1. CS 551/652: Structure of Spoken Language Lecture 2: Spectrogram Reading and Introductory Phonetics John-Paul Hosom Fall 2008

3. A great website on spectrogram reading: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~robh/ includes “how to” tips on spectrogram reading, a monthly “mystery spectrogram”, and archives of past months’ spectrograms.

4. Phonetics: Introduction Phonology: A description of the systems and patterns of sounds that occur in a language (abstract), often involving comparisons between languages and/or evolution of a language over time. Phonetics: A branch of phonology that deals with individual speech sounds, their production, and their written representation. Phoneme: • A unit of speech that can be used to differentiate words (e.g. “cat” /k ae t/ vs. “bat” /b ae t/). • Phonemes identify minimal pairs in a language. • The set of phonemes in a language subject to interpretation; most languages have 20 to 40 phonemes.

5. Phonetics: Introduction Allophone: A speech sound constituting one of the systematic phonetic variants of a given phoneme. Different allophones are predictable from environment (e.g. “toe”, “caught”, “fitness”, “writer”; “sill”, “still”, “spill”) Phone: An acoustic realization of a phoneme. (Many different phones may represent the same phoneme.) “The phoneme /s/ consists of more than 100 allophones” − Pickett, The Acoustics of Speech Communication , p. 7. Phonemes indicated by / /; phones (allophones) indicated by [ ].

6. Phonetics: Introduction Syllable: • Unit of speech containing one or more phonemes. • A vowel in a syllable is called the syllable nucleus . • Most syllables contain one vowel (or diphthong); some contain only a lateral (“bott/le”) or nasal (“butt/on”) as the most intense sound. • Syllable boundaries sometimes ambiguous (“tas/ty” vs. “tast/y” vs. “ta/sty”) Coarticulation: The “blending” of two or more adjacent phones, causing a non-distinct boundary between them. Coarticulation is caused by smooth changes in the articulators (lips, tongue, jaw) over time.

7. Phonetics: Introduction Coarticulation Example: y uw aa r “ you are”: /y uw aa r/

9. Phonetics: Distinctive Phonetic Features • Phonemes do not differ randomly from one another; there are relationships among phonemes (e.g. /p/ vs. /t/ vs. /ah/) • A (distinctive) feature is a “phonetic property that can be used to classify sounds” [Ladefoged, p. 42] • Typically, features are associated with aspects of articulation • Features may be binary or multi-valued • Capital letters indicate feature name: Manner square brackets [] indicate feature value: [+fricative]

11. Phonetics: Distinctive Phonetic Features nasal tract (hard) palate oral tract velum (soft palate) velic port tongue tongue tip pharynx glottis (vocal folds and space between vocal cords) vocal folds (larynx) = vocal cords alveolar ridge lips teeth The Speech Production Apparatus (from Olive, p. 23)

12. Phonetics: Distinctive Phonetic Features * Feature Description _ Consonantal produced with a constriction along center line of oral cavity. Only vowels, /w/, /h/, and /y/ are not. Vocalic largely unobstructed vocal tract. Vowels and liquids (/l/, /r/) are vocalic; glides (/w/, /y/) are not. Anterior point of articulation near alveolar ridge, including all labial and dental sounds. Coronal articulation involves front of tongue Continuant no complete obstruction in oral cavity; only nasals, stops, and affricates are non-continuant Strident articulation with long, narrow constriction; such as /s/, /z/, /f/, /v/, /sh/, /zh/, /ch/, /jh/ Voiced vibration of the vocal folds occurs during articulation

13. Phonetics: Distinctive Phonetic Features * Feature Description _ Lateral contact between corona of tongue and roof of mouth, with lowering of sides of tongue (only /l/ in English) Nasal lowering of the velic port and opening of nasal cavity. High vowel with high tongue position (narrow constriction); in English, /iy/, /ih/, /uh/, /uw/ Low vowel with low tongue position (no constriction); /ae/, /ao/, /aa/ are (some) low vowels in English. Back vowels produce with tongue toward back of mouth; /uw/, /uh/, /ah/, /ao/, /aa/, /ow/ are back vowels Round articulation involving rounding of the lips; only /uw/, /ow/, /ao/, and /uh/ are rounded in English. However, /uh/ may take an unrounded form. * Adapted from “Language” by C.E.Cairns and F. Williams in Normal Aspects of Speech, Hearing, and Language , edited by Minifie, Hixon, and Williams, 1973, p. 424, as printed in Daniloff p. 51.

14. Phonetics: More Distinctive Phonetic Features * Feature Description _ Sonorant “resonant quality” of a sound; vowels are +sonorant, stops and fricatives are –sonorant. nasals also sonorant. Syllabic is the phoneme the main sound in a syllable? vowels are syllabic, stops are usually –syllabic, but there are syllabic nasals and liquids. Tense tense vowels are longer, more fully articulated, and more “distinct,” e.g. /iy ey uw ow aa/; lax vowels are less so, e.g. /ih eh uh ah/. Aspirated produced without a constriction in the vocal tract, but also without voicing (/h/). Glottalized produced with aperiodic or extremely low-frequency vibrations of the vocal cords. Diphthong a single phoneme composed of two or more other phonemes in sequence (/ay/, /oy/, /ei/, /aw/, /ow/) * from Schane, pp. 26-32

15. Phonetics: Distinctive Phonetic Features Physiological Features: • Manner stop /p/, fricative /s/, affricate /ch/, liquid /l/, /r/, glide /j/, /w/, nasal /m/, vowel /ah/, aspiration /h/ • Place bilabial /p/, labiodental /f/, dental /th/, alveolar /t/, palato-alveolar /r/, palatal /sh/, velar /k/, glottal /h/, front /iy/, mid /ah/, back /aa/ ( can combine mid + back) • Height high /iy/, mid-high /ih/, mid /ax/, mid-low /eh/, low /aa/ or high /iy/, mid /eh/, low /aa/ (3 values, plus tense/lax) • Tenseness, Nasality, Rounding same as previous descriptions

16. Phonetics: Distinctive Feature Relationships: Vowels * from Schane, pp. 12-13. † /ax/ is slightly more centralized than /ah/, and shorter in duration  (ao) a (aa) œ æ (ae) Low o (ow) ^ (ah) ö e (eh) Mid u (uw) i (ix) ü i (iy) High Rounded Unrounded Rounded Unrounded Back Front uh Lax ao ow uw Tense Back, +Round aa ae Low ah, ax † eh ey Mid ix ih iy High Lax Tense Lax Tense Back, –Round Front, –Round

19. Front Central Back High Mid Low iy ih eh ae ah aa ao uh uw ix ax ju ey ay aw ow Phonetics: Distinctive Feature Relationships: Vowels from Ladefoged, pp. 38, 81, 218 with correction to /aw/ oy

20. approximant obstruent Phonetics: Distinctive Feature Relationships: Consonants from Olive, p. 28 and Daniloff, p. 56 n l +voice lateral r +voice retroflex (w) y w +voice glides ng m +voice nasals ch -voice jh +voice affricates sh s th f -voice h zh z dh v +voice fricatives k t p -voice g d b +voice stops glottal velar palatal palato- alveolar alveolar dental labio-dental bilabial Voicing Manner

21. Phonetics: Distinctive Feature Relationships: Consonants from Ladefoged, p. 44 -anterior +anterior l +lateral approximant y r w -lateral th dh f v -sibilant fricative sh zh s z ch jh +sibilant k g t d p b -nasal stop ng n m +nasal -sibilant Dorsal Coronal Labial

23. Approximants: Terminology Approximant Semi-Vowel / Glide Liquid Lateral Retroflex /y/ /w/ /r, er, axr/ /l/ central approximants lateral approximant