Some Speech BasicsPhonetic Transcription,

Context-dependent variation,and Intonation

Jennifer J. VendittiPostdoctoral Research Associate

Columbia Computer Science

12 September 2002

1. Phonetic Transcription

Spelling vs. Sounds same spelling = different sounds

o comb, tomb, bomb oo blood, food, goodc court, center, cheese s reason, surreal, shy

same sound = different spellings[i] sea, see, scene, receive, thief [s] cereal, same,

miss[u] true, few, choose, lieu, do [ay] prime, buy, rhyme, lie

combination of letters = single soundch child, beach th that, batheoo good, foot gh laugh

single letter = combination of soundsx exit, Texas u use, music

‘silent’ lettersk knife, know p psycho, pterodactyle moose, bone gh through

Figures 4.1 and 4.2:Jurafsky & Martin (2000),pages 94-95.

On-line pronunciation dictionaries

phonesetderived from:

number of wordforms

English variety

LDC PRONLEX

ARPAbet 90,694 American

CMUdict ARPAbet 100,000 American

CELEX IPA 160,595 British

Source: Jurafsky & Martin (2000), page 121.

Places of articulation

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~danhall/phonetics/sammy.html

labial

dentalalveolar post-alveolar/palatal

velar

uvular

pharyngeal

laryngeal/glottal

Vocal fold vibration

[UCLA Phonetics Lab demo]

Articulatory parameters for English consonants (in ARPAbet) PLACE OF ARTICULATION

bilabial

labio-dental

inter-dental

alveolar

palatal

velar glottal

stop p b t d k g q

fric. f v th dh s z sh zh h

affric. ch jh

nasal m n ng

approx

w l/r y

flap dxMA

NN

ER

OF

AR

TIC

ULA

TIO

N

VOICING: voiceless

voiced

American English vowel space

FRONT BACK

HIGH

LOW

eyow

aw

oy

ay

iy

ih

eh

ae aa

ao

uw

uh

ah

ax

ix ux

[iy] vs. [uw]

(From a lecture given by Rochelle Newman)

[ae] vs. [aa]

(From a lecture given by Rochelle Newman)

Acoustic landmarks

“Patricia and Patsy and Sally”

[p] [t] [p] [t]

[p] [t]

[l][sh] [s] [s][n] [n][ix]

[ix] [ih]

[ih] [ax] [ae] [iy] [iy][ae]

Articulators in action

“Why did Ken set the soggy net on top of his deck?”

(Sample from the Queen’s University / ATR Labs X-ray Film Database)

Exercise (1)1. Write your name in:

(a) IPA.(b) ARPAbet (if possible).

2. Choose one of the following triplets and transcribe each word in both IPA and ARPAbet. cone, tomb, bottom blood, fool, hook court, race, cheese reason, surreal, cash thing, these, other laugh, through, ghoul

Figures 4.1 and 4.2:Jurafsky & Martin (2000),pages 94-95.

IPA consonants

(Distributed by the International Phonetics Association.)

IPA vowels

(Distributed by the International Phonetics Association.)

2. Context-dependent phonetic variation

Context-dependent variation What we would consider a single ‘sound’ can be

pronounced differently depending on the phonetic context. For example, the phoneme /t/:

Figure 4.8: Jurafsky & Martin (2000), page 104.

Another regular alternation I can ask [ay k ae n ae s k] I can see [ay k ae n s iy] I can bake [ay k ae m b ey k] I can play [ay k ae m p l ey] I can go [ay k ae ng g ow] I can carry [ay k ae ng k ae r iy]

n m / __ [+labial stop]n ng / __ [+velar stop]

(inopportune [n], insatiable [n], impervious [m], immortal [m], incoherent [ng], ingratitude [ng])

English pluralshiccup [p] hiccups flood [d] floodssock [k] socks scab [b] scabshabit [t] habits frog [g] frogsspoof [f] spoofs comb [m] combshearth [th] hearths grave [v] graves

lathe [dh] lathesbeach [ch] beaches fool [l] foolsdish [sh] dishes sewer [r] sewersjudge [jh] judges pies [ay] piesrace [s] races curfew [uw] curfewsaxe [s] axes sofa [ax] sofasraise [z] raises

Phonological rules for Engl. plurals

Assume that the lexical form of plural is /z/. Insertion: ix / [+sibilant] ^__ z # Devoicing: z s / [-voice] ^__ #

bus+PL cape+PL hen+PL/b ah s +z/ /k ey p +z/ /h eh n +z/

insertion:b ah s +ix z -- --devoicing: -- k ey p s --

[b ah s ix z] [k ey p s] [h eh n z]

/b ah s +z/ /k ey p +z/ /h eh n +z/devoicing: b ah s s k ey p s

--insertion:-- -- --

*[b ah s s] [k ey p s] [h eh n z]