北鼎教育---2015北外考研英语专业英语语言学chapter two.doc

Chapter Two Speech Sounds学习目的：理解并对比语音学和音系学的研究对象、目的和基本方法；能够对英语语音进行描写；了解英语语音的发音过程和规则；理解各种超音段特征的作用本章重点：对英语的辅音、元音进行分类和描写；协同发音；音位和音位变体；英语中常见的音系规则；区别性特征；超音段特征As human beings, we are capable of making all kinds of sounds, but only some of these sounds have become units in the language system.What kinds of unusual sounds can you make? Think of the performance in some comic dialogues.Phonetics & phonologyPhonetics studies how speech sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived. Articulatory Phonetics is the study of the production of speech sounds.Acoustic Phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds.Perceptual or Auditory Phonetics is concerned with the perception of speech sounds.Phonology is the study of the sound patterns and sound systems of languages. It aims to discover the principles that govern the way sounds are organized in languages, and to explain the variations that occur.1.How speech sounds are made1.1 Speech organsGet to know the articulatorsPosition of the vocal folds: voicelessPosition of the vocal folds: voicingPosition of the vocal folds: glottal stop1.2 The IPAIts development and principlesThe contents of the IPA2. Consonants and vowels A consonant is produced by constricting or obstructing the vocal tract at some places to divert, impede, or completely shut off the flow of air in the oral cavity.A vowel is produced without obstruction so no turbulence or a total stopping of the air can be perceived. 2.1 ConsonantsThe description of consonants Voicing +place of articulation +manner of articulationThe manner of articulation refers to ways in which articulation can be accomplishedStop (oral stop)Nasal (nasal stop)FricativeApproximantLateralTrillTap/flapAffricateThe place of articulation refers to the point where a consonant is made. Practically consonants may be produced at any place between the lips and the vocal folds. Eleven places of articulation are distinguished on the IPA chart:BilabialLabiodentalDentalAlveolarPostalveolarRetroflexPalatalVelarPharyngealGlottalUvular2.2 VowelsCardinal Vowels, as exhibited by the vowel diagram in the IPA chart, are a set of vowel qualities arbitrarily defined, fixed and unchanging, intended to provide a frame of reference for the description of the actual vowels of existing languages.semi-vowel (e.g., wet, yet, hot)Vowel glides (diphthongs & triphthongs)2.3 The sounds of EnglishReceived Pronunciation (RP)General American (GA)English consonantsThe consonants of English can be described in the following manner: voicing+place+manner of articulationpvoiceless bilabial stopbvoiced bilabial stopsvoiceless alveolar fricativezvoiced alveolar fricativeEnglish vowelsThe description of English vowels needs to fulfill four basic requirements: the height of tongue raising (high, mid, low);the position of the highest part of the tongue (front, central, back);the length or tenseness of the vowel (tense vs. lax or long vs. short), and lip-rounding (rounded vs. unrounded). The English vowels can be described in this way: 3. From phonetics to phonologySpeech is a continuous process, so sounds show the influence of their neighbors. For example, map, lamb.3.1 CoarticulationWhen such simultaneous or overlapping articulations are involved, we call the process coarticulation. If the sound becomes more like the following sound, as in the case of lamb, it is known as anticipatory coarticulation. If the sound shows the influence of the preceding sound, it is perseverative coarticulation, as is the case of map.The fact that the vowel in lamb has some quality of the following nasal is a phenomenon we call nasalization. To indicate that a vowel has been nasalized, we add a diacritic to the top of the symbol , as . p is aspirated in peak and unaspirated in speak. This aspirated voiceless bilabial stop is thus indicated by the diacritic h, as ph, whereas the unaspirated counterpart is transcribed as p. When we use a simple set of symbols in our transcription, it is called a broad transcription. The use of more specific symbols to show more phonetic detail is referred to as a narrow transcription. Both are phonetic transcriptions so we put both forms in square brackets . 3.2 Phonemes Phoneticians are concerned with how sounds differ in the way they are pronounced while phonologists are interested in the patterning of such sounds and the rules that underlie such variations. Crystal: Phonological analysis relies on the principle that certain sounds cause changes in the meaning of a word or phrase, whereas other sounds do not. Minimal pairs testPhonemes Minimal pairs are two words in a language which differ from each other by only one distinctive sound and which also differ in meaning. E.g. the English words tie and die are minimal pairs as they differ in meaning and in their initial phonemes /t/ and /d/. By identifying the minimal pairs of a language, a phonologist can find out which sound substitutions cause differences of meaning. The word phoneme simply refers to a unit of explicit sound contrast. the existence of a minimal pair automatically grants phonemic status to the sounds responsible for the contrasts.By selecting one sound instead of another we can distinguish one word from another.Languages differ in the selection of contrastive sounds. In English, the distinction between aspirated ph and unaspirated p is not phonemic. In Chinese, however, the distinction between /p/ and /ph/ is phonemic.3.3 Allophones p, ph are two different phones and are variants of the phoneme /p/. Such variants of a phoneme are called allophones of the same phoneme. In this case the allophones are said to be in complementary distribution because they never occur in the same context: p occurs after s while ph occurs in other places. /p/ p /s _ ph elsewhereThis phenomenon of variation in the pronunciation of phonemes in different positions is called allophony or allophonic variation. Velarization: clear l and dark l/l/ l / _ V5 / V _Think about tell and telling!Three conditions for a phonemePhonemes must be in contrast to each other in the same environment; the substitution of one changes the meaning.The allophones must be in complementary distribution. The allophones of a phoneme must bear some phonetic resemblance.Free variants & free variation4. Phonological processes, phonological rules and distinctive featuresSome phonological processesAssimilationEpenthesis Assimilation is a phonological term, often used synonymously with coarticulation, which is more of a phonetic term. Nasalization, dentalization, and velarization are all instances of assimilation, a process by which one sound takes on some or all the characteristics of a neighboring sound. There are two possibilities of assimilation:If a following sound is influencing a preceding sound, we call it regressive assimilation. The converse process, in which a preceding sound is influencing a following sound, is known as progressive assimilation. Phonological processesIn phonological processes, a target or affected segment undergoes a structual change in certain environments or contexts. in each process, the change is conditioned or triggered by a following sound or, in the case of progressive assimilation, a preceding sound. we can represent the process by means of an arrow.We can write a phonological process in a phonological rule in which the arrow refers to the process, the slash specifies the environment in which the change takes place, and the bar indicates the position of the target segment. The following are some phonological rules that represent some phonological processes:Devoicing rule/v/ f /z/ s etc.voiced fricative voiceless / _ voicelessNasalization rule:-nasal +nasal / _ +nasalDentalization rule:-dental dental / _ dentalVelarization rule:-velar +velar / _ +velar4.2 Epenthesis, rule ordering and the Elsewhere Condition Epenthesis (Insertion) Rule:a. The s appears after voiceless sounds.b. The z appears after voiced sounds. c. The z appears after sibilants./z/ s / voice, C _ (Devoicing) / +sibilant _ z (Epenthesis)Rule orderingWith two rules at hand, we have to follow a specifically stipulated rule ordering to derive the correct surface. The Elsewhere Condition (The more specific rule applies first.)4.3 Distinctive features The idea of Distinctive Features was first developed by Roman Jacobson (1896-1982) in the 1940s as a means of working out a set of phonological contrasts or oppositions to capture particular aspects of language sounds. consonantal can distinguish between consonants and vowels, so all consonants are +consonantal and all vowels consonantal. sonorant distinguishes between what we call obstruents (stops, fricatives and affricates) and sonorants (all other consonants and vowels), with obstruents being sonorant and others +sonorant. nasal and voiced of course distinguish nasal (including nasalized) sounds and voiced sounds respectively.These are known as binary features because we can group them into two categories: one with this feature and the other without. The place features are not binary features they are divided up into four values: PLACE: LabialPLACE: CoronalPLACE: Dorsal PLACE: RadicalThey are often written in shorthand forms as LabialpCoronalpDorsalpRadicalpPhonological rule for the English past tense written with distinctive features:5. Suprasegmentals Suprasegmental features are those aspects of speech that involve more than single sound segments. The principal suprasegmentals are: 5.1 The syllable structure Onset Rime Nucleus Coda k r k tOpen syllable: bar, tieClosed syllable: bard, tiedEnglish Syllable: (C)C)C)V(C)C)C)C)Chinese syllable: (C)V(C) Maximal Onset Principle (MOP)When there is a choice as to where to place a consonant, it is put into the onset rather than the coda. 5.2 Stress Stress refers to the degree of force used in producing a syllable. In transcription, a raised vertical line is often used just before the syllable it relates to. A basic distinction is made between stressed and unstressed syllables, the former being more prominent than the latter, which means that stress is a relative notion. At the word level, it only applies to words with at least two syllables. At the sentence level, a monosyllabic word may be said to be stressed relative to other words in the sentence.Changing English Stress PatternBecoming norminTEGralcoMMUNalforMIDableconTROVersyConsidered conservativeINtegral