Linguistics 110 Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology Playing sounds backward You can determine whether a sound is steady state or has internal dynamics by playing it backward because steady state sounds don t change very much when played backward while dynamic sounds do change quite noticeably You can also discover that sounds are pronounced differently in different positions within a syllable by playing the syllable backwards Note In this assignment you will experience some auditory illusions hearing things that aren t actually there Please write what you think you hear not what you know must be true of the speaker s productions i e from the forward versions 0 Reverse In this homework assignment you will use WaveSurfer to reverse the samples in a digital waveform and then play the reversed waveform to listen to backward speech You may record the example words in your own voice or you may download recordings of them To reverse the digital samples you simply select reverse from the WaveSurfer transform menu If you have used the cursors to select a chunk of sound then only that chunk will be reversed while if you have not selected any specific chunk of sound then the entire sound file will be reversed In this exercise you generally want to reverse the whole sound file 1 1 Steady state versus dynamic sounds a Compare the vowel sounds in see and sigh by listening to them forward and backward Record what you hear using IPA phonetic transcription of the vowels forward see si sigh s backward The vowel in see is more steady state than the vowel in sigh and this should be reflected in what you hear When played backwards the vowel in see sounds basically unchanged while the vowel in sigh is quite different requiring different IPA symbols or a different order of them in the transcription b Steady state versus dynamic vowels Now listen to each of the following words forwards and backwards transcribe them using IPA phonetic symbols and indicate whether the vowel seems more steady state or dynamic forward backward steady sue so soy say sam sim said sun c Steady vowel changing pitch Compare the word see spoken as a command see versus as a question see We have established that the consonant and vowel of si are both steadystate not changing much when played backwards Yet the backward versions of these files are quite different from the forward versions Identify whether the pitch of voice the note the vowel is sung on seems to be rising or falling in the forward and backward command and question forward see command see question backward rises Is the backward question a good example of a command Is the backward command a good 2 example of a question If the two pitch patterns aren t exactly mirror images of each other what seems to differ between a backwards question and a forwards command d r sounds The IPA includes a symbol for a steady state rhotic schwa which is sometimes called the schwar symbol Listen to bird bored and bard forward and backward and transcribe each one forward backward bird bored bard e Steady state and dynamic consonants Affricates are written in the IPA with digraphs of two consonant symbols implying that they are composed of two phonetic elements a stop followed by a fricative Listen to each and judge forward and backward and try to come up with an IPA phonetic transcription for them forward backward each judge f Voiceless stop consonants like t and k have an interval of silence when the mouth is shut so they could be considered steady state Yet when you listen to tea and key backwards it is apparent that there is more than just silence in those stops What is the extra bit of noise and how would you transcribe it forward backward tea key 2 Contextual variants of sounds a Clear versus dark l In standard descriptions of the phonetics of English it is said that the l sound of English is pronounced with velarization in syllable coda position We should be able to test this description by listening to feel and leaf forward and backward Enter your IPA phonetic transcriptions of these words forward backward leaf feel 3 b Vowels before nasal consonants Transcribe soon and noose both forward and backward none of the segments in these words s u or n has a significant dynamic component yet you will notice that soon backwards is not the same as noose forwards and vice versa In what way or ways do the vowels differ forward backward soon noose c Initial versus final z The word please ends with the voiced alveolar fricative z therefore when played backwards please should sound something like zif if the aspiration noise after p sounds something like f Listen to the z in please and zeef and describe how they differ from each other forward backward please zeef 4