Introduction to Phonetics

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Introduction to Phonetics

• A conversation between people from different
  dialect regions
• 1st lady "Windy, enit?" 2nd lady "No its
  not, its Thursday." 3rd lady "So am I. Lets
  go and ave a drink!"

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Phonetics the study of the physical aspects of
speech sounds

• How speakers make these sounds
• (articulatory phonetics)
• How the sounds travel in air
• (acoustic phonetics)
• How listeners perceive the sounds
• (perceptual phonetics)

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Phonology the study of the mental organization
of speech sounds into patterns

• Ways that speakers impose other linguistic
  elements on sound
• She gave him a présent.
• present noun
• He will presént 3 options.
• present verb

• Ways that neighboring sounds affect each other
• mops mobs mosses
• pats pads passes
• lacks lags latches
• Ways that sounds sequence
• brick blick bnick
• blick - an accidental gap
• bnick - a systematic gap

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Phonetics studies

• Segments
• the individual sounds in the language
• (the Consonants and Vowels)
• Suprasegmentals
• the "music" imposed on the segments

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Suprasegmentals

• Pitch
• My name is Sally Cruise. ( I'm happy to meet
  you.)
• My name is Sally Cruise. (You have a
  reservation for me?)
• Timing
• After he ate, my cat Freddy took a nap. (cat
  is diner)
• After he ate my cat, Freddy took a nap. (cat is
  dinner)
• Loudness
• I have a présent to presént.

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The Place of Phonetics in Linguistics

• Language uses gestures to convey meaning
• for spoken languages, the gestures are vocal
  tract articulations

Syntax
Phonology Phonetics
Semantics Pragmatics
Phonetics where abstract theory meets physical
articulation
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Some Interesting Questions about Segments (1)

• At what age does a child cue into sounds of
  native language and dismiss non-native sounds?
  Patricia Kuhl
• How do infants figure out where one word ends and
  another begins? Jenny Saffran

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Some Interesting Questions about Segments (2)

• Can adults be taught to differentiate the sounds
  of a 2nd language? James McClelland
• What factors contribute most to a 2nd language
  accent? (duration differences, voicing, timing, .
  . .) Lisa Davidson
• Different languages have different sound
  inventories. Does the size of the sound
  inventory affect speaking rate?

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Some Interesting Questions about Segments (3)

• How does a change in one sound in a dialect
  affect the other sounds in the dialect? Wm. Labov
  
• k?tgtkAt,
• hAt gt hQt
• What senses do we use in the perception of sound?
  McGurk Effect