Linguistica Inglese I Esame Orale Completo Unicatt

IPA: Voicing, place & manner

What is IPA?

The IPA is a sound alphabet:

/s/ /ʃ/“S”

• /s/ - shake
• /z/ - rose
• /ʃ/ - sure
• /ʒ/ - pleasure

What makes a consonant?

• Voicing
• Place
• Manner

Voicing

Unvoiced = f, t, p, s

Voiced = v, d, b, z

Place

Where the letter sounds in your mouth & throat. To make any sounds you need to blow air out of your throat. If you don't get in the way, you're making a vowel. If you do, you make a consonant. That is usually done by putting two parts of your mouth together.

Articulators:

Passive = doesn't move. Active = moves towards the other part.

• Active articulators = bottom lips
• Passive articulator = upper lips

Bilabial

Ex. Mat, banana, pot

Active = bottom lip

Passive = upper teeth

Labiodental

Ex. F, V

Dental

Active = tip of tongue

Passive = upper teeth

Ex. th (voiced or not)

Alveolar

Active = tip of tongue

Passive = alveolar ridge

Ex. t, d, s, z

Post Alveolar

Active = tip of tongue

Passive = behind alveolar ridge

Ex. SH /ʃ/ show, ZH /ʒ/ pleasure

Palatal

Active = mid/back tongue

Passive = soft palate

Ex. /jt/ yes

Velar

Active = mid/back tongue

Passive = back of soft palate

Ex. k, g, cat, dog

Uvular

Active = mid/back tongue

Passive = uvula

Ex. r (French), aggression

No English

Pharyngeal

Active = tongue root

Passive = back of the throat

Ex. No English

Glottal

Active = vocal chords

Passive = vocal chords

Ex. /h/ hat when you bring them closer

Glottal stop = /ʔ/ in between words uhʔoh, huhʔuh when you bring them completely together.

Manner

How closed off a sound is in the mouth

• Nasal = completely closed air coming out of the nose
• Plosive = air coming out in little explosion
• Fricative = air goes out of your mouth in a turbulence, raspy way
• Approximant = a little bit more open than the fricative
• Trill = a vibrational, repeated plosive sound
• Tap/flap = one quick touch
• Lateral fricative
• Lateral approximant
• Lateral flap

What makes a vowel?

While consonants are about how you obstruct the air flow into your mouth, vowels are about how you let the air flow through it.

• Height
• Rounding
• Backness

Height

Closed/high /i/ nee /ɪ/ Bed

Open/low /æ/ cat

Rounding

The stretching of your mouth.

• /i/ see
• /u/ food

Each vowel comes in rounded and unrounded form.

Backness

How your tongue moves. Backed - /u/ food /ʊ/ run Fronted - /i/ see /ɛ/ bed

/ə/ schwa, uncleaned sound, GA. ~ "r" American A/eɪ/ diphthongs monothongs.

/e/ new ɪ/ nt.

Word stress

Giving special attention to part of a word.

How?

• Louder
• Longer
• At a higher pitch

Ex. Steamboat   Steamboat   Steamboat

Note: We stress vowel sounds, not consonants.

Why is word stress important?

If you put the stress on the wrong part of the word, you can be misunderstood.

How do you know where to put the stress?

• Looking in a dictionary → Phonetics
• Listen to people say the word

Only words with more than 1 syllable can have stress.

How do you know the number of syllables?

Count the vowel sounds

• Ex. Steamboat   2 syllables   stress
• River   2
• States   1   ^{O is silenced}
• Different   3/2

Stress patterns

Primary stress = !ba!be!ta

Secondary stress = !ba!ba!ba

Syllable patterns

2 syllables - stress on the first syllable or the second

3 syllables - stress on the second and last

4 syllables - stress on the second and second to last

Rhythm and stress - Timing

English has an alternation from strong to weak syllables. If we didn't have predictable places for stress, we wouldn't have rhythm.

Timing

• Contraction of words to fit in the time lap we have. Ex. Baton Rouge → Batn Rouge
• Extension of a syllable to fit better the gap.

Although we know that weak syllables make English harder for the non-native speaker, we can't make them all strong because the language wouldn't sound as English anymore.

Rhythm & perception

Non-native listener: Weak syllables make comprehension difficult. Rhythmic patterns make repetition easier.

Native listener: Use of rhythmic information between native speakers is important for word recognition and conversational negotiation.

Intonation

What is it? Why do we need it? It is a line of melody. Helps create the music of a language. Without it, our voices would be very flat. Makes you understand things like:

• If someone asks you something
• If he/she is done speaking and you can’t talk

Intonation is part of communication. Is it different from word-stress? Intonation goes beyond the word level. It's a change in pitch within a group of words.

Intonation patterns

1. Falling
2. Rising

1. It is a pattern in which your voice falls to a low pitch by the end of a thought group or statement. It communicates certainty. You are telling a fact and/or you believe you’re right. It communicates completion. You are done speaking, your listener can now respond. Ex. Eric writes notes. He began after college.
2. It is a pattern in which your voice rises to a high pitch by the end of a thought group or a statement. It communicates uncertainty. You are not sure of the truth and/or you are asking the listener to answer a question. It communicates lack of finality. You may not be done speaking. Ex. Eric plays the flute, clarinet, and saxophone. Isn't it great?

Intonation in questions

Most yes-no questions use rising intonation. Information questions (what, when, who, where, how, why etc.) use falling intonation.

Stress patterns

In English, we stress important words, words that have content.

Content & function words

Content words carry meaning. Function words help create grammatical structures.

Content words are:

• Nouns
• Adjectives
• Verbs (main verbs)
• Adverbs
• Numbers
• Question words: what, where etc.
• Long prepositions
• Demonstratives: this, that, those etc.
• Interjections: ouch!

Function words are:

• Most pronouns
• Forms of "to be" as main verb
• Modal verbs
• Auxiliary verbs
• Short prepositions: on, to
• Possessive adjectives
• Articles: the, an, a
• Conjunctions: and, but, or

We usually stress content words. Native speakers also break rules when it's necessary to emphasize certain words. Such a change in stress creates a change of focus: a sentence takes on a new meaning.

Types of pattern in stress

• #1 When we speak in phrases and at the sentence level, we usually stress content words and not function words.
• #2 When words are grouped into meaningful phrases, there is usually a word that receives more stress; that word is generally the final content word.
• #3 Instead of stressing each content word in a cluster, the speaker may choose to alternate the stress so that there is a more natural flow and rhythm.
• #4 Native speakers break normal rhythmic patterns when it's necessary.
• #5 If there is no content word in a grouping of words, emphasize the final function word.
• #6 When receiving several separate new information from new in each sentence, primary stress will be on the final content word in a phrase giving new information.