胡壮麟语言学教程修订版课堂笔记和讲义精选Chapter

1、Chapter 2 Speech Sounds2.1 Speech production and perceptionPhonetics is the study of speech sounds. It includes three main areas:1. Articulatory phonetics the study of the production of speech sounds2. Acoustic phonetics the study of the physical properties of the sounds produced in speech3. Auditor

2、y phonetics the study of perception of speech soundsMost phoneticians are interested in articulatory phonetics.2.2 Speech organsSpeech organs are those parts of the human body involved in the production of speech. The speech organs can be considered as consisting of three parts: the initiator of the

3、 air stream, the producer of voice and the resonating cavities.2.3 Segments, divergences, and phonetic transcription2.3.1 Segments and divergencesAs there are more sounds in English than its letters, each letter must represent more than one sound.2.3.2 Phonetic transcriptionInternational Phonetic Al

4、phabet (IPA): the system of symbols for representing the pronunciation of words in any language according to the principles of the International Phonetic Association. The symbols consists of letters and diacritics. Some letters are taken from the Roman alphabet, some are special symbols.2.4 Consonan

5、ts2.4.1 Consonants and vowelsA 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.2.4

6、.2 ConsonantsThe categories of consonant are established on the basis of several factors. The most important of these factors are:1. the actual relationship between the articulators and thus the way in which the air passes through certain parts of the vocal tract (manner of articulation);2. where in

7、 the vocal tract there is approximation, narrowing, or the obstruction of the air (place of articulation).2.4.3 Manners of articulation1. Stop/plosive: A speech sound which is produced by stopping the air stream from the lungs and then suddenly releasing it. In English, are stops and are nasal stops

8、.2. Fricative: A speech sound which is produced by allowing the air stream from the lungs to escape with friction. This is caused by bringing the two articulators, e.g. the upper teeth and the lower lip, close together but not closes enough to stop the airstreams completely. In English, are fricativ

9、es.3. (Median) approximant: An articulation in which one articulator is close to another, but without the vocal tract being narrowed to such an extentthat aturbulent airstream is produced. In English this class of sounds includes .4. Lateral (approximant): A speech sound which is produced by partial

10、ly blocking the airstream from the lungs, usually by the tongue, but letting it escape at one or both sides of the blockage. is the only lateral in English.Other consonantal articulations include trill, tap or flap, and affricate.2.4.4 Places of articulation1. Bilabial: A speech sound which is made

11、with the two lips.2. Labiodental: A speech sound which is made with the lower lip and the upper front teeth.3. Dental: A speech sound which is made by the tongue tip or blade and the upper front teeth.4. Alveolar: A speech sound which is made with the tongue tip or blade and the alveolar ridge.5. Po

12、stalveolar: A speech sound which is made with the tongue tip and the back of the alveolar ridge.6. Retroflex: A speech sound which is made with the tongue tip or blade curled back so that the underside of the tongue tip or blade forms a stricture with the back of the alveolar ridge or the hard palat

13、e.7. Palatal: A speech sound which is made with the front of the tongue and the hard palate.8. Velar: A speech sound which is made with the back of the tongue and the soft palate.9. Uvular: A speech sound which is made with the back of the tongue and the uvula, the short projection of the soft tissu

14、e and muscle at the posterior end of the velum.10. Pharyngeal: A speech sound which is made with the root of the tongue and the walls of the pharynx.11. Glottal: A speech sound which is made with the two pieces of vocal folds pushed towards each other.2.4.5 The consonants of EnglishReceived Pronunci

15、ation (RP): The type of British Standard English pronunciation which has been regarded as the prestige variety and which shows no regional variation. It has often been popularly referred to as “BBC English o”r “Oxford English ”because it is widely used in the private sector of the education system a

16、nd spoken by most newsreaders of the BBC network.A chart of English consonantsManner of articulationPlace of articulationBilabialLabiodentalDentalAlveolarPost- alveolarPalatalVelarGlottalStopNasalFricativeApproximantLateralAffricateIn many cases there are two sounds that share the same place and man

17、ner of articulation. These pairs of consonants are distinguished by voicing, the one appearing on the left is voiceless and the one on the right is voiced.Therefore, the consonants of English can be described in the following way:p voiceless bilabial stopb voiced bilabial stops voiceless alveolar fr

18、icativez voiced alveolar fricativem bilabial nasaln alveolar nasall alveolar lateralj palatal approximanth glottal fricativer alveolar approximant2.5 Vowels2.5.1 The criteria of vowel description1. The part of the tongue that is raised front, center, or back.2. The extent to which the tongue rises i

19、n the direction of the palate. Normally, three or four degrees are recognized: high, mid (often divided into mid-high and mid-low) and low.3. The kind of opening made at the lips various degrees of lip rounding or spreading.4. The position of the soft palate raised for oral vowels, and lowered for v

20、owels which have been nasalized.2.5.2 The theory of cardinal vowelsIcywarmtea doesn t quite understand this theory.Cardinal vowels are a set of vowel qualities arbitrarily defined, fixed and unchanging, intending to provide a frame of reference for the description of the actual vowels of existing la

21、nguages.By convention, the eight primary cardinal vowels are numbered from one to eight as follows: CV1 , CV2 , CV3 , CV4 , CV5 , CV6 , CV7 , CV8 .A set of secondary cardinal vowels is obtained by reversing the lip-rounding for a give position: CV9 CV16. I am sorry I cannot type out many of these. I

22、f you want to know, you may consult the textbook p. 47. icywarmtea2.5.3 Vowel glidesPure (monophthong) vowels: vowels which are produced without any noticeable change in vowel quality.Vowel glides: V owels where there is an audible change of quality.Diphthong: A vowel which is usually considered as

23、one distinctive vowel of a particular language but really involves two vowels, with one vowel gliding to the other.2.5.4 The vowels of RP high front tense unrounded vowel high back lax rounded vowel central lax unrounded vowel low back lax rounded vowel2.6 Coarticulation and phonetic transcription2.

24、6.1 CoarticulationCoarticulation: The simultaneous or overlapping articulation of two successive phonological units.Anticipatory coarticulation: If the sound becomes more like the following sound, as in the case of lamp, it is known as anticipatory coarticulation.Perseverative coarticulation: If the

25、 sound displays the influence of the preceding sound, as in the case of map, it is perseverative coarticulation.Nasalization: Change or process by which vowels or consonants become nasal. Diacritics: Any mark in writing additional to a letter or other basic elements.2.6.2 Broad and narrow transcript

26、ionsThe use of a simple set of symbols in our transcription is called a broad transcription . The use of more specific symbols to show more phonetic detail is referred to as a narrow transcription . The former was meant to indicate only these sounds capable of distinguishing one word from another in

27、 a given language while the latter was meant to symbolize all the possible speech sounds, including even the minutest shades of pronunciation.2.7 Phonological analysisPhonetics is the study of speech sounds. It includes three main areas: articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, and auditory phone

28、tics. On the other hand, phonology studies the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables. There is a fair degree of overlap in what concerns the two subjects, so sometimes it is hard to draw the boundary between them. Phonetics is the stu

29、dy of all possible speech sounds while phonology studies the way in which speakers of a language systematically use a selection of these sounds in order to express meaning. That is to say, phonology is concerned with the linguisticpatterning of sounds in human languages, with its primary aim being t

30、o discoverthe principlesthat govern the way sounds are organized in languages, and to explain the variations that occur.2.8 Phonemes and allophones2.8.1 Minimal pairsMinimal pairs are two words in a language which differ from each other by only one distinctive sound and which also differ in meaning.

31、 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.2.8.2 The phoneme theory2.8.3 AllophonesA phone

32、me is the smallest linguistic unit of sound that can signal a difference in meaning. Any of the different forms of a phoneme is called its allophones. E.g. in English, when the phoneme / / occurs at the beginning of the word like peak / /, it is said with a little puff of air, it is aspirated. But w

33、hen / / occurs in the word like speak /, it is said without the puff of the air, it is unaspirated. Boththe aspirated in peak and the unaspirated = in speak have the same phonemic function, i.e. they are both heard and identified as / / and not as / /; they are both allophones of the phoneme / /.2.9

34、 Phonological processes2.9.1 AssimilationAssimilation: A process by which one sound takes on some or all the characteristics of a neighboring sound.Regressive assimilation: If a following sound is influencing a preceding sound, we call it regressive assimilation.Progressive assimilation: If a preced

35、ing sound is influencing a following sound, we call it progressive assimilation.Devoicing: A process by which voiced sounds become voiceless. Devoicing of voiced consonants often occurs in English when they are at the end of a word.2.9.2 Phonological processes and phonological rulesThe changes in as

36、similation, nasalization, dentalization, and velarization are all phonological processes in which a target or affected segment undergoes a structural 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

37、 assimilation, a preceding sound. Consequently, we can say that any phonological process must have three aspects to it: a set of sounds to undergo the process; a set of sounds produced by the process; a set of situations in which the process applies.We can represent the process by mans of an arrow:

38、voiced fricative voiceless / voiceless. This is a phonological rule. The slash (/) specifies the environment in which the change takes place. The bar (called the focus bar) indicates the position of the target segment. So the rule reads: a voiced fricative is transformedinto the corresponding voiceless sound when it appears before a voiceless sound.2.9.3 Rule orderingNo much to say, so omitted icywarmte