Consonants and vowels 1: Consonants
Consonants and vowels
1: Consonants
Consonants and vowels
1: Consonants
Phonetics and phonology
Places of articulation
Subclasses: bilabial/labiodental, etc. (see below)
Places of articulation
Subclasses: bilabial/labiodental, etc. (see below)
Places of articulation
:-)))
+ continuant/noncontinuant, lateral, etc.
Manner of articulation
Manner of articulation
the degree of openness of the vocal tract, with the resulting relative loudness of sounds called sonority. The more open the vocal tract (that is, the smaller the degree of obstruction), the more sonorous the sound is.
Voicing
The three-term description of consonants:- place of articulation;- manner of articulation;- voicing.
(shaded cells: sibilants)
(all voiced)
The phonology of English consonants: R-dropping
The phonology of English consonants: R-dropping
new homophones:sore – saw, pour – paw, aren't – aunt, farther – father, fort – fought, source – sauce, more – maw, tuner – tuna, sort – sought, court – caught, spar – spa, career – Korea
Dropping of a consonant word-finally and pre-consonantally
Dropping of a consonant word-finally and pre-consonantally
Dropping of a consonant word-finally and pre-consonantally
Dropping of a consonant word-finally and pre-consonantally
The phonology of English consonants: R-dropping
Linking-R:more exciting, your eyes, (to) err is (human), care about, centre of, tire us, etc.between two sentences: e.g., He doesn't care. I do or There'sa spider. I'm scared.
Intrusive-R:visa application, (the) idea is, (the) Shah of (Persia), schwa insertion, law and (order), Gloria Estefan, (cats) claw at (the furniture), (the giant) panda is (an endangered species), etc.between two sentences: Try that sofa. It's softer or Call Maria. I need her.
Further homophones: e.g., vanilla ice – vanilla rice, Amanda Avon – Amanda Raven, the spa is broken – the spar is broken, put the tuna in the box – put the tuner in the box
saw us
The phonology of English consonants: R-droppingRhotic and non-rhotic accents of English:
The phonology of English consonants: R-droppingRhotic and non-rhotic accents of English:
The phonology of English consonants: L-darkening in RP
Within and across sentences: the pronunciation of word-final /l/ is determined by the following segment:
dark in feel and feel me clear in feel at home dark in spell and spell this word clear in spell it
cf. kill / kill Bill vs. kill you, smile / smile back vs. smile at me
The phonology of English consonants: L-darkening
Marble Arch: syllabic /l/ is always dark!
The phonology of English consonants: aspiration
Two forms of aspiration:
- short h-like sound after /p t k/: pay, tip, keen
- devoicing of sonorant consonant after /p t k/: pray, trip, queen
cf. ray, rip, wean
The phonology of English consonants: aspiration
Aspirated: relatively strong aspiration, no alternative allophone
Unaspirated 1: weaker or no aspiration, alternative allophones:- column (d): tapping/flapping []- column (e): (pre)glottalization/glottal replacement []
Unaspirated 2: no aspiration
Tapping/flapping:
atom = Adam
Tapping/flapping:
latter = ladder
Tapping/flapping:
Gerappa :-)http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=daoo5Of3wR0
The phonology of English consonants: aspiration
The pronunciation of the consonant is determined by its position in the syllable:
ambisyllabicity
© PÁ
The phonology of English consonants: R-dropping revisited
The phonology of English consonants: L-darkening revisited
The phonology of English consonants in the syllable: phonotactics
The phonology of English consonants in the syllable: phonotactics
the Sonority Principle:within syllables, sonority increases towards the vowel, which forms a sonority peak, and then sonority decreases; or, on both sides of syllables, sonority increases towards the vowel
Violations of the Sonority Principle:
Summary of Sonority Principle violations:
The English syllable: phonotactic restrictions (1):
● the centre of the syllable is the sonority peak, which is usually a vowel (or: syllabic consonant, cf. bottle, button)● the peak is the only obligatory constituent: there are syllables with a single vowel and no consonants (e.g., English I/eye // or Hungarian ő '(s)he'), but there are no syllables without a peak (in Hungarian, without a vowel)● the English peak can be preceded by zero to three consonants and followed by zero to four● syllable-initial position: single consonant before the peak: any consonant except //● initial two-member clusters: the Sonority Principle! (e.g., twin, trip, tube, play, pray, puke, quick, cry, clean, cube, fry, fling, dry, Gwen, etc.). One consonant, /s/, can be combined with any of the others except for voiced obstruents and /r/ (e.g., snip, slip, swim, sport, skirt, stink, sphere, etc.) (very often: sonority sequencing violations)● illegal initial clusters: *pn, *ps, *gn, *kn, *pt, *mn (pneumonia, psycho, gnu, knight, pterodactyl, mnemonics); the letter <x> at the beginning of words like Xerox, xylophone and Xanadu does not denote a /ks/ sequence but a single /z/● *tl, *tn, *pw, *fw – homorganic clusters, i.e., their members share the place of articulation
The English syllable: phonotactic restrictions (2):
● initial three-member sequences: always begin with /s/ (strength, spring, square, splash, %stew, etc.) (always violate the Sonority Principle)
● syllable-final position: any single consonant except for /h/ + in non-rhotic accents like RP, /r/● two-member clusters after the peak: e.g., lamp, month, land, mince, help, bulb, elf, %carp, %herb
● the vowel and the following consonant(s) together: the syllable rhyme:● e.g., // can only be followed by coronal consonants (shout, crowd, south, town, etc.)● // can only be followed by alveolars (exploit, void, voice, noise, coin, coil, moist, point)● a long vowel is only possible before a consonant cluster if the cluster is made up of coronals (mind, boost, faint, etc.)● in word-final open syllables (i.e., without a closing consonant) the vowel has to be either long (monophthong or diphthong, e.g., taboo, array, RP near) or unstressed (happy, comma, etc.)
(Next topic: Vowels)