Questions tagged [phonetics]
The study of the production and perception of sounds or "phones".
788
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Which sounds in spanish sound louder: vowels or consonants?
I think vowels but I'm not so sure. I'm neither sure if vocal cords are what makes a phone be more audible and so what makes vowels be more audible than consonants or some of them.
5
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1answer
173 views
Evolution of [v] to [b] and vice versa
There are many examples that show that two phones [v] and [b] are related:
b
v
Meaning
Old English to New English
* habban
have
have
Middle Persian to New Persian
varan
baran
rain
Middle Persian ...
2
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0answers
68 views
What is the origin of the pronunciation difference between 'replicate' (noun) and 'replicate' (verb)?
In English, the noun 'replicate' is pronounced with a schwa (ə) at the end while the verb is pronounced with the diphthong 'eɪ'. The same is true for the word 'duplicate'. Is there a more general ...
2
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0answers
67 views
Intuitive phonemic transcription systems for various languages
When a text or video about pronunciation is aimed at the average reader, it often doesn't use the IPA to represent sounds. Instead, it might talk about the "AW" sound as in law, the "AH&...
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2answers
46 views
How to extract specific data from a TextGrid file?
I'm new here. Just found that there is a linguistics community on stack exchange!
I have a TextGrid file that has been output from a forced aligner, webMAUS and I mainly want to understand how to ...
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0answers
29 views
Central – lateral dichotomy for labiodentals
In the IPA chart, there's no labiodental lateral approximant. The cell isn't even left blank, it's shaded out and therefore the articulation is judged impossible.
One of the explanations is (see, e.g.,...
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0answers
70 views
Diphthongoids and diphthongs
In Russian linguistics, there's a term дифтонгоид (diphthongoid). For example, in textbook Современный русский литературный язык (Modern Standard Russian) by S.V. Knjazev and S.K. Pozharitskaya, it is ...
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1answer
32 views
Identifying natural classes
After I Stated the phonetic environments in which the sounds [n] and [ŋ] appear.[from a list of words]
How should I identify natural classes of sounds that appear in the environments I’ve provided?
...
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1answer
37 views
VOT of word-final plosives?
Some arguments against its "existence" could be terminal devoicing (which doesn't happen in all languages), lack of a sonorant after the plosive since it's at the end of the word, or the ...
1
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1answer
33 views
Getting some mess when trying to “draw” a textgrid file in Praat
I created a textgrid file that looks like this:
Then when I select the audio file together with the textgrid file and click "Draw", I'm getting not what everyone would expect. I'm getting ...
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0answers
49 views
The possible sound change when /t/ sound is preceded by fricatives or affricatives
Here, I am talking about the assimilated /t/ sound that is one of the most common features of Standard Southern British English (such as /t/ at the beginning of a syllable, time, task, Twitter, twice, ...
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1answer
35 views
Phoneme production metrics
(Apologies in advance for the expected misuse of terminology; I am not a linguist. Please correct as appropriate.)
I am considering a Deep Learning language evolution experiment and would like to ...
3
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1answer
90 views
What is the difference between phone (speech sound) and a sound?
I am not sure if I am asking a question in the right site. I don't know know if I am even asking a biological, linguistic or physics question. But I recently started learning about language and its ...
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2answers
87 views
Why does /zd-/ require more effort even though both the consonants have the same voicing?
In most language, the rule for combining consonants is that they should have the same voice. For example: in English, a word can never start with /zt-/ but can start with /st-/. It's not that /zt-/ ...
2
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2answers
108 views
What is the exact position of the tongue for [ n ] in these circumstances?
Hi I am an English learner, and I recently had this question about pronouncing n sound. I understand the standard way of pronouncing n sound is to put my tongue behind the top teeth, however, when I ...
3
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1answer
31 views
Unmoving F1 / formant below F1?
I'm trying to understand some basics, hope this is an ok question.
Here's a recording of me producing /i/, /ɛ/, /a/: https://namakajiri.net/misc/i%c9%9ba.webm
nevermind the transition between the ...
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2answers
62 views
What cues would you look for in this spectrogram to figure out the word? [closed]
(It is produced in American English and the word is one syllable. The time scale is arbitrary so feel free to ignore it.)
I was wondering what cues everyone would look for when reading this, and ...
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1answer
78 views
Are there any attested languages with a VCV or VC syllable structure?
In Googling this question, I found out about Arrernte, which is arguably VC(C). Are there any other languages which have been argued to be a VCV language? And is there any reason why they're so rare ...
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1answer
119 views
How can the continuum s-sʲ-ç-ɕ-ʃ-ʂ be described in technical terms?
To me, it seems clear that there is a continuum between this group of sounds, as all of them (apart from ç, which I will touch on later in the post) are sibilants, and the only difference between them ...
10
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1answer
155 views
Why does Polish have male and female accents?
This is particularly interesting to me as I can't seem to find any information on the topic, but, having listened to numerous Polish speakers from both sexes, the male─female pronounciational split is ...
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3answers
104 views
What is the name of the category that describes the ways a number can be read?
About 6 days ago, I asked this question in the English Language and Usage section but have yet to receive any answer. In hindsight, the lack of answers is entirely understandable since that was not ...
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1answer
97 views
What is the difference between m̥, mʰ, and mʱ?
I am looking at Help:IPA/Nguni and Help:IPA/Welsh, and wondering what the exact difference is between these sounds, and if there are any good audio recordings (or if you can make one!) showing how ...
0
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1answer
77 views
Why there are few aspirated fricatives in the world?
Since there are many aspirated stops and affricatives in the world's languages, why there are few aspirated fricatives in the world? Are there any differences per se between them that make it hard to ...
3
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1answer
75 views
/ɫ/ interacting with /ɨ/ in Russian: Pharyngealized, uvularized or velarized?
In the Russian language:
/ɫ/ is pharyngealized
/ɨ/ velarizes the preceding consonant.
In words such as лысый, /ˈɫɨsɨj/, is ɫ velarized, uvularized or pharyngealized?
I was unable to find any ...
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0answers
78 views
What is the official/correct orthography for Alsatian / Elsässisch German?
As per the Wikipedia article on the Alsatian language (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsatian_dialect#Orthography) the orthography
includes the latin letters A,B,C ... X,Y,Z and the following vowels ...
0
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1answer
86 views
Is there Wis-consin and Wi-sconsin?
This is so subtle that I don't know if I'm imagining it. I think I hear two different pronunciations of this word. Are these really distinguishable? Wikipedia says /wɪ ˈskɒnsɪn/, but their audio link ...
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1answer
85 views
Does the English word 'six' violate the Sonority Sequencing Principle?
I'm aware that it's spellt with an X, however phonetically it's [ks]. According to the SSP, plosives should come after fricatives word-finally. Does the spelling with an x stop it from violating the ...
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1answer
43 views
Approximant and vowels
Are there vowels considered as approximants, since some linguists consider /iː/ as high glide?
I'm not sure of it but I remember I read an article about it.
3
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1answer
94 views
“Voiceless labialized velar plosive” or “labialized voiceless velar plosive”?
The /k/ in the word "cool" is often labialized i.e. round lips and is transcribed as [kʷ]. How do linguists say its name in phonetics?
Voiceless labialized velar plosive
or
labialized ...
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1answer
227 views
/t/ sound is pronounced like [ts] in British English
My question is about the sound /t/ being pronounced more like [ts] in British accent. For example,
The words like Tomato, Peter, water, task, Tom, talented, take the /t/ sound is definitely not ...
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2answers
127 views
What is the difference between a glide and a semivowel?
Is the following distinction made by this university lesson between glides and semivowels standard?:
Glides include speech sounds where the airstream is frictionless and is modified by the position ...
1
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1answer
73 views
Phonetic vs phonological consonants: What is the difference?
I come across such distinctions in quite a few places such as in this Wikipedia article, Voiceless glottal fricative, where it states: "The voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called voiceless ...
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0answers
24 views
Guessing phoneme duration for english words
Is there an existing method or dataset, which, given just a word in English (no context), could give a best guess as to how long to make each phoneme when recreating it as speech? Obviously the true ...
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0answers
33 views
Are voiced true nasal fricatives the same as breathy nasal stops?
True nasal fricatives, formerly known as nareal fricatives, are fricatives whose airflow is only through the nasal cavity. In extIPA, they are notated by [ ͋], e.g. [m͋].
That would mean the mouth is ...
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0answers
57 views
Differences in realization of intrusive-r and linking-r?
Are there any good papers that have investigated this? I seemed to notice this with some speakers on television that their intrusive-r's seemed less pronounced than their linking-r's.
I did find a ...
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4answers
144 views
are there any languages that have sounds in diphthongs that don’t occur in isolation?
essentially i am doing an assignment for class in which we are building a pretend vowel system for a pretend language based on sound files we are given. i had two diphthong files with 5 other files ...
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2answers
317 views
/ðæs saɪd/ versus /ɡʊb bɔɪ/ - Assimilation of place versus manner
Good day
I am facing a problem to distinguish between assimilation of place and assimilation of manner
So in Peter R's book he said that (AOM) is much less noticeable, and he provided examples which ...
2
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0answers
222 views
How to read a spectrogram?
I read some materials online How to Read a Spectrogram, Reading Spectrograms: Consonants, Reading Spectrograms: Vowels. I still have no idea how to analyze a spectrogram. Could anyone explain with the ...
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1answer
164 views
What causes a glottal stop after some silence before a vowel?
I recently asked a question Do we pronounce the vowel at the beginning of the word with a preceding glottal stop? on the English site and received a very good answer.
According to the answer on that ...
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1answer
51 views
Deruny, deruni or deryni? [closed]
What is the correct spelling of potato pancakes, If we take the Russian or Ukrainian origin of the word? Deruny, deruni or deryni?
A google search for the etymology says deryny
And Wikipedia:
Potato ...
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0answers
38 views
Terminology about elongating a monothong or a diphthong by duration and tone
Which terminology is applicable when a monothong or diphthong is elongated in duration and with a slightly higher pitch? Would it be vowel breaking or fracturing or something else?
Example 1 (...
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1answer
67 views
How to write these rules in features?
I was wondering how do you write these rules in features using the minimum number of features to describe the segment(s) targeted by the rule in the input. I am still super new to linguistics! Thank ...
2
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1answer
188 views
English speakers inserting R in French words
I teach French to people from various background and first languages, but one thing that most English speakers do (even very proficient ones sometimes) is adding R sounds in words. Saying 'droi' for &...
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1answer
95 views
Is my textbook wrong about phonetic transcription?
brand new here with (I hope) a simple question.
Yesterday I had my first linguistics class and the professor mentioned a difference between phonemic and phonetic transcription. He said for e.g. that a ...
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1answer
139 views
Why are sound changes regular?
Say, there is a word that used to be pronounced [ten] but gradually shifted to [tin]. I get it. There is always variety in how people pronounce words. Throw in some population dynamics, and the median ...
3
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2answers
184 views
Source to look up pronunciation of phonetic script
Can anyone recommend a book that a non-linguist can use to look up and pronounce words written in phonetic script?
For example, Wikipedia has this written down: "[ɛks’pɑzətɔri]". I want to ...
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3answers
968 views
What is the name of this sound change, and do we have it in English?
I'm a Persian, I'm from Iran, and I speak Farsi.
Here, we have a very strange rule that we turn آ into و in informal conversations.
For example:
خانه = house (formal) /kh a ne/
خونه = house (informal) ...
3
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2answers
401 views
Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate in english?
The "officially" voiceless alveolar-palatine affricate does not exist in English. But I can clearly hear it in the sentence "Ouch that hurt" (when the computer reads this sentence ...
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1answer
66 views
“Aesthetics” of languages/Categorisation by phonetics?
TL;DR: Are there any categories for comparing languages based on properties like vowel range and sonority, e.g. the amount of "hard" elements (plosives etc.) or syllable frequency/rate of ...
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2answers
146 views
Are there any languages in which meaning is formally embedded in the speed at which a word is spoken?
If such a language does exist I assume it would be difficult to teach or learn.
