09.02.15:LING 1010Phonemes (i.e., speech sounds)Language and Mind!Prof. Jon SprouseLet’s start with sound and work our way upsound meaningwordsJohnboughtacarNPVPSsentencesspeech soundsmeaningsun・believ・able λx.dog(x)(sparky)Two big questions for todaysound meaningwordsJohnboughtacarNPVPSsentencesspeech soundsmeaningsun・believ・able λx.dog(x)(sparky)As our first foray into the speech/sound portion of language, today we will focus on the first two logical questions that we can ask about how speech and sound works in language:What are the speech sounds in a given language (e.g., English)?1.What are the physical properties of the speech sounds in a given language (e.g., English)?2.What are the speech sounds in English?Phoneme: A technical term for speech soundThe first thing we are going to do is science-up our terminology. In this class we are going to need to be precise about the objects we are talking about, so we need technical terms that have precise meanings.Though we all know intuitively what a speech sound is, in linguistics we use the technical term phoneme instead of the intuitive term “speech sound”.Because the primary function of speech sounds in a language is to construct distinct words, we can use the fact that distinct words will have at least one distinct speech sound as a technical definition for phoneme:The smallest segment of speech that leads to a meaningful difference between words.phoneme:The nice thing about this definition is that it comes with a built in test. Take a word, change one of the speech sounds in it. If the change leads to a change in the meaning of the word, then the original sound and the new sound are distinct phonemes.The cognitive test for phonemesStep 1: Pick a word in the language. s a ts a dDifferent words!If the changed sound leads to a different word, then the two sounds (the original and the new one) are both distinct phonemes in the language!Same word!th is a fancy way of saying “pronounce a t and blow out at the same time”. So t and th are not distinct phonemes in English.Step 2: Change one sound in the word.Different words!l a k er a k eHere is another example of two distinct phonemes:s a ts a thAnd here is an example of two sounds that aren’t distinct phonemes:So l and r are distinct phonemes in English.Let’s give each phoneme a symbolThe International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was created so that we can easily write phonemes. Each phoneme that occurs in a language in the world is given a symbol. And each symbol is used only once so there is no confusion!You do not have to memorize the IPA for this class! But you should know what it is, and why it exists.These are the IPA symbols for English phonemes. But there are many more symbols for phonemes that occur in other languages. The IPA has a symbol for every phoneme in every language (over 300).Why don’t we just use the alphabet?A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZThe alphabet isn’t a very good system for naming phonemes. Can you see why? “A” as in...-or-“C” as in...-or-The problem with the alphabet is that there is no one-to-one relationship between symbols (letters) and phonemes.The classic joke…The many-to-many relationship between letters and phonemes has led to really dorky jokes like this:The next stepNow that we have a process for identifying all of the phonemes in a language, and we have a set of symbols for writing each one down, we can ask the next big question:What are the physical properties of each phoneme that makes them distinct from each other?What are the physical properties of the phonemes of English (and other languages)?Sound is a distortion in air pressureSound is a wave that travels through air. This means that a sound wave is a disturbance in air pressure, or how closely packed the air molecules are.Sound travels in wavesEverybody knows that sound is a wave, but what exactly does that mean? The first thing to realize is that there are two types of waves:Waves in the ocean are transverse waves. This means the oscillation is perpendicular to the direction the disturbance is moving. Sound waves are longitudinal waves. This means the oscillation moves in the same direction as the disturbance.http://gifsoup.com/view/3529701/longitudinal-waves.htmlThe pdf version of this slide won’t show the animation, so you can use this link to see the motion of transverse and longitudinal waves:Properties of wavesAmplitude is a measure of the force applied to an area of air during compression. The perceptual effect of amplitude is a change in loudness. High amplitude sounds are perceived to be louder, low amplitude sounds are less loud.1.Frequency is a measure of the number of compression cycles that a wave completes in a given unit of time. The perceptual effect of frequency is a change in pitch (or tone). High frequency sounds have high pitches, low frequency sounds have low pitches.2.Waves have several properties. Here are two that have an impact on the way we experience sound, so you might think that they are relevant to phonemes:Can you think of a way to test whether amplitude and/or frequency are important to phonemes?Is amplitude important to phonemes?Remember, amplitude is a measure of the size of the distortion -- it is the force applied to the air to cause the disturbanceHere is a simple experiment to determine if amplitude is critical to the difference between phonemes.Step 1: say “ah”Step 2: say “ah” with high amplitudeStep 3: say “ah” with low amplitudeQuestion: Did varying the amplitude result in a different phoneme? (e.g., ‘ee’)Alternative experiment: say ‘ah’ and ‘ee’ with the same amplitude...Conclusion: Varying the amplitude does not result in changes in the phonemes, only changes in loudness, so amplitude is not critical to the difference between phonemes.Is frequency important to phonemes?Remember, frequency is a measure of the number of cycles the wave completes in a given time. You might know it as the pitch of the sound.Here is a simple experiment to determine if frequency is critical to the difference between phonemes.Step 1: say “ah”Step 2: say “ah” with high frequencyStep 3: say “ah” with low frequencyQuestion: Did varying the frequency result in a different phoneme? (e.g., ‘ee’)Alternative experiment: say ‘ah’ and ‘ee’ with the same frequency...Conclusion: Varying the frequency does not result in changes in the phonemes, only changes in pitch, so