ENG507 Grand Quiz Preparation

To support the learning system · ***Our Team has gathered*** · the most relevant and important points

OF

“Phonetics and Phonology 507”

FOR

Grand Quiz 2020

Special thanks to our mentor “Maha Malik”

Sibtain Mumtaz · Nimrah Khalid · Nagina Fawad · Maliha Mubarik · Rizwana Aslam · Sana Khalid · Anny Adeel · Lesson # 10

• EXPLAIN the features (Voicing, MoA and PoA) of English consonants.
•  There are 24 consonants in the RP accent of English.
•  These consonants are described in terms of (1) voicing, (2) manners and place
•  ‘Stop’ is often used as if synonymous with plosive.
•  However, some phoneticians use it to refer to the class of sounds in which there is complete closure specifically in the oral cavity. In this case, sounds such as m, n are also stops.
•  More precisely, they are nasal stops. In English, there are nine stops (six oral and three nasal):

bilabial Alveolar velar

• Voiced p t k

+Voiced b d g

(nasal) +Voiced m n ŋ

•  Apart from the above stops, in some varieties of English, the glottal stop /ʔ/ is found as in beaten [ˈbɪʔn̩ ].
•  English voiceless stops (p, t, k) are also aspirated in the beginning of the words such as [phaI, thaI, khaI].
•  It refers to a sound made with two articulators coming so close to each other that the air moving between them produces audible friction (or frication).
•  Remember that there is no complete closure between the articulators and there is a very simple stricture (or narrowing of the air passage).
•  In BBC English, we have several fricatives (both voiced and voiceless), as in fin [f], van [v], thin [θ], this [ð], sin [s], zoo [z], ship [ʃ], measure [ʒ], hoop [h].
•  Other fricatives may be heard in some forms of English (or in restricted contexts or speech styles, such as the palatal fricative [ç]), and several other fricatives may also be heard in other languages, e.g., a voiceless velar fricative [x] in Urdu, Pashto and Sindhi, a voiceless pharyngeal fricative [ħ] in Arabic,
•  A voiced bilabial fricative [β] in Spanish. The fricative manner of articulation produces a wider range of speech sounds than any other.
•  Very common fricative sounds are /f, v, s, z, θ, ʃ, ð, h/ whereas [ʒ] is a less common fricative sound.
•  English fricatives are also divided into two categories (this distinction is made on the basis of energy made in their production);
•  fortis: /f, s, θ, ʃ, h/ and lenis: /v, z, ð, ʒ/. Stops and fricatives are together called ‘obstruents’ and they are similar in three ways:
•  An affricate sound is a type of consonant which is made of a plosive followed by a fricative with the same place of articulation (so, it is a mixture of two steps or gestures).
•  For example, /tʃ/ (the voiceless affricate) has /t/ and /ʃ/ as a sound at the beginning and end of the English words church /tʃɜ:tʃ/.
•  Remember that although it is very strange to call the combination of a plosive and a fricative a singlesound (an affricate) (as it has been deliberated for quite some time) yet experts argue that an affricate is a single segment and accordingly it should be treated as a single unit.
•  There are two affricates in English:/tʃ/ and /dʒ/ (the first of these is voiceless, the second voiced) sounds as at the beginning and end of the English words church and judge
•  . Both of them are post alveolar sounds by their place of articulation.
•  Nasals are the consonantal sounds in which the air escapes through the nose (the soft palate i.e., velum is lowered).
•  For nasal sounds, two articulatory actions are necessary;
•  The soft palate (or velum) must be lowered to allow air to escape through nose.
•  A closure must be made in the oral tract (in order to prevent air from escaping through it).
•  This closure may be created at any place in the oral cavity (such as at lips position, for bilabial /m/ sound; at alveolar, for /n/ or at soft palate (velum) for /ŋ/ sound.
•  English has these three nasal sounds (m, n and ŋ) which are very commonly found. All of them are nasal stops and they are voiced sounds.
•  The consonants which make very little obstruction to the airflow are called approximants.
•  These have traditionally been divided into two main groups:
•  semivowels (such as /w/ in ‘wet’ and /j/ in‘yet’) which are very similar to close vowels ([u] and [i]) but are produced as a rapid glide; and liquid sounds which have an identifiable constriction of the airflow (but they do not obstruct sufficiently to produce fricative noise, compression or the diversion of airflow) - this category includes lateral sound i.e., /l/ as in ‘lead’ and /r/ sound as in ‘read’.