Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology Phonetic description of language Phonetic explanations for language sound patterns To explain patterns we see in language sound systems we will make reference to two phonetic systems the talker articulation aerodynamics the listener acoustics speech perception The patterns we see in language sound systems can be classified into two sets process sound alternations conditioned changes inventory set of contrastive sounds in a language Some examples of this explanatory phonetics approach to language sound systems Talker driven Process a Assimilation Inventory c Economy Listener driven b Merger d Dispersion a Assimilation talker driven sound change an old Latin morpheme in English in a newer OE morpheme in English un insoluble intolerable inharmonious impossible illogical irrefutable in congruent in frequent unsatisfying untouchable unhappy unpopular unlearnable unreadable unkempt unfamiliar In assimilation adjacent or proximal sounds become more similar to each other In these example two points of contact e g lip tongue are replaced by one How does the older prefix fare compared with the newer one This can be seen as simplifying the speaker s task fewer movements need to be made b Merger listener driven sound change Vowel merger before nasals in OK and other western states pen p n pin Vowels before nasal consonants like n tend to be nasalized Vowel height contrasts like versus are acoustically reduced in nasalized vowels because the lowest vowel resonance is hidden by nasal resonance and anti resonance This purely acoustical consequence of nasal assimilation makes the listener s task harder Listeners are then likely to hear as c Feature Economy talker driven inventory constraint Though redundant perceptual cues might be best for the listener p b t k Unattested stop inventory p b t d k g Common stop inventory A redundant code in which every contrast is signaled along several dimensions is more robust Little redundancy 11 10 Data value 9 group 1 group 2 8 7 6 5 4 A B condition More redundancy 11 10 Data value 9 group 1 8 7 group 2 6 5 4 A B condition So if redundancy is so useful why don t we have more of it in language sound patterns Why this tendency toward the economical use of the same features This is clearly not ideal for the listener but simplifies the speaker s task considerably Languages reuse motor programs gestures and thus economize motor learning d Adaptive dispersion listener driven inventory constraint The most common vowel inventories in the languages of the world are triangular 3 vowels i u a 5 vowels i e u o a vs a vs iy e There is a space of possible vowel sounds which can be produced by the human vocal tract This is called the acoustic vowel space It is defined by the two lowest resonant frequencies of the vocal tract The speaker s task would be simpler if all vowel sounds in speech were about the same It has been estimated that this is about what the Neanderthal vowel space was Listeners seem to demand more of speakers and thus there is a tendency in language for acoustic perceptual dispersion to use as much of the acoustic vowel space as possible These examples illustrate the phenomena in human language that we will explore in this course language sound patterns processes and inventory constraints possible phonetic explanations of them emergent from the physical systems used to implement linguistic communication Aims of the course 1 Descriptive Phonetics phonology Learn how to get an accurate description of speech pronunciation use the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols above p t k b etc ear training computer visualization of speech discover patterns of alternation among sounds Descriptive phonetics can be very complicated We scratch the surface in this course and delve further in Ling 113 Aims of the course 2 Explanatory Phonetics phonology Investigate how phonetic systems shape language sound patterns Physiology and speech motor control Aerodynamics and sound generation Acoustics and speech perception Cognitive structure of language sound systems Explanatory phonetics is also quite complicated We explore this area of linguistics further in Ling 210