Phonetics

1. Phonetics Janice Fon Graduate Institute of Linguistics National Taiwan University

2. Overview • Speech sounds and phonetic transcription • Articulatory phonetics • Phonological categories and pronunciation variation • Acoustic phonetics and signals • Phonetic resources • Advanced: articulatory and gestural phonology

3. Speech sounds and phonetic transcription (1) • Phonetics • The study of speech sounds used in the languages of the world • Phone • A speech sound • Represented with phonetic symbols • Two types: • Consonants • Vowels

4. Speech sounds and phonetic transcription (2) • Phonetic alphabets • IPA • Standard developed by International Phonetic Association • Alphabet + principles of transcription • ARPAbet • Designed for American English in ASCII symbols • Computer-friendly

5. Speech sounds and phonetic transcription (3) [ɹ]

6. Speech sounds and phonetic transcription (4)

7. Articulatory phonetics (1) • Definition: • The study of how phones are produced • The vocal organ

8. Articulatory phonetics (2) • Sounds are formed by the motion of air through the mouth • Consonants: • Made by restricting or blocking the airflow in some way • May be voiced or voiceless • Vowels: • Made with less obstruction • Usually voiced • Generally louder and longer than consonants

9. Articulatory phonetics (3) • Consonants are defined by • Place of articulation • The point of maximum constriction • Manner of articulation • How the restriction of airflow is made • Voicing • State of the glottis

10. Articulatory phonetics (4) • Place of articulation coronal

11. Articulatory phonetics (5) • Labial • Sounds whose main restriction is formed at the lips • Two subtypes: • Bilabial: two lips • Labiodental: upper teeth + lower lip • Examples • [國]: [p] 爸, [pʰ] 怕, [m] 媽, [f] 法 • [閩]: [b] 肉, [p] 爸, [pʰ] 打, [m] 媽 • [E]: [p] spy, [pʰ] pie, [m] my, [f] four, [v] very

12. Articulatory phonetics (6) • Dental • Sounds made by placing the tongue against the teeth • Two subtypes: • Dental: behind the teeth • Interdental: between the teeth • Examples • [國]: [t̪] 大, [t̪ʰ] 踏, [s̪] 撒, [t̪s̪] 資, [t̪s̪ʰ]刺, [n̪] 那, [l̪] 辣 • [閩]: [t̪] 大, [t̪ʰ] 拖, [s̪] 沙, [z̪] 熱, [t̪s̪] 十, [t̪s̪ʰ]柴, [n̪] 藍, [l̪] 賴, [ɾ̪]賊仔 • [E]: [θ] thing, [ð] the

13. Articulatory phonetics (7) • Alveolar • Sounds made by placing the tongue against the alveolar ridge • Two subtypes: • Alveolar: b/t teeth and alveolar ridge • Postalveolar/palato-alveolar: after the alveolar ridge • Examples • [E]: [t] ten, [d] duck, [n] new, [s] sing, [z] zoo, [l] love, [ɹ] red, [ɾ] butter, [ʃ] she,[ʒ] garage, [tʃ] China, [dʒ] joy

14. Articulatory phonetics (8)

15. Articulatory phonetics (9) • Palatal • Sounds made by placing the tongue against the (hard) palate • Two subtypes: • Prepalatal/alveolopalatal: the arc towards the roof of the mouth • Palatal: the roof of the mouth • Examples • [國]: [ɕ] 削, [tɕ] 交, [tɕʰ] 敲, [j] 妖 • [閩]: [ɕ] 是, [tɕ] 摺, [tɕʰ] 試, [ʑ] 皺, [j] 妖 • [E]: [j] yes

16. Articulatory phonetics (10) • Velar • Sounds made by placing the tongue against the velum/soft palate • Examples • [國]: [k] 該, [kʰ] 開, [x] 害, [ŋ] 忙 • [閩]: [k] 該, [kʰ] 開, [g] 牛, [ŋ] 黃 • [E]: [k] ski, [kʰ] key, [g] good, [ŋ] sing

17. Articulatory phonetics (11) • Glottal • Sounds made at the glottis • Examples • [國]: [ʔ] 唉 • [閩]: [h] 海, [ʔ] 食 • [E]: [h] high, [ʔ] uh-oh

18. Articulatory phonetics (12) • Retroflex • Sounds made with the tongue tip curled back • Examples • [國]: [ʂ] 扇, [tʂ] 詹, [tʂʰ] 蟬, [ʐ]然

19. Articulatory phonetics (13) • Manner of articulation • Stop • Nasal • Fricative • Affricates • Approximant • Flap/tap

20. Articulatory phonetics (14) • Stop • = plosive • Two phases: • Closure: airflow is completely blocked for a short time • Release: an explosive sound as the air is released • Three types: • Aspirated: closure + release + big puff of air • Unaspirated: closure + release + small puff of air • Unreleased stops: closure • Examples • [國]: [p] 爸, [pʰ] 怕, [t̪] 打, [t̪ʰ] 踏, [k] 乾, [kʰ]看 • [閩]: [p] 爸, [pʰ] 打, [b] 肉, [t̪] 踏, [t̪ʰ] 桃, [k] 菇, [kʰ] 苦, [g] 牛, [p ̚] 十, [t ̚] 結, [k ̚] 角 • [E]: [p] spy, [pʰ] pie, [b] buy, [t] story, [tʰ] tie, [d] die, [k] sky,[kʰ] key, [g] guy

21. Articulatory phonetics (15) narrow glottal opening wide glottal opening voiceless spy pie 鼻 皮 voiced buy to buy 抹

22. Articulatory phonetics (16) • Nasal • Made by lowering the velum and allowing air to pass into the nasal cavity • Examples • [國]: [m] 媽, [n̪] 拿, [ŋ] 紅 • [閩]: [m] 媽, [n̪] 貓, [ŋ] 紅 • [E]: [m] my, [n] new, [ŋ] sing

23. Articulatory phonetics (17) • Fricatives • Process • Airflow is constricted but not cutoff completely • Turbulence is created • Two types • Sibilants: fricatives with high-pitched hissing noise • Nonsibilants: fricatives without high-pitched hissing noise • Examples • [國]: [f] 法, [s̪] 素, [ʂ] 刪, [ʐ] 然, [ɕ] 先, [x] 何 • [閩]: [s̪] 素, [z̪] 熱, [ɕ] 先, [ʑ] 任, [h] 何 • [E]: [f] few, [v] view, [θ] they, [ð] the, [s] sing,[z] zoo, [ʃ] she, [ʒ] garage, [h] high

24. Articulatory phonetics (18) • Affricates • Homorganic stop + fricative • Examples • [國]: [t̪s̪] 租, [t̪s̪ʰ]粗, [tʂ] 朱, [tʂʰ] 出, [tɕ] 家, [tɕʰ] 恰 • [閩]: [t̪s̪] 租, [t̪s̪ʰ]粗, [tɕ] 一, [tɕʰ] 七 • [E]: [f] few, [v] view, [θ] they, [ð] the, [s] sing,[z] zoo, [tʃ] choice, [dʒ] job

25. Articulatory phonetics (19) • Approximant • Two articulators are close together but not close enough to cause turbulent airflow • Two types: • Approximant: air flows from the center of the tongue outward • Lateral approximant: air flows from the side(s) of the tongue outward • Examples • [國]: [j] 牙, [w]娃, [ɥ] 圓, [l̪] 來 • [閩]: [j] 厭, [w]歪, [l̪] 來 • [E]: [j] yes, [w] we, [l] like, [ɹ] read

26. Articulatory phonetics (20) • Tap/flap • A quick motion of the tongue against a hard surface • Examples • [閩]: [ɾ̪]賊仔 • [E]: [ɾ] butter

27. Articulatory phonetics (21)

28. Articulatory phonetics (22) • Vowels are defined by • Tongue height • Tongue frontness/backness • Roundedness

29. Articulatory phonetics (23) 意 欲 思 屋 it 矮 黑 可 about bet but bought bat 辦 棒

30. Articulatory phonetics (24) • Three types of vowels • Monophthongs • A vowel in which the tongue position does not change • Diphthongs • A vowel in which the tongue position changes once • = VG/GV • (ex) [國]: [aɪ] 埃, [eɪ] 黑, [aʊ]好, [oʊ] 候, [ja] 牙,[wa] 娃, [ɥɛ] 約 • (ex) [閩]: [ju] 油 • (ex) [E]: [ɔɪ] boy • Triphthongs • A vowel in which the tongue position changes twice • = GVG • (ex) [國]: [jaʊ] 妖,[jaɪ] 崖, [waɪ] 歪

31. Articulatory phonetics (25) • Syllable • Consonants and vowels combine to make a syllable

32. Articulatory phonetics (26) • Phonotactics • Constraints on which phones can follow each other in a language • [國] CCVC: 片 • [閩] CCVC: 接 • [E] CCCVCCC: strengths • [E] CCVCCCC: twelfths

33. Articulatory phonetics (27) • Lexical stress • A prominent syllable in a word that is determined by the lexicon • (ex) [國] 東西 [ˈtoŋɕi] vs. [ˈtoŋˈɕi] • Three levels • Primary stress: dictionary • Secondary stress: dictionary • Unstressed: dictionary • In unstressed syllables, vowels can be • Reduced: about [ə] • Unreduced: carry

34. Articulatory phonetics (28) • Sentence stress • = pitch accent • A prominent syllable in an utterance that is determined by pragmatics • (ex) 連站都站不好！ • 連戰都站不好！

35. Phonological categories and pronunciation variation (1) • Pronunciations vary!

36. Phonological categories and pronunciation variation (2) • Phoneme  allophone • /t/  [t, tʰ, ʔ, ʔt, ɾ, t ̚, t̪]

37. (assimilation) Phonological categories and pronunciation variation (3) • The degree of variation increases with more natural and colloquial speech

38. Phonological categories and pronunciation variation (4) • Coarticulation • The movement of articulators to anticipate the next sound or persevering movement from the last sound • (ex) nasalization, palatalization, voicing, etc.

39. Phonological categories and pronunciation variation (5) • Distinctive features • Binary variables which express some generalizations about groups of phonemes • Used to represent each phoneme as a matrix of feature values • Place features • [labial], [coronal], [dorsal] • Manner features • [consonantal], [vocalic], [continuant], [sonorant] • Voicing features • [voice] • Vowel features • [high], [low], [back], [round]

40. Phonological categories and pronunciation variation (6) • Main use of features • Capture natural articulatory classes of phones • Build articulatory feature detectors and use them to help phone detection

41. Phonological categories and pronunciation variation (7) • Predicting phonetic variation • Phonological rule • Caveat: • Variation is a stochastic process • Many non-phonetic factors are important to this prediction task

42. Phonological categories and pronunciation variation (8) • Factors influencing phonetic variation • Non-phonetic • Speech rate • Word frequency • Speaker’s state of mind • Morphological boundaries • Sociolinguistic factors • Phonetic • Intrinsic sound quality • Prosodic boundaries • Coarticulation

43. Acoustic phonetics and signals (1) • Waves

44. Acoustic phonetics and signals (2)

45. Acoustic phonetics and signals (3) • For computers to record and manipulate speech, it is necessary to perform analog-to-digital conversion • A two-step process • Sampling—limit the number of places after the decimal point on the time axis • Quantization—limit the number of places after the decimal point on the amplitude axis

46. Acoustic phonetics and signals (4) • Sampling rate • Number of sample taken per second • At least two samples per cycle • Nyquist frequency • the highest frequency component that can be captured with a given sampling rate • = ½ sampling rate

47. Acoustic phonetics and signals (5) Frequency = 100 Hz Sampling rate = 200 Hz Nyquist frequency = 100 Hz

48. signal not in the original signal  aliasing Acoustic phonetics and signals (6)

49. Acoustic phonetics and signals (7) • Quantization • Analogous to measuring the amplitudes in the waveform with a ruler • The main issue is the accuracy of the amplitude measurements • The most popular choices for the number of bits used to encode speech samples are 8, 12, and 16 bits

50. Acoustic phonetics and signals (8)