phonetics

Yoyo,,!! Helo sobat.This is the third my posting to you sobat and this posting also continue of the first  my posting exactly what is linguistics ?. So this is diciplin of linguistics and may be later I will be posting again about phonology. Now, I wanna explain to you about phonetics however just a little and summary yaakk :V. Step by step yah in order you understand about these materials.

 

What is phonetics ?

Oke, phonetics is one of two aspect in phonology. it also a study of production,transmission and reception of speech sounds. So in phonetics we will study about organ of speech, articulation, manners of articulation and place articulation of sounds.

 Organ of speech

as we know that there are few main organ of speech such as : the jaws, the lips, the teeth, the teeth ridge (usually called the alveolar ridge), the tongue, the hard palate, the soft palate (the velum), the evula, the pharynx, the larynx and vocal cords. The tongue is so important organ in the production of speech sounds because it devide into four main areas like the tip, the blade (lamina), the front and the back.

Articulation

Articulation is how to results sounds. So, there are two factor such as manner of articulation and place of articulation.

For manner of articulation likes :

Plosives :these involve complete closure at some point in the mounth. Pressure builds up behind the clousure and when the air is suddenly released a plosive is made. in english, three types of closure occur resulting in three sets of plosives. The closure can be made by the two lips, producing the bilabial plosives /p/ and /b/ ; it can be made by the tongue pressing against the alveolar ridge, producing the alveolar plosives /t/ and /d/ and it can be made by the back of the tongue pressing against the soft palate, producing the velar plosives /k/ and /g/.

Fricatives : these sounds are the result of in complete closure at some point in the mount.the air escapes through a narrowed channel with audible friction. If you approximate the upper teeth to the lower lip and allow the air to escape you can produce the labio-dental frictives /f/ and /v/. again, if you approximate the tip of the tongue to the alveolar ridge, you can produce the alveolar fricatives /s/ and /z/.

Trills : these involve intermittent closure. Sounds can be produced by tapping the tongue repeatedly against a point of contact. If you roll the /r/ at the beginning of a word saying :

r.r.r.roaming

you re tapping the curled front of the tongue against the alveolar ridge producinga trill which is, for example, characteristic of some scottish pronunciations of english.

Laterals : these sounds also involve partial closure in the mounth. The air streamis blocked by tip of the tongue but allowed to escape around the sides of tangue. In english, the initial /i/ sound in ‘light’ is a lateral; so is the final sound in ‘full’.

Nasals : these sound involve the complete closure of the mounth. The velum is lowered, diverting the air throught the nose. In english, the vocal cords vibrate in the production in the pronuciation of nasals and so english nasals are voiced. The three nasals of english are /m/ as in ‘mt’, /n/ as in ‘no’and /ŋ/ as in ‘sing’.

Affricates : affricates are a combination of sounds. Intialy there is complete closure as for a plosive. This is the followed by a slow release with friction, as for a fricative. The sound at beginning of ‘chop’ is a voicless affricate represented by the symbol /tƒ/. We make closur as for /t/ and then release the air slowly. The sound at the beginning and end of  ‘judge’ is a voiced affricate,represented by the symbol /dɜ/.-

Frictionless continuants : in making the /r/ sound associated with bbc english,the closure is made as for fricatives /s/ and /z/ but the air is released with less. This sound cannot occur at the end of a word.

Semi-vowels : the sounds that begin the words ‘you’ and ‘wet’ are made without closure in the  mounth. To this extent, they are vowel like. They normally occur at the beginning of a word syllable, however, and thus behave functionally like consonants. Th semi vowels are represented by the symbols /j/ and /w/.

All sounds can be subdivided into continunts,that is, sounds which can be continued as long as on has breath : vowels, fricatives, laterals, trills,frictionless continuants ; and non-continuants, that is, sounds which one cannot prolong : plosives,affricates and semi-vowels.

Place of ariculation

There are eight place of articultion such as :

Bilabial : where the lips come together as in the sounds /p/, /b/ and /m/.

Labiodental : where the lower lip and upper teeth come together, as for the sounds /f/ and  /v/.

Dental :where the tip or blade of the tongue comes in contact with the upper teeth as in the pronuciation of the initial sounds in ‘thief’ and ‘then’ represented by the symbols /Ɵ/ and / /.

Alveolar : where the tip or blade of tangue touches the alveolar ridge which is direcly behind the upper teeth. In english, the sounds made in the alveolar region predominate in the language. By this we mean that the most frequently occuring consonants /t,d,s,z,n,l, and r/ are all made by approximating the tongue to the alveolar ridge.

Palato-alveolar :as the name suggests, there are two points of contact for these sounds. The tip of tangue is close to the alveolar ridge while the front of the tongue is concave to the roof of the mounth. In english, there are four palato-alveolar sounds, the sounds that occur, respectively, at the beginning of the word ‘shut’ and in the middle of the word ‘measure’.

Palatal : for palatal sounds, the front of the tongue approximates to the hard palate. It is possible to have palatal plosives,fricatives,laterals and nasals, but in english the only palatal in the voiced se,i-vowel /j/ as ‘you’.

Velar : for velars, the back of the tongue approximates to the soft palte. As with other points of contact, several types of sound can be made here. In english there are four consonants mde in the velar region, the plosives / k,g/, the nasal / / and the voiced semi-vowel /w/ as in ‘woo’.

Uvular, pharyngeal and glottal sounds occur frequently in world languages. They are not siignificant in english and so will not be decribed in detail.