Pronunciation exercises

language

grammar Vocabulary or lexis pronunciation

a) Structures (the patterns that can be seen in these are usually called

the language.

b) Words that convey meaning (vocabulary or lexis).

grammar of

c)

Sound, stress, and intonation patterns, which combine to make "Pronunciation".

If you communicate only through the written word, you will need only the first two of these

components. If, on the other hand, you want to be able to understand spoken language, and to

be understood, you’ll need all three components.

Communication is a two-way process:

a) Understanding other people when they speak.

b) Conveying what you want to say so that other people can understand you.

If you have no idea, for instance, that there is an important

"s" and "sh" (phonetically written [s] and [ ] and furthermore you can't distinguish

between the two, you won't know how to react if someone asks you to "bring the seat"

- or was it the sheet? This situation doesn't seem very serious, but it could be. There

are hundreds of stories told of misunderstandings caused by mispronunciation.

Sometimes there is laughter, sometimes people walk out in anger, and on at least one

occasion there was nearly an International Incident. Suppose there were two or three

"mistakes" in your pronunciation. The consequences could be

difference in English between

·

offence to the listener,

·

misunderstanding by the listener,

·

trying to say that he gives up and goes and talks to someone else.

Not a very happy prospect! Let’s minimize the dangers!a listener too exhausted by the effort of trying to interpret what it is you’re

trying to say that he gives up and goes and talks to someone else.

Not a very happy prospect! Let’s minimize the dangers!

Language is a means of communication. It has three components:

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pitch and frequency ..........

pitch

Pitch is an auditory sensation: when we hear a regularly vibrating sound such as a note played on a musical instrument, or a vowel produced by the human voice, we hear a high pitch if the rate of vibration is high and a low pitch if the rate of vibration is low. Many speech sounds are voiceless (e.g. [ s ]), and cannot give rise to a sensation of pitch in this way. The pitch sensation that we receive from a voiced sound corresponds quite closely to the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds; however, we usually refer to the vibration frequency as fundamental frequency in order to keep the two things distinct. Pitch is used in many languages as an essential component of the pronunciation of a word, so that a change of pitch may cause a change in meaning: these are called tone languages. In most languages (whether or not they are tone languages) pitch plays a central role in intonation.

fundamental frequency

When voicing is produced, the vocal folds vibrate; since vibration is an activity in which a movement happens repeatedly, it is possible in principle to count how many times per second (or other unit of time) one cycle of vibration occurs; if we do this, we can state the frequency of the vibration. In adult female voices the frequency of vibration tends to be around 200 or 250 cycles per second, and in adult males the frequency is about half of this. It is usual to express the number of cycles per second as Hertz (abbreviated Hz), so a frequency of 100 cycles per second is a frequency of 100 Hz.

Why "fundamental"? The answer is that all speech sounds are complex sounds made up of energy at many different component frequencies (unlike a "pure tone" such as an electronic whistling sound); when a sound is voiced, the lowest frequency component is always that of the vocal fold vibration - all other components are higher. So the vocal fold vibration produces the fundamental frequency. See also pitch.

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ACCENT IN PHONETICS

Accent This word is used (rather confusingly) in two different senses: (1) accent may refer to prominence given to a syllable, usually by the use of pitch. For example, in the word 'potato' the middle syllable is the most prominent; if you say the word on its own you will probably produce a fall in pitch on the middle syllable, making that syllable accented. In this sense, accent is distinguished from the more general term stress, which is more often used to refer to all sorts of prominence (including prominence resulting from increased loudness, length or sound quality), or to refer to the effort made by the speaker in producing a stressed syllable. (2) accent also refers to a particular way of pronouncing: for example, you might find a number of English speakers who all share the same grammar and vocabulary, but pronounce what they say with different accents such as Scots, Cockney or Received Pronunciation (BBC accent). The word accent in this sense is distinguished from dialect, which usually refers to a variety of a language that differs from other varieties in grammar and/or vocabulary.

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What is Acoustic Phonetics?

Acoustic phonetics

An important part of phonetics is the study of the physics of the speech signal: when sound travels through the air from the speaker's mouth to the hearer's ear it does so in the form of vibrations in the air. It is possible to measure and analyse these vibrations by mathematical techniques, usually by using specially-developed computer software to produce spectrograms. Acoustic phonetics also studies the relationship between activity in the speaker's vocal tract and the resulting sounds. Analysis of speech by acoustic phonetics is claimed to be more objective and scientific than the traditional auditory method which depends on the reliability of the trained human ear.

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SUPRA-SEGMTAL PHONETICS,PHONEMES

Phonemic particles that we have so far been considering such as vowels, consonants, diphthongs, etc. are called segmental phonemes. They contribute to the meaning of a speech segment. Apart from this class of segmental phonemes, there is another class of particles that’ play equally important role. These are supra-segmental phonemes.

Features of stress, pitch, intonation and juncture comprise this class, and are said to be ‘overlaid’ on the segmental units. It is difficult to imagine human communication without these features. They invariably accompany our speech and lend the additional dimension which is mote immediately and directly understood. These features convey the speaker’s identity, attitudes, emotional states and his/her evaluation of how he/she is being received. Often, in the totality of communicational situation, a listener doesnot pay so much attention to the wards as he does to the rise and fall of pitch, volume of voice, stress and pauses, and so on. He understands the meaning by simply responding to these extra-linguistic indices.

We will now look at these features or phonemes a little more closely.

Stress

Physiologically, stress means greater articulatory effort. By putting stress on particular segments we give it greater prominence. Various types of meaning are conveyed by distributing stress pattern over speech segments in a controlled manner.

Two types of stress can he established

1.   Word stress (or accent)

2.   Phrasal (or sentence stress)

Word Stress

In words made up of more than one syllable, some syllable stands out from others. In a word like fable it is the first syllable that receives ‘stress’ or more articulatory energy which results in its’ sounding louder and longer than the other syllable’ the second syllable here. The distribution of stress over the word fable can be shown in this manner – fa-ble.

In monosyllabic words – these words may contain more than one phoneme, but that doesnot matter-stress falls on the only syllable they contain:

l                 /ai/             (single phoneme word)

see             /si:/             (two-phoneme word)

cat              /kaet/          (three-phoneme word)

flame          /fleim/         (four-phoneme word)

tract           /traekt/        (five-phoneme word)

In words made of more than one syllable, the stress is distributed over the syllables; one of the syllables is pronounced with greater syllabic energy or prominence. In words like sector and enable, the first syllable is prominent in sector and the second syllable in enable.

The syllable that is strongly stressed is called a strong syllable and weakly stressed syllable is called weak syllable. In sector, sec is strong syllable and-tor weak syllable. In enable, en is weak syallable and no srong syllable followed a weak –bl. In polysyllabic words the stressed syllable may be more than one, for example these words – understand, appetizing examination. Syllabic division is shown as follows:

Un-der-stand; ap-pe-ti-zing; e-xa-mi-na-tion.

A polysyllabic word is graded in terms of the release of syllabic energy. It can be seen that from the strongest to the less strong to the weak, we can easily perceive different parts carrying these stresses. For example, in a word like consolidation, the strongest stress falls on the fourth syllable /-dei-/, the next prominent syllable is the second one, the other syllables carry weak stresses.

One reason why the fourth syllable is the strongest is that the pitch of the voice changes on this syllable. Therefore, this is also called primary stress or tonic stress. A strong stress accompanied by a pitch-change or pitch movement is known as primary stress. Roger Kingdon says that ‘the prominence of a syllable is also affected by its pitch; high-pitched syllables sound more prominent than low-pitched ones’.

Stress features are thus divided into the following levels:

1.       Primary stress

2.       Secondary stress

3.       Tertiary stress

4.       Weak stress

The strongest release of syllabic energy accompanied by a potential change of pitch direction marks the primary stress. The next strong stress is called secondary stress. Primary stress is represented by the half straight bar [‘], and the secondary stress by the bar placed at the bottom before the syllable that is stressed. Thus in apple the primary stress is on the first syllable ‘apple; so with ‘father; but in ga’rage it is on the second syllable. The word understand carries a primary and a secondary stress indicated as /unders’tand. Tertiary stress is weaker than the secondary stress and close to weak or unmarked stress. It is somewhat difficult to define and describe it. The two identically pronounced words nightrate and nitrate, show that the second example has a tertiary stress while in night rate rate carries the secondary stress. A weak stress is always left unmarked. Here the pitch is low and the vowel lax as in to’bacco.

Stress pattern in English has to be learned; there is nothing in a syllable itself which indicates that it may receive stress or not. In some disyllabic words the first syllable is stressed, for example ‘writer, ‘bellow, ‘coral, ‘glimmer, ‘ginger, while other disyllabic words have the second syllable sressed: re’cord, be’low, con’sort (vb), di’sable. Compared to the unstressed syllable, the vowel in a stressed syllable is longer. Similarly, a long vowel becomes reduced in length when it occurs in an unaccented syllable.

Stress Shift

It has been observed that stress shifts in derivative words. The following table shows how different derivative words take stress on different syllables.

Table

1^st syllable           2^nd syllable                3^rd syllable

‘fraternise            fra’ternity

‘fragility              fra’gile

‘fragment             frag’ment                   fragmen’tation

                           Or’thographer           ortho’graphic

‘syllable               sy’llabify                    syllabifi’cation

‘product               pro’duce                    produc’tivity

‘excavate                                              exca’vation

‘excellence          ex’cel

‘photograph         pho’tographer            photo’graphic

Shift of Primary Stress in Syllables

In derived words also there is no predictability about the placement of stress. However, an interesting aspect of the stress distribution is that for noun/adjective, stress is on the first syllable and for verb it is on the second syllable.

Noun/Adjective                   Verb

‘produce                             pro’duce

‘import                               imp’ort

‘subject                               sub’ject

‘perfect                               per’fect

‘record                                re’cord

‘contract                             con’tract

Compound Word Stress

Compound word consists of two words, which are written as one word. Mostly the nuclear, tonic or primary stress falls on the first syllable of the first word as in ‘postman, ‘batsman, ‘chairman, etc. Distribution of stress varies greatly according to the syllabic composition of the compound words.

Primary stress on the first syllable

‘Honeymoon, ‘honey suckle, ‘market day, ‘main spring, ‘long shore, ‘live stock, ‘liveryman.

Primary stress on the first, secondary on the third syllable

‘borderline, firebrigade, copyright

Primary stress on the first, secondary on the fourth syllable

National issue, labour exchange, cabinet maker

Primary stress on the third, secondary on the first syllable

Secondhand, country farm, easygoing, seargent major

Phrasal Stress

Although words have more or less fixed stress in connected speech, the intonational and contextual imperatives guide a speaker’s choice of stress. Longer utterances, clauses and segments can show changes in stress pattern. This is accompanied by the rise and fall in the pitch level. For example in a sentence like

Bring those chairs closer

different words can be stressed in the manner shown below:

bring                those                chairs               closer

bring                those                chairs               closer

bring                those                chairs               closer

bring                those                chairs               closer

Each of the above examples conveys a different meaning. Normally, content words receive the primary stress, grammatical words donot As T. Balasubramanian says, ‘The choice of the syllable receiving primary accent depends on the meaning the speaker wants to convey’.

Speech Rhythm

In connected speech certain words receive the primary stress and other words are unstressed. A pattern of alternations between the stressed and unstressed words is formed. If we consider the sentence, see the cat on the roof we will find that the second, the fourth and the fifth syllable are unstressed; the third and the sixth words are stressed. It is the tendency among the English speakers to crowd together the unstressed syllables between the two stressed syllables. The effect is a rhythm which makes English a stress-timed language.

There is another process that produces the characteristic English rhythm, that of weakening of the accent on certain words. In connected speech stress tends to be re-arranged due to elision and assimilation. Syllables that in isolated expressions appear stressed may be unstressed in such instances. Form-words, like articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions and other elements may show this, where consonant and vowel quality of the weak form is affected. Let us look at these sentences.

a.   I shall let you have it transcribed as

      /ai òl let ju: hæv it/; the verb shall has become weak and is represented as /òi/ instead of /òæl/.

b.   Lend me the book, I’d read it transcribed as

      /lend me buk, aid ri:d it/; would becomes simply /d/ here.

a.   There was a book on the table transcribed as

      /ðәwәzә buk  nðә teibl/; note the weakening of vowels in there /ðeә/ ® /ðә/ and was /w z/ ® /wәz/.

We can, therefore, say that such words have two forms; a strong form (in isolation) and a weak form (in raid speech). Below are listed a few words with the two forms.

Strong form                        Weak form

æt                                      әt /t

bai                                      b∂

in tu:                                  intә

tu:                                      tә, tu

iz                                       z,s

kæn                                    k∂n, kn

will l,                                  әl, l

kud                                    kud, kd

jә: ‘selvz                             jә’selvz

maiself                               m∂self

tu him                                tuim

hæd                                   hәd, әd, d

m^st                                  mәst, ms

aend                                   әnd, әn, d

aez                                     әz

eni                                     ni

s^m                                   sm

sәu                                     sә

frәm                                    fr∂m

fә:                                       fә

Intonation

Another significant suprasegmental feature of English language is intonation or variation of pitch from one segment of an utterance to another. A lot of emotional meaning is conveyed by consciously varying intonation level.

Pitch is closely associated with vibration of the vocal cords. In males the vocal cords vibrate at a rate of 70-125 times per second, and in adult females it is between 150-200 times. Increase in the vibration of the vocal cords results in the rise of pitch. In normal conversation, pitch variations are quite an integral part and cannot be completely ignored.

A combination of stress on a syllable and change in pitch-range produces tone, a significant element of intonation. Two types of tone have been identified i) static tone and ii) kinetic tone. A syllable pronounced on a level tone of unvarying pitch is said to have static tone. The kinetic tones show different kinds of change in pitch contour. Physiologically, this is explained by variation in the tension of the vocal cords.

Different levels of kinetic tone have been postulated by different phoneticians, some grade it into fie, some into four. This shows that precise location of a tone contour is not possible – gradations are made only as identification of a range, where correspondence with modulations in the emotional level can also be identified.

In rapid speech pitch contours rapidly alternate but it must be remembered that all pitch movements are not discriminating, and therefore, significant. Only those variations that serve as significant units, discriminating between meanings are phonemic.

Below are presented the signs that are used for indicating itch contours

Rising Tone is symbolized as [‘]

Falling Tone is symbolized as [`]

Falling - Rising Tone is symbolized as [v]

Rising - Falling Tone is symbolized as [^]

Intonation pattern in English can be understood by dividing an utterance into breath-groups. Each breath-group forms a tone group.

In a sentence like She will ‘not` go we can identify the whole utterance as a breath group, a sense group and an information unit. Under normal conditions it is the final syllable /gәu/ that shows the pitch variation. This syllable, therefore, contains tonic prominence. It is known as tonic syllable. Tonic prominence is a stress on the syllable, plus change in pitch level. A speaker can vary the tonic syllable to correspond to the meaning, sense and emphasis he wishes to convey. That means that tonic prominence can shift from final syllable to any other in a sentence.

Thus in the example cited above, she will not go, shifts in tonic prominence can be demonstrated alongwitht he corresponding meaning changes:

i)    She will not go = it is she who will not go.

ii)   She will not go = come what may, she won’t go.

iii)  She will not go = she will do anything but go.

We shall now consider below some examples of all the four tones.

1. Rising Tone:

‘Are you coming?                (stress on are)

Is, he at home?

‘Wait, , keep it in place       (gentle command)

‘Come, ,here                       (encouraging, inviting)

‘Really?                              (surprise)

2. Falling Tone:

When this tone is used, special implication is conveyed which is not verbally expressed, like sympathetic attitude, surprise, disbelief, sarcasm, boredom, routine greeting, detached attitude, and so on.

‘Put it on the stool               (neutrality)

‘Good ,morning                  (routine greeting)

‘How ,nice                          (routine, bored)

,Sit down ,please                (polite command)

,Such a ,waste                    (mildly sarcastic)

3. Falling-Risging Tone:

The pitch registers a fall from about mid to low and then from high to mid.

We are ^vwaiting                  (= better make haste)

^vCarefully !                         (soothing, encouraging)

The ^vfood was nice              (=but the hotel awful)

^vWell done                          (appreciating)

You may ^vre lax                   (you really need it)

^vCan she do it?                   (=are you sure?)

4. Rising-Falling Tone:

The pitch changes from low to close to mid and low again. Normally, sarcasm, surprise, interest, enthusiasm are expressed.

Is he^alright?                    (surprise)

She looked^beautiful         (enthusiastic)

Yes, it is^nasty                  (full agreement)

But,^will that do?              (doubt)

Juncture:

In connected speech it is necessary to distinguish within one macrosegment such phonems whose function is to keep utterances apart. We must, for example, convey to the listener whether we mean a part (a+part) or apart when we use these segments, however rapid our speech may be. The accent feature of course plays a significant part in it; but we must also give a brief pause that would separate a  from part when we wish to say a part, and remove that pause when we wish to say apart. As Hockett says, ‘Any difference of sound which functions to keep utterances apart is by definition part of the phonological system of the language’. Such transition from one segmental phoneme to another is called juncture and represented by [+] mark. Juncture is thus a type ‘of boundary between two phonemes. Often, juncture helps the listener to distinguish between pairs such as see Mill and seem ill in Did he see Mill? And Did he seem ill?’ (Richards, Platt, Weber). Terminal juncture is represented by the [+] sign as in the following examples.

a                + name

an              + aim

that            + stuff

that’s          + tough

Ice              + cream

I                 + scream

Two vowels in close proximity both bearing the primary stress must receive a terminal juncture.

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PLACE AND MANNER OF ARTICULATION

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VOWELS AND CONSONANT

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INTERNATIONAL PHONETICS ALPHABET(REVISED TO 2005)

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Airstream mechanisms and The phonation process

Airstream mechanisms and The phonation process                             

      All speech sounds are made in this area.  None are made outside of it (such as by stomping, hand clapping, snapping of fingers, farting, etc.)
      Theoretically, any sound could be used as a speech sound provided the human vocal tract is capable of producing it and the human ear capable of hearing it.  Actually only a few hundred different sounds or types of sounds occur in languages known to exist today, considerably fewer than the vocal tract is capable of producing. 
      Thus, all speech sounds result from air being somehow obstructed or modified within the vocal tract. This involves 3 processes working together:

a) the airstream process--the source of air used in making the sound.
b) the phonation process--the behavior of the vocal cords in the glottis during the production of the sound.
c) the oro-nasal process--the modification of that flow of air in the vocal track (from the glottis to the lips and nose).

      Let's discuss the airstream process first.

The airstream process
      The first major way to categorize sounds according to phonetic features is by the source of air.  Where does the air come from that is modified by the vocal organs? Languages can use any of three airstream mechanisms to produce sounds.  
      One airstream mechanism is by far the most important for producing sounds in the world's languages.  Most sounds in the world's languages are produced by manipulating air coming into the vocal tract as it is being exhaled by the lungs, a method referred to as the pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.  Sounds made by manipulating air as it is exhaled from the lungs are called pulmonic egressive sounds.  Virtually all sounds in English and other European languages are produced by manipulating exhaled air.  And most sounds in other languages are also pulmonic egressive. 
      There is another variety of this pulmonic airstream mechanism. Inhaled air can also be modified to produce speech sounds.  This actually occurs in a few rare and special cases, such as in Tsou, an aboriginal language of Taiwan, which has inhaled [f] and [h] ([h5/˝ps˝] ashes; [f5/tsuju], egg).  Such sounds are called pulmonic ingressive sounds, and the airstream mechanism for making such sounds is called the ingressive rather than the egressive version of the pulmonic airstream mechanism.  Perhaps because it is physiologically harder to slow down an inhalation than an exhalation, pulmonic ingressive sounds are extremely rare.
      The majority of the sounds in all languages of the world are pulmonic egressive sounds.  However, in addition to using air being actively exhaled (or inhaled), two other airstream mechanisms are used to produce some of the sounds in some of the world's languages. 
      1) To understand the second airstream mechanism, the glottalic airstream mechanism, let's first look at a special pulmonic egressive sound, the glottal stop. Air being exhaled from the lungs may be stopped in the throat by a closure of the glottis.  This trapping of air by the glottis is called a glottal stop.  English actually has a glottal stop in certain exclamations:  [u?o^w], u?u], [a?a], and in certain dialectical pronunciations: [bottle].  The IPA renders the glottal stop as a question mark without the period. 
      The glottal stop itself is an example of a pulmonic egressive sound, since air from the lungs is being stopped.  However, the glottis can be closed immediately before the production of certain other sounds, trapping a pocket of air in the vocal tract.  If this reservoir of stationary air is then manipulated in the production of a sound it yields another type of airstream mechanism, the glottalic airstream mechanism.  Here's how it works. First, the vocal cords completely close so that for a brief moment no air escapes from the lungs and air is compressed in the throat (pharynx).  
      If the closed glottis is raised to push the air up and outward, an ejective consonant is produced.  The air is forced into the vocal tract and there manipulated by the organs of speech.  Compare glottalized vs. non-glottalized [k] in Georgian.  Ejectives are found in the languages of the Caucasus mountains, among many Native American languages, and among the Afroasiatic languages of north Africa (Hausa, Amharic).
      If the closed glottis is lowered to create a small vacuum in the mouth, an implosive consonant is produced.  The lowering glottis acts like the downward movement of a piston to create a brief rarification of the air in the vocal tract.  When the stricture in the mouth is released air moves into the mouth.  Swahili has three implosives:  [b], [d], [g].  Implosives occur mostly in languages of east Africa, in several Amerindian languages and in some IE languages of northern India.  (Compare the difference between implosives, using the glottalic airstream mechanism, and ingressives, which use inhaled air.)   
      The third and final airstream mechanism used by human language is confined to certain languages of southwest Africa.  It is called the velaric airstream mechanism.  There is regular oral articulation, while the back of tongue seals off air from the lungs and creates a relative vacuum.  Air in the mouth is rarified by backward and downward movement of the tongue.   When the stricture is released the air rushes in, creating a click.  Although we think of such sounds as exotic, English uses a few of them for quasi-linguistic sound gestures:  'grandmother's kiss' (bilabial click), encouraging a horse (lateral click), tisk-tisk (actually a dental or alveolar click).  Some Khoisan languages have over a dozen clicks. (release of click can be supplemented by additional features: aspirated,  nasal/ non-nasal). One Khoisan language  !Xung has 48 different click sounds. A few of the Bantu languages of South Africa, such as Zulu, have clicks; presumably, these sounds were borrowed from the San (Bushmen) and Khoikhoi (Hottentot) peoples who originally lived throughout all southern Africa.   Zulu and the other Bantu languages that use clicks spell them with the letters c, x, q. (cf. the name of the tribe Xhosa).  Notice that clicks stop up the air only in the oral cavity; pulmonic air continues through the nose (one can produce a nasal hum while producing clicks).  
      For the sake of completeness, it should be said that at least one other airstream mechanism could possibly be used for producing sounds in human language.  A puff of air could be trapped in either cheek, then released to be manipulated by the speech organs.  This is the airstream mechanism employed by the Walt Disney character Donand Duck and could be called the buccal airstream mechanism.  So far as we know, Donald Duck is unique in using it. And no language uses a gastric airstream mechanism, which would be modifying air burped up from the stomach.
The phonation process
      The vocal cords can be in one of several positions during the production of a sound.  The muscles of the vocal cords in the glottis can behave in various ways that affect the sound.  The effect of this series of vocal cord states is called the phonation process. 
      Voicing.  Vocal cords can be narrowed along their entire length so that they vibrate as the air passes through them.  All English vowels are voiced.  Voiceless vowels also occur but are far rarer than voiceless consonants are much more common than voiceless vowels.  Voiceless vowels usually occur between voiceless consonants, as in Japanese. No language has only voiceless vowels; a language has either only voiced vowels or voiced and a few voiceless vowels.
        There are also several other vocal cord states that are used to modify sound in the world's languages.  None is used as a regular feature of English.
      Laryngealization.  The posterior (artenoid) portion of the vocal cords can be closed to produce a laryngealized or creaky sound.  This doesn't play a meaningful role in English phonology, althoght we might use a creaky voice to imitate an old witch when reading fairy tales.  Some languages of Southeast Asia and Africa have creaky vowels and consonants, as in Margi, a Nigerian language:  ja to give birth/ laryngealized ja thigh; or in Lango a Nilotic language:  man this/ laryngealized man testicles.
      Murmur.  The anterior (ligamental) portion of the vocal cords can be closed, with the vocal cords vibrating.  This produces murmured or breathy sounds.  Murmured or breathy vowels occur in some languages of Southeast Asia.  We make murmured sounds to imitate the Darth Vader voice.  In many Indo-European languages of India the stop consonants have a murmured release;  in other words the anterior portion of the vocal cords remain closed after the stop has been produced during part of the time the vowel is pronounced:  bh, dh, gh, Buddha.  
      Whisper.  A similar vocal cord state is used to produce the whisper.  The vocal chords are narrowed but not vibrated, narrowing is more complete at the anterior end, less so at the posterior end.  Whispered sounds do not contrast with non-whispered sounds to produce differences of meaning in any known language, but the whispered voice is common as a speech variant across languages.  There is no IPA symbol for a whispered sound.
The oro-nasal process
      Regardless of which airstream mechanism is used, speech sounds are produced when the moving air is somehow obstructed within the vocal tract.  The vocal tract consists of three joined cavities:  the oral cavity, the nasal cavity, and the pharyngeal cavity. The surfaces and boundaries of these cavities are known as the organs of speech.  What happens to the air within these cavities is known as the oro-nasal process. 
      Let's talk first about the oro-nasal process in the articulation, or production, of consonants.
      There are two major ways to classify the activity of the speech organs in the production of consonants:  place of articulation and manner of articulation.
Consonantal place of articulation
      The place of articulation is defined in terms of two articulators These may be: lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, tongue tip (apex), tongue blade (laminus), or back of the tongue (dorsum), hard palate, soft palate (velum), uvula, glottis, pharynx, glottis (the "voice box," or cartilaginous structure where the vocal cords are housed).
bilabial [b, p, m, w]
labiodental, [f, v]
interdental, [T, D]
(apico)-dental the tip (or apex) of the tongue and the back teeth:  Spanish [t, d, s, z].
alveolar (apico-or lamino-) tongue and alveolar ridge (compare 'ten' vs. 'tenth'). Examples:  English [t, d, s, z]
postalveolar or palatoalveolar (apico- or lamino-) (English [S]/[Z]),
retroflex (apico-palatal) bottom of the tongue tip and palate, or alveolar ridge:  Midwest English word-initial [«] and [t, d, n] in many Dravidian languages and many languages of Australia.
palatal (apico- or lamino-) (English [j]),  [S]/[Z] in many languages
velar or dorso-velar Eng. [k, g, N]  German [x]  Greek [V]
uvular French [R], also found in many German dialects.  
pharyngeal (constriction of the sides of the throat), 
glottal (glottal stop, the vocal chords are the two articulators. cf. A-ha, bottle, Cockney English 'ave).  [h] is a glottalic fricative sound.
Manner of articulation
      Now let's look at the ways that moving air can be blocked and modified by various speech organs.  There are several methods of modifying air when producing a consonant, and these methods are called manners of articulation. We have already examined where the air is blocked.  Now let's look at how the air can be blocked.

1) Sounds that completely stop the stream of exhaled air are called plosives:  [d], [t], [b], [p], and [g], [k], glottal stop.  Another word for plosive is stop (nasals are also stops, however, since the air is stopped in the oral cavity during their production).
2) Sound produced by a near complete stoppage of air are called fricatives: [s], [z], [f], [v], [T], [D], [x], [V], [h], pharyngeals.
3) Sometimes a plosive and a fricative will occur together as a single, composite sound called an affricate:  [tS], [ts], [dz], [dZ], [pf]. 
4) All other types of continuant are produced by relatively slight constriction of the oral cavity and are called approximants.  Approximants are those sounds that do not show the same high degree of constriction as fricatives but are more constricted than are vowels. During the production of an approximant, the air flow is smooth rather than turbulent. There are four types of approximants.

a) The glottis is slightly constricted to produce [h], a glottalic approximant.
b) If slight stricture occurs between the roof of the mouth and the tongue a palatal glide is produced [j].  If the constriction is between the two lips, a labiovelar glide is produced.  The glides [j] and [w] are also called semivowels, since they are close to vowels in degree of blockage.
c) If the stricture is in the middle of the mouth, and the air flows out around the sides of the tongue, a lateral is produced.  Laterals, or lateral approximants, are the various l-sounds that occur in language.  In terms of phonetic features, l-sounds are + lateral, while all other sounds are + central.
d) The third type of approximant includes any of the various R-sounds that are not characterized by a flapping or trilling: alveolar and retroflex approximants.  This includes the American English r (symbolized in the IPA by an upside down [®], but we will use the symbol [r]). 

      It the air flow is obstructed only for a brief moment by the touch of the tongue tip against the teeth or alveolar ridge, a tap, or tapped [|] is produced:  cf. Am Engl ladder; British Engl. very. 
      If the tongue tip is actually set in motion by the flow of air so that is vibrates once, a flap or flapped r is produced:  this is the sound of the Spanish single r.  Flaps can even be labio-dental, as in one African language, Margi, spoken in Northern Nigeria.
      If the air flow is set into turbulence several times in quick succession, a trill is produced.  Trills may be alveolar, produced by the apex of the tongue: the Spanish double rr perro; the French uvular [R]: de rien; Bilabial trills [B] have been found to occur in two languages of New Guinea: mBulei = rat in Titan.    
Degree of blockage
      In discussing manner of articulation, it is also relevant to classify consonants according to the total degree of blockage. Remember that all sounds that involve significant stoppage of air in the vocal tract are known as consonants (this distinguishes them from vowel, which are produced by very little blockage of the airstream).  Consonants differ in the manner as well as the degree to which the airstream is blocked. While we are discussing the manner in which air is blocked, we can also classify sounds as to the degree of blockage.
      Plosives, fricatives, and affricates are all sounds made by nearly complete or complete blockage of the airstream.  For this reason they are known collectively as obstruents.
      Consonants produced by less blockage of the airstream are called sonorants.  With little blockage the airstream flows out smoothly, with relatively little turbulence.  There are several types of sonorants, depending upon where the airstream is blocked in the vocal tract and how air flows around the impediment.
      Sonorants are produced using the following manners of articulation:
      1) Sounds produced by stoppage at the vocal tract and release through the nose are called nasals.  The nasals [m], [n], and [ng] have the same point of articulation as the plosives [d], [b], and [g], except that the velum rises and air passes freely through the nose during their production; the oral stoppage is not released.  Plosives are also known as oral stops, to distinguish them from the nasal stops.  All known languages have at least one nasal except for several Salishan languages spoken around the Puget Sound (including Snohomish) 
      The division of consonants into obstruents and sonorants is not absolute.  In some languages, such as Russian, the glide [j] is produced by much more blockage and could almost as easily be called a fricative. 
Also, some l- and r- sounds are definitely fricatives rather than approximants.  Some types of l- and r-sounds are characterized by a highly turbulent flow of air over the tongue, even more than for the trilled [r].
In Czech, besides the regular flapped r, there is a strident trilled and tensed [r] which is much more like an obstruent than a sonorant. Navaho has a fricative [tl] which is definitely more fricative than approximant.
            Because all l- and r- sounds (whether approximant and non-approximant) are produced in the same way--with the the air flowing around or over the tongue like water moving around a solid object--there is a collective term for these sounds:  liquids. Liquids and nasals are sometimes able to carry a syllable.  Syllabic r and l occur in Czech and Slovak:  StrC prst skrz krk. The IPA uses a dot beneath them to signify syllabicity.
Review of some articulatory terminology
Stops (air completely blocked in the oral cavity)-nasal and oral (plosives).
Obstruents (high degree of blockage) include: plosives, fricatives, and affricates.
Sonorants (low degree of blockage)include: nasals and approximants. 
Approximants (the lowest degree of blockage) include: the glottal approximant [h], the glides [j] and [w], and most l- and r-sounds.
Liquid:  all l- and r- sounds, whether fricative or approximant.
Go over the handout on the English sound system (up to the vowel questions)
Secondary articulation features in consonants
   Lack of release.  Plosives may not be released fully when pronounced at the end of words.  This occurs with English [p} b}, t}, d}, k}, g}]
  Length.  Consonants may be relatively long or short.  Long consonants and vowels are common throughout the world, cf. Finnish, Russian: zhech/szhech to burn;  Italian:  pizza, spaghetti.  Long or double consonants are also known as geminate consonants and are indicated in the IPA by the symbol […].  Geminate plosives and affricates are also known as delayed release consonants.
   Nasal release.  In certain African languages: [dn].
   Palatalization. Concomitant raising of the blade of the tongue toward the palate:  cannon/canyon, do/dew;  common among the sounds of Russian and other East-European languages:  mat/mat'  luk/lyuk.  There are thousands of such doublets in Russian.
   Labialization. Concomitant lip rounding cf. sh in shoe vs. she (IPA uses a superscript w to transcribe labialization) In some languages of Africa the constrast between labialized and non-labialized sounds signal differences in meaning, as in Twi:  ofa´ he finds/ ofwa´ snail.
   Velarization.   The dorsum of the tongue is raised slightly.  Compare the l in wall, all  (velarized or dark l) vs. like, land (continental or light l).  The glide [w] is also slightly velarized. In Russian all non-palatalized consonants are velarized. 
   Pharyngealization.  Concomitant constriction of throat. Afroasiatic languages of north Africa, such as Berber: zurn they are fat/ zghurn they made a pilgrimage.
   Tensing.  The muscles of the articulators can be or lax when pronouncing a sound.  Cf. Korean stops:  Lax unvoiced p, lax voiced b, tense unvoiced pp.  Tensing also occurs in the vocal cords during the production of tensed stops, so tenseness could also have been listed under phonation processes.

The oro-nasal process in vowels

Go over part D on the handout now; go over part E during the lecture on vowels.
      Sounds produced by no blockage other than a slight raising of the tongue or a narrowing of the lips are called vowels.  Vowels differ in several phonetic features.  Three are most important.

1) which part of the tongue is raised:  front/central/back (mention the difference between the [a] of father in English dialects.)
2) how high the tongue is raised:  high, middle, low
3) whether or not the lips are rounded.
Several other features distinguish vowels on a more limited basis across the world's languages.
4) whether or not the tongue is tense (bunched up; in English, diphthongalized) or lax (relaxed and slightly shorter, closer to the center of the oral cavity).   In English, stressed lax vowels only occur in closed syllables, tense vowels occur in either open or closed syllables:
Tense= by, too, way, so, ma
Lax= bit, but, full, get, oil/or, and, (also, hard, in New England pronunciation), as well as schwa:  sofa
5) nasal vs. non-nasal (describe the velum and oro-nasal process)
6) long vs. short.  Many languages have a distinction between short and long vowels:  Hawaiian, Navajo, etc.  Estonian has three vowel lengths;  in English vowels are slightly longer before voiced consonants and slightly shorter before voiceless.
7) Different phonation processes involving the vocal cords produce several featural contrasts in vowels as in consonants:   voiced/voiceless (whispered) laryngealized (creaky), murmured (breathy).

There are three diphthongs in General American English
   [a^U] house           [a^I] like,         [O^I] oil, boy, toy
Diphthongs in other American dialects.

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