Questions tagged [phonetics]
The study of the production and perception of sounds or "phones".
97
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15answers
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What's the difference between phonetics and phonology?
Having practiced armchair linguistics for some years I should be able to sum up the difference off the top of my head, yet often I don't know which term to use.
And looking them up on Wikipedia doesn'...
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23answers
21k views
Is there a language whose writing is 100% phonemic?
Is there a language that has a complete one-to-one correspondence between the graphemes (letters) and the phonemes of the language?
In other words, is there a language that is 100% ideally phonemic?
13
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9answers
7k views
Textbook suggestions for syntax, semantics/pragmatics and phonetics/phonology
I am coming to linguistics from a completely non-linguistic background; I was a mathematician. Next year I will start taking some serious (Master's level) linguistics courses and I would like to have ...
7
votes
2answers
760 views
Understanding Voiced Consonants
I've been having some trouble understanding how is it that what differentiates, for example, /p/ from /b/, is the vibration of the vocal chords, present in /b/, but not in /p/. From what I have read ...
9
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3answers
9k views
How to determine which phoneme a group of allophones realizes?
This question is related to this other one, about the difference between Phonetics and Phonology.
I can understand the difference between the two subfields as well as what it means to produce ...
9
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4answers
1k views
Does English language stand special in terms of phonology?
I am a native Russian speaker.
When I am listening to songs and music in other languages, which I do not know, such as Italian, Romanian, Greek, Bulgarian, and even Japanese, Finnish, Kyrgyz and ...
6
votes
2answers
844 views
What is the phonetic and phonemic destinction between a semivowel and a vowel?
I have read several articles that claim that phonemically, /j/ and /i/ are the same and distinguished from each other by being syllabic or not. What confuses me is that I can hear the difference ...
6
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1answer
1k views
How do sentence intonation and (syllable-based) tone interact in tone languages?
Tone languages use intonation to distinguish words. For example, in Mandarin Chinese
mā with a mid tone means mom
mǎ with a rising tone means horse
Intonation languages do not make such distinctions....
3
votes
1answer
351 views
Why is [f] ambiguous between [f] and [s] after saying the word <three>?
I used an automated customer service system that requires reading off one's case id. The case id I had included the sequence "3F."
The speech recognition software was only tripped up by that "F,"...
2
votes
1answer
499 views
What is the first formant (F1) dependent on in reference to the vocal tract?
From the resolved exercise below, it is mentioned F2 is related to the pharynx cavity and F3 is related to the front cavity.
F1 is calculated taking into account the whole shape of the vocal tract. I ...
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10answers
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When should one use slashes or square brackets when transcribing in IPA?
When should one use /fubar/ and when [fubar] when transcribing in IPA? What are the differences?
17
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4answers
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Automated French/Italian/German to IPA transcription
I'm looking for a website or software that will take text written in a source language and produce a transcription in IPA. The languages I am interested in are French, Italian and German, but if you ...
17
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3answers
4k views
Why vowels sound different from each other
This might be a basic question but I am confused about how mouth shapes for vowels, at a deeper level, are producing different sounds. Wanted to see if one could demonstrate with another instrument ...
16
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4answers
7k views
How do tones work in music sung in tonal languages, such as Cantonese or Mandarin Chinese?
I have not yet studied tonal languages, so it might be understandable, but when I listen to Chinese music, for example, I'm unable to perceive tones. This makes me think they are partially or ...
10
votes
3answers
12k views
Is a diphthong one phoneme or two, or does it depend?
In Mitch's answer to "What is the difference between a diphthong and a glide?" and its comments it seems more than one of us is at least a bit confused as to how many phonemes a single diphthong ...
13
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3answers
1k views
What's the evidence for and against isochrony?
The question
What evidence is currently known that favors or disfavors the hypothesis that a regular beat of some kind—that is, an “isochrony”—plays some important role in languages?
I've run across ...
9
votes
2answers
354 views
Simultaneity in natural languages?
Is there any known natural language in which it is possible to express grammatically—i.e., not through emotional tone or other secondary traits—multiple parallel channels of meaning? Parallel ...
8
votes
4answers
6k views
Correct syllabification in (American) English
I need to figure out what the proper syllabification of words in American English is and why. PLEASE NOTE: I am interested in syllabification from a phonetic point of view, not in terms of hyphenation/...
2
votes
3answers
572 views
Identifying phonemic boundaries in Praat
I am trying to segment some connected speech in Praat, and want to get the boundaries between phonemes as accurate as possible. I am finding that in many cases, one sound blends into another and it's ...
13
votes
1answer
302 views
Whispering in languages heavily dependent on pitch or phonation distinctions
When whispering in English all (segmental) phonological distinctions can – as far as I am aware – still be made, which may be due to redundancy (or simply because voicing is optional). I even ...
9
votes
1answer
842 views
How can I differentiate between syllable-initial [ɣ] and [ə] using Praat or other software?
I am currently studying Amdo Tibetan. In this language the voiced velar fricative [ɣ] is reported to occur as the first sound in some syllable-initial consonant clusters. More specifically, this sound ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
What is the phonetic reason for the occurence Sun and Moon letters in Arabic?
In Arabic, letters (or more accurately phonemes) are categroised into two categories: Sun letter and Moon letter in regard to what happen if we add Al (the) to them.
Moon letters don't cause any ...
9
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4answers
2k views
Why are only yes/no questions asked with a rising tone?
There is a rule used almost subconsciously by almost all English speakers (and I'm sure it applies to many other languages too) which is that yes/no questions are asked ending with a rising tone, and ...
0
votes
4answers
947 views
Why is the “long i” sound in English written /aɪ/?
The "long i" sound in English, as in "fight" is usually written /aɪ/, so fight = /faɪt/.
But /a/ is the sound in "hat", and /ɪ/ is the sound in "hit". When I say the two together it doesn't sound ...
0
votes
2answers
180 views
Some questions on how I pronounce “l” [closed]
I hope you can help as I'm teaching English overseas and I want to teach the standard pronunciation to students. I have a South African accent but I am starting to get paranoid and wonder if I ...
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votes
1answer
70 views
What is the difference between tense vowel and vowel with diacritic “:”?
I'm learning the vowel part of phonology. It says the cardinal vowel "i" is tense. But what is the difference between this cardinal "i" and "i:"? They are both tense, right?
20
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2answers
31k views
Why is /h/ called voiceless vowel phonetically, and /h/ consonant phonologically?
Why is /h/ called voiceless vowel phonetically, and /h/ consonant phonologically?
10
votes
2answers
555 views
Do voiceless approximants exist? What is the consensus among phoneticians/phonologists?
Voiceless sounds that are produced with supralaryngeal configurations that would be considered approximants if voiced are attested in languages (i.e. [j̊], [l̥], etc.), but none are found to contrast ...
8
votes
2answers
1k views
How languages compare with the number of different syllables from all words?
Note: I am not a linguist, please provide any corrections for terminology.
I would like to find some approximate data (if it exists) comparing several languages with the number of different syllables ...
12
votes
4answers
4k views
Why are /t/ and /d/ sometimes affricated before /ɹ/ in English?
I saw a post on ELU about a more general question, Softened pronunciation of consonants, such as “t” or “s” followed by “y”. The question was answered in regard to palatalization, especially for ...
12
votes
7answers
40k views
What is the difference between voiced and voiceless stop consonants?
As a native speaker of American English, when I was listening to the difference sounds in this IPA chart, I was really surprised when I realized that I could not differentiate between p/b, t/d, and k/...
12
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1answer
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IPA transcription of the American English “bunched” /r/
There are 2 common articulations of /r/ and /r̩/ in American English, one retroflex, and the other dorsal. This phone is called the molar or bunched r. It can be described roughly as a back-palatal or ...
11
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3answers
5k views
Common problems in second language pronunciation
Transfer of some phonetic/phonological features from the first language to a second language is common in second language acquisition. For example, aspiration is not phonemic in English. Voiceless ...
6
votes
1answer
1k views
Apical postalveolar approximant [ɹ̺] and retroflex approximant [ɻ]: What is the difference?
English [ɹ] has two realizations: apical and bunched (aka molar). ExtIPA (extensions to the IPA) thus recommends the use of [ɹ̺] and [ɹ̈] to differentiate the two. But I also often see English /r/ ...
15
votes
1answer
654 views
Can all languages be “whispered” equally well?
Watching a movie recently I found I couldn't make out the dialogue because it was all whispered.
I turned the volume up, and had no problems hearing everything. It seems to me that all words are ...
13
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2answers
2k views
About the Swedish /ɧ/
Swedish has quite a peculiarity that I haven't found (yet) in other languages. There are some spellings that are pronounced all the same way. Currently the number of these spellings is disputed, but ...
8
votes
3answers
12k views
Does sample text exist that includes most English sounds represented by the International Phonetic Alphabet?
My understanding of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is that it aims to provide a set of letter-based values that represent and map to fundamental sounds present in human languages.
My ...
8
votes
4answers
1k views
What are the current hurdles to automatic audio to IPA transcription?
I have heard several people tell me that automatic segmentation and transcription to (narrow) IPA of fieldwork-quality audio is impossible at the moment, and even from laboratory-quality audio ...
8
votes
2answers
2k views
Rules for glottal stop insertion across languages
Many languages lack phonemic glottal stops, but regularly insert them. For example:
English invariably inserts glottal stops before utterance-initial vowels, and often before word-initial vowels when ...
6
votes
3answers
4k views
The “writer / rider” distinction
In some dialects of English (for example: General American), “writer” is said to be pronounced differently from “rider” due to the following two phonological rules (done in this order):
Vowels are ...
5
votes
2answers
194 views
Do languages generally tend to avoid palindromic syllables?
E.g. /knank stjajts smoms/ even they do follow the Sonority Sequencing Principle
5
votes
1answer
821 views
Are there tonal languages which use a rising intonation for questions?
I know that in the case of Mandarin Chinese questions do not end with any kind of rising tone unless the last morpheme in the sentence happens to have a rising tone.
For questions which don't contain ...
5
votes
1answer
309 views
Click consonant development
Can click consonants arise from non-click consonants?Or are they an original feature of all languages that was lost in the majority of them and only retained in few?
4
votes
3answers
624 views
Are there counterparts to phones and phonetics for signed languages?
Given that there is a difference between phonetics and phonology, and that in the study of signed languages cherology is the counterpart to phonology, are there also counterparts to phones and ...
3
votes
1answer
413 views
Is Daniel Jones' cardinal vowel system auditorily or articulatorily based?
Two of my textbooks said it was the former, while one pointed it was both. No further details about the truthfulness of these affirmatives were given. I personally think is auditorily and ...
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2answers
267 views
English stress, abstract analysis
I am reading introductory phonology by Bruce Hayes, in chapter 12 he proposed an abstract analysis for English stress.Based on his proposed a word like cassette has been through a process like below:
...
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3answers
2k views
When should I use /ə/ or /ɪ/ and why does it seem like they're not used correctly?
So I'm trying to learn the vowel sounds of the IPA, and I'm looking at the words "temerity" and "moment" in AmE. What is especially confusing is that first word, where wiktionary lists the ...
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3answers
4k views
Why does stop VOT duration vary depending on place of articulation?
From the (albeit citation needed) section of the Wikipedia article on aspiration:
Spanish /p t k/, for example, have voice onset times (VOTs) of about 5, 10, and 30 milliseconds, whereas English /p ...
14
votes
3answers
3k views
Whispered Voiced Consonants
Is there a difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants when whispering, which as I understand it, does not use the vocal cords? I know it sounds silly to ask because we can all understand ...
9
votes
4answers
2k views
Why in English words is [o] followed by [ʊ]?
The close-mid back rounded vowel is, according to Wikipedia, "usually diphthongized to [oʊ]".
Examples: row, also.
In fact, in the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary I didn't see o ...
