Phonetics: Consonant Sounds and Articulators

Consonant Names

• [p] - voiceless bilabial (oral) stop
• [b] - voiced bilabial (oral) stop
• [m] - voiced bilabial nasal (stop)
• [w] - voiced labial-velar approximant
• [f] - voiceless labio-dental fricative
• [v] - voiced labio-dental fricative
• [θ] - voiceless inter-dental fricative
• [ð] - voiced inter-dental fricative
• [t] - voiceless alveolar (oral) stop
• [d] - voiced alveolar (oral) stop
• [n] - voiced alveolar nasal (stop)
• [ʃ] - voiceless alveolar fricative
• [ʒ] - voiced alveolar fricative
• [l] - voiced alveolar lateral approximant
• [s] - voiceless alveo-palatal fricative
• [z] - voiced alveo-palatal fricative
• [tʃ] - voiceless alveo-palatal affricate
• [dʒ] - voiced alveo-palatal affricate
• [j] - voiced palatal approximant
• [k] - voiceless velar (oral) stop
• [g] - voiced velar (oral) stop
• [ŋ] - voiced velar nasal (stop)
• [h] - voiceless glottal fricative

Major Articulators

• Lips
• Tongue
• Teeth/Jaw
• Velum (soft palate)
• Tongue root
• Larynx

Active Articulators

• Those that move. This includes lips and tongue.

Passive Articulators

• These are non-mobile parts. Examples include upper lip, teeth, roof of mouth (alveolar ridge, hard and soft palate, uvula) and pharynx.

Secondary Articulation

• Indicated using diacritics (marks above, below, or through a letter to show a specific pronunciation).
• Examples include palatalization ([t] = [tʃ]), labio-velarisation, velarization.

Phonetics & Phonology

• Phonetics: The study of speech sounds. Divided into three areas.
  • Articulatory Phonetics: How speech sounds are produced.
  • Acoustic Phonetics: Physical properties of speech sounds.
  • Auditory Phonetics: How speech sounds are perceived by the ears.
• Phonology: How speech sounds are organised in the mind.
  • observe differences in production/perception based on speech sounds.
  • inventory differences in a specific language (e.g. /p/ in Arabic).
  • distributional differences (where and how sounds appear in words).
  • structural differences (e.g., Eng: CCVC; Kor: CVC)

Air Stream Mechanism

• Air used for speech usually starts from the lungs (pulmonic airstream).
• Other possibilities include the tongue and soft palate (velaric airstream), or glottis (glottalic airstream).
• Airstream can be ingressive (incoming air) or egressive (outgoing air).

Organs of Speech

• articulatory system
• phonatory system (larynx/glottis)
• respiratory system (subglottal)
• pulmonic egressive airflow
• pulmonic ingressive airflow

Glottal Settings

• Voice production:
  • voiceless: Vocal cords apart.
  • voiced: Vocal cords brought together, vibrating.
  • glottal stop: Vocal cords completely close.
  • whisper: Vocal cords held apart, but close enough to cause turbulence
  • creaky voice: vocal chords tightly adducted but vibrate slowly, with irregular tension

Resonating Cavities

• Throat (pharyngeal cavity)
• Mouth (oral cavity)
• Nose (nasal cavity)

Describing Consonants

• Place of articulation: Where the sound is made.
• Manner of articulation: How the sound is made.
• Nasal/oral: If the sound is produced through the nasal passage.
• Voiced/voiceless: If the vocal cords vibrate.

Place of Articulation (detailed)

• Labial/Bilabial: Using one or both lips (e.g., [p], [b], [m], [w]).
• Labiodental: Lower lip and upper teeth (e.g., [f], [v]).
• Interdental: Tongue between the teeth (e.g., [θ], [ð]).
• Alveolar: Tongue against/near alveolar ridge (e.g., [t], [d], [n], [s], [z], [l]).
• Alveopalatal: Tongue near the alveolar ridge and hard palate (e.g., [ʃ], [ʒ], [tʃ], [dʒ]).
• Palatal: Tongue raised against hard palate (e.g., [j]).
• Velar: Tongue raised against soft palate (e.g., [k], [g], [ŋ]).
• Glottal: Using the glottis (e.g., [h]).