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• Sergio Vargas

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• Fonología
• Voz humana
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Allophonic variants for English Consonants (Part 1) Allophones of Plosive Consonants Plosives take more effort to articulate than other classes of consonants. This is because in the pronunciation of a plosive there is a complete obstruction. Their allophones can be classified in the following categories: Aspirated and Unaspirated Voiceless Plosives Voiceless plosives are /p, t, k/ Aspiration is an interval of air heard between the end of the plosive and the following vowel. It is represented by the symbol [ʰ] 

Only voiceless plosives may be aspirated. Aspiration may be strong or weak, depending on the context. Strong aspiration: voiceless plosives are strongly aspirated in initial stressed position. Example: pen, potato; [pʰen], [pə'tʰeɪtəʊ] There're some exceptions we must consider: (1) When /p, t, k/ are preceded by /s/. For example: pain vs Spain; [pʰəɪn], [spəɪn]. (2) When they are followed by /l, r, w, j/. In this case, /l, r, w, j/ are devoiced. For example: play, cry, tune. Weak aspiration: voiceless plosives are weakly aspirated in unstressed syllables and in final position. For example: pot, tomorrow; [pʰɒt], [tə'mɒrəʊ] Devoicing of voiced plosives Voiced plosives are /b, d, g/. When these voiced consonants are in final position and followed by silence, they normally lose their voicing, so they become devoiced. 

For instance, the phrase "a black bag" sounds something like "a black bak"; that is, the vioced velar plosive /g/ sounds like a voiceless velar /k/. As /g/ has lost its voicing, so it has been devoiced. The symbol used to indicate devoicing is [º] Examples: "my bag" ---> [maɪ'bæɡ̊] "this boy" ---> [ð̥ɪs b̥ɔɪ] "She’s so good" ---> [ʃiːz̥ səʊ ɡʊd̥] Non-audible Release of Plosives A plosive consonant is articulated in three stages: 

Closure stage: the articulators are approaching Stop stage: the articulators form a complete obstruction Release stage: the air is let out abruptly

The third stage (the release) may be realized in different ways, depending on the consonant that follows:

Audible release of plosives This happens when the plosive is fully articulated and the sound is heard without any problem. The three stages of the articulation of the plosive are realized (closure, stop and release). 

Unreleased plosives When a plosive (/p, t, k, b, d, g/) is followed by another plosive or an affricate (/ʧ, ʤ/) the first plosive is unreleased. This means that you don't hear the release of the first plosive. 

Nasal release of plosives It takes place when the plosive is followed by a homorganic nasal consonant. Homorganic means that they share the same place of articulation. 

Lateral release of plosives The release of the plosive is produced laterally when /t/ or /d/ are followed by /l/. 

Other variants in British and American English are: glottal stop and tap.

1.

Glottal stop

The glottal stop is represented by the symbol [ʔ] Voiceless oral plosives may be replaced by [ʔ] in final position in the syllable. Example: "A better bit of butter" [ə' beʔə ' bɪʔəv ' bʌʔə]

2. Tap In American English, the alveolar plosives /t. d/ are replaced by an alveolar tap [ɾ] when they are between vowels, the first vowel being normally stressed. Here some examples: "lady" ['leɪɾɪ] ; "rider" ['raɪɾər"] Devoicing of the voiced fricatives Just like voiced plosives, when voiced fricatives (/v, ð, z, ʒ/) are in final position and followed by silence, they normally lose their voicing. Examples: 

"your eyes" [jɔ:r' aɪz̥] ; "and breathe" [ənd ' bri:ð̥] Devoicing of the voiced affricate Like voiced plosives and fricatives, when the voiced affricate /ʤ/ is in final position and followed by silence, it normally loses its devoicing. 

Allophones of nasal consonants Variation of place of the alveolar nasal /n/ 

The alveolar nasal /n/ is affected by the consonant that follows it; it tends to take the place of articulation of the consonant that follows it. We have the following three allophones for this consonant: /n/ followed by bilabial consonant: it becomes bilabial. Example: "in part" [ɪm ' pʰɑ·t] /n/ followed by a velar consonant: it becomes velar. Example: "in coma" [ɪŋ ' kʰəʊmə] /n/ followed by a dental consonant: it becomes dental. Example: "in theory" [in̪ ' θɪərɪ] Syllabic n Syllabic consonants occur only in unstressed syllables. In English, when the unstressed vowel schwa /ə/ is followed by /n/ in the same syllable, the vowel schwa is not heard, and the nasal consonant becomes syllabic. The symbol for this allophone of /n/ is [n̩] Examples: "heaven" [' hevn̩] ; "mission" [ ' mɪʃn̩] Allophones of the lateral consonant /l/ The lateral phoneme in English has the following allophones: 

Clear and Dark l The /l/ in words like "lost" and "feel" sound different. The /l/ at the beginning of these words and the /l/ at the end of these words have a different sound. This is because the lateral phoneme is clear (alveolar) when followed by vocoid (vowel or /j/), and it is dark (velarized) in any other position. A clear l is represented with the symbol [l] and a dark l is represented with [ɬ]

Examples: "lost" [lɒst] ; "feel" [fi:ɬ] Syllabic l Syllabic consonants occur only in unstressed syllables. In English, when the unstressed vowel schwa is followed by /l in the same syllable, the vowel is not heard, and the lateral consonat becomes syllabic. The symbol for this allophone of /l/ is [l̩] Examples: "Cattle" [kʰætɫ̩ ] ; "middle" [mɪ̃dɫ̩ ] Devoicing of l The lateral consonant is devoiced following a voiceless plosive in initial stressed position. This devoiced allophone of the lateral consonant is represented with the symbol [l̥] Example: "clue" [kl̥u:] Allophones of approximant consonants Devoicing of approximants 

The approximants /r, j, w/ are devoiced following a voiceless plosive in initial stressed position. These devoiced approximants are represented with the symbols [ɹ̥ , j̊, w̥] Examples: "try" [tɹ̥ ɑɪ] ; "queen" [kw̥i:n]

Dipthongs and Glides

Hi! This post is devoted to dipthongs and glides, an independent group of vowels. A diphtong refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Diphthongs contrast with monophthongs, where the tongue or other speech organs do not move significantly and the syllable contains only a single vowel sound. For instance, in English, the word ah is spoken as a monophthong /ɑː/, while the word ow is spoken as a diphthong /aʊ/. Where two adjacent vowel sounds occur in different syllables—for example, in the English word re-elect—the result is described as hiatus, not as a diphthong. Diphthongs often form when separate vowels are run together in rapid speech during a conversation. However, there are also unitary diphthongs, as in the English examples above, which are heard by listeners as single-vowel sounds (phonemes) For the production of a diphthong there is a glide or a movement from one more open vowel position to another closer one within the same syllable.

There are 8 diphthongs: 5 closing diphthongs and 3 centring diphthongs. 1. Closing Diphtongs - Closing diphthongs towards /ɪ/ → /eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ/ - Closing diphthongs towards /ʊ/ → /aʊ, әʊ/ 2. Centring Diphtons - Glide towards /ә/ → /ɪә, eә, ʊә/ For a central diphthong there is a glide movement from a front or back position to a central one. TRIPHTHONGS Triphthongs in English are produced with closing diphthongs + schwa (ә) - /eɪә, aɪә, ɔɪә/ → player, fire, loyal. - /aʊә, әʊә/ → flower, lower.

Phonemes for English vowels Hey there! In this post we're going to see the phonemes for vowels. In English there are 12 pure vowels: 1. /i:/ (sea, seen, cheese, leave, receive, believe) This vowel is very similar to the spanish “i” but in english is more spread. 2. /ɪ/ (sit, lip, tip, with, rich) This vowel is between the spanish “i” and “e”. More open and the lips are not spread. 3. /e/ (set, bed, head, let, sent) Very similar to the spanish “e”. 4. /æ/ (sat, cat, map, land, hand) More open than the “e”. 5. /ʌ/ (cut, come, none, nothing, tongue) More closed than the spanish “a”. 6. /a:/ (bath, pass, car, park, march) Long vowel, very open vowel, more than the spanish “a”. 7. /ɒ/ (dog, top, lot, gone, what, wash, watch) Short “o”, very open. Almost open than the long “a”.

8. /ɔ:/ (saw, jaw, door, more, horse) Longer than the /ɒ/. Closure of the mouth. 9. /ʊ/ (put, could, would, book, good) More open than the spanish “u”. More similar than the open “u”. 10. /u:/ (soon, moon, fool, do) Very similar to the spanish “u”. 11. /ɜ:/ (girl, bird, turn, heard, word, work) The lips are neutrally open. 12. /ә/ (famous, suspicious, mother, driver) If the syllable is unstressed, the word will have schwa.

Phonemes for English consonants Welcome to my new post!

Today we're going to learn about phonemes in English. A phoneme is the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language. When sounds appear in the same environment (in the same place of the word and between the same sounds) and they make a difference in meaning they are different phonemes. Phonemes are a mental representation of sounds. They are very much like a concept or idea, not the actual pronunciation of a sound. An example could be the final sounds in words like bath and bat. The transcription of the word "bath" is /bæθ/ and the trascription of the word "bat" is /bæt/. If we change the /θ/ sound in the word "bath" for a /t/ sound the meaning change to "bat". This means that they are different phonemes. In English there are 24 phonemes for consonants and 12 for pure vowels. Today we are going to see the phonemes for consonants. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

/p/ (pain, pill, put, top, hip) /t/ (tea, take, tone, late, sent) /k/ (come, king, cut, look, duck) /b/ (big, bee, banana, bat, be) /d/ (do, dog, date, dear, road) /g/ (gap, girl, goat, bag, league) /m/ (make, smoke, climb, name, move) /n/ (nose, none, nurse, name, soon) /ŋ/ (wrong, think, finger, sing, rang) /f/ (feet, father, photo, off, rough) /v/ (vain, voice, vine, give, of) /θ/ (thief, thick, thought, bath, beath) /ð/ (this, they, there, bathe, breathe) /s/ (son, sit, soap, ice, cinema) /z/ (zoo, zero, easy, busy, gaze)

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

/ʃ/ (she, shoes, sugar, finish, rush) /ʒ/ (beige, pleasure, casual, confusion, vision) /l/ (late, let, loud, bell, belt) /w/ (wet, wine, what, wave, we) /j/ (you, yes, yellow, young, year) /r/ (rest, read, red, try, arrive) /h/ (he, hate, here, ahead, ham) /tʃ/ (chair, church, choke, watch, cheap) /dʒ/ (joy, June, change, Jane, jeep)

Description of the sound waves

Sound waves exist as variations of pressure in a medium such as air. They are created by the vibration of an object, which causes the air surrounding it to vibrate. The vibrating air then causes the human eardrum to vibrate, which the brain interprets as sound. Sound waves travel through air in much the same way as water waves travel through water. In fact, since water waves are easy to see and understand, they are often used as an analogy to illustrate how sound waves behave. Sound waves can also be shown in a standard x vs y graph, as shown here.

This allows us to visualise and work with waves from a mathematical point of view. The resulting curves are known as the "waveform" (i.e. the form of the wave.) In waveforms of speech, the x-axis represents time and is usually scaled in seconds or milliseconds, while the y-axis shows amplitude, a representation of loudness. In the next image, it is shown three different sound waves, each with a different frequency. As you can see, the more cycles on the wave, the higher the frequency. All three waves seem to have pretty much the same amplitude, because the displacement from the zero line (not shown, but inferable) is very similar.

Finally, we can conclude this section with the different types of sound waves.  Not all waves are periodic  A sound wave that does not have a regular pattern is termed aperiodic  An aperiodic sound results from random, irregular vibration: noise  Voiceless sounds have aperiodic wave forms  Some speech sounds employ voicing and noise together: mixed waves

How to describe vowel sounds

Hi there! In this post you are going to learn a little more about vowel sounds. Vowel sounds are pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants because there is a constriction or closure at some point along the vocal tract. A vowel is also understood to be syllabic: an equivalent open but non-syllabic sound is called a semivowel. The articulatory features that distinguish different vowel sounds are said to determine the vowel's quality. Daniel Jones developed the cardinal vowel system to describe vowels depending on the height (vertical dimension), backness (horizontal dimension) and roundedness (lip position).

The height is the vertical position of the tongue relative to either the roof of the mouth or the aperture of the jaw. In closed vowels, the tongue is positioned high in the mouth, whereas in open vowels, the tongue is positioned low in the mouth. The International Phonetic Alphabet identifies seven different vowel heights: - Close vowel (high vowel) - Near-close vowel - Close-mid vowel - Mid vowel - Open-mid vowel - Near-open vowel - Open vowel (low vowel) The backness is the the position of the tongue during the articulation of a vowel relative to the back of the mouth. In front vowels, the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth, whereas in back vowels, the tongue is positioned towards the back of the mouth. The International Phonetic Alphabet identifies five different degrees of vowel backness: - Front vowel - Near front vowel - Central vowel - Near back vowel - Back vowel The roundedness refers to whether the lips are rounded or not. In most languages, roundedness is a reinforcing feature of mid to high back vowels, and is not distinctive. Usually, the higher back vowel is the more intense rounded. But these are not the only ones features, there are however still more possible features of vowel quality, such as the velum position (nasalization), type of vocal fold vibration (phonation), and tongue root position. Nasalization refers to whether some of the air escapes through the nose. In nasal vowels, the velum is lowered, and some air travels through the nasal cavity as well as the mouth. An oral vowel is a vowel in which all air escapes through the mouth. Phonation describes whether the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation of a vowel. Most languages only have voiced vowels, but several Native American languages contrast voiced and devoiced vowels. Vowels are devoiced in whispered speech.

And the last one, Tongue Root Retraction. The contrast between advanced and retracted tongue root resembles the tense/lax contrast acoustically, but they are articulated differently. Advance tongue root vowels involve noticeable tension in the vocal tract.

How to describe consonant sounds This post is to show you how can be described consonant sounds. Consonant sounds are distinguished in terms of place of articulation, manner of articulation and voicing. It seems difficult but don’t worry, it’s very simple. The articulation of consonants implies some kind of obstruction of the air passage. The place of articulation is the meeting point between an active and a passive articulator (the articulators which make the obstruction). The active articulator usually moves in order to make the constriction and the passive articulator just sits there and gets approached. In this image we can see the articulators:

In English we find eight places of articulation: bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, post-alveolar, palatal, velar and glottal. 1. Bilabial: it's done by bringing both lips together . 2. Labiodental: it's is done with the lower lip and the upper teeth. 3. Dental: it's done with the tongue and the upper teeth. 4. Alveolar: it's done with the tongue and the alveolar ridge. 5. Post-alveolar: it's done with the blade of the tongue and the back of the alveolar ridge. 6. Palatal: it's done with the front of the tongue and the hard palate. 7. Velar: it's done with the back of the tongue and the soft palate. 8. Glottal: it's done with the vocal folds open. The manner of articulation is the degree of the airstream's obstruction and the type of closure made by the articulators. In English there are seven manners of articulation: plosive, nasal, fricative, approximant, lateral, tap and affricate. 1. Plosive: it's made when the articulators are tight united producing a complete obstruction of the airstream. When the air finally separates the articulators a small explosion is produced.

2. Nasal: it's made when there is a complete obstruction of the airstream in the oral cavity and the air goes to the nasal cavity because the soft palate (or velum) is down. 3. Fricative: it's made by a narrowing of the vocal tract, so that a turbulent airflow is produced. 4. Aproximant: it's made by one articulator approaching another, but with less constriction than in a fricative. 5. Lateral: it's made by an obstruction in the center of the oral tract, with incomplete closure between both sides of the tongue and the roof of the mouth so the air can pass through them. 6. Tap: it's made by a single tap of the tongue against the alveolar ridge. 7. Affricate: it's made by the combination of a plosive with a fricative.

Finally the voicing allows us to distinguish between voiced and voiceless sounds. This is easy to test by putting your finger on your throat. If you feel a vibration the sound is voiced. If you don't feel the vibration (just a short explosion of air as you pronounce) the sound is voiceless.