26   Language and speech
to our motor, articulator)/, habits. If this feedback control is disturbed, e.g. b, the imposition of an artificial delay upon our reception of our own speech, dis turbance in the production of our utterance is likely to result. Those who an born deaf or who become deaf before the acquisition of speech habits are rareli able to learn normal speech completely; similarly, a severe hearing loss later ij life is likely to lead eventually to a deterioration of speech, although not dowj to the same level as those born deaf.
Cnapter 4
■rj-ie description and classification of speech sounds
Notes
1 Fant(1956).
2 Hollien & Shipp (1972); Russell et al. (1995).
3 Denes & Pinson (1993: lOlff).
4 For example, Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2011).
5 Abberton & Fourcin (1984).
j, [Phonetic description
\\" have considered briefly both the mechanism which produces speech sounds ami also some of the acoustic and auditory characteristics of the sounds themselves. We have seen that a speech sound has at least three stages available for eitigations—the production, transmission and reception stages. The most c ii venient and brief descriptive classification of speech sounds relies either on artieulatory criteria or on auditory judgements, or on a combination of both. 11 i>se sounds which are commonly known as consonants are most easily described mainly in terms of their articulation, whereas the description of vowels depends mure on auditory impressions.
4.1 Vowel and consonant
Two types of meaning are associated with the terms vowel and consonant. In one type of definition consonants are those segments which, in a particular language, occur at the edges of syllables, while vowels are those which occur at the centre of syllables. So, in red, wed, dead, lead, said, the sounds represented by <r,w,d,l.s> are consonants, while in beat, bit, bet, but, bought, the sounds
v (represented by <ea,i,e,u,ou> are vowels. This reference to the functioning of sounds in syllables in a particular language is a phonological definition. But once any attempt is made to define what sorts of sounds generally occur in these different syllable-positions, then we are moving to a phonetic definition. This type of definition might define vowels as median (air must escape over the middle of the tongue, thus excluding the lateral [1]), oral (air must escape through
...the mouth, thus excluding nasals like [n]), ffictionless (thus excluding fricatives like [s]), and continuant (thus excluding plosives like [p]); all sounds excluded from this definition would be consonants. But difficulties arise in English with this definition (and with others of this sort) because English /j,w,r/, which are consonants phonologically (functioning at the edges of syllables), are vowels phonetically. Because of this these sounds are often called semi-vowels. The reverse type of difficulty is encountered in words like sudden and little where
28   Language and speech
the final consonants lal and HI form syllables on their own and hence must the centre of such syllables even though they are phonetically consonants, and even though /n/ and III more frequently occur at the edges of syllables, as jn net and let. When occurring in words like sudden and little, nasals and latera are called syllabic consonants.
In this chapter we will be describing and classifying speech sounds phonetica: l\ (in the next chapter we return to the phonological definitions). We shall find that consonants can be voiced or voiceless and are most easily described who] in articulatory terms, since we can generally feel the contacts and movement!, involved. Vowels, on the other hand, are voiced and, depending as they do on subtle adjustments of the body of the tongue, are more easily described in tert-of auditory relationships.
4.3 Consonants
For consonantal articulations, a description must provide answers to the following questions:
(1) Is the airstream set in motion by the lungs or by some other meani. (pulmonic or non-pulmonic)
(2) Is the airstream forced outwards or sucked inwards? (egressive or ingressiv ,
(3) Do the vocal cords vibrate or not? (voiced or voiceless)
(4) Is the soft palate raised, directing the airstream wholly through the mouth, or lowered, allowing the passage of air through the nose? (oral, or nasal i nasalised)
(5) At what point or points and between what organs does closure or narrowing take place? (place of articulation)
(6) What is the type of closure or narrowing at the point of articulation? (mannei of articulation)
In the case of the sound [z], occurring medially in the word easy, the following answers would be given:
(1) pulmonic
(2) egressive
(3) voiced
(4) oral
(5) tongue blade-alveolar ridge
(6) fricative.
These answers provide a reasonably full but concise phonetic label for the sound a more detailed description would include additional information concerning, for instance, the shape of the remainder of the tongue, the relative position of tfr jaws and the lip position.
j l Egrcs'>*e pulmonic consonants
Description and classification of speech sounds 29
.. I, ,,wnds are made with egressive lung air. Virtually all English sounds p,'List     ^   tf,e' exception being [p,t,k], which in some dialects sometimes
l^X"^^ §4-3-9)-
( 3 ; Voicm?
1i,nt-i - if articulation, a consonantal articulation may involve the vibration
A' u''   ■  I ords. i.e. may be voiceless or voiced, nl ■ *
. 2 3 p/aco of articulation
ief points of articulation are the following (reference is made to the
-,i In.-* oi
..phrases):
the companion website where tJie articulations can be seen in spoken
Bilabial—The two lips are the primary articulators, e.g. [p,b,m]. (See videos
I. 12. 5.18. 6.0, 6.14, 14.6.)
Labiodental—The lower lip articulates with the upper teeth, e.g. [f,v], (See
videos 3.13, 4.14, 10.14, 13.14.) Dental—The tongue tip and rims articulate with the upper teeth, e.g. [0,5], as
,i think and then. (See videos 6.24, 10.21, 12.16.) Ai veolar—Either the blade, or tip and blade, of the tongue articulates with the
alveolar ridge, e.g. English [t,d,l,n,s,z], (See videos 3.1, 3.15,3.23, 5.16, 9.25,
II. 10.)
Post-alveolar—The tip of the tongue articulates with the rear part of the alveolar
i idge, e.g. 14 as at the beginning of English red. (See videos 2.4, 4.2.) Rftroflex—The tip of the tongue is curled back to articulate with the part of
the hard palate immediately behind the alveolar ridge, e.g. [.L] such as is found
n South-West British and some American English pronunciations of red. PalatO-alveolar—Either the blade, or the tip and blade, of the tongue articulates
vith the alveolar ridge and there is at the same time a raising of the front of
He. tongue towards the hard palate, e.g. [J",3,f,d3] as in English ship, measure,
beach, edge2 (See videos 1.1, 8.15, 9.1, 11.23.) Pai a:al   The front of the tongue articulates with the hard palate, e.g. [j] or [9]
as in queue [kjui] or [kcu:] or a very advanced type of [k,g] = [c,j], as in
Trench quitter or guide. (See videos 5.5, 14.14.) Velar—The back of the tongue articulates with the soft palate, e.g. [k,g,rj], the
List as in sing. (See videos 4.21, 7.1, 10.4, 11.1, 14.11, 15.22.) 1 ijlar—The back of the tongue articulates with the uvula, e.g. [k] as in French
■ ouge.
"jlottal—An obstruction, or a narrowing causing friction but not vibration, between the vocal cords, e.g. English [h] as in ham.
30   Language and speech
In the case of some consonantal sounds, there may be a secondary place of articulation in addition to the primary. Thus, in the so-called 'dark' [J], as at the end of bull (see video 1.20), in addition to the partial alveolar contact, there is an essential raising of the back of the tongue towards the velum (velarisation); or, again, some post-alveolar articulations of [j] are accompanied by slight lip-rounding (labialisation). The place of primary articulation is that of the greatest stricture, that which gives rise to the greatest obstruction, to the airflow. The secondary articulation exhibits a stricture of lesser rank. Where there are two co-extensive strictures of equal rank an example of double articulation results.
4.3.4 Manner of articulation
The obstruction made by the organs may be total, intermittent, partial, or may merely constitute a narrowing sufficient to cause friction. The chief types of articulation, in decreasing degrees of closure, are as follows:
(1) Complete Closure
Plosive—A complete closure at some point in the vocal tract, behind which the air pressure builds up and can be released explosively, e.g. [p,b,t,d,k,g,?] as in pay, boot, tea, down, car, gate and in a Cockney pronunciation of water as [woctfa].
Apfricate—A complete closure at some point in the mouth, behind which the air pressure builds up but the separation of the organs is slow compared with that of a plosive, so that friction is a characteristic of the second part of the sound, e.g. [f,d3] in cheese, joke.
Nasal—A complete closure at some point in the mouth but, the soft palate being lowered, the air escapes through the nose, e.g. [m,n,rj] as in modern, name, sing. These sounds are continuants and, in their (most usual) voiced form, have no noise component; they are, to this extent, vowel-like.
(2) Intermittent Closure
Trill (or Roll)—A series of rapid intermittent closures made by a flexible organ on a firmer surface, e.g. [r], where the tongue tip trills against Ihu alveolar ridge as in Spanish perro, or [r] where the uvula trills against the back of the tongue, as in a stage pronunciation of French rouge. Tap—A single tap made by a flexible organ on a firmer surface, e.g. [r] where the tongue tip taps once against the teeth ridge, as in many Scottish pronunciations of English M.
(3) Partial Closure
Lateral—A partial (but firm) closure is made at some point in the mouth, the airstream being allowed to escape on one or both sides of the contact. These sounds may be continuant and frictionless and therefore vowel-like (i.e. approximants in (5) below), as in [Li] as pronounced in the south of England little [M] or they may be accompanied by a little friction [j] as in fling or by considerable friction [1] as in please.
(5)
Description and classification of speech sounds 31
Harrowing
Fricative—Two organs approximate to such an extent that the airstream passes between them with friction, e.g. [<f>,p,f,v,M,e,a,s,z,r,3,c,x,h]. In the bilabial region, a distinction is to be made between those purely bilabial such as [<f>,p] where the friction occurs between spread lips, and a labial-Velar sound like [av] where the friction occurs between rounded lips and is accompanied by a characteristic modification of the mouth cavity brought about by the raising of the back of the tongue towards the velum, [<p] may occur at the beginning of huge, [x] and [m] in Scottish pronunciations of loch and which, and [p] in Spanish haber. Harrowing without Friction
Ap'proximant (or Frictionless Continuant)—A narrowing is made in the mouth but the narrowing is not quite sufficient enough to cause friction. In being frictionless and continuant, approximants are vowel-like; however, they function phonologically as consonants, i.e. they appear at the edges of syllables. They also differ phonetically from such sounds functioning as vowels in cither of two ways. First, the articulation may not involve the body of the tongue, e.g. post-alveolar [1] and labiodental [0], the former the usual pronunciation in GB at the beginning of red, the latter a regional or idiosyncratic pronunciation of the same sound, as well as a regular consonant in some languages, e.g. Hindi. Second, where they do involve the body of the tongue, the articulations represent only brief glides to a following vowel: thus [j] myet is a glide starting from the [i] region and [w] in wet is a glide starting from the [u] region.
4.3.5 Obstruents and sonorants
It is sometimes found useful to classify categories of sounds according to their " noise component. Those in whose production the constriction impeding the airflow through the vocal tract is sufficient to cause noise are known as obstruents. This category comprises plosives, fricatives and affricates. Sonorants are those voiced sounds in which there is no noise component i.e. voiced nasals, approximants and vowels.
4.3.6 Fortis and fern's
A voiceless/voiced pair such as English /s,z/ are distinguished not only by the presence or absence of voice but also by the degree of breath and muscular effort involved in their articulation. Those English consonants which are usually voiced tend to be articulated with relatively weak energy (they are lenis), whereas those which are always voiceless are relatively strong (they are fortis). Indeed, we shall see that in certain situations, the so-called voiced consonants may have very; little voicing, so that the energy of articulation becomes a significant factor in distinguishing the voiced and voiceless series.
32   Language and speech
4.3.7 Classification of consonants
The chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)3 (see Table !) shows manner of articulation on the vertical axis; place of articulation on the horizontal axis; and a pairing within each box thus created shows voiceless consonants on the left and voiced consonants on the right.
4.3.8 Ingressive pulmonic consonants
Consonants of this type, made as we are breathing in, sometimes occur in languages as variants of their egressive pulmonic equivalents. We may use such sounds when we are out of breath, but have not got time to pause, either because the need for communication is pressing, or because we do not wish someone else to have a chance to speak. The use of such an ingressive pulmonic airstream is, however, variable between languages and is not especially common in English. Individual sounds made on an ingressive pulmonic airstream may occur as speech defects.4 Some sounds may also occur extralinguistically, so in English a common way of expressing surprise or pain involves the energetic inspiration of air accompanied by bilabial or labiodental friction.
4.3.9 Egressive glottalic consonants
In the production of these sounds, known as ejectives, the glottis is closed, so that lung air is contained beneath it. A closure or narrowing is made at some point above the glottis (the soft palate being raised) and the air between this point and the glottis is compressed by a general muscular constriction of the chamber and a raising of the larynx. Thus plosive ejectives [p',t',k'] may be made by compressing the air in this way. But it is not only plosives which may be ejective; affricates and fricatives have this type of compression in a number of languages, e.g. [ts',tl',s',x'J. Since the glottis is tightly closed, it follows that this type of articulation applies only to voiceless sounds.
[p',t',k'] occur sometimes in final positions in some dialects of English (e.g. in south-east Lancashire, where stop may be [stop']). This is not to be confused with other variants of final [p,t,k], which may be reinforced or replaced by a glottal stop, e.g. stop [sto?p] as in GB, or [sto?] as in popular London speech.
4.3.10 Ingressive glottalic consonants
For these sounds a complete closure is made in the mouth but, instead of air pressure from the lungs being compressed behind the closure as in §4.3.9, the almost completely closed larynx is lowered so that the air in the mouth and pharyngeal cavities is rarefied. The result is that outside air is sucked in once the mouth closure is released; at the same time, there is sufficient leakage of lung air through the glottis to produce voice. It will be seen that the resulting sound is made by means of a combined airstream mechanism, namely an egressive
, The International Phonetic Alphabet.
THE INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET (revised to 2005)
Dental   Alveolar Postalveolar
t d
9 ô
I 3
i b
t d.
9 K
í 1
k g
q G
x tf
Pharyngeal
ti í
o the right represents a
nsonant Shaded areas de? VOWELS
Ch'cks	Voiced impfosives	Ejectives	
Hr-—7 fUhblti ■■- ...	5 Bilabial		Exampl«:
Děrrtal '	Cf Dentaltelveolar		Bilabial
(PtrttJUveolar ■,.	f Pilatal	ť	Defiaľalveolar
frkáal/solar - .	<f Velar	k'	Velar
Alviubr lateral.	tf LJvuhir	s'	Alveolar Irlťatlve
OTHER SYMBOLS M   V°'1 e^ess l^la|-vslar M«ttive 1\     .; jsA laHaJ-velar approximant Ij     VdeeJ labial-palatal approxlmant
K    Vmceless eplgiottal fricative $     Vsltfd eplgiottal fricative ?   . ^iglottal plosh-6
DIACRITICS    Diacritics may be p
£ AEueolo-palata! fricatives
\    Yoked alveolar lateral flap Simultaneous J and X
Affricate? and double art can be represented By joined by a tie bar if neci
d above a symbol with a descender, e.g, L)
	Voiceless	n	d		Breathy voiced	b a		Dental	í d
V	Veleed	s	t		Creaky voked	b a		Apical	í d
h	Aspirated	th	dh		Llnguoläbla!	t d		L»*.l	t d
	More round«d			W	Ubialtted	r ďY		NaJíltzed	é
		3		f	Palatalized	ť ď	n	Nasal reka	dn
+	Advanced	V		"V	Vélai-lred	ŕ ď1	1	Lateral relé	d1
	■ Retracted	e		í	Pharyngeal! re d	ť d1	No audfbia release ("|		
	. Centrals ed	ě		Veiarized or pdaryngeallied t					
*	M Id-centralized	ě		±	Raised	e ij=		v-oked aivspĚa	r frlwtlve)
	Syllable	n			Lowered	¥ i	I	voiced bilabial app roxi man t]	
	Nors-syllablc	e			Advanced Tongue Hoot		g		
	Rhotlcity	s-			Retracted Tongii	Boot			
Where symbols appear in pairs, ihE ant to die right represents a rounded vowet.
SUPRA5EG MENTALS
'     Primary stress ,     Secondary stress
,fouria'ti/3n :    Lnng e:
Half-long e*
Extra-short <5 |     Minor (foot} group ][     Major (Intonation) group
Syllable break ji.^kt
Unking (absence of a break)
é or	~\ ÉKCrn 1 Wgh	éa	A Rising
é	1 Hŕ	§	\|   Fall lug
ě	^ Mid	G	A HiSh 1 rlsir-g
ě	-I Low	e	] L.w * rising
e	J ^	e	r\ Rising. 1 falling
i	DownítBp	T1	Global rlfi
t	UpS»p		Glot.nl feil
34   Language and speech
pulmonic airstream in combination with ingressive glottalic air. Such ingress stops (generally voiced) are known as implosives and occur as bilabial [6], <Je or alveolar [cf], or velar [cf ]. Though such sounds occur in a number of languaj they are not usually found in English, although they are sometimes heard the speech of the deaf and in types of stammering. Much more rarely voice implosives may occur in some languages, which means that in these cases larynx must be completely closed and the ingressive glottalic airstream occ on its own without the egressive pulmonic one.
4.3.11 Ingressive velaric consonants
Another set of sounds involving an ingressive airstream is produced entirely means of closures within the mouth cavity; normal breathing through the nn^ may continue quite independently if the soft palate is lowered and may e produce accompanying nasalisation. Thus, the sound made to indicate irrital or sympathy (often written as 'tut-tut') is articulated by means of a double closi the back of the tongue against the velum and the tip, blade and sides against teeth and teeth ridge. The cavity contained within these closures is then enlar mainly by tongue movement, so that the air is rarefied. The release of the forw closure causes the outer air to be sucked in; the release may be crisp in wh case a sound of a plosive type is heard, or relatively slow, in which case ul, affricated sound is produced. These sounds are known as clicks, the one referred to above ('tut-tut') being a dental click [|]. The sound made to encourage horses is a lateral click, i.e. the air is sucked in by releasing one side of the tongue [||]; These clicks and several others occur as significant sounds in a small number of languages in Africa (e.g. Zulu) and paralinguistically in most languages (as in English).
4.4 Vowels
Vowels are normally made with a voiced egressive airstream, without any closure or narrowing such as would result in the noise component characteristic of many consonantal sounds; moreover, the escape of the air is characteristically accomplished in an unimpeded way over the middle line of the tongue. We are now concerned with a glottal tone modified by the action of the upper resonators of the mouth, pharyngeal and nasal cavities. As we have seen (Chapters 2 and 3), the movable organs mainly responsible for shaping these resonators are the soft palate, lips and tongue. A description of vowel-like sounds must, therefore, note:
(1) The position of the soft palate—raised for oral vowels, lowered for nasalised vowels.
(2) The kind of aperture formed by the lips—neutral, spread, close-rounded, or open-rounded.
(3) The part of tongue which is raised and the degree of raising.
Description and classification of speech sounds 35
factors, only the second—the lip position—can be easily described "'   -tactile means. Our judgement of the action of the soft palate depends ; fee|jng for its position than on our perception of the presence or Jft* ,T ''''•'nasi!lit\ in the sound produced. The movements of the tongue, which u"e.° jetermine the shape of the mouth and pharyngeal cavities, may be so ! ^ * .:'at it is impossible to assess them by any simple means; moreover, there aii-i-11-' ^'^jjy n0 contact of the tongue with the roof of the mouth, no help is ' inv tactile sensation. A vowel description will usually, therefore, be on auditory judgements of sound relationships, together with some I ,inty information, especially as regards the position of the lips. In addition, ill,t"'.'2itic description can be given in terms of the disposition of the charac-.,„ »r,^ti'i Armanis of the sound (see §3.1).
j 1 | Difficulties of description
=tbal description of vowel sounds has always presented considerable
din
jj§§i
tin I
ulty. Certain positions and gross movements of the tongue can be felt. We or instance, aware that when we pronounce most vowel sounds the tongue es behind the lower teeth; moreover, in comparing two such vowels as , i'„. i (sec videos 3.6, 11.1) and la\l (car) (see videos 10.18, 12.7) (Fig. 4), vi i.iti Icel that, in the case of the former, the front of the tongue is the part \y cb is mainly raised, whereas, in the case of the latter, such raising as dtere is accomplished by the back part of the tongue. Therefore, it can be stated in .nailatory terms that some vowel sounds require the raising of the front of the tongue, while others are articulated with a typical 'hump' at the back; and these "l-ements have been confirmed by means of X-ray photography and by MR1 scans. But the actual point and degree of raising is more difficult to judge. It is riot, for instance, helpful to say that a certain vowel is articulated with the front part of the tongue raised to within 5 mm of the hard palate. Moreover this may be a statement of fact for one person's pronunciation, but an identical sound may be produced by another speaker with a different relationship between the tongue and palate. It is no more helpful to relate the vowel quality to a value used in
figure 4 Tongue positions for [i:] and [ai].
36   Language and speech
a particular language, as is still so often done. A statement such as 'a quality similar to that in the English word cat is not very precise, since -i J vowel in cat may have a wide range of values in English. The statement becon-1 more useful if the accent of English is specified, but even then a number a variant interpretations will always be possible.
4.4.2 Cardinal Vowels
It is clear that a finer and more independent system of description is needed on both the auditory and articulatory levels. The most satisfactory scheme is thaj devised by Daniel Jones and known as the Cardinal Vowel system. The basis of the system is physiological, i.e. the two qualities, upon which all the others were 'hinged', were produced with the tongue in certain easily felt positions the front of the tongue raised as close as possible to the palate without frict. i being produced, for the Cardinal Vowel [i]; and the whole of the tongue as low as possible in the mouth, with very slight raising at the extreme back, for the Cardinal Vowel [a]. Starting from the [i] position, the front of the tongue was lowered gradually, the lips remaining spread or neutrally open and the sun palate raised. The lowering of the tongue was halted at three points at which the vowel qualities seemed, from an auditory standpoint, to be equidistant. 1 re tongue positions of these qualities were X-rayed and were indeed found to be fairly equidistant from a spatial point of view. The symbols [e,e,a] were assigi U to these vowel values. The same procedure was applied to vowel qualities depending on the height of the back of the tongue: thus the back of the tongue was raised in stages from the [a] position and with the soft palate again raised additionally the lips were changed progressively from a wide open shape foi [a] to a closely rounded one for [u] (reflecting the most usual lip positions foi these tongue positions in the world's languages). As with the front of the tongue three auditorily equidistant points were established from the lowest to the highest position; the corresponding tongue positions were photographed and the spatial relationships again confirmed. These values were given the symbols [o,o,u]. Thus, a scale of eight primary Cardinal Vowels was set up, denoted by the following numbers and symbols: 1, [i]; 2, [e]; 3, [e]; 4, [a]; 5, [a]; 6, [o]; 7, [o]; 8, [u].
The front series [i,e,e,a] and [a] of the back series are pronounced with spread or open lips, whereas the remaining three members of the back series have varying degrees of lip-rounding. These combinations of tongue and lip positions in the primary Cardinal Vowels are the most frequent in languages, i.e. front and open vowels are most commonly unrounded while back vowels other than in the open position are most commonly rounded. A secondary series can be obtained by reversing the lip positions, e.g. lip-rounding applied to the [i] tongue position, or lip-spreading applied to the [u] position. Such a secondary series is denoted by the following numbers and symbols: 9, [y]; 10, [0]; 11, [ce]; 12, [ce]; 13, [d]; 14, [a]; 15, [t]; 16, [m].
Description and classification of speech sounds 37
lete scries of sixteen Cardinal Vowel values may be divided into ^   f     categories, with corresponding tongue positions:
|,y^-[y,0,OS,<E,D,O,O,u].
, lie is useful because (a) the vowel qualities are unrelated to particular »u;1" 1S janotiages, though many may occur in various languages and (b) the V"' .corded, so that reference may always be made to a standard, invariable a" ""l -ins a vowel quality can be described as being, for instance, similar to ( rdinal 2 ([e]), or another as being a type halfway between Cardinal 6 lhJ'i' id "cardinal 7 ([o]), but somewhat centralised. Diacritics are available in !"1 \r\ .ibhabet to show modifications of Cardinal values: subscript diacritics
'"h j.o i'l0re °pen' e-g- [°1> and more close' e'g'     wllile a pair of dots over \m'-'■!■ e-s- Ia!> indicates centralisation. The vowel quality mentioned above, that between C.[o| and C.[o] and centralised, can in this way be symbolised as b" 01 lSl
- tt is, moreover, possible to give a visual representation of these vowel relationships on a chart which is based on the Cardinal Vowel tongue positions. The simplified diagram shown in Fig. 5 is obtained by plotting the highest point of tongue raising for each of the primary Cardinal Vowels and joining the points togtrhi 1 Die internal triangle, corresponding to the region of central or [a]-type ...^ur sounds- is made by dividing the top line into three approximately equal sections and drawing lines parallel to the two sides, so that they meet near the base or !he figure. On such a figure, the sound symbolised by [rj] or [o] may Have its relationship to the Cardinal scale shown visually (see the black circle on Fig. 5).
I. rnust be understood that this diagram is a highly conventionalised one which shows, above all. quality relationships. Some attempt is, however, made to relate the shape of the figure to actual tongue positions: thus, the range of movement
CI [i]
O C.8 [u]
Q C.7 [0]
<p C.6 [0]
■6 C.5 [a]
figure S The primary Cardinal Vowels; the area symbolised by [5] or by [§] shown by a circle.
38   Language and speech
is greater at the top of the figure and the tongue raising of front vowels becoi more retracted as the tongue position lowers. Nevertheless, it has been sb( that it is possible to articulate vowel qualities without the exact tongue and positions which this diagram seems to postulate as necessary. It is, for instai possible to produce a sound of the Cardinal 7 ([o]) type without the lip-tun relationship suggested. But, on the whole, it may be assumed that a c.-auditorily identified vowel quality will be produced by an articulation of the l suggested by the Cardinal Vowel diagram. Moreover, it is a remarkable fact the auditory judgements as to vowel relationships made by Daniel Jones h been largely supported by acoustic analysis; in fact, charts based on aci u analyses of GB vowels correspond very well with the traditional Cardinal Vo figure (see Figs 10 and 11 in Chapter 8).
4.4.3 Nasality
Besides the information concerning lip and tongue positions which the abn\ ■ chart and symbolisatioti denote, a vowel description must also indicate whe the vowel is purely oral or whether it is nasalised. The sixteen Cardinal Vov mentioned may all be transformed into their nasalised counterparts if the palate is lowered. It is unusual, however, to find such an extensive series nasalised vowels, since it is unusual (though not unknown) for languages to n I such fine, significant distractions of nasalised qualities as are common in the i t j of the purely oral values.
4.4.4 Relatively pure vowels vs gliding vowels
It is clearly not possible for the quality of a vowel to remain absolutely constanl (or, in other words, for the organs of speech to function for any length of lime in an unchanging way). Nevertheless, we may distinguish between those vowels which are relatively pure (or unchanging), such as the vowel in learn, and thost which have a considerable and deliberate glide, such as the gliding vowel in line The so-calied pure vowels are marked on a diagram as a dot, showing the highest point of the tongue, or, better, as a ring, since it is inadvisable to attempt to be over-precise in the matter of these auditory judgements; a gliding vowel sound (or diphthong) is shown as an arrow, which indicates the quality of the starting-point and the direction in which the quality change is made (corresponding to a movement of the tongue). Fig. 6 shows the way in which the vowels of learn (see video 7.7) and line (see videos 4.4, 8.3ff) will be marked.
We can now give a practical and comprehensive description of any vowel sound, partly in articulatory terms, partly in auditory terms. The vowel which we have symbolised in Fig. 5 as [o] or [o] might be described in this way: 'A vowel quality between Cardinal Vowels 6 and 7, but somewhat centralised'. Such a written description will have a meaning in terms of sound for anyone who is familiar with the Cardinal Vowel scale. The position of the lips and the soft
Description and classification of speech sounds 39
	
\ \\°'	
	
fine ■■•"\("»»»'\ \	
i A The vowels of learn and line.
„ I te is subsumed in this description. There may, of course, be other features ?Mhe sound which may be worth mentioning in a full phonetic description, e.g. . breathy or creaky voice quality.
a 1 5 Articulator/ classification of vowels
A'thdugh precise descriptions of vowels are better done auditorily, nevertheless ,t „ convenient to have available a rough scheme of articulatory classification. Such a scheme is represented by the vowel diagram on the chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as shown in Table 1. It will be noticed that this is of similar shape to the Cardinal Vowel diagram although a single line is used centrally rather than a triangle. Labels are provided to distinguish between front, central and back, and between four degrees of opening: close, close-mid, open-mto and OPtN (see Fig. 7). At each intersection point on the periphery of -the diagram on the IPA chart (Table 1) two symbols are supplied; these symbols are the same a> (hose used for the Cardinal Vowels. However, on the IPA chart the unrounded vowel is always the first of the pair and the rounded the second;
Front
Central
Back
Close
Close-mid
Open-mid
Open
figure 7 Articulatory labels combined with the Cardinal Vowel diagram.
•40   Language and speech
this means that we cannot say that the first corresponds to the primary cardi and the second to the secondary cardinal. (It will be remembered that prim," , cardinals involve the most frequent lip positions, back vowels being more usua? rounded), The IPA diagram also supplies us with a number of additional symt for vowels in certain positions, [r,a,i,3,e] being used for unrounded vowels. [n,u,e] for rounded vowels.
Notes
1 See Cmttenden (2013) for discussion of the use of these videos in teaching.
2 These are called post-alveolar on the chart of the International Phonetic Alph; (Table 1).
3 Go to http://ipa.group.shef.ac.uk to see and hear recordings of each sound in the In national Phonetic Alphabet.
4 See Duckworth et al. (1990).
5 Copies of the original recording of the Cardinal Vowels by Daniel Jones are on companion website.
oUnds in language
e | Speech sounds and linguistic units
■i r   m have a way of classifying the sounds which can be produced by the speech t"      ci'tan1-   'Pcech sound produced in isolation can be described in purely phonetic i      -en   l-ut any purely phonetic approach to the sounds of language encounters t      . ti.ci'l"  i because speech is normally a continuum of sound. Two initial problems ■( r.-ctn; first, the identification and delimitation of the sound unit (or segment) to be described and, second, the way in which different sounds are treated, for ■It purpose of linguistic analysis, as if they were the same. As we have seen, in any investigation of speech, it is on the physiological and - acoustic levels that most information is available to us. But in any articulation, as revealed by MRI, an utterance consists of apparently continuous movements by a very large number of organs; it is almost impossible to say, simply from a video of the speech organs at work, how many speech sounds have been uttered. A display of acoustic information is slightly easier to handle (see Fig. 3), but even here it is not always possible to delimit exactly the beginning and end of sound segments because of the way in which many sounds merge into one another. Moreover, even if we were able to delimit and identify certain sounds, it would not follow that all the individual units would fit into a useful linguistic description of the language being investigated. Thus, the word tot is frequently pronounced in the London region in such a way that it is possible to identify five sound segments: [t], [s], [h], [x>], [t]. Yet much of this phonetic reality may be discarded as irrelevant when it is a question of the structure of the word tot in terms of the sound system of English. Indeed, the speaker himself will probably : feel that the utterance tot consists of only three 'sounds', such a judgement on his pari being a highly sophisticated one which results from his experience in hearing and speaking English (and not only because of influence from the spelling). . In other words, the [s] and fh] segments are to be treated as part of the phonological, or linguistic, unit /t/.1 The phonetic sequence [tsh] does not, in an initial position in this type of English, consist of three meaningful units; in other lan-iguages, on the other hand, such a sequence might well constitute three linguistic units as well as three phonetic segments.