Phonetic Terminology
Eva Vahalíková, 270 621
Autumn 2012

Place and manner of articulation
•What happens whenever you pronounce /b/ or /p/? What do your lips do?
•
•On Hall‘s website, you can experiment with the place and the manner of articulation.
•http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~danhall/phonetics/sammy.html

Phonetic Chart
•Do you want to hear individual sounds? Do you wonder what exactly happens to your tongue when
pronouncing diph- and triphthongs? And what happens to a Brit‘s or American‘s tongue?
•Everything clearly listed on Paul Meier‘s webpage:
•http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/charts.html

Pronunciation Dictionaries
•Interested in pronunciation only? http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?
•Macmillan Dict
• http://www.macmillandictionary.com
•Cambridge
• http://dictionary.cambridge.org/help/phonetics.html

Typing
•Do you need to type in IPA? A practical help to be found at http://ipa.typeit.org/full/


•phone
•/fəʊn/
•an actual speech sound, without regard to the phonology of a language as revealed by phonetic
analysis. Note that the /t/ in tab is aspirated in English [th], while in stab it is not [t];  and
that the /t/ in little and try are also somewhat differently sounded. Phones that are variants of
the same phoneme are called allophones of that phoneme.
•phoneme
•/fəʊni:m/
•the smallest single segment of speech capable of distinguishing meaning. Unlike a phone (an actual
speech sound), a phoneme is simply the "idea of a sound", its actual realization taking many forms,
resulting in different phones. /t/ and /d/ are examples of phonemes, since they contrast
sufficiently in minimal pairs, such as bid/bit to change the meaning.

•accent reduction /'æksənt/
• term often used to describe the process of modifying a non-prestige dialect or accent, or
changing a foreign-language accent toward a perceived standard mainstream, or prestige dialect
•allophone
• /'æləˌfəʊn/
• a contextually modified variant of a phoneme. Notice, for example, how the /t/ in team varies
from that in try. These are said to be allophones of the phoneme /t/.

•aspiration
•/ˌæspɪˈreɪʃ(ə)n/
•breath; often used to denote the little puff of air that accompanies the release of the voiceless
plosives [p, t, k] in most English dialects
•assimilation
•/əˌsɪmɪˈleɪʃ(ə)n/
• denoting the fusion of two consonants into one
•what you want
• /wɒtʃu: 'wɒnt/
•in case you need it
• /iŋ keiʃu: 'ni:d ɪt/
•Has your letter come? /hæʒɔ: 'letə kʌm/
•as yet
• /ə'ʒet/
•

•glottal /ˈɡlɒt(ə)l/
•a sound articulated by the vocal folds themselves. The most famous glottal consonant is the
glottal stop [ʔ], such as we hear in the classic Cockney butter [bʌʔə], or that we sometimes
intrude between two words such as my eye where the second begins with a vowel.
•glottal reinforcement /ˈɡlɒt(ə)l ˌriːɪnˈfɔː(r)smənt/
•term often meaning the co-articulation of the glottal stop with another consonant, usually a stop.
One hears this in Newcastle speech, for example, on the /t/ in fourteen: /fɔt͡ʔin/. Frequently this
also can be observed in unreleased stops at the end of an utterance, as in stop! [stɒʔp].

•co-articulation
•/kəʊˌɑː(r)ˌtɪkjʊˈleɪʃ(ə)n/ referring to simultaneous articulation of two phonemes /t/+/s/ in
tsunami
•code switching
•/kəʊd swɪtʃɪŋ/
•referring to the practice of varying the style of one's speech according to its purpose or social
context; e.g. formal address vs casual speech

•consonant
•/ˈkɒnsənənt/
•a sound characterized by constriction or closure at one or more points of the speech tract
•vowel
•/ˈvaʊəl/
•speech sound characterized by total absence of obstruction to the airflow. It is usually the
dominant and central part of the syllable.
consonant clusters
eg. /sps/, /cts/, /sts/

•continuant
•/kənˈtɪnjʊənt/
•referring to a consonant that may be prolonged indefinitely rather than having the finite duration
of a stop /v/, /m/, /l/
drawl
/drɔːl/
term denoting the lengthening of vowels, or their diphthongization, as occurs in some dialects

•voiced (vs. unvoiced = voiceless)
•/vɔɪst/
•refering to sounds that do  involve the vibration of the vocal cords
•
•Ben - pen; do – to; van - fan; gin - chin; zoo - Sue
•devoiced
•/diːˈvɔɪsd/
•referring to a normally voiced consonant losing some or all of its voicing, as often occurs to
final voiced consonants.

•elision
•/ɪˈlɪʒ(ə)n/
•omission
•
•They should do it.
• /ðeɪ ʃə 'duː ɪt/
•stupidly
• /'stju:pɪlɪ/
•next day
• /neksday/
•
•liaison
•/liˈeɪz(ə)n/
•linking; the strategy of using the final sound of one word to initiate the following

•dark /l/
•/dɑː(r)k el/
•sometimes called a velarized /l/. You will note the difference in quality between the two /l/
sounds in RP and GenAm leak and call. The latter contains dark /l/.
•trill
•/trɪl/
•refers chiefly to /r/ sounds in some languages and dialects involving multiple taps of the tongue
/ʙ/, /ʀ/, /r/
•
•
•http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/consonants.html

•hypercorrect
•/ˌhaɪpə(r)kəˈrekt/
•referring to how we sometimes overcompensate in correcting our mispronunciations while learning a
foreign language, or in changing our dialects
•reverse mistake
•/rɪˈvɜːs mɪsteɪk/
•conscious of a potential mistake, we make a correction where none is needed French - elision of
/h/ --> put it where not needed

•inflection
•/ɪnˈflekʃ(ə)n/
•the way that the sound of your voice goes up and down when you speak eg. rising/falling inflection
•pitch
•/pɪtʃ/
•the relative musical note of an utterance
prosody
[ˈprɒsədɪ]
the aspect of an utterance that has to do with duration, pitch, and stress, i.e., its
supra-segmental qualities, or its qualities that go beyond a description of its phonetic segments.

•post-vocalic
•/pəʊst ˈvəʊ.k ə lɪk/
•after a vowel
•pre-vocalic
•/pri: ˈvəʊ.k ə lɪk/
•before a vowel
tongue-bunching
refers to one among several strategies for creating the sound of /r/. Research shows that some
people curl their tongues up and back while others simply bunch up the center of their tongues to
produce the same effect. Lip-rounding and tongue root tension can also enhance our perception of
rhoticity

•r-coloration = vocalic R = rhoticized
•/ɑ:r ˌkʌl.əˈreɪ.ʃ ə n/
•refers mostly to vowels that may be "colored" in a given dialect by the following /r/
•butter, nurse, mother, worm
•released – unreleased
•/rɪˈliːst/
•may refer to a plosive fully completed by the speaker, where the pent-up air is released; as
opposed to one where only the stop stage is present, with no audible release.

•signature sounds
•/ˈsɪg.nɪ.tʃə r saʊnd /
•term referring to sounds that are the "footprint" of a dialect, serving to sum up its distinct
differences from other dialects
•tone
•/təʊn/
•usually refers to quality or "tone of voice", i.e. harsh, soft, nasal, denasal, etc.

•stress(ed) - unstressed
•/strest/
•referring to those syllables in an utterance receiving emphasis, signaled by extra duration, a
jump in pitch, extra loudness, or a combination of all three
•
•pronunciation: /prəˌnʌnsiˈeɪʃ(ə)n/
•weak form
•/wiːk fɔːm/
•refers to the change that may happen to a word when it occurs in an unstressed position.
•"Have some more." - "No, some people complained.”
•/ˈhæv səm 'mɔ:/ - /nəʊ ˈsʌm pi:pl kəm'pleɪnd/
•(more about weak forms at minerva.ublog.cl/archivos/1885/weak_forms.pdf)

•linking /r/
•/lɪŋkɪŋ/
•word-final post-vocalic /r/ introduced as a linking form when the following word beginns with a
vowel my dear Anna /maɪ dɪər ʼænə/
•linking [j, w]
•/lɪŋkɪŋ/
•in vocalic junctures where the first word ends with /i:/, /ɪ/, /eɪ/, /aɪ/, /ɔɪ/ (or /u:/, /əʊ/,
/aʊ/) a slight linking [j] ( or [w]) can be heard between two vowels annoy Arthur; my ears [ənɔɪ
ʼjɑ:θə]; [maɪ ʼjɪəz] now and then [naʊ wənd ʼðen]

•lexical set
•/ˈleksɪk(ə)l set/
•a set of words all employing the same phonetic vowel, regardless of spelling bulb, sun, son,
country, enough, blood, does
minimal pair
/ˈmɪnɪm(ə)l peə(r)/
a pair of words differing in only one phoneme; eg. pit, peat[pɪt pit]