n
Phonetics is termed as the study of speech sounds.
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Sub-branches of phonetics
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Articulatory phonetics – the production of speech sounds
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Acoustic phonetics – the physical properties of speech sounds
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Auditory phonetics – the perceptive mechanism of speech sounds

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The speech organs

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Where does the air stream come from?
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From the lung
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What is the function of vocal cords?
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Controlling the air stream
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What are the cavities?
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Oral cavity
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Pharyngeal cavity
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Nasal cavity

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Transcription of speech sounds

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Units of representation
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Segments (the individual sounds)
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Phonetic symbols
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The widely used symbols for phonetic transcription of speech sounds is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
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The IPA attempts to represent each sound of human speech with a single symbol and the symbols are enclosed in brackets [ ] to distinguish phonetic transcriptions from the spelling system of a language.
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In more detailed transcription (narrow transcription) a sound may be transcribed with a symbol to which a smaller is added in order to mark the finer distinctions.

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Description of speech sounds

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Description of English consonants
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General feature: obstruction
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Criteria of consonant description
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Places of articulation
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Manners of articulation
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Voicing of articulation
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Places of articulation
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This refers to each point at which the air stream can be modified to produce a sound.
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Bilabial: [p] [m] [w]
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Labiodental: [f] [v]
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Interdental: [W] [T]
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Alveolar: [t] [d] [s] [z] [l] [n] [r]
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Palatal: [F] [V] [tF] [dV] [j]
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Velar: [k] [g] [N]
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Glottal: [h]
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Manners of articulation
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This refers to how the air stream is modified, whether it is completely blocked or partially obstructed.
n
Stops: [p] [t] [d] [k] [g]
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Fricatives: [s] [z] [F] [V] [f] [v] [W] [T] [h]
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Affricates: [tF] [dV]
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Liquids: [l] [r]
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Glides: [w] [j]
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Nasals: [m] [n] [N]
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Voicing of articulation
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This refers to the vibrating of the vocal cords when sounds are produced.
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Voiced sounds
n
Voiceless sounds
n
Description of English vowels
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General feature: without obstruction
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Criteria of vowel description
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Part of the tongue that is raised
n
Front
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Central
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Back
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Extent to which the tongue rises in the direction of the palate
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High
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Mid
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Low
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Kind of opening made at the lips
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Position of the soft palate
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Single vowels (monophthongs) and diphthongs

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Phonetic features and natural classes

n
Classes of sounds that share a feature or features are called natural classes.
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Major class features can specify segments across the consonant-vowel boundary.
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Classification of segments by features is the basis on which variations of sounds can be analyzed.
语言学笔记---Chapter 3 Phonology
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What is phonology?

n
Phonology is the study of sound systems and patterns.
n
Phonology and phonetics are two studies different in perspectives, which are concerned with the study of speech sounds.
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Phonology focuses on three fundamental questions.
u
What sounds make up the list of sounds that can distinguish meaning in a particular language?
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What sounds vary in what ways in what context?
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What sounds can appear together in a sequence in a particular language?

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Phonemes and allophones

n
A phoneme is a distinctive, abstract sound unit with a distinctive feature.
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The variants of a phoneme are termed allophones.
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We use allophones to realize phonemes.

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Discovering phonemes

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Contrastive distribution – phonemes
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If sounds appear in the same environment, they are said to be in contrastive distribution.
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Typical contrastive distribution of sounds is found in minimal pairs and minimal sets.
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A minimal pair consists of two words that differ by only one sound in the same position.
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Minimal sets are more than two words that are distinguished by one segment in the same position.
u
The overwhelming majority of the consonants and vowels represented by the English phonetic alphabet are in contrastive distribution.
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Some sounds can hardly be found in contrastive distribution in English. However, these sounds are distinctive in terms of phonetic features. Therefore, they are separate phonemes.
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Complementary distribution – allophones
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Sounds that are not found in the same position are said to be in complementary distribution.
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If segments are in complementary distribution and share a number of features, they are allophones of the same phoneme.
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Free variation
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If segments appear in the same position but the mutual substitution does not result in change of meaning, they are said to be in free variation.

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Distinctive and non-distinctive features

n
Features that distinguish meaning are called distinctive features, and features do not, non-distinctive features.
n
Distinctive features in one language may be non-distinctive in another.

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Phonological rules

n
Phonemes are abstract sound units stored in the mind, while allophones are the actual pronunciations in speech.
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What phoneme is realized by what allophones in what specific context is another major question in phonology.
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The regularities that what sounds vary in what ways in what context are generalized and stated in phonology as rules.
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There are many phonological rules in English. Take the following ones as examples.
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[+voiced +consonant] – [-voiced]/[-voiced +consonant]_
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[-voiced +bilabial +stop] – unaspirated/[-voiced +alveolar +fricative]_

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Syllable structure

n
A syllable is a phonological unit that is composed of one or more phonemes.
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Every syllable has a nucleus, which is usually a vowel.
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The nucleus may be preceded by one or more consonants called the onset and followed by one or more consonants called the coda.

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Sequence of phonemes

n
Native speakers of any language intuitively know what sounds can be put together.
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Some sequences are not possible in English. The impossible sequences are called systematic gaps.
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Sequences that are possible but do not occur yet are called accidental gaps.
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When new words are coined, they may fill some accidental gaps but they will never fill systematic gaps.

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Suprasegmental features

n
Features that are found over a segment or a sequence of two or more segments are called suprasegmental features.
n
These features are distinctive features.
n
Stress
u
Stress is the perceived prominence of one or more syllabic elements over others in a word.
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Stress is a relative notion. Only words that are composed of two or more syllables have stress.
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If a word has three or more syllables, there is a primary stress and a secondary stress.