Velar: [k] [g] []
Glottal: [h]
Manners of articulation
This refers to how the air stream is modified, whether it is completely blocked or partially obstructed.
Stops: [p] [b] [t] [d] [k] [g]
Fricatives: [s] [z] [] [] [f] [v] [] [] [h]
Affricates: [t] [d]
Liquids: [l] [r]
Glides: [w] [j]
Nasals: [m] [n] []
Voicing of articulation
This refers to the vibrating of the vocal cords when sounds are produced.
Voiced sounds
Voiceless sounds
Description of English vowels
General feature: without obstruction
Criteria of vowel description
Part of the tongue that is raised
Front
Central
Back
Extent to which the tongue rises in the direction of the palate
High
Mid
Low
Kind of opening made at the lips
Position of the soft palate
Single vowels (monophthongs) and diphthongs
Phonetic features and natural classes
Classes of sounds that share a feature or features are called natural classes.
Major class features can specify segments across the consonant-vowel boundary.
Classification of segments by features is the basis on which variations of sounds can be analyzed.
Chapter 3 Phonology
What is phonology?
Phonology is the study of sound systems and patterns.
Phonology and phonetics are two studies different in perspectives, which are concerned with the study of speech sounds.
Phonology focuses on three fundamental questions.
What sounds make up the list of sounds that can distinguish meaning in a particular language?
What sounds vary in what ways in what context?
What sounds can appear together in a sequence in a particular language?
Phonemes and allophones
A phoneme is a distinctive, abstract sound unit with a distinctive feature.
The variants of a phoneme are termed allophones.
We use allophones to realize phonemes.
Discovering phonemes
Contrastive distribution – phonemes
If sounds appear in the same environment, they are said to be in contrastive distribution.
Typical contrastive distribution of sounds is found in minimal pairs and minimal sets.
A minimal pair consists of two words that differ by only one sound in the same position.
Minimal sets are more than two words that are distinguished by one segment in the same position.
The overwhelming majority of the consonants and vowels represented by the English phonetic alphabet are in contrastive distribution.
Some sounds can hardly be found in contrastive distribution in English. However, these sounds are distinctive in terms of phonetic features. Therefore, they are separate phonemes.
Complementary distribution – allophones
Sounds that are not found in the same position are said to be in complementary distribution.
If segments are in complementary distribution and share a number of features, they are allophones of the same phoneme.
Free variation
