The Sounds of Language An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology

Elizabeth C. Zsiga is Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University, where she has been a faculty member since 1994, teaching phonology and phonetics to both graduate and undergraduate students, with concentrations in theoretical, applied, and socio-linguistics. She has been published in numerous linguistics journals and books. Her research describes the sound systems of diverse languages including English, Igbo, Korean, Russian, Setswana, Serbian, and Thai.

1 The Vocal Tract 1

1.1 Seeing the vocal tract: tools for speech research 2

1.2 Parts of the vocal tract 5

1.2.1 The sub-laryngeal vocal tract 5

1.2.2 The larynx 7

1.2.3 The supra-laryngeal vocal tract 9

Chapter summary 11

Further reading 11

Review exercises 12

Further analysis and discussion 13

Go online 13

References 13

2 Basics of Articulation: Manner and Place in English 14

2.1 The dance of the articulators 15

2.2 Phonetic transcription 16

2.3 The building blocks of speech 20

2.3.1 Airstream, larynx, and velum 20

2.3.2 Manner of articulation 21

2.3.3 Place of articulation for consonants 24

2.3.4 Vowels 26

Chapter summary 29

Further reading 29

Review exercises 30

Further analysis and discussion 32

Go online 32

3 A Tour of the Consonants 33

3.1 Exotic sounds and the phonetic environment 34

3.2 Pulmonic consonants 37

3.2.1 Stops, nasals, and fricatives 37

3.2.2 Laterals, trills, taps, and other approximants 42

3.2.3 Contour and complex segments 44

3.3 Non-pulmonic consonants 45

3.3.1 Implosives 45

3.3.2 Ejectives 46

3.3.3 Clicks 47

3.4 Positional variation in English 48

3.4.1 Change in laryngeal configuration 48

3.4.2 Change in place 49

3.4.3 Change in manner 50

3.4.4 Other changes 50

Chapter summary 51

Further reading 52

Review exercises 52

Further analysis and discussion 53

Go online 54

References 54

4 A Map of the Vowels 55

4.1 The landscape 56

4.2 Cardinal vowels 57

4.3 Building inventories: dimensions of vowel quality 59

4.3.1 Height and backness 59

4.3.2 Tense/lax 59

4.3.3 Rounding 61

4.3.4 Central vowels 62

4.3.5 Contrasts among the low vowels 64

4.4 Nasality and voice quality 66

4.5 Length and diphthongs 67

4.6 Tone 68

4.7 Positional variants of the vowels of English 70

Chapter summary 71

Further reading 71

Review exercises 72

Further analysis and discussion 73

Further research 74

References 74

5 Anatomy, Physiology, and Gestural Coordination 76

5.1 Anatomy and physiology of respiration 77

5.2 Anatomy and physiology of the larynx 79

5.3 Anatomy of the supralaryngeal vocal tract 85

5.3.1 The jaw 85

5.3.2 The tongue 86

5.3.3 The pharynx and velum 88

5.3.4 The lips 88

5.4 Coordination of gestures 89

5.5 Palatography 91

Chapter summary 94

Further reading 95

Review exercises 96

Further analysis and discussion 97

Go online 98

6 The Physics of Sound: Pendulums, Pebbles, and Waves 99

6.1 What is sound? 100

6.2 Simple harmonic motion: a pendulum and a tuning fork 102

6.3 Adding sinuosoids: complex waves 105

6.4 Sound propagation 108

6.5 Decibels 110

6.6 Resonance 111

6.7 The vocal tract as a sound-producing device: source-filter theory 114

Chapter summary 116

Further reading 116

Review exercises 117

Further analysis and discussion 118

Go online 118

7 Looking at Speech: Waveforms, Spectra, and

Spectrograms 119

7.1 Pre-digital speech 120

7.2 Digitization 122

7.2.1 Sampling 122

7.2.2 Quantization 125

7.2.3 Digital recording 126

7.3 Looking at waveforms 129

7.4 Spectra 131

7.4.1 Spectrum of the glottal source 131

7.4.2 Spectrum of a noise source 134

7.4.3 Spectra of vowels 135

7.5 Spectrograms 137

Chapter summary 142

Further reading 143

Review exercises 144

Further analysis and discussion 144

Go online 148

References 148

8 Speech Analysis: Under the Hood 149

8.1 Building sounds up 150

8.1.1 Sinusoids as circular motion 150

8.1.2 Harmonics: standing waves in a string 153

8.1.3 Formants: resonances of a tube of air 156

8.1.4 Calculating resonances for other vocal tract

configurations 159

8.2 Breaking sounds down 160

8.2.1 RMS amplitude 161

8.2.2 Autocorrelation pitch analysis 161

8.2.3 Fourier analysis 165

8.2.4 Linear predictive coding 167

Chapter summary 169

Further reading 170

Review exercises 170

Further analysis and discussion 171

Go online 172

References 172

9 Hearing and Speech Perception 173

9.1 Anatomy and physiology of the ear 174

9.2 Neuro-anatomy 181

9.2.1 Studying the brain 181

9.2.2 Primary auditory pathways 183

9.3 Speech perception 186

9.3.1 Non-linearity 186

9.3.2 Variability and invariance 187

9.3.3 Cue integration 190

9.3.4 Top-down processing 192

9.3.5 Units of perception 192

Chapter summary 194

Further reading 195

Review exercises 195

Further analysis and discussion 196

Go online 197

References 197

10 Phonology 1: Abstraction, Contrast, Predictability 198

10.1 The necessity of abstraction 199

10.2 Contrast and predictability: phonemes and allophones 203

10.2.1 Defining the phoneme 203

10.2.2 Phonemic analysis 207

10.3 Some complicating factors 211

10.3.1 Is one allophone always basic? 211

10.3.2 Phonetic similarity and complementary distribution 212

10.3.3 Free variation 213

10.3.4 Positional neutralization 214

10.4 Biuniqueness, Behaviorism, and the decline of phonemic analysis 214

Chapter summary 216

Further reading 216

Review exercises 216

Further analysis and discussion 217

Further research 219

Go online 219

References 219

11 Phonotactics and Alternations 221

11.1 Phonotactic constraints 222

11.1.1 Actual words and possible words 222

11.1.2 Absolute and statistical generalizations 223

11.1.3 Borrowings 224

11.2 Analyzing alternations 225

11.3 Alternations: what to expect 232

11.3.1 Local assimilation 232

11.3.2 Long-distance assimilation 236

11.3.3 Coalescence 238

11.3.4 Dissimilation 238

11.3.5 Lenition and fortition 240

11.3.6 Epenthesis 241

11.3.7 Deletion 243

11.3.8 Lengthening and shortening 244

11.3.9 Metathesis 244

11.3.10 Morphological interactions 245

Chapter summary 246

Further reading 246

Review exercises 246

Further analysis and discussion 248

Go online 250

References 250

12 What Is Possible Language?: Distinctive Features 253

12.1 Introduction 254

12.1.1 Phonological universals 254

12.1.2 Why bother with formalism? 255

12.1.3 Some hypotheses 256

12.2 Distinctive features 257

12.2.1 Background 257

12.2.2 Major class and manner features 258

12.2.3 Laryngeal features 262

12.2.4 Major place features 262

12.2.5 Subsidiary place distinctions 265

12.2.6 Features for vowels 267

12.3 How have our hypotheses fared? 270

Chapter summary 271

Further reading 272

Review exercises 272

Further analysis and discussion 272

Further research 274

Go online 274

References 274

13 Rules and Derivations in Generative Grammar 275

13.1 Generative grammars 276

13.2 Underlying representations 277

13.3 Writing rules 279

13.3.1 SPE notation 279

13.3.2 Derivations 280

13.3.3 Rule complexity 281

13.4 Autosegmental representations and feature geometry 284

13.4.1 Autosegmental representations for tone 284

13.4.2 Autosegmental representations for other features 289

13.4.3 Feature geometry 293

13.5 How have our hypotheses fared? 298

Chapter summary 299

Further reading 299

Review exercises 300

Further analysis and discussion 300

Further research 303

Go online 303

References 303

14 Constraint-based Phonology 304

14.1 Constraints and rules in linguistic theory 305

14.2 The basics of Optimality Theory 309

14.2.1 Con 309

14.2.2 Gen 312

14.2.3 Eval 312

14.3 Example problem solving in OT 314

14.3.1 Vowel sequences in three languages 314

14.3.2 Nasal place assimilation 316

14.3.3 Japanese /tu/ 319

14.4 Challenges and directions for future research 322

Chapter summary 324

Further reading 325

Review exercises 325

Further analysis and discussion 325

Further research 329

Go online 329

References 329

15 Syllables and Prosodic Domains 330

15.1 Syllables 331

15.1.1 Does phonology need syllables? 331

15.1.2 Syllables and sonority 333

15.1.3 Syllable structure constraints 1: onsets and codas 335

15.1.4 Syllables structure constraints 2: moras and syllable weight 339

15.2 The prosodic hierarchy 341

15.5.1 The phonological word 342

15.2.2 The phonological phrase 346

Chapter summary 348

Further reading 348

Review exercises 349

Further analysis and discussion 350

Further research 000

References 351

16 Stress 353

16.1 What is linguistic stress? 354

16.2 Cross-linguistic typology 356

16.3 A feature for stress? 360

16.4 Metrical structure 360

16.5 Stress in English 365

16.5.1 Overview 365

16.5.2 Nouns 366

16.5.3 Verbs and adjectives 367

16.5.4 Affixes and lexical phonology 368

Chapter summary 370

Further reading 371

Review exercises 371

Further analysis and discussion 372

Further research 374

Go online 374

References 374

17 Tone and Intonation 375

17.1 Tone 376

17.1.1 Tone contrasts 376

17.1.2 Tonal representations 380

17.1.3 Tone alternations: the evidence from Africa and the Americas 383

17.1.4 Tone alternations: the evidence from Asia 388

17.2 Intonation 392

17.2.1 What is intonation? 392

17.2.2 Intonational representations 393

Chapter summary 397

Further reading 397

Review exercises 398

Further analysis and discussion 399

Further research 399

Go online 400

References 400

18 Diachronic Change 401

18.1 Languages change 402

18.1.1 English in the last millennium 402

18.1.2 Types of sound change 405

18.1.3 Causes and effects 407

18.2 Historical reconstruction 408

18.2.1 Proto-Indo-European 408

18.2.2 Grimm’s Law, Verner’s Law and the Neo-grammarian

hypothesis 411

18.2.3 Limits to the tree model 414

18.3 History of the sounds of English 415

18.3.1 Old English 415

18.3.2 Middle English 417

18.3.3 Modern English 419

Chapter summary 422

Further reading 422

Review exercises 423

Further analysis and discussion 423

Further research 423

Go online 425

References 425

19 Variation 426

19.1 Variation by place 428

19.1.1 What is a dialect? 428

19.1.2 Dialects of North American English 429

19.1.3 Dialects of British English 433

19.1.4 Australia, New Zealand, South Africa 434

19.1.5 World Englishes 435

19.1.6 Place and identity 437

19.2 Other sources of variation 437

19.2.1 Register 437

19.2.2 Socio-economic distinctions 438

19.2.3 Ethnicity 439

19.2.4 Gender, age, sexuality 440

19.2.5 Variation and identity 441

19.3 Formalizing variation 441

19.3.1 Traditional sociolinguistic analyses 442

19.3.2 Traditional phonological analyses 443

19.3.3 Stochastic grammars 443

Chapter summary 444

Further reading 445

Review exercises 445

Further analysis and discussion 446

Further research 446

Go online 446

References 446

20 Acquisition and Learning 447

20.1 Language Acquisition and Language Learning 448

20.2 Child language acquisition: the data 448

20.2.1 Tools 448

20.2.2 Perception in the first year 449

20.2.3 Child language production 452

20.3 Theories of L1 acquisition 454

20.3.1 Innateness vs. environmental effects 454

20.3.2 Acquiring language-specific contrasts 455

20.4 L2 Learning 457

20.4.1 Tools 457

20.4.2 L2 perception 458

20.4.3 L2 production 459

20.5 Acquisition, Learning, and Linguistic Theory 461

Chapter summary 462

Further reading 462

Review exercises 462

Further analysis and discussion 464

Further research 464

Go online 464

References 464

Index 465

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