Lecture 3 Fortis and Lenis Stops - Sounds of Language PDF

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Teacher - Patrycja Strycharczuk
Dates: 29/01/2018 - 23/03/2018, 16/04/2018 - 11/05/2018...

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Lecture 3: Fortis and Lenis Stops - Sounds of Language Familiar terminology -

Voiced vs voiceless /b, d, g/ are voiced /p, t, k/ are voiceless

New terminology -

Fortis vs Lenis /b, d, g/ are lenis /p, t, k/ are fortis

Fortis stops -

/p, t, k/ Energy articulation Voiceless Aspirated at the beginning of stressed syllables Pre-glottalised at the end of a syllable when another consonant follows

Lenis stops -

/b, d, g/ Weaker articulation May be voiced Not aspirated Not pre-glottalised Vowels are relatively long before a lenis consonant

Voicing Effect -

Vowel lengthening before lenis stops Very common cross-linguistically, but the size of the difference varies - Ca.100ms difference in english - Italian: ca.20ms (coretta forthcoming)

Devoicing of lenis consonants -

Initial position, partly devoiced e.g. ban Word-medial (between vowels), voiced e.g. rabbit Word-final, completely devoiced e.g. cab

Aspirativing Languages vs Voicing Languages -

English /p/ - aspirated e.g. pit English /b/ - unaspirated (possibly voiceless) e.g. bit

- Polish /p/ - voiceless (unaspirated) e.g. pal ‘smoke’ - Polish /b/ - voiced e.g. bal ‘ball’ Voice Onset Time

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Time lag between the release burst and the onset of voicing The English contrast between ‘pet’ and ‘bet’ involves aspiration In ‘pet’ the vocal chords only start vibrating after the vowel has started In ‘bet’ these events occur at roughly the same time The polish bal - pal involves prevoicing In bal the vocal chords start vibrating before the vowel starts In pal these events occur roughly at the same time

Manners of articulation Obstruents: - Plosives - Affricates - Fricatives - ФβTaps - Trills Sonorants: - Nasal - Lateral approximant - Central approximant -

Most of these are already familiar from English However, other languages use some place-manner combinations not found in English

Taps and Trills Taps: -

Trills: -

Ballistic sound which consist of throwing one articulator against another Similar to stops in that there is complete contact, but there is no pressure build-up (taps are too brief)

Vibrating sounds Passive and active articulator hit against each other rapidly and repeatedly Bilabial, alveolar, or uvular.

Places of articulation Bilabial -

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Fricative /Ф, β/ - Contrastive in Ewe - Voiced /β/ in Spanish Trill /B/ - Occurence: Mangbetu

Labio-dental

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Nasal - Extremely rare as a phoneme - English symphony, Dutch ‘omfallen’ Approximant /u/ - Dutch week, Slovak, Danish, dialects of Norwegian, German, etc.

Dental, alveolar, postalveolar -

All three contrastive within fricatives Dental and post-alveolar stops and nasals are attested, but it is rare for a language to make a contrast between such consonants and alveolar [t, d] In IPA, dental consonants are transcribed with a ‘п’ underneath]

Retroflex -

Made in the postalveolar region using the tongue tip To make a retroflex sound, the tip of the tongue is curled back Transcribed in IPA with a hook Common in Indian sub-continent and Scandinavian languages Retroflex approximant is possible in American and Scottish English

Palatal -

Tongue tip raised to or toward the hard palate (note that tongue front and body are also involved) Hook present in transcription for palatal fricatives and nasals, different type of hook to retroflex

Velar -

Stops /k, g/ and nasal /ŋ/ familiar from English

Uvular -

Tongue dorsum raised to make a constriction at the uvula

Pharyngeal and Glottal -

Only found in some fricatives and stops Constriction far back at the glottis or pharynx Glottal stop is a common allophone of /t/ in English Impossible place of articulation for nasal stops.

Articulations judged to be impossible -

Bilabial lateral approximant: It is impossible to let air flow over the sides of the tongue while the lips are closed. Velar trill: In velar position, the body of the tongue has no freedom to move quickly enough to produce a velar trill. Pharyngeal nasal: It is impossible to close the pharynx off completely while still allowing nasal airflow.

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Voiced glottal plosive: The vocal folds cannot be held tightly closed (for the plosive) while simultaneously vibrating for voice.

Distinction based on airstream mechanism -

We know that, apart from place and manner, consonants may be described in terms of phonation (voiced vs voiceless)

Pulmonic consonants vs non-pulmonic consonants Pulmonic: - Produced with egressive airstream from the lungs - Shape of the vocal tract determines the quality of the sound - All consonants discussed today so far are pulmonic Non-pulmonic: - Created with airflow that doesn’t come from the lungs - Enclosed space created somewhere within the vocal tract - Compression or expansion of that space creates sound, as the pressure is released. - Can be divided into: clicks, implosives, ejectives - Cross-linguistically rare. Clicks: -

Produced using velaric ingressive airstream mechanism Two closures: One at the velum or the uvula, and the second one further forward Tongue body subsequently pulled backwards - the pressure rarifies As the forward close is released, a sound is produced Place of articulation: Bilabial, dental, post alveolar, palato alveolar, alveolar lateral

Implosives: - Produced using glottalic ingressive airstream mechanism - Glottis pulled downwards during occlusion phase of the stop - Air pressure in the oral cavity is rarified - As the closure is released, a sound is made - Place of articulation: Bilabial, dental, palatal, velar, uvular. Ejectives: - Produced using glottalic egressive airstream mechanism - Similar production mechanism to implosives: closure in the vocal tract, followed by larynx movement, but the larynx is raised rather than lowered - Larynx raising increased the air pressure, which causes a pop when the closure is released. - Place of articulation: Bilabial, dental, alveolar, velar Researching articulation EPG

Linguistic fieldwork: describing a new language Articulatory variation Speech pathology

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Very useful for imaging lingual obstruents

Bunched and retroflex /r/ -

Bunched /r/: tongue dorsum is bunched in the region of the palate Retroflex: tongue tip curled such that the underside faces the alveopalate Found in American English, Scottish English, and Dutch No consistent acoustic difference between bunched and retroflex /r/ has been discovered.

Effect of phonation on lingual articulation -

How does tongue position differ in fortis and lenis obstruents that share place of articulation Is the tongue position different for /t/ compared with /d/ - Yes: Tongue root advanced for lenis stops - Size of the different depends on the language - Size of the difference potentially correlates with the size of the voicing effect....