Sounds: the building blocks of language

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Sounds the building blocks of language

• CA461 Speech Processing 1
• Lecture 2

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Building Blocks I

• Think of a word
• Write it down and read the word aloud
• Without looking at the word, write down how many
  consonants and vowels are in the word
• Do the same with the following words
• Do, doo, red, read
• Do you notice anything?

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Building Blocks II

• Now take all the words you have just considered,
  say them aloud but dont look at their written
  forms, simply close your eyes and concentrate on
  listening to the words. Say them a number of
  times, slowly if you like.
• How many distinct sounds make up the words, do
  and doo?
• Our next aim is to describe these sounds

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Phonetics The Description of Speech Sounds

• Articulatory
• Perceptual
• Symbols
• Acoustic
• Will focus on acoustic description (next
  lecture), but it useful to be familiar with
  articulatory descriptions, symbols and phonetic
  alphabets

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Articulatory Components

• Vocal tract (filter)
• Oral, pharyngeal, nasal cavities
• Glottis (glottal source)
• Space between vocals folds (cords)
• Located in larynx (voicebox)
• Anterior (front) of larynx is your Adams apple

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Vocal tract filter
Stylised
Mid-sagittal view
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Nasal Cavity Oral Cavity Pharyngeal Cavity
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Larynx/Glottis
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Consonant Classification

• Voicing/Phonation type
• Place of Articulation
• Manner of Production -- Degree of Stricture
• Velic Position
• Passage of airflow thru oral cavity

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Voicing/Phonation type

• Voiced
• Glottis opens and closes rapidly
• Male 100 Hz
• Female 200 Hz
• Voiceless/Unvoiced/Devoiced
• Glottis remains open
• Can you find voiced/voiceless pairs?
• Hint Start with a voiced sound, e.g. z

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Place of Articulation

• Main cavities for airflow
• Passive articulators
• Active articulators
• Primarily the tongue

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Alveopalatal Palatal Velum Uvula Epiglottis
Alveolar Ridge
Lips Teeth
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Manner of Production(Degree of Stricture)

• Stop/Plosive complete closure
• Fricative close approximation
• Approximant open approximation
• Trill
• Affricate

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Other

• Velic Position
• Nasal
• Passage of airflow thru oral cavity
• Central
• Lateral

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3term labels

• For Example
• s Voiceless alveolar fricative
• ? Voiceless alveopalatal fricative
• m Voiced bilabial nasal stop
• ? Voiced velar nasal stop
• l Voiced lateral alveolar approximant
• Notice the use of symbols
• Not all correspond to orthography

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Vowel quality

• Shape of vocal tract tube
• Resonant frequencies -- formants
• Standing waves
• Tend to vary considerably
• Acousticsnext lecture
• Easier to use tongue and lip positions

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Vowel Classification by Tongue Position

• Locate highest point of normally convex surface

Tongue backness

• Use vertical and horizontal dimensions

Tongue height
tongue
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Vertical Tongue Height

• 3 or 4 degrees
• close/high
• closemid
• openmid
• open/low
• Puzzle Order the vowels in the following words
  in descending tongue height
• Bed
• Bayed
• Bead
• Bad

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Horizontal Tongue Backness

• 2 or 3 degrees
• front
• back
• Central
• Puzzle For each of the following pairs of words
  which vowel is front/back?
• Head, hod
• Hood, hid

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Vowel Classification contd...

• Lip Position
• Rounded
• Unrounded
• Puzzle For the following pair of words which
  vowel is Rounded/Unrounded?
• Reed, rude
• Finer distictions (eg. Swedish)

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3term labels Vowels

• For Example
• i close front unrounded
• e openmid front unrounded
• u close back rounded

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Other Dimensions for Classification

• Voiceless
• Nasality
• Retroflexion rcolouring / rhotacisation
• Tense vs. Lax
• Length
• Breathy vs.Creaky

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Monophthongs vs. Diphthongs

• Monophthong
• Pure vowel
• Diphthong
• rising/closing
• centring
• falling/opening
• Triphthong?

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Cardinal vowels

• Primary cardinal vowels
• Secondary cardinal vowels

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Phonetic Alphabets

• IPA
• Arpabet
• Sampa
• Worldbet
• Exercise
• Choose any word with more than 3 or more
  syllables
• Phonetically transcribe it in IPA and one other
  phonetic alphabet

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Broad vs. Narrow Transcription
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Next

• Acoustic phonetics
• Puzzle for later (after next 2 lectures)
• How does vowel height and backness relate to the
  first two formants?