Manner of Articulation

By: Jeffra Flaitz

Visual: Bing Online 1
Describes how the airstream is modified by the vocal
tract to produce sounds:
• Stops
• Fricatives
• Affricates
• Nasals
• Liquids
• Glides

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Stops: sounds produced by obstructing the airstream
in the oral cavity and then releasing it.
English sounds:
Bilabial stops: [p] [b] as in “pot” and “bee”
Alveolar stops: [t] [d] as in “two” and “do”
Velar stops: [k] [g] as in “car” and “go”

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Fricatives: sounds made by forming a nearly
complete stoppage of the airstream.
English sounds:
Labio-dental: [f] and [v] as in “fun” and “vote”
Alveolar: [s] and [z] as in “so” and “zoo”

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 A graphic way of
looking at English
fricatives.

PLACE OF ARTICULATION:

a) inter-dental b) labiodental

c) alveolar d) palatal

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Affricates: sounds made by a combination of the stop
and fricative. The airstream is briefly
stopped, and then the articulators are
released slightly.
This action causes a kind of friction, and produces the
alveolar (or alveo-palatal) sounds.
English sounds:
[tƒ] as in “watch” and [dʒ] as in “joy”

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Nasals: sounds produced in the nasal; the velum is
lowered, and the air stream escapes out through the
nasal cavity.

The 3 nasal sounds in English are:

[m] as in “me”
[n] as in “no”
[ŋ] as in “ring”

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Liquids: sounds produced in the oral cavity with
some obstruction of air stream in the mouth, but
there is no friction in the production of these sounds.

In English, the two liquids are:

[l] as in “love”
[r] as is “rot”

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Glides: sounds produced with little obstruction of the airstream.
Glides are also known as semivowels.
If the vocal tract were any more open these would be
classified as vowels.
These sounds must be preceded or followed by a vowel.
In English the two glides are:
o[y] as in yet
o[w] as in wet
Even though they are vowel-like in their articulation, the
sounds are consonants since they cannot function as the
nucleus of a syllable.
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English Alphabet versus International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
The English alphabet has 26 letters, but not a one-on-one correspondence.
Example: [k] sound can be represented as c in “cow”, k in “kite”, ch in “chorus”.

The International Phonetic Alphabet:

the guiding principle is one sound = one symbol;
the same symbol should be used for that sound in every language which
uses it;
simple symbols for major sounds.

Familiarize yourself with the phonetic alphabet at:

http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipachart.html or
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/cassette.htm

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Consonants:

Sounds that are produced by complete or partial

closure of the airstream in the vocal tract

Features that define what consonants:

1. Place where they are articulated;
2. Manner in which they are articulated;
3. Phonation of the consonant – the amount of vibration of
the vocal chords during the articulation of the sounds.

Sounds that vibrate the vocal chords during pronunciation are

called voiced, and those that don’t are called voiceless.
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 Voiced vs.
Voiceless

The space between the cords when they are open is

known as the glottis.

The vocal cords can be relaxed so that the flow of air coming up
from the lungs passes through freely (voiceless); or the vocal
cords can be held close together so that they vibrate as air passes
through (voiced).

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Partially open cords Opened cords

Completely closed cords

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Practice voiced vs.
voiceless sounds

Place on your throat (on the Adam’s apple region) and

enunciate the following pairs of words:

p/b, t/d, k/g, f/v, s/z, m/n

The enunciation of these sounds moves from the lips to the

glottis.

Notice how the voicing occurs with those words that are
produced in the glottis. The front sounds are voiceless.

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 Chapter 5
Complete
Pause and Reflect Activity
pp. 69

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Read Chapter 5
pp. 70-76
Minimal Pairs
The Systematicity of Vowels
Suprasegmentals
Phonology and L2 Learning

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Vowels: Sounds that are produced without
any obstruction in the oral cavity.

Vowels are classified as being articulated

through their tongue position:
o High, mid, or low
o Tense, lax
o Front, central, or back
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 How are vowels and consonants different?

Articulation (how we produce them);

Acoustics (perceived as louder and longer, i.e., you

can sing vowels);

Function (vowels are the basis of syllable formation)

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 Four Qualities that Describe Vowels:

1) Tongue Height: raising or lowering the body of the tongue

a. high vowels: leak/lick, Luke/look
b. low vowels: sat/cat, cot
c. mid vowels: set[e], bait[e], bet, bought, boat[o]

2) Tongue Advancement: advancing or retracting the body of the tongue

a. front: seek/sick[i], sake[e], sec/sack
b. back: ooze/look, road/paw, dot
c. central: luck

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 The two other qualities that describe vowels:

3) Lip Rounding: rounding or not rounding the lips

ex: loop/foot, soap/fall

4) Tenseness:
a. tense (long): produced with an extra degree of muscular effort
b. lax (short): less tense
ex: beat/bit, bait/bet, boot/put, boat/bore

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The Vowel Chart Classification of
English Vowels

Source: http://www.uoregon.edu/~l150web/vowel.html

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 Other Features of Vowels

Nasalized Vowels
when the vowel sounds are emitted through
the nasal track because of proximity to a nasal
sound: bean, bin, bane, Ben, ban. Boon, bun,
bone, beam, bam, boom, bing.

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 Long(tense)/Short(lax) Vowels
Another way to describe vowels is by the amount of
tension experienced by the tongue.
Long (tense) Short (lax)
[i:] beat [ı] bit
[ei] bait [e] bet
[u:] boot [u] put
[ou] boat [‫כ‬:] ball, bore

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 Dipthongs …

o a combination of two vowels or a vowel and a glide;

o tense vowel sounds;
o start at one vowel-position and move towards another;

There are many arguments among linguists about the

quality of dipthongs.

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Our Phonological knowledge comprises of:

knowing the phonemes of the language;

knowing the difference between phonemes and

allophones; and the

phonological rules that govern the production of

sounds in words.

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 How do we describe sounds?

 Are the sounds oral or nasal?

 Are the sounds consonantal or vowel (a.k.a.
syllabic)?
 Are the sounds voiced or voiceless?
 What phonological process describes the
production of these sounds?

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Phonemes Allophones

Phoneme: how the sound is represented in a language in the

mind of the speaker.
[b] – represented in one way
[p] - represented in two ways: /p/ or /ph/ {aspirated sound}
[i] – represented in two ways: /i/ or / ĩ/ {nasalized vowel}

When different phones are derived (variants) from one phoneme (because of the
rules that govern the pronunciation of the phones), these phones are called
allophones of that phoneme.
[p]  /p/ and /ph/ {aspiration rule}
[i]  /i/ and / ȉ/ {nasalization rule}
[l]  /l/, / ŀ/ or /ł/ [voiceless rule and velarization rule}
Allophones are always in complementary distribution since one
variation cannot occur in the same environment as the other
variant.
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 Knowing the phonemes of the language (English) is knowing the
distinctive sounds of the language (English) and how they are
pronounced.

Speakers of English along with knowledge of individual sounds, also know

that each of the following words are different: sip/zip; fine/vine; chunk/junk -
because in each case the words share the same sounds except the initial one.

The initial sounds in the minimal pairs that have distinctively different
properties are called phonemes.

Substitution of the initial distinctive sound produces a new word. Thus the
words are said to be in contrast.

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When two words are similar in every way, except that a
substitution in a sound in the same place causes a new word to
be born, we have what is known as a Minimal Pair.
sip/zip; fine/vine; chunk/junk are minimal pairs.
Minimal Pairs are used to contrast or highlight the phonemes of
a particular language.
bead [bid] and deed [did]]
bowl [bol] and dole [dol]
[b] and [d] can contrast in the same position in words where
all other sounds are the same.

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Why should you know about phonemes and minimal pairs?

To help detect which sound ELs are having trouble with;

To help ELs perceive the difference between sounds;
To use minimal pairs in exercises that ELs can use to practice
sound differences

Two resources to browse:

http://www.tedpower.co.uk/phono.html
http://tesoros.macmillanmh.com/assets/extras/0001/3620/LangTransPOST.pdf

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Phonological Rules that Govern the
Pronunciation of Sounds in English

Aspiration

Velarization

Nasalization

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 Phonological Rule: Aspiration
Set A: pat /pæt/ tub /tʌb/ cope /kowp/
Set B: span /spæn/ upset / ʌpsɛt/ sap /sæp/

In Set A: [p] is aspirated, that is an extra puff of air accompanies the sound. The
features of the [p] sound are characterized:
(1) they are all stops, (2)they are all voiceless, and (3) they all occur in initial position, and
before a stressed vowel.

In Set B: [p] is unaspirated. The features of the unaspirated are characterized by

(1) they are all stops, (2) they are all voiceless, (3) they are not in initial position
(4) they occur after a /s/ and before a stressed vowel
 Aspiration Rule applies to Set A.
 Other aspirated sounds are /t/ and /k/ under the same conditions.
 Aspirate voiceless stops when they are syllable-initial and when they are
before a stressed vowel.

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 Phonological Rule: Velarization
Example phoneme is [l]:
It can be realized in our pronunciation in 3 different ways:

1st in words like: blue [blu] glue [glu] gleam [glim] as here
/l/ is voiced since it is preceded by a voiced stop [b],[d],[g]

2nd in words like: clip /kŀ p/ plow /pŀ aw/ as here /l/ is voiceless
since it is preceded by voiceless stops.

3rd in words like: foal /foł/ peel /pił/ teal /tił/ as here [l] is velarized
since it is preceded by a stressed vowel and is at the end of the word.

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 Phonological Rule: Nasalization

Nasalize vowels and dipthongs before nasals sounds:

Bob /bab/ nasal rule does not apply

bomb /b ã m/ - here /a/ is nasalized because the vowel occurs in a

nasalized environment.

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 Phonological Rules: Past Tense Pronunciation Rule

Set A: grab - grabbed ; hug - hugged; pray- prayed; gun - gunned

Set B: reap - reaped; peak - peaked; kiss - kissed
Set C: state - stated; raid - raided
How do we pronounce the past tense endings?
Set A: /d/ Set B: /t/ Set C: /ɪd/

What governs the pronunciation of these phonemes?

Set A Set B Set C
grab + past reap + past state + past
/græb + d/ /riyp + t / /steyt + ɪd /
/græbd/ /riypt / /steytɪd /
/ɪ / before the /d/.

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What rules govern the pronunciation of these past tense
phonemes?
Set A: when the final phoneme is voiced, pronounce the past
tense with /d/ when the final phoneme is a vowel,
nasal, glide, liquid, pronounce the past tense with /d/;

Set B: when the final phoneme is voiceless, pronounce the

past tense with /t/;

Set C: when the final phoneme is an alveolar stop, pronounce

the past. tense with an

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 Phonological Rules: Pronouncing Plurals
Let's look at a few pluralized words
Set A: cat - cats; mat - mats
Set B: dog - dogs; bud - buds
Set C: bus - buses; church - churches
How do we pronounce these?
Set A: pronounce with /s/
Set B: pronounce with /z/
Set C: pronounce with /әz/
What are the rules?
Set A: when the final phoneme is voiceless, pronounce the plural with /s/
Set B: when the final phoneme is voiced, pronounce the plural with /z/
Set C: when the final phoneme is an alveolar sounds, pronounce the plural with
an /ә/ before the /z/

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What do we see happening as a result of these phonological processes?

Feature-changing processes
changes a sound's feature due to the influence of a nearby
segment i.e., Nasalization rule
Feature Adding/Deleting Processes
addition: adds a new feature, i.e., Aspiration rule
deletion: occurs in fast speech or casual speech in English
mystery ----mystry; general ---genral; I will --I'll
Feature Movement Processes
Children’s speech: animal-aminal; sphagetti-pesketti
Dialect:s: ask is pronounced as [æ ks], but asking remains
unchanged
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 Pronunciation Problems for ELs
• Lack of sound in native system;
• Allophone in native language is a phoneme in target
language;
• Phonemes with different distribution in two languages, i.e.,
in English -ng [ŋ] is either words final (dancing) or internal
(mango), but never in word initial, which may be true in ELs’
L1;
• Phonemes occur in unfamiliar combinations;
• Native and target languages have similar phonemes in
different points of articulation (factor contributing to accent).

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 Practice Transcriptions
While phonetic transcriptions are essential for phoneticians, all teachers
should develop at least a basic skill in order to help ELs with pronunciation
practice.

Review the following website to read an argument about how

transcription helps language teachers:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/whytranscription.htm

Now, go to the following URLs and complete the exercise:

http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/IPAExercises/Transcription1/Transcription1.html

http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/IPAExercises/Transcription2/Transcription2.html

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Resource Websites
American English Pronunciation Practice:
http://www.manythings.org/pp/

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