Lecture 1 Phonetics as a Linguistic Science Plan

2. The articulatory of English Consonants

An indispensable constituent of a consonant is noise. The source of noise is an obstruction. There are the following types of obstruction in the production of consonant: 1) complete occlusion (closure), 2) constriction (narrowing) and 3) occlusion-constriction (closure immediately followed by a constriction).

The noise produced by the removal of a closure is that of a plosion, the noise resulting from the movement of the air stream in the narrowing is that of friction. The two effects are combined when closure is followed by a narrowing.

1. According to the type of obstruction and the manner of the production of noise English consonants are classified in the following way:

3 . The Acoustic Classification of English Consonants

The acoustic character of a consonant is conditioned by its articulation.

Plosives and affricates (e.g. /t, d, t, ʤ/) differ from fricatives (e.g. /f, v/) mainly in that part of their spectra which corresponds to the articulatory “stop”. A plosive is characterized by the absence of noise in part of the spectrum. The plosion is marked by a burst of noise, i.e. the formant of noise appears.

Fricatives are characterized by the presence of a noise formant throughout the spectrum.

Hence plosives and affricates are classed as discontinuous and fricatives as continuant.

Voiceless consonants (fortis) are characterized acoustically as tense and voiced (lenis) as lax, since the burst of noise in voiced plosives and the formant of noise in voiced fricatives are less strong than those in voiceless plosives and fricatives.

The noise peculiar to alveolar and dental consonants /t, d, s, z, n, l, , ð/ is contrasted with that of labial and labio-dental ones /p, b, m, f, v/ because it is sharper in character. This means that in the spectra of /t, d, s, z, n, l, , ð/ high frequencies are predominant and in the spectra of /p, b, m, f, v / the formant of noise is lower.

The fricatives (alveolar and dental) /s, z, , ð/ have the highest frequencies of noise in the spectrum-up to 8000 cps. The frequencies of the noise formant in the spectrum of /f, v/ are low. Therefore, /t, d, s, z, , ð, n/ are characterized as acute and /p, b, m, v/, as grave. The consonants /k, g, , ʒ, t, ʤ/ are intermediate in this contrast.

The spectrum of velar and palatal consonants / k, g, ŋ, , ʒ, t, ʤ/ is compact while the spectrum of alveolar, labial and dental ones /t, d, n, s, z, m, p, b, f, v, , ð/ is diffuse. Consequently, the former are classified as compact consonants and the latter as diffuse ones.

The sonants /m, n, ŋ/are opposed to all the other consonants as nasal to oral, because in their spectrum there is a special nasal formant.

The consonants /s, z/ having a round narrowing are opposed to /, ð/ having a flat narrowing and the affricates /t, ʤ/ are opposed to the plosives /t, d/ as strident to mellow. In the spectrum of strident consonants the intensity of noise formant is greater in the spectrum of mellow consonants.

The first attempt to classify speech sounds on the basis of their acoustic distinctions was made by a group of phoneticians and linguists Jacobson, Fant and Halle, in their work “Preliminaries to Speech Analysis”. The authors establish the acoustic distinctions used in human language. These distinctions form 12 binary (or dichotomous) distinctive oppositions. The authors claim that their classification can be applied to all the languages of the world, but not all the 12 oppositions are to be used to classify the phonemes of a particular language. For the English language, according to the authors, 9 binary oppositions are sufficient: 1) vocalic –non-vocalic; 2) consonantal – non-consonantal; 3) compact – diffuse; 4) grave –acute; 5) flat – plain;6) nasal – oral; 7) tense – tax; 8) discontinuous – continuant; 9) strident – mellow.

Vowels are vocalic and non-consonantal; consonants are consonantal and non-vocalic. The sonants /l, r/ are vocalic and consonantal /w, j/ are non-vocalic and non-consonantal.

The traditional vowel /consonant opposition is divided into two oppositions to define the sounds /r, l, w, j/.

The acoustic classification of speech sounds worked out by Jacobson, Fant and Halle is perhaps not absolutely definite. But it is a new classification based on the discoveries of modern electro-acoustics.

Acoustic definitions and classifications of speech sounds are of great theoretical importance to linguists. Their practical importance and application is also undeniable. Acoustic characteristics of speech sounds are indispensable in technical acoustics for the solution of the problem of speech synthetics and sound transmission, for the construction of speech recognizers as well as machines capable of putting out information in spoken words.

As for language teaching the acoustic classification of speech sounds is practically inapplicable. But the acoustic data of spectrographic analysis are of great use when related to the articulatory characteristics of speech sounds.