Introduction to Articulartory Phonetics (Consonants)
What is Articulatory Phonetics?
It is the study of how speech sounds are produced in the vocal tract.
All of our articulators in our vocal tracts must work together to produce just one speech sound.
Differences between Consonants and Vowels?
Consonants involve some constriction of airflow, while vowels do not.
When describing consonants there is three criteria used: voicing, place of articulation and manner of articulation.
Voicing
The state in which the glottis refers to what the vocal folds are doing. When air passes through open vocal folds, they are called voiceless sounds. When air passes through vibrating vocal folds, these are called voiced sounds.
An example of a voiceless sound would be make the [ s ] sound.
A voiced sound that produces a vibration can be accomplished making the [ z ] sound.
Place of Articulation
Where the constriction of airflow takes place.
Bilabial sounds are produced with both lips together to make [ p ], [ b ], and [ m ] sounds.
Labiodental sounds are produced with the upper teeth and the low lips to make [ f ] and [ v ] sounds.
Interdental sounds are produced with the tongue in between the upper and lower teeth to make [ θ ] and [ ð ] sounds.
Alveolar sounds are produced with the tongue at or near the ridge right behind the upper front teeth to make [ t ], [ d ], and [ s ] sounds.
Palatal sounds are produced at the ahrd palate or the roof of the mouth to make [ ʃ ], [ ɜ ], and [ j ] sounds.
Velar sounds are produced at the velum or soft palate to make [ k ] and [ g ] sounds.
Glottal sounds are produced at the glottis or the space between the vocal fold to make [ h ] and [ ʔ ] sounds.
Manner of Articulation
Refers to how the airflow is constricted in the vocal tract.
Stop sounds result from a complete constriction of airflow followed by a release of that air to make [ p ], [ t ], [ k ], [ b ], [ d ], and [ g ] sounds.
Fricatives are sounds produced when the tongue approaches but does not make contact with a place of articulation causing a bottleneck of the airflow to make [ v ], [ θ ], [ z ], and [ ʃ ] sounds.
Affricate results from the sequence of stop plus fricative in rapid succession to make [ t͡ʃ ] and [ d͡ʒ ] sounds.
Nasal sounds are produced when the velum is lowered allowing air to pass through the nasal cavity to make [ m ], [ n ], and [ ŋ ] sounds.
Liquid sounds are produced by allowing air to pass by one or both sides at the tongue and the tongue itself can move a lot to shape the sound to make [ l ] and [ ɹ ] sounds.
Glide sounds are produced with very little constriction of air flow so little in fact that they are often referred to as semi-vowels to make [ w ] and [ j ] sounds.
Tap sounds are produced by rapid flicking of the tongue to some place of articulation a good example is the word "butter".
Summary
When a linguist talks about a consonant sound they do so in the order of voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation.
For example, the [ b ] sound is a Voiced / Bilabial / Stop and the [ s ] sound is a Voiceless / Alveolar / Fricative.
Introduction to Articulartory Phonetics (Vowels)
The study of how speech sounds are produced in the vocal tract
There are two types of vowel sounds Monophthongs and Diphthongs. Monophthongs involve one vowel quality and Diphthongs involve two vowel qualities.
When linguists are describing vowel sounds, we have to rely on a different set of criteria for what we used in describing consonants because remember, vowels do not involve the constriction of airflow in the vocal tract. So our tongue doesn't approach an anatomical landmark like they do with consonants. So the three critieria that linguists use when describing vowel sounds are height, backness and roundedness.
Height refers to how high or low the tongue is in the mouth when producing the vowel. For example, consider the vowel sounds [ i ] and [ a ]; if you say both of these vowels in succession you should feel your tongue going up and down as you say [ i ], [ a ], [ i ], [ a ], [ i ], [ a ]. In terms of height, vowels are either considered high, mid, or low.
Backness refers to how far front or back the tongue is when producing the vowel. Consider the vowels [ i ] and [ u ], if you say these vowels in succession, you may notice that your tongue is moving forward and backward as you say [ i ], [ u ], [ i ], [ u ], [ i ], [ u ]. In terms of backness, vowels are either considered front, central or back. Remember that [ i ] is a high vowel but it's also a front vowel, while [ u ] is a back vowel.
Roundedness means whether or not the lips are rounded when producing the vowel. Consider the vowels [ i ] and [ u ], [ u] is a rounded vowel as your lips make a rounded shape whereas [ i ] is not a rounded vowel.
Summary: Just like with consonants there is a specific order that linguist use when describing vowel sounds and that is height -> backness -> roundedness. For example, [ u ] is a High / Back / Rounded vowel, while [ æ ] is a Low / Front / Unronded vowel. Note that we've been only talking about monophthongs vowels. If you want to categorize diphthongs in terms of these criteria we must do so by starting vowel quality as well as the ending vowel quality.
Introduction to the Phonetic Alphabet
How to navigate consonants in the IPA chart
-v / +v denontes voiceless and voiced sounds, highlighted boxes are the sounds used in english, gray areas = articulations judged impossible, white areas = no known languages are attested to use this sound
Technically, [ w ] is considered a labiovelar glide, which means that the parentheses here denote that the sound is articulated in two places (bilabial and velar).
How to navigate IPA chart for vowels
Refrences
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfoRdKuPF9I&list=WL&index=175
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_SHfoUDj8A&list=WL&index=153&t=1s
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