Summary
Linguistics 1
Complete summary
,Index
Index 1
What is Linguistics? 4
What is Phonetics? 5
Phonetics 5
Speaking vs. Writing 5
Homographs and homophones 5
Standard Southern British English 6
Rhotic and non-rhotic accents 6
Transcribing speech 6
Speech production 7
Body parts involved in producing speech sounds 7
The necessity of air 9
The air passes through the larynx into the vocal tract 9
The vibration of vocal folds 9
Voicing 10
Voiced and Voiceless sounds 10
Phonemes 11
Symbols for English phoneme consonants 11
The importance of the voicing parameter 11
Place of Articulation 12
Articulators 12
Places of Articulation 13
Manner of Articulation 14
Manners of Articulation in English 14
Larger manner classes 15
International Phonetic Alphabet 16
Background 17
The living IPA 17
A note on convention, r and ɹ 17
Blank white vs grey spaces 17
Non-pulmonic consonants 18
Diacritics 18
Vowel 18
Mid-sagittal sections 19
Steps to drawing mid-sagittal sections 19
1
,Vowels 19
Phonetic labels for vowels 20
The vowel diagram 20
Cardinal vowels 20
Secondary Cardinal Vowels 21
Monophthongs 22
Short vs. long monophthongs 22
Diphthongs 23
Categorisation 23
Raising/closing diphthongs 23
Centring diphthongs 23
Acoustic Phonetics 24
Acoustic Phonetics 24
Sound waves 24
The auditory system 24
Air pressure variation 25
Amplitude 25
Fundamental frequency (F0) 25
Overtones (harmonies) 26
Sound spectrum 26
Formants 26
Formants in relation to English monophthongs 26
F1 (1st formant) 27
F2 (2nd formant) 27
Vowel diagram: articulation vs acoustics 27
Backness and rounding 27
Periodic sounds 28
Aperiodic sounds: fricatives 28
Aperiodic sounds: stops 28
Vowels and consonants 28
Airstream Mechanisms 29
Voiced sounds 29
Voiceless sounds 29
Glottal closure 29
Pulmonic Airstream mechanics 29
Glottalic Airstream mechanics 30
Velaric Airstream mechanics 31
The Syllabe 32
Syllabic consonants 32
2
, Syllable affiliation in English 33
Phonotactics and distribution 33
Maximal onset principle 33
Morpheme 34
Stressed syllables 34
Finding stressed syllables 34
Allophonic Variation 35
Complementary distribution vs Contrastive distribution 35
Variation in Voicing 36
Variation of Place 36
Primary variation of place 36
Secondary variation of place 37
Allophonic Variation of Manner 37
Vowels 37
Parametric diagrams 38
Voice Onset Time (VOT) 38
How to draw a parametric diagram 39
Variability in Language 40
Types of variation 40
Variation in pronunciation by the same speaker 40
Variation in pronunciation at any time & change over time 40
Symbols 41
3
,What is Linguistics?
Linguistics
The study of natural human language.
- human rules out e.g. the waggle dance of bees, songs of whales
- natural rules out e.g. artificially constructed languages like Dothraki (GoT)
- Artificial languages like Elvish (LotR), Klingon (Star Trek) and Na’vi (Avatar)
are arguably neither human nor natural.
Linguistics has a lot of different branches, such as:
- Syntax (sentences) - Psycholinguistics
- Morphology (words) - sociolinguistics
- Semantics (meaning) - Neurolinguistics
- Phonology (how sounds - Historical linguistics
‘pattern’ in languages) - Forensic linguistics
Phonetics intersects with all these fields.
Spoken Languages
There are an estimated 6,000 languages in the world. Some of these languages
have many speakers, most have few. Many are endangered.
These languages are naturally acquired by children in the first years of their lives,
without any noticeable strain and without any explicit instruction, suggesting that
humans are predisposed to learn language.
Creole languages
Natural human languages also include creoles. These arise naturally from contact
between two or more languages.
- Papiamento; derived from Portuguese and Spanish, with Dutch, English,
Arawak Indian and African influences.
In some respects, English can also be viewed as a creole resulting from contact
between Old English (Germanic) and Old French (romance) following the Norman
Conquest of 1066, i.e. as ‘English with French influences’.
While this is controversial it is true that the influence of French on English is more
than just loan words. We also see it in English morphology and sentence structure.
Sign languages
Natural human languages include signed languages. These are produced in the
visual-gestural modality. e.g. ASL, BSL, Nederlandse Gebarentaal.
A common misperception is that sign languages are manual representations of
spoken language. Sign language has complicated grammar and children acquire
them similarly to non-deaf children.
4
, What is Phonetics?
Phonetics
- Phonetics is the study of speech sounds.
- Phonetics → Ancient Greek phone (φoνη) ‘sound’
- Phonetics is a branch of linguistics, the scientific study of language.
- Linguistics → Latin lingua ‘tongue, language’
Phonetics is the study of speech sounds
- the production of speech; articulatory phonetics
- the acoustics of speech; acoustic phonetics
- the perception of speech; auditory phonetics
Our focus will be on speech production, the subdiscipline known as articulatory
phonetics, with special emphasis on the phonetics of English.
Speaking vs. Writing
Don’t confuse sounds with letters!
As literate speakers, you will tend to focus on the spelling of words - but spelling and
speech are two different things.
- Different spelling, same sound
- see, sea, scene, protein, thief, key, Caesar, people, machine, debris
- Same spelling, different sound
- boughs, rough, through, cough, enough
- One sound, two letters
- she, apple, boots, fling, rock, this, enough, phonetics
- One letter, two sounds
- university, relax
- Silent letters
- love, island, psychosis, paradigm, knight
Homographs and homophones
Homographs → sound different but spelt the same.
- Polish + polish
Homophones → words that sound the same, but are spelt differently
- dough + doe
- cue + queue
5
Linguistics 1
Complete summary
,Index
Index 1
What is Linguistics? 4
What is Phonetics? 5
Phonetics 5
Speaking vs. Writing 5
Homographs and homophones 5
Standard Southern British English 6
Rhotic and non-rhotic accents 6
Transcribing speech 6
Speech production 7
Body parts involved in producing speech sounds 7
The necessity of air 9
The air passes through the larynx into the vocal tract 9
The vibration of vocal folds 9
Voicing 10
Voiced and Voiceless sounds 10
Phonemes 11
Symbols for English phoneme consonants 11
The importance of the voicing parameter 11
Place of Articulation 12
Articulators 12
Places of Articulation 13
Manner of Articulation 14
Manners of Articulation in English 14
Larger manner classes 15
International Phonetic Alphabet 16
Background 17
The living IPA 17
A note on convention, r and ɹ 17
Blank white vs grey spaces 17
Non-pulmonic consonants 18
Diacritics 18
Vowel 18
Mid-sagittal sections 19
Steps to drawing mid-sagittal sections 19
1
,Vowels 19
Phonetic labels for vowels 20
The vowel diagram 20
Cardinal vowels 20
Secondary Cardinal Vowels 21
Monophthongs 22
Short vs. long monophthongs 22
Diphthongs 23
Categorisation 23
Raising/closing diphthongs 23
Centring diphthongs 23
Acoustic Phonetics 24
Acoustic Phonetics 24
Sound waves 24
The auditory system 24
Air pressure variation 25
Amplitude 25
Fundamental frequency (F0) 25
Overtones (harmonies) 26
Sound spectrum 26
Formants 26
Formants in relation to English monophthongs 26
F1 (1st formant) 27
F2 (2nd formant) 27
Vowel diagram: articulation vs acoustics 27
Backness and rounding 27
Periodic sounds 28
Aperiodic sounds: fricatives 28
Aperiodic sounds: stops 28
Vowels and consonants 28
Airstream Mechanisms 29
Voiced sounds 29
Voiceless sounds 29
Glottal closure 29
Pulmonic Airstream mechanics 29
Glottalic Airstream mechanics 30
Velaric Airstream mechanics 31
The Syllabe 32
Syllabic consonants 32
2
, Syllable affiliation in English 33
Phonotactics and distribution 33
Maximal onset principle 33
Morpheme 34
Stressed syllables 34
Finding stressed syllables 34
Allophonic Variation 35
Complementary distribution vs Contrastive distribution 35
Variation in Voicing 36
Variation of Place 36
Primary variation of place 36
Secondary variation of place 37
Allophonic Variation of Manner 37
Vowels 37
Parametric diagrams 38
Voice Onset Time (VOT) 38
How to draw a parametric diagram 39
Variability in Language 40
Types of variation 40
Variation in pronunciation by the same speaker 40
Variation in pronunciation at any time & change over time 40
Symbols 41
3
,What is Linguistics?
Linguistics
The study of natural human language.
- human rules out e.g. the waggle dance of bees, songs of whales
- natural rules out e.g. artificially constructed languages like Dothraki (GoT)
- Artificial languages like Elvish (LotR), Klingon (Star Trek) and Na’vi (Avatar)
are arguably neither human nor natural.
Linguistics has a lot of different branches, such as:
- Syntax (sentences) - Psycholinguistics
- Morphology (words) - sociolinguistics
- Semantics (meaning) - Neurolinguistics
- Phonology (how sounds - Historical linguistics
‘pattern’ in languages) - Forensic linguistics
Phonetics intersects with all these fields.
Spoken Languages
There are an estimated 6,000 languages in the world. Some of these languages
have many speakers, most have few. Many are endangered.
These languages are naturally acquired by children in the first years of their lives,
without any noticeable strain and without any explicit instruction, suggesting that
humans are predisposed to learn language.
Creole languages
Natural human languages also include creoles. These arise naturally from contact
between two or more languages.
- Papiamento; derived from Portuguese and Spanish, with Dutch, English,
Arawak Indian and African influences.
In some respects, English can also be viewed as a creole resulting from contact
between Old English (Germanic) and Old French (romance) following the Norman
Conquest of 1066, i.e. as ‘English with French influences’.
While this is controversial it is true that the influence of French on English is more
than just loan words. We also see it in English morphology and sentence structure.
Sign languages
Natural human languages include signed languages. These are produced in the
visual-gestural modality. e.g. ASL, BSL, Nederlandse Gebarentaal.
A common misperception is that sign languages are manual representations of
spoken language. Sign language has complicated grammar and children acquire
them similarly to non-deaf children.
4
, What is Phonetics?
Phonetics
- Phonetics is the study of speech sounds.
- Phonetics → Ancient Greek phone (φoνη) ‘sound’
- Phonetics is a branch of linguistics, the scientific study of language.
- Linguistics → Latin lingua ‘tongue, language’
Phonetics is the study of speech sounds
- the production of speech; articulatory phonetics
- the acoustics of speech; acoustic phonetics
- the perception of speech; auditory phonetics
Our focus will be on speech production, the subdiscipline known as articulatory
phonetics, with special emphasis on the phonetics of English.
Speaking vs. Writing
Don’t confuse sounds with letters!
As literate speakers, you will tend to focus on the spelling of words - but spelling and
speech are two different things.
- Different spelling, same sound
- see, sea, scene, protein, thief, key, Caesar, people, machine, debris
- Same spelling, different sound
- boughs, rough, through, cough, enough
- One sound, two letters
- she, apple, boots, fling, rock, this, enough, phonetics
- One letter, two sounds
- university, relax
- Silent letters
- love, island, psychosis, paradigm, knight
Homographs and homophones
Homographs → sound different but spelt the same.
- Polish + polish
Homophones → words that sound the same, but are spelt differently
- dough + doe
- cue + queue
5
