ASPECTS OF LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE 2SEPT 04, 2013 – DAY 4

Brain & Language

LING 4110-4890-5110-7960

NSCI 4110-4891-6110

Harry Howard

Tulane University

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Course organization• The syllabus, these slides and my recordings are

available at http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/LING4110/• Honors option• Measure your heads!

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ReviewDesign features of language

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ASPECTS OF LINGUISTIC COMPETENCEIngram §2 Phonetics

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Three systems involved in speech production

Respiratory

Laryngeal

Supralaryngeal

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Supralaryngeal system

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How to represent these sounds• How do you pronounce this word?

• “ghoti”• enough [f]• women [I]• solution [ʃ]• [fIʃ]

• What can you conclude from this exercise?• the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

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Consonant featurespaired by voicing: voiceless ~ voiced

Place/Manner

Bilabial Labio-dental

Inter-dental

Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal

Stop p b t d k g ʔ

Nasal m n ŋ

Affricate ʧ ʤ

Fricative f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ h

Liquid l,r

Glide ʍ w y ʍ w

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What you should know• The places of articulation:

• Bilabial, Labiodental, Interdental, Alveolar, Palatal, Velar, Glottal

• The manners of articulation• Stop or Plosive, Nasal, Affricate, Fricative, Liquid, Glide or Semi-

consonant

• The two features for voicing, voiced and voiceless.• You don’t need to memorize all of the symbols.

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IPA English vowels

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What you should know• The features

• Vertical: front, middle, back• Horizontal: open or high, mid open, mid closed, closed or low.

• You don’t need to memorize all of the symbols.

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Summary• Standard written language is a distorted version of spoken

language.• The IPA overcomes these distortions, and its organization

tells us something about how speech is articulation.• But all this is just a description of speech.• The next step is to understand how speech is organized.

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ASPECTS OF LINGUISTIC COMPETENCEIngram §2 Phonology

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How do you pronounce these words?bilabial stops

alveolar stops

velar stops

pin tin kin

spin stink skin

nip nit nick

bin din begin

sbin sdin sgin

nib bid big

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[pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] - voiceless aspirated

[p, t, k] - voiceless

[p˺, t˺, k˺] - voiceless unreleased

[b, d, g] - voiced

[*b, *d, *g] - ungrammatical voiced

[b, d, g] - voiced

How many voiceless stops does English have?

Can words be distinguished by aspiration or lack of release?

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The answer is …

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/p, t, k/

[pʰ, tʰ, kʰ]at the beginning

of a syllable[p?, t?, k?]

at the end of a word[p, t, k]

everywhere else

these are phonemes; realm of phonology and distinctive features

these are phones or allophones; realm of phonetics and non-distinctive features

NEXT TIMEIngram §2 Prosody – Do exercises that I will send you.

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