though we usually just assume that a sound is central unless we explicitly say it's lateral).
The side of the tongue can lower to different degrees. It can lower so little that the air passing through becomes turbulent (giving a lateral fricative like [
Airstream mechanism
Speech sounds need air to move. Most sounds (including all the sounds of English) are created by modifying a stream of air that is pushed outward from the lungs. But it's possible for the air to be set in motion in other ways. Sounds which use one of the other three most common airstream mechanisms are called ejectives, implosives, and clicks. We'll discuss these possibilities later in the course.
Place of articulation
The active articulator usually moves in order to make the constriction. The passive articulator usually just sits there and gets approached.
A sound's place of articulation is usually named by using the Latin ajective for the active articulator (ending with an "o") followed by the Latin adjective for the passive articulator. For example, a sound where the tongue tip (the "apex") approaches or touches the upper teeth is called an "apico-dental". Most of the common combinations of active and passive articulator have abbreviated names (usually leaving out the active half). These are the abbreviated names for the places of articulation used in English:
bilabial
bilabial
The articulators are the two lips. (We could say that the lower lip is the active articulator and the upper lip the passive articulator, though the upper lip usually moves too, at least a little.) English bilabial sounds include [p], [b], and [m].
labio-dental
The lower lip is the active articulator and the upper teeth are the passive articulator. English labio-dental sounds include [f] and [v].
dental
dental
Dental sounds involve the upper teeth as the passive articulator. The active articulator may be either the tongue tip or (usually) the tongue blade -- diacritic symbols can be used if it matters which. Extreme lamino-dental sounds are often called interdental. English interdental sounds include [
[
alveolar
alveolar
Alveolar sounds involve the alveolar ridge as the passive articulator. The active articulator may be either the tongue blade or (usually) the tongue tip -- diacritic symbols can be used if it matters which. English alveolar sounds include [t], [d], [n], [s], [z], [l].
postalveolar
Postalveolar sounds involve the area just behind the alveolar ridge as the passive articulator. The active articulator may be either the tongue tip or (usually) the tongue blade -- diacritic symbols can be used if it matters which. English postalveolars include [
Linguists have traditionally used very inconsistent terminology in referring to the postalveolar POA. Some of the terms you may encounter for it include: palato-alveolar, alveo-palatal, alveolo-palatal, and even (especially among English-speakers) palatal. Many insist that palato-alveolar and alveo(lo)-palatal are two different things -- though they don't agree which is which. "Postalveolar", the official term used by the International Phonetic Association, is unambiguous, not to mention easier to spell.
retroflex
retroflex
In retroflex sounds, the tongue tip is curled up and back. Retroflexes can be classed as apico-postalveolar, though not all apico-postalveolars need to be curled backward enough to count as retroflex. The closest sound to a retroflex that English has is [
palatal
palatal
The active articulator is the tongue body and the passive articulator is the hard palate. The English glide [j] is a palatal.
Principal organs of articulation:
1 . Manner of articulation : Describes how the tongue, lips, and other speech organs involved in making a sound make contact. Often the concept is only used for the production of consonants. For any place of articulation, there may be several manners. Articulation may be divided into two large classes: obstruents and sonorants.
a) Obstruent: consonant sound formed by obstructing outward airflow, causing increased air pressure in the vocal tract. There is a distinctive opposition between voiceless (sound in which the vocal cords do not vibrate) and voiced (the vocal cords vibrate) types.
Obstruents are subdivided into stops, fricatives, and affricates. Obstruents are prototypically voiceless, though voiced obstruents are common.
Plosives, or stops, where there is complete occlusion (blockage) of both the oral and nasal cavities of the vocal tract, and therefore no air flow. Examples include English /p t k/ (voiceless) and /b d g/ (voiced). If the consonant is voiced, the voicing is the only sound made during occlusion; if it is voiceless, a plosive is completely silent. What we hear as a /p/ or /k/ is
the effect that the onset of the occlusion has on the preceding vowel, and well as the release burst and its effect on the following vowel. The shape and position of the tongue (the place of articulation) determine the resonant cavity that gives different plosives their characteristic sounds. All languages have plosives.
Fricatives, sometimes called spirants, where there is continuous frication (turbulent and noisy airflow) at the place of articulation. Examples include English /f, s/ (voiceless), /v, z/ (voiced), etc. Most languages have fricatives, though many have only an /s/.
Sibilants are a type of fricative where the airflow is guided by a groove in the tongue toward the teeth, creating a high-pitched and very distinctive sound. These are by far the most common fricatives. Fricatives at coronal (front of tongue) places of articulation are usually, though not always, sibilants. English sibilants include /s/ and /z/.
Affricates, which begins like a plosive, but this releases into a fricative rather than having a separate release of its own. They behave as if they were intermediate between stops and fricatives.The English letters "ch" and "j" represent affricates.
b) Sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. Essentially this means that a sound is sonorant if it can be produced continuously at the same pitch. For example vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like /m/ and /l/. Other consonants, like /d/ or /k/, cannot be produced continuously and so are non-sonorant. They are typically voiced. In addition to vowels, sounds that are considered sonorant include approximants, nasal consonants, taps, and trills. Approximants, where there is very little obstruction. Approximants could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. One use of the word semivowel is a type of approximant, pronounced like a vowel but with the tongue closer to the roof of the mouth, so that there is slight turbulence. In English, /w/ is the semivowel equivalent of the vowel /u/ (well), and /j/ (spelled "y") is the semivowel equivalent of the vowel /i/ in this usage (yes). Other descriptions use semivowel for vowellike sounds that are not syllabic, but do not have the increased structure of approximants. These are found as elements in diphthongs. Because they are so similar phonetically, the concepts of semivowel and approximant are
often used interchangeably.
To illustrate, the English word wow may be transcribed as [waʊ̯] (or abbreviated to [waʊ]). Even though both the [w] and the [ʊ̯] are similar to the vowel [u], the transcription [waʊ̯] indicates that the initial segment is considered to be a consonant by the transcriber, while the final segment is considered to form a diphthong with the preceding vowel. The approximant
[w] is more constricted and therefore more consonant-like than the semivowel [ʊ̯].
a) Obstruent: consonant sound formed by obstructing outward airflow, causing increased air pressure in the vocal tract. There is a distinctive opposition between voiceless (sound in which the vocal cords do not vibrate) and voiced (the vocal cords vibrate) types.
Obstruents are subdivided into stops, fricatives, and affricates. Obstruents are prototypically voiceless, though voiced obstruents are common.
Plosives, or stops, where there is complete occlusion (blockage) of both the oral and nasal cavities of the vocal tract, and therefore no air flow. Examples include English /p t k/ (voiceless) and /b d g/ (voiced). If the consonant is voiced, the voicing is the only sound made during occlusion; if it is voiceless, a plosive is completely silent. What we hear as a /p/ or /k/ is
the effect that the onset of the occlusion has on the preceding vowel, and well as the release burst and its effect on the following vowel. The shape and position of the tongue (the place of articulation) determine the resonant cavity that gives different plosives their characteristic sounds. All languages have plosives.
Fricatives, sometimes called spirants, where there is continuous frication (turbulent and noisy airflow) at the place of articulation. Examples include English /f, s/ (voiceless), /v, z/ (voiced), etc. Most languages have fricatives, though many have only an /s/.
Sibilants are a type of fricative where the airflow is guided by a groove in the tongue toward the teeth, creating a high-pitched and very distinctive sound. These are by far the most common fricatives. Fricatives at coronal (front of tongue) places of articulation are usually, though not always, sibilants. English sibilants include /s/ and /z/.
Affricates, which begins like a plosive, but this releases into a fricative rather than having a separate release of its own. They behave as if they were intermediate between stops and fricatives.The English letters "ch" and "j" represent affricates.
b) Sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. Essentially this means that a sound is sonorant if it can be produced continuously at the same pitch. For example vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like /m/ and /l/. Other consonants, like /d/ or /k/, cannot be produced continuously and so are non-sonorant. They are typically voiced. In addition to vowels, sounds that are considered sonorant include approximants, nasal consonants, taps, and trills. Approximants, where there is very little obstruction. Approximants could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. One use of the word semivowel is a type of approximant, pronounced like a vowel but with the tongue closer to the roof of the mouth, so that there is slight turbulence. In English, /w/ is the semivowel equivalent of the vowel /u/ (well), and /j/ (spelled "y") is the semivowel equivalent of the vowel /i/ in this usage (yes). Other descriptions use semivowel for vowellike sounds that are not syllabic, but do not have the increased structure of approximants. These are found as elements in diphthongs. Because they are so similar phonetically, the concepts of semivowel and approximant are
often used interchangeably.
To illustrate, the English word wow may be transcribed as [waʊ̯] (or abbreviated to [waʊ]). Even though both the [w] and the [ʊ̯] are similar to the vowel [u], the transcription [waʊ̯] indicates that the initial segment is considered to be a consonant by the transcriber, while the final segment is considered to form a diphthong with the preceding vowel. The approximant
[w] is more constricted and therefore more consonant-like than the semivowel [ʊ̯].
Lateral approximants, (lateral), are a type of approximant pronounced with the side of the tongue. English /l/ is a lateral (lip). Together with the rhotics, which have similar behavior in many languages, these form a class of consonant called liquids. Nasal stops, usually shortened to nasals, where there is complete occlusionof the oral cavity, and the air passes instead through the nose. The shapeand position of the tongue determine the resonant cavity that givesdifferent nasal stops their characteristic sounds. Examples include English /m, n/. Nearly all languages have nasals. Flap, often called a tap, is a momentary closure of the oral cavity. The "tt" of "utter" and the "dd" of "udder" are pronounced as a flap in North American English. Trill, in which the articulator (usually the tip of the tongue) is held in place and the airstream causes it to vibrate. The double "r" of Spanish "carro" is a trill. Trills and flaps, where there are one or more brief occlusions, constitute a class of consonant called rhotics.
2. Places of articulation : Point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between a moving articulator (typically some part of the tongue) and a passive articulator (typically some part of the roof of the mouth). Along with the manner of articulation this gives the consonant its distinctive
sound.
a) Labials: consonants articulated either with both lips (bilabial articulation) or with the lower lip and the upper teeth (labiodental articulation). English [m] is a bilabial nasal sonorant, [b] and [p] are bilabial stops (plosives), [v] and [f] are labiodental fricatives.
b) Coronal: articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. They can be divided into apical (using the tongue tip), laminal (using the tongue blade), domed (with the tongue bunched up), or sub-apical (with the tongue curled back).
Coronal places of articulation include the dental consonants, the alveolar consonants, the postalveolar consonants (palato-alveolars).
Alveolar: articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior
alveolar ridge. English alveolar consonants identified by the IPA are:
Dental: articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth.
Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near ortouching the back of the alveolar ridge.
c) Dorsal: are articulated with the mid body of the tongue (the dorsum).
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth).
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate.
Glottal consonants are with the glottis.
Vowels Sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure above the glottis. A vowel is also understood to be syllabic: an equivalent open but non-syllabic sound is called a semivowel.
In all languages, vowels form the nucleus or peak of syllables, whereas consonants form the onset. However, some languages also allow other sounds to form the nucleus of a syllable, such as the syllabic l in English: table [teɪ.bl̩] (the stroke under the l indicates that it is syllabic).
English has 14–20 vowels (including diphthongs) depending on dialect. There is not necessarily a direct one-to-one correspondence between the vowel sounds of a language and the vowel letters. Many languages that use a form of the Latin alphabet have more vowel sounds than can be represented by the standard set of five vowel letters. In the case of English, the five
primary vowel letters can represent a variety of vowel sounds, while the
letter Y can represent both vowels and a consonant.
The word vowel comes from the Latin word vocalis, meaning "speaking", because in most languages words and thus speech are not possible without vowels.
The articulatory features that distinguish different vowels in a language are said to determine the vowel's quality. Daniel Jones developed the cardinal vowel system to describe vowels in terms of the common features height (vertical dimension), backness (horizontal dimension) and roundedness (lip position). There are however more possible features of vowel quality, such as the velum position (nasality) and type of vocal fold vibration (phonation).
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2. Places of articulation : Point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between a moving articulator (typically some part of the tongue) and a passive articulator (typically some part of the roof of the mouth). Along with the manner of articulation this gives the consonant its distinctive
sound.
a) Labials: consonants articulated either with both lips (bilabial articulation) or with the lower lip and the upper teeth (labiodental articulation). English [m] is a bilabial nasal sonorant, [b] and [p] are bilabial stops (plosives), [v] and [f] are labiodental fricatives.
b) Coronal: articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. They can be divided into apical (using the tongue tip), laminal (using the tongue blade), domed (with the tongue bunched up), or sub-apical (with the tongue curled back).
Coronal places of articulation include the dental consonants, the alveolar consonants, the postalveolar consonants (palato-alveolars).
Alveolar: articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior
alveolar ridge. English alveolar consonants identified by the IPA are:
Dental: articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth.
Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near ortouching the back of the alveolar ridge.
c) Dorsal: are articulated with the mid body of the tongue (the dorsum).
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth).
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate.
Glottal consonants are with the glottis.
Vowels Sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure above the glottis. A vowel is also understood to be syllabic: an equivalent open but non-syllabic sound is called a semivowel.
In all languages, vowels form the nucleus or peak of syllables, whereas consonants form the onset. However, some languages also allow other sounds to form the nucleus of a syllable, such as the syllabic l in English: table [teɪ.bl̩] (the stroke under the l indicates that it is syllabic).
English has 14–20 vowels (including diphthongs) depending on dialect. There is not necessarily a direct one-to-one correspondence between the vowel sounds of a language and the vowel letters. Many languages that use a form of the Latin alphabet have more vowel sounds than can be represented by the standard set of five vowel letters. In the case of English, the five
primary vowel letters can represent a variety of vowel sounds, while the
letter Y can represent both vowels and a consonant.
The word vowel comes from the Latin word vocalis, meaning "speaking", because in most languages words and thus speech are not possible without vowels.
The articulatory features that distinguish different vowels in a language are said to determine the vowel's quality. Daniel Jones developed the cardinal vowel system to describe vowels in terms of the common features height (vertical dimension), backness (horizontal dimension) and roundedness (lip position). There are however more possible features of vowel quality, such as the velum position (nasality) and type of vocal fold vibration (phonation).
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