Phonetics and Phonology: The Sounds and Sound Patterns of English Language, Appunti di Lingua Inglese

Scarica Phonetics and Phonology: The Sounds and Sound Patterns of English Language e più Appunti in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! language is made of frameworks: a structure that holds something together. The framework of a language enables the understanding of how a language is structured and what rules operate to produce that structure. a phone is a sound that we produce but not always a phoneme in our language, so a meaningful sound in a language. the frameworks of a language are - lexis: the words of a language - grammar: the way words are combined into sentences - discourse: the way sentences are combined into texts - phonetics and phonology: the sounds and sound patterns of the language - semantics: the way meaning is constructed by language and context the language can be spoken or written, and speech is the primary mode of communication. all humans learn to speak as part of their natural biological development where we produce the repertoire of all sounds. Learning to speak is not something we choose to do: it is an instinctive process, we learn through input. While we learn instinctively, we have to learn how to write a language, and not all language users develop the same facility for doing this. In our society, writing is highly valued for a variety of reasons including its permanence and the way it embodies our social and cultural codes such as our laws and our literature. there are different and important parts that make a language: - lexis and grammar deal mostly with written texts - discourse deals with both written and oral texts - phonetics/phonology deal with oral texts English can take many different forms: the one used in america, in britain, in australia… but we need to use just one variety: commonly it is used the standard British English (it is a variety characterised by certain lexical and grammatical features), whereas the accent (characteristics of pronunciation→ depending on geographical origin of speakers, social class, age and educational background) is the received pronunciation (RP) which is the accent used by the queen. We only deal with contemporary English, which is different from modern one. spelling problems are caused by the indirect relationship between letter and sound, also known as grapheme and phoneme (italian we learn that there are 5 vowels but vowels can have more than one sound). English spelling does not accurately represent English sounds. one single sound (phoneme) is represented by more than one letter (grapheme). - /i:/ beat, seed, piece, serene, machine - /ei/ bait, day, veil, obey - /ʃ/ shoe, sugar, issue, mansion one single letter (grapheme) may represent more than one sound (phoneme): - grapheme <a> for: phoneme /æ/ of man phoneme /ɑ:/ of car, glass phoneme /ei/ of name - grapheme <ch> for: phoneme /tʃ/ of cheese, church, cheap phoneme /ʃ/ of chalet, champagne, chicago, chic phoneme /k/ of character, chemistry, chaos There are also some silent letters such as q, or such as the cluster pt and ps in english. there are some letters that may represent no sound at all: - <b> subtle, doubt, comb, lamb - <w> answer - <k> knife, know, knight - <gh> bright, light, night - (final e) <-e> name, time, goose, Greene, Deere phonetic symbols are written in slant brackets (//) whereas the words are between <> <look> /lʊk/. you can use special marking, called diacritics to indicate allophones. In English there are 20 vowel sounds. The sounds w and j are semivowels. ᵭ is different than θ because you can hear it whereas you can’t hear θ. /d/ → feared, drop /t/ → stopped, flipped (EVERY WORD THAT ENDS WITH P) /k/ → king, cloud, lacking, fork /f/ → daffodil, physiotherapy, rough, laughter, ophthalmic /b/ → doorbell, lab.In doubt, lamb and tomb is silent /g/ → girl, log, haggard but phlegm and sign is silent because the cluster make the g disappear /h/ (in english is an aspiration) → hotel and uphold but hour, honest is silent /l/ → hello and lovely, whereas could, talk and half is silent /n/ → nose, bin but king the sound is different ŋ (it goes to the back to the mouth) whereas hymn, solemn and condemn are silent /p/ → pot, lip and appear, whereas psalm, receipt and psychology are silent /s/ → loss, smile, astrophysics, science and tips whereas reserve sounds like a z and island is silent /z/→ rose, zoo, advise, lids, zebra and was articulatory phonetics deals with how physically producing phonemes. the vocal tract has different parts: - the oral cavity, which is the mouth - nasal cavity, behind our nose - lips - tongue, which is a muscle that can move - velum, which is the soft palate and can move. the sound /g/ comes from there - uvula - epiglottis - vocal cords The sounds come from different parts of our vocal tract, for example from our teeth but also from tongue, velam or nose. so the vocal tract is where sounds are produced, phonation is the result of air passing through the vocal folds and other orgas. The flow of air is called airstream,if it flows out of the lungs, it is called egressive airstream, whereas if it flows into the lungs it is called ingressive. CONSONANT SOUND consonants involve some kind of narrow, partial or complete closure whereas vowel sounds involve no closure or contact between different parts of the mouth. consonants are a speech sound which are produced through a temporary closure, partial or complete, of the vocal tract. There are 24 consonant sounds in English RP. Most of the symbols used to represent the sounds are the same as the ones used in the roman alphabet, others are drawn from the greek one. /b/ back /p/ pen /j/ yes /θ/ think /d/ day /r/ run /k/ king ,care /ð/ this /dʒ/ jump /s/ sun /l/ look /v/ van /f/ fix /ʃ/ ship /m/ mum /w/ wet /g/ get /t/ trick /n/ noon /ʒ/ genre /h/ hat /ʃʌ/ touch /ŋ/ sing /z/ rose A useful way describing consonant sounds is to look at the way in which they are produced. we distinguish consonants sounds according to: 1. place of articulation 2. manner of articulation 3. presence or absence of voice 1. places of articulation the places of articulation used in the consonant phoneme system of RP are: - the lips - the upper teeth - the alveolar ridge - the hard palate - the soft palate - the glottis the part of the mouth involved in making speech sounds are called articulators. - passive articulators are those articulators which do not move - active articulators are those that do move bilabial made with both lips labio-dental upper front teeth placed against the lower lip dental tongue between the front teeth and touching the upper teeth alveolar the tongue against the alveolar ridge /b/ back /p/ pen /m/ sum /w/ wet /f/ fat /v/ van /θ/ think /ð/ then /d/ day, did /t/ tick /s/ sink /z/ zip /n/ net, sun /r/ red /l/ cool, let palato-alveolar the tip or blade of the tongue making contact with the alveolar ridge while the front of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate palatal the tongue against the hard palate velar the back of the tongue against the velum glottal the vocal cords /∫/ ship /ʒ/ genre /tʃ/ touch /dʒ/ jump /j/ yes, yet /g/ /k/ /ŋ/ sing /h/ hotel, hot, hat, hit 2. manner of articulation a sound can be a 1. plosives → the articulators involved block the air, pressure builds up and when released there’s a plosive sound → /b/, /p/, /k/, /g/, /t/, /d/ 2. nasals → are closed as in plosives but some air escapes from the nasal cavity. When the air is released, there is a small burst of air. the sound resonates in the nasal cavity (nasal are always voiced) → /m/, /n/, /ŋ/ 3. fricatives → the nasal cavity is blocked off through the lowering of the velum, but the air can escape, you can pronounce it until you have air → /f, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/, /z/, /∫/, /ʒ/, /h/ 4. affricates → it is a combination a plosive and fricative, in fact they are two sounds together pronounced very quickly, they begin as plosives but the air is released more gently than in plosive consonants, so that the closure is partially maintained → /tʃ/, /dʒ/ 5. approximants → in between vowels and consonants. they are all voiced /w/ bilabial approximant → what /l/, /r/ alveolar approximants (called liquid approximants) → in /l/ the air escape is later whereas in /r/ teh air escape is central /j/ palatal approximant → yet, yes 3. voicing if you describe consonants by place and manner of articulation, in some instances you still get two sounds per slot. the difference between s and z /s/ is voiceless whereas /z/ is voiced (there’s vibration). voicing is the vibration of the cords in the articulation of a speech sound. the presence or absence of voice when a phoneme is produced i caused by the state of vocal cords in the larynx: - voiceless: the folds are open when the air passes through the larynx, the airstream flows freely - voiced: the folds are almost closed and the air causes them to vibrate as it passes through the voiced/voiceless quality of a speech sound may create semantic opposition: - house/s/ -noun- and house/z/ -verb- - the ones gliding to /ɪ/ → /eɪ/, /aɪ/, /ɔɪ/ - the one gliding to /ʊ/ → /ǝʊ/, /aʊ/ CENTRING DIPHTHONGS - the ones gliding to /ǝ/ → /ɪǝ/, /ɜǝ/ (air), /ʊǝ/ monophthongs /æ/ /a:/ /e/ /ɜ:/ /ǝ/ /i:/ /ı/ /ɒ/ /ɔ:/ /u:/ /ʊ/ /ʌ/ bat bard bet bird about baed bit bomb board food book but diphthongs /aɪ/ /aʊ/ /eɪ/ /ɜǝ/ /ǝʊ/ /ɪǝ/ /ɔɪ/ /ʊǝ/ buy bough bay bear beau beer boy tour PHONOLOGY Phonology deals with the distribution of the sound in a language as a system, whereas phonetics deals with the description of a sound. Phonemes are abstract representations of sounds as they occur in the system of a language (differently from phones which are not meaningful). also the variation of a sound is known as allophone. phonology is how speech sounds operate in combination with each other, so from phonetics, will pass to segmental phonology to suprasegmental phonology. - segmental deals with individual sounds or segment and their distribution (syllable level) - suprasegmental has to do with pitch and intonation (at syllable level and beyond) 1. distribution of consonants in words (RP english) /eɪ/ /ɪə/ /ɛə/ /aɪ/ /aʊ/ /ɔɪ/ /ʊə/ plosives and affricates can occur in all positions (initial, final and medial). fricatives can occur in all positions (initial, final and medial) but /h/ is the one that changes the rule, it can only have an initial position or can be a word-medial. nasals can occur in all positions (initial, final and word-medial) but the sound /ŋ/ can’t have an initial position. approximant do not occur in final position, the exceptions are /l/ and /j/: the sound /l/ can occur in all positions, whereas the sound /j/ only can have an initial position. consonants can appear in words but in different positions. There are different types of words, monosyllabic and disyllabic words. the words can be constructed as CVC (consonant,vowel, consonant -like the word rat-) and CVCV (vowel, consonant, vowel -like the word custard-) There are three positions in which single consonants can occur: initial,medial and final position. most consonant occur in all positions but there are special cases, in distribution of consultants include the sounds: - voiced palato alveolar fricative /g/ → it occurs initially in some french loanwords. The sound can also occur in medial position in words like measure and pleasure. It occurs also word-finally in a few French words like garage. - glottal fricative /h/ → common at the beginning in words and rarer word medially as ahead. it does not occur word-finally. - nasal sounds /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/ → occur in all positions, but the sound /ŋ/ occurs in word-final (sing) and word-medial (finger) positions, but never in word-initial position. - approximants → limited distribution in single consonant occurrence, but very productive in cluster (=combination of consonants). They all occur in words initially like in rise and look. /l/ ad /r/ appear often in a medial position and /w/ occurs more rarely medially as in award. /j/ doesn’t occur medially only /l/ occurs in word-final position as in cool. 2. distribution of vowels The most productive structure is CVC structure, because it can always occur. In short monosyllabic words the structure can both be CVC and VC, but in the latter the sounds /ǝ/ and /ʊ/ aren’t possible. /ǝ/ can never occur by itself, it occurs in unstressed syllables thus is does not occur in monosyllabic words, except from in monosyllabic words when pronounced in words like of. long monophthongs and closing diphthongs occur in all three positions (CVC, VC and CV) centring diphthongs occur in all positions (CVC, VC and CV) apart from /ʊǝ/ which can’t occur in VC structure. In monosyllabic words, the structure can be VC (egg), CV (boo), CVC (bite). long monophthongs occur in all three positions: /i:/ eave, bead, bee, /a:/ art, bard, bar, /ɜ:/ irk, bird, purr, /ɔ:/ ought, board, bore, /u:/ ooze, food, boo In short monophthongs, short vowels do not occur in open syllables (CV), the vowel sound /ʊ/ doesn’t occur in VC monosyllables, the sound /ǝ/ only occurs in unstressed syllables. closing diphthongs (gliding toward /ɪ/ and /ʊ/) occur in all three structure (CVC, VC, CV) /eɪ/ bait, age, bay /aɪ/ bite, ice, buy /ɔɪ/ void, oil, boy