Questions tagged [phonetics]
The study of the production and perception of sounds or "phones".
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Volume and speed of exhaled air in different languages
In the days of COVID-19 people are concerned with breath and speech micro-droplets and how far they travel without a mask.
This video I saw in Twitter, posits that Japanese people have it better ...
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How can I learn to produce "harsh voice"
I'd like to work on my ability to identify creaky and harsh voice. Creaky voice is not a huge problem - I already have a reasonable idea of what that sounds like and there are a million YT videos ...
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How much intra-speaker variation is there in the cardinal vowels?
I realise that the cardinal vowels are supposed to be fixed points of reference, but then we don’t all have exactly the same equipment. I am wondering whether vowel frontness etc. is really defined (...
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What is the dividing line between phonetics and phonology? [duplicate]
From my understanding, Phonetics is the study of physical aspect of sounds, including how sounds are produced (articulatory phonetics), how they are perceived (auditory phonetics) and the physics ...
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Characterising a difference in the realisation of a vowel
When I've looked at Thai in the past I've noticed that there is something different about the vowel transcribed as /ʉ/ or /ɯ/ when it follows certain consonants, especially /m/. The same goes for the ...
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What is the difference between “ɪ”, "i", “i:”? [duplicate]
What is the difference between “ɪ”, "i", “i:”? Is “ɪ” lax and short, "i" tense and short, "i:" tense and long?
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Why is the vowel speech sound (called "ash") in "Tank" and "Cat" considered the same?
The vowel in "Tank" sounds more like ɛ to me, yet the IPA spelling for "Tank" (as pronounced in General American English) employs the ash [æ] to represent the vowel. The same for the word "thank" in ...
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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?
user27687
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Phonemes with complementing allophones
Assume the following example:
In its phoneme set, language X has the vowel /e/ which corresponds to the phone [e], except when followed by /r/, in which case it is realized as the phone [æ].
At the ...
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Is there software (eg. desktop or mobile app) out there that helps learners learn all the sounds of the world with the IPA?
I wished there was one where the app would synthesise a sound for some phoneme X, displaying the IPA symbol at the same time, then ask the user to repeat the sound, which the software checks for the ...
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Semi-nasalization of the preceding vowel
In this French Wikipedia article on the pronunciation of Occitan, semi-nasalization of the preceding vowel is mentioned. For example, from the table of consonants:
-n final
muet en général ([n] dans ...
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Strange Vocal Trills (L, Th, and Q)
I’m currently spending my quarantine working on the language for my novel. The language is alien-like, so I wanted to make it extremely difficult in it’s phonology. There are several trills. The ...
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Why is there (almost) no variety to the Hebrew accent in Israel?
Hebrew is my native language, and I grew up and spent most of my life in Israel.
Unlike English, in Hebrew we don't have a variety of accents. In fact, generally all of the people in Israel have the ...
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Is there a software solution to create sets of stimuli for a listening experiment?
I have a set of recordings of speakers of two different languages pronouncing certain sounds. Specifically, I have recordings of 6 speakers of language A, and 6 speakers of language B, 3 male and 3 ...
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What might explain this change in place of articulation? [closed]
I'd like to know if there's anything about /patitʰin/ that suggests itself as a reason why it might sometimes be pronounced [patikʰin]. I don't know what other words to look at to see if there's a ...
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Does a synchronically reduced or diachronically changed trill /r/ often become an [ɾ] rather than [ʐ] and why?
In the phonology of a series of languages, /r/ exists as a trill, and is reduced into a flap in informal speeches or in a syllable-final position. Why is it happened to be a flap, not a fricative?
I ...
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What is it called when a person pronounces the letter t in the word "metal" as something more similar to a d sound?
What is it called when a person pronounces the letter t in the word "metal" as something more similar to a d sound? And what is it called when a person stresses the t in the word "metal" to be more ...
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Distinguishing between [s] and [ʪ] in spectrogram
Is there is a way to differentiate between [s] and [ʪ] using spectral analysis (Pratt or spectrum view or any other software)? Is there is any particular pattern that only appears with the [ʪ]?
[ʪ] ...
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Labialised /r/ in RP
Is /r/ in RP labialised in all positions?
For example: In words like real, free, proud, tree, brother, borrow, dream, throw etc.
Is it labialised in all positions (like intervocalic, post-...
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Oral posture and articulatory settings
It seems that there is a lot that remains to be discovered about the vocal tract and that, in any case, it would be horrendously complicated to try to derive the setup of all the articulators just ...
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American production of /ɾ/ in other languages
Why is it common for Americans who study foreign languages to keep producing /ɾ/ as a retroflex sound, even though [ɾ] is present in their pronunciation of native words like city and water?
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What is the maximum possible number of formants?
I'm planning to make my own virtual singer software, like Yamaha's Vocaloid. Contrary to Vocaloid which composes voice syllable-wise, my software should compose voice phoneme-wise.
As a consequence, ...
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Do the DRESS vowel (/e/) and SQUARE vowel (/ɛː/) have the same vowel quality in contemporary RP?
I understand that the SQUARE vowel is now often realized as the long monophthong /ɛː/ instead of the traditional diphthong /eə/ in contemporary RP. The DRESS vowel is now also closer to the open-mid ...
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Determining tongue root position
As far as I'm aware, languages which do not have contrastive tongue root advancement/retraction can still differ in terms of tongue root position. Are there any acoustic measurements that can be used ...
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What's the right phonetic transcription of the word man?
Is it [mɛən] or [mæən] ?
I've seen both of them in some videos; however, I'm not really sure Which one of them truly represents the sound (with the æ raising).
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What should the phonological rules be for this alternation?
I'm a graduate student from Korea. :) May I ask you guys a question about phonology?
In the data, divinity and divine, what are the phonological rule and phonological mechanisms for the alternation ...
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How to analyze these data with Optimality Theory?
I'm a graduate student from Korea. As a novice in the field of phonology, I've been confused about analysis using Optimality Theory for a long time. Could you guys help me with this question?
In fast ...
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Are there any recent studies on vowels of PRS?
Consonants and their phenomena are well studied for PRS (Puerto Rican Spanish). However, vowels and their phenomena are less well known. Known vowel phenomena in the dialect are unstressed/final vowel ...
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What (if anything) can be inferred about the way a vowel is articulated from the fact that it has well defined higher formants?
I've been experimenting with analysing vowels in Praat. Sometimes it shows a clear F4 (which seems to mean that F4 has a narrow bandwidth - I don't know whether amplitude comes into it as well) and ...
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Displaying formants in real time
Is anybody aware of an app that will show vowel formants in real time (or more or less)? I know there are apps that will give you a spectrogram, but I can't read the output quickly or accurately ...
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Voice pitch changing between languages
I speak English natively, but I have learned Spanish to a high level of proficiency and speak Latvian (still learning) with my wife who speaks Latvian natively and English with native proficiency (...
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How to write phonology rules using features?
Is there a way to write the following phonology rule using features?
The /u/ becomes [ɯ] word-finally when preceded with an unrounded vowel with 1 or more intervening consonants. .
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Are there correlations between specific geographic and phonetic features? [duplicate]
Langauges that are closer to eachother geographically tend to share features.
However, can it be said that language communities in distant but geographically similar regions tend to have similar ...
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does F3 correspond to any articulatory features?
when describing vowels, increased F2 implies that the tongue is more front, and increased F1 implies that the tongue is more low. Does F3 correspond to anything, articulation wise?
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Why does the NATO Spelling alphabet contain words with more than two syllables
I always wondered why the NATO Spelling Alphabet has words with three syllables in it. I know it was extensively researched, so there must be a reason, but it seems odd to me.
One syllable seems ...
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Is the reduction or disappearance of alveolar trill [r] a cross-linguistical phenomenon?
The sound [r] has become several other sounds, such as in English [ɹ], French [ʁ], Norwegian [ɾ] etc., while it is still widely found in the languages world-wide.
Besides, are there any assumed ...
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Where to download phonetic word list for Dutch/ Nederlandse fonetische woordenlijst downloaden
I cannot find phonetic word lists / dictionaries online for Dutch.
Please provide me with a url.
What do you use?
What is available?
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Dental plosives without top teeth
I have practically never had my front right tooth because of skateboarding, and even before that I crawled off onto a parking block - after that I learned Vietnamese without retroflexing the S. Now im ...
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Dental plosive with no apical obstruction
Can I have a paper which describes dental plosives by the two rows of teeth as opposed to contacting the dental area with the tongue ?? I mean the air needs obstructed and the posterior most place of ...
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Where to download phonetic word list for English
I need phonetic word lists / dictionaries for English.
I did not assume that this would be hard to find online.
What do you use?
What is available?
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What is a natural class in phonology? How to use phonological features to identify classes?
What are natural classes in phonology? Can phonological features make a set of segments a natural class?
For example, is there any way to make a natural class out of the set:
[k, x, q,χ]?
What ...
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What are partially voiced stops (as in Danish)?
In researching the Danish language, I've read about a series of stops [b̥ d̥ ɡ̊]. What are those? Apparently they are different from the commonplace voiced stops [b d ɡ] and the voiceless stops [p t k]...
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Has the Russian way of pronunciation been affected by frost?
I am a student learning both English and Russian, and I find the Russian pronunciation to be very different from the English one. A few months ago I made a detailed post on the Linguistics SE to ...
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Equivalent “окающие и акающие" translation in the English language?
It's a question from phonetics and it's (I hope you recognized it) from Russian language “окающие и акающие, секающие и шекающие".
I've tried versions like “retaining the unstressed “o” and “a” and ...
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Does [s] before [b] always become [z]?
There is a Persian word اسبابكشی asbābkeši and it is quite difficult to stick strictly to the transcription saying there is [s] before [b]. The assimilation of [s] to [z] before a voiced stop is ...
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What is this Cree sound in IPA?
https://nehiyo.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/uy-uyiwak.mp3
I have been trying to find an equivalent to this sound. The language is Canadian Plains Cree. It's not "i" as in bite or fight.
Is there an ...
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What do these subscripts/superscripts mean in IPA?
Here is an example of a sentence from the Glossika course in Taiwanese Hokkien:
The "Phonics" line is the IPA line. (The "Typing" line is the Tâi-lô romanization; I don't know where the "...
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In what circumstances is d devoiced in English?
I have noticed that speakers of languages which have /d/ and (unaspirated) /t/ as distinct consonants are sometimes unsure whether my natural pronunciation of the English name "Dan" starts with a /d/ ...
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Are the nasal portions of prenasalized consonants syllabic?
Prenasalized consonants occur in a number of natural languages. https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Prenasalized_consonant
When I hear someone pronounce a word that begins with a prenasalized consonant, ...
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Past of verbs such as "long" and "wing" [closed]
Assuming their past is regular, are they pronounced as /wɪŋd/ and /lɑːŋd/ or does a [gd] surface at the end?
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