Place of Articulation, continued September 30, 2013

Administrative Stuff Production exercise #1 is due at 5 pm on Wednesday. I’ve only received a few recordings so far! This Friday: practice transcription exercise on place of articulation. This has been posted to the course website. For next Monday: another English transcription exercise Broad and narrow Phonetic features (dimensions of articulation) Mid-sagittal diagrams Let’s walk over a basic transcription problem…

A Useful Diacritic Some English syllables have a consonant peak. This can only happen with /n/, /m/, /l/ and /r/. When this happens, the consonant is said to be syllabic and is denoted with a small vertical dash underneath. Examples: ‘chasm’ ‘ribbon’ ‘eagle’ ‘feature’

An Interesting Fact Some vowels are louder than others dB of different vowels relative to (Fonagy, 1966): : 0.0 [e] : -3.6 [o] : -7.2 [i] : -9.7 [u] : -12.3 Why?

Another Interesting Fact Some vowels are inherently longer than others. Data from Swedish (Elert, 1964): long short high [i y u] 140 msec 95 mid 155 103 low 164 111 Why?

Sonority Loudness is also a highly context-dependent measure. Can vary wildly within speaker, from speaker to speaker, from room to room, and across speaking contexts. However, all things being equal, some speech sounds are louder than others. Course in Phonetics: “The sonority of a sound is its loudness relative to that of other sounds with the same length, stress and pitch.”

From Ladefoged

A Sonority Scale low vowels high vowels glides high sonority liquids nasals fricatives stops high sonority low sonority Write this on the board

Sonority and Syllables An old idea (e.g., Pike, 1943): syllables are organized around peaks in sonority. This is the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP). Example: [bæd] is a well-formed syllable in English. [æ] [b] [d] high sonority low sonority

Sonority and Syllables An old idea (e.g., Pike, 1943): syllables are organized around peaks in sonority. This is the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP). Example: [blænd] works well, too. [æ] [l] [n] [b] [d] high sonority low sonority

Technical Terms sonority peak [æ] [l] [n] [b] [d] high sonority low sonority

Technical Terms The sonority peak forms the nucleus of the syllable. [æ] [l] [n] [b] [d] nucleus high sonority low sonority

Technical Terms The sonority peak forms the nucleus of the syllable. The sounds that precede the nucleus form the syllable onset. [æ] [l] [n] [b] [d] onset high sonority low sonority

Technical Terms The sonority peak forms the nucleus of the syllable. The sounds that precede the nucleus form the syllable onset. The sounds that follow the nucleus form the syllable coda. [æ] [l] [n] [b] [d] coda high sonority low sonority

Technical Terms The sonority peak forms the nucleus of the syllable. The sounds that precede the nucleus form the syllable onset. The sounds that follow the nucleus form the syllable coda. Together, the nucleus and coda form the syllable rhyme. [æ] [l] [n] [b] [d] rhyme high sonority low sonority

Let’s Try This One More Time If a liquid or nasal is in the syllable onset, it is not syllabic: “reach”, “look” If a liquid or nasal is in the syllable coda, it is not syllabic: “fear”, “mall”, “form”, “cold” If a liquid or nasal is in the syllable peak, it is syllabic: “bird”, “worm” “pull” (for speakers like me)

IPA Chart:Stops You are already familiar with Bilabial, Alveolar, Velar = the 3 most common places of articulation for stops UPSID Database (in Maddieson’s Patterns of Sounds, 1984) surveys 317 languages 314 have bilabial stops (Wichita, Hupa, Aleut) 316 have alveolar/dental stops (Hawaiian) 315 have velar stops (Hupa, Kirghiz)

Bilabials-Alveolars-Velars

Palatals

Palatal Stops Peter says: 59 languages in UPSID database have palatal stops Palatals vs. Velars in Ngwo (spoken in Cameroon)

Also: Palatal Nasals symbol: not to be confused with the velar nasal: PL: Examples from Hungarian 

Uvulars

Uvular Stops Peter says: 47 languages in UPSID database have uvular stops Uvular nasal: Peter, again: Japanese: ‘Japan’

Quechua Contrasts Quechua is spoken primarily in Bolivia and Peru.

Pharyngeals

Epiglottals, Glottals There are no pharyngeal stops. However, there is an epiglottal stop: Peter says: Check out Stefan’s epiglottis There are also glottal stops: As in English: “uh-oh”, “bottle”, “kitten” More on these later

Epiglottals in Agul Agul is spoken in Dagestan, near the Caspian Sea, in Russia Note: no nasal pharyngeals, epiglottals, or glottals. Why?

Back to the Coronals

Back to the Coronals Two parameters to consider here: The active articulator The tongue tip (apical) The tongue blade (laminal) The passive articulator or target The upper lip (linguo-labial) Between the teeth (interdental) The upper teeth (dental) The alveolar ridge (alveolar) Behind the alveolar ridge (post-alveolar)

Coronal Basics Coronal stops are usually dental or alveolar. Dental stops are usually laminal produced with the blade of the tongue as is typical in, e.g., French, Spanish Alveolar stops are usually apical pronounced with the tip of the tongue as is typical in English Dental ~ Alveolar contrasts are rare, but they do exist.

Laminal Dentals check out the labio-dental flap file

Apical Alveolars

Yanyuwa Coronal Contrast Yanyuwa is spoken in the Northern Territory of Australia UPSID data-- Languages with the following number of stop place contrasts: 2 -- 2 3 -- 171 4 -- 103 5 -- 35 6 -- 6 <-- 5 of these languages are from Australia! Yanyuwa has 7 stop place contrasts!

Retroflex Stops Retroflex stops are produced in the post-alveolar region, by curling the tip of the tongue back. Common in south Asian languages. Peter says:

Sindhi place contrasts

Malayalam Place Contrasts

Palatography + Linguography

Yanyuwa, again

Two Places at Once Labial-velar stops are not uncommon, especially in African languages. Examples from Idoma (spoken in Nigeria):

Linguolabials Linguolabials are formed by touching the blade of the tongue to the upper lip. Examples from V’enen Taut, a language spoken in Vanuatu (the South Pacific):

Place Contrast Round-up Most languages have three stop places: bilabial dental/alveolar velar If a language has a fourth stop place, it is usually palatal or uvular If a language has a fifth stop place, it is usually retroflex sometimes labial-velar