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ANTH/LING 203/503

Week 8 Speech production


How language works:
• Air pushed past vocal chords makes them vibrate
• Changing shape of vocal cavity modulates sound
Phonetics: • Different shape =
different wavelengths resonate (have the most energy)
the physical reality of sound
• High frequency = tightly packed waves
• Low frequency = longer waves
• Vocal tract: tube with lots of kinks and bends, can produce
complex combinations of resonating frequencies

Articulators: change shape of vocal cavity

Vowels
• Vocal chords vibrate
• Vocal tract air flow not closed off or
significantly impeded

Some other vowels =rounded

Distinguishing Vowels
front central back
m
• Articulatory correlates of distinctive high ü kühl ı bIt’ k Iz Il
features: (German) (Russian) (Turkish)

• Height: high vs. low


• Frontedness: front vs. back mid ø schön
(German)
• Roundedness: rounded vs. unrounded (lips)
œ peur
• Elongation: long vs. short (French)

low

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Vowels of English =rounded
Diphthongs
front central back
high i: beet u: boot • “vowel glides”—tongue position moves
book
during production of a diphthong.
I bit U
Examples:
mid e bait
e
above o boat
say [ei]
boy [oi]
:3
bet Λ
:c
bought fine, ice [ai]
merry butt so, sew [ou]
low æ bat
α α: cow [au]
Mary
body, cart
cot

Monophthongs
Spectrograms: picturing sound
• vowels where tongue position does not
move • portrayal of how in speech the energy at
• Monophthongization: pronunciation of a given frequencies changes over time
diphthong as a monophthong:
fine, ice [fain, ais]Æ [fa:n, a:s] • Differences between vowels=
concentration of energy at different
frequencies (called “formants”)

Vowel
Spectrograms:
Consonants
frequency

• Air flow is stopped or impeded


• “Stops” = “plosive consonants”:
silence (closure of vocal tract) followed by
time short burst of noise
darkness of plot= • Fricative consonants: noise at certain broad
sound energy span of frequencies
dark bands=
vowel formants

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Tongue position for consonants

Distinguishing Consonants
• Place of articulation • Manner of articulation
bilabial stop/plosive
labiodental nasal
dental trill
alveolar
tap or flap
postalveolar
palatal fricative
velar • Voicing
uvular voiced vs. unvoiced
glottal (are vocal chords vibrating)

Spectrograms: bab, dad, gag Consonant


•Different consonants= Spectrograms:
•differences in how adjacent vowel formants are shaped
frequency

Note difference
between
voiced &
time unvoiced
plosive
darkness of plot= consonants,
frequency

sound energy and fricatives

time darkness of plot=sound energy

International Phonetic Alphabet


consonants
IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet Plosive (stop)

• Categorizes consonants based on manner & Nasal

place of articulation Trill


Tap or flap
• Categorizes vowels based on roundedness Fricative
& place of articulation (shown on earlier slide)
• universal etic description of speech sounds Approximant
Lateral approximant

US English sounds circled Paired symbols are [unvoiced, voiced]

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