Phonetics and phonology

Phonetics and phonology

1. Phonetics

   • Is the term
     • for the description and classification of speech sounds, particularly how sounds are produced, transmitted, and received.
       • categories of sounds
         • Phones (human sounds)
         • Phonemes (units which distinguish meaning in a language)
         • Allophones (non-distinctive units)
       • Sounds can be divided
         • consonants
           • can be characterised
             • 1) place, 2) manner of articulation and 3) voice (voiceless or voiced)
           • are defined as
             • Sounds which are made by a full or partial construction of the vocal tract
           • are pronounced
             • in the vocal tract, usually in the mouth, and the location of this construction affects the resulting sound.
         • vowels
           • uses
             • a coordinate system called a vowel quandrangle within which actual vowel values are located.
           • are categorized
             • by the area of the mouth in which they are produced, their precise description relies on measuring acoustic correlates of tongue position
   • it's divided in
     • articulatory: how humans plan and execute movements to produce speech
       • Classification according to articulation site
         • Coronal: joints form with the front of the tongue
         • Dorsal: joints form with the back of the tongue
         • Root: joints form in the pharynx
     • acoustic: how different movements affect the properties of the resulting sound
     • auditive: how humans convert sound waves to linguistic information

2. Phonology

   • Is the term
     • used for the study of speech sounds used in a particular language.
       • the sounds
         • can be grouped into distinctive units are known as phonemes
           • Minimal Pairs: are words with different meanings that have the same sounds except for one
             • These contrasting sounds can either be
           • Free Variation: Some English words are pronounced differently by different speakers and due to dialect differences.
           • Complementary Distribution: If two sounds are allophones of the same phoneme, they are said to be in complementary distribution.If you interchange the sounds, you will only change the pronunciation of the words, not the meaning.
   • Phonological Rules
     • Assimilation: sounds become more like neighboring sounds, allowing for ease of articulation or pronunciation
     • Dissimilation: sounds become less like neighboring sounds
     • Epenthesis: insertion of a sound, e.g. Latin "homre" became Spanish "hombre"
     • Deletion: deletion of a sound
     • Metathesis: reordering of phonemes
     • Lenition: consonant changes to a weaker manner of articulation
     • Palatalization: sound becomes palatal when adjacent to a front vowel