语言学教程第四版第二章 胡壮麟 主编

Chapter 2

Speech sounds

Contents

•How sounds are made?

•Consonants and vowels

•Phonological processes, phonological rules and distinctive features

•Suprasegmentals 超音段

•Two major areas for studying speech sounds:

phonetics and phonology

•Phonetics: it studies how speech sounds are made, transmitted and perceived.

•Three branches of phonetics:

•Articulatory phonetics发声语音学 is the study of the production of speech sounds.

•Acoustic phonetics声学语音学 is the study of the physical properties of the sounds produced in speech.

Auditory phonetics听觉语音学 is concerned with the perception of speech sounds

•Phonology：it deals with the sound system of a language by treating phoneme 音素 as the point of departure.

•It studies the sound patterns and sound systems of languages.

•Ultimately it aims to discover the rules that underlie the sound patterns of all languages.

How speech sounds are made?

• speech organs 言语器官

•Speech organs are also known as vocal organs（发音器官）.

•Parts of human body involved in the production of speech sounds: lungs, trachea (windpipe) 气管, throat, nose, mouth

• organs of speech (Figure 2.2, p.26 on our books)

•Three cavities: oral cavity, nasal cavity 鼻腔, pharyngeal cavity (pharynx) 咽腔

•Inside the oral cavity: tongue, hard palate 硬腭, soft palate (velum) 软腭, teeth, teeth ridge (alveolus) 齿龈

•Inside the pharyngeal cavity: pharynx 咽, larynx喉, vocal folds 声带•Positions of vocal folds 声带

•

•(a) apart

•speech sounds which are produced without vibration of the vocal cords are called voiceless 清音.

• [p,t,k,f,s]

•(b) close together

•Speech sounds which are produced with the vocal cords vibrating are called voiced浊音.

• [b,d,g,v,z]

•When a speech sound which is normally voiced is produced without vibration or only slight vibration, this is called devoicing(清音化).

Devoicing of voiced consonants often occurs in English when they are

at the end of a word, e.g.

• Lid word crab bag

• five past has to

•(c) totally closed [ ʔ ]

• Fatten button pack

IPA

•IPA: International Phonetic Alphabet 国际音标

•Principles:

• A separate letter for each distinctive sound, and the same symbol should be used for that sound in any language in which it appears. Roman alphabet, new letters and diacritics 语音符号 only necessary

•Diacritics 音符:

•They are additional symbols or marks used together with the consonant and vowel symbols to indicate nuances of change in their pronunciation.

Consonants and vowels

•Distinction between consonants and vowels: the obstruction 阻塞 of airstream

•Consonants 辅音: obstruction of airstreams; voiced or voiceless •Vowels 元音: no obstruction; voiced

•semi-vowel or semi-consonant ：[j] [w]

Consonants

•consonants are speech sounds where the airstream is blocked somewhere in the mouth or throat to different degrees.

•At least 2 articulators are involved：mouth and vocal tract (声道)

•Classification of consonants:

• Manners of articulation

• Places of articulation

• Voiced or voiceless

Manners of articulation

•The relationship between the articulators and thus the way in which the air passes through certain parts of the vocal tract •Seven manners of articulation:

•1) Stop 塞音 (plosive) 爆破音

•three phases in the production of a stop :

•the closing phase;

•the hold phase;

•the release phase

•nasal stop (nasal) [n, m, ŋ ]

•oral stop (stop) [p, b, t, d, k, g]