12
votes
Unaspirated plosives vs their voiced counterparts
For many languages, distinctions in aspiration and voicing mostly come down to a single parameter: the "voice onset time". In other words, do the vocal chords start vibrating before the ...
- 57.5k
12
votes
Pronunciation of D sound in British English
American English speakers tend to reduce /d/ to a flapped [ɾ] between vowels, while British English speakers generally don't. This means an RP /d/ can sound a lot "stronger" than an American ...
- 57.5k
10
votes
Accepted
Any languages that consider the alveolar and uvular trill distinct consonant phonemes?
Phoible is a useful database for phonological questions containing more than 3000 inventories for more than 2000 languages
They have just 19 inventories with a /ʀ/ (i.e. with a phonemic uvular trill). ...
- 5,652
10
votes
Pronunciation of D sound in British English
In the examples you cite, there is no [d] in most dialects of American English, it is replaced with the flap [ɾ]. Thus "writer" and "rider" are phonetically identical, though given ...
- 73k
8
votes
Accepted
Where can I find a list of phonetically possible consonant clusters?
There aren't any "phonetically impossible clusters". If you can articulate [ʔ], you can do that and they articulate [k], followed by [q], then [g], and so on. "Phonetically impossible&...
- 73k
7
votes
Accepted
Why is phonemic labialization often found only on dorsal consonants?
The explanation is based on phonetics. A back (velar or uvular) constriction causes the second formant to be low, as does rounding. Together, labiovelars have a very low F2, and that results in a very ...
- 73k
7
votes
Accepted
Affrication-like sound in palatal plosive [c]
Having acoustically inspected these tokens as well as online tokens from Esling and Ladefoged, I notice that all performers have a longer voice onset time (around 20 msc, varying according to ...
- 73k
6
votes
Evidence of connections between f0 and a physiological parameter?
Well, yes and no.
Vocal F0 range is mainly determined by the length and thickness of the vocal folds. Inasmuch as neck circumference correlates with the size of the vocal folds inside the neck, you ...
- 5,952
5
votes
Accepted
proper terms for tipper and dipper S articulation
The technical terms in articulatory phonetics for "tipper" and "dipper" are apical and laminal.
They are both voiceless alveolar fricatives (IPA: [s]), but since "alveolar" only describes the passive ...
- 4,796
5
votes
How can we get the precise articulation resulted from adding diacritics?
An introductory textbook in phonetics will give an elementary description of the phonetic properties denoted by diacritics. This should include some information about how a "palatalized" consonant is ...
- 73k
5
votes
Formant frequencies of consonants
All segments were given an acoustic definition in the feature theories of Jakobson, Fant & Halle (1951) and Jakobson & Halle (1956). Many of the features were passed down to Chomsky & ...
- 73k
4
votes
Are the vowel charts of male and female the same regardless of scale?
Because females typically have a shorter vocal tract compared to males, one might expect that you can normalize formant frequencies to factor out differences owing to physical differences. This paper ...
- 73k
4
votes
Accepted
Diagram of all IPA sound places
No, for a couple of reasons. First, this is not an diagram of a language sound (it's an open mouth), but there are such drawings, in the old days known as cutaway Sammy, purporting to be particular ...
- 73k
4
votes
Accepted
Dental and labiodental fricatives with different relative positions of the articulators
Such contrasts are not attested in any known language. In the case of the two kinds of labiodentals, the distinction would be auditorily unlearnable since the acoustic consequences are negligible. ...
- 73k
4
votes
Accepted
Can a single vowel (or consonant) be pronounced in multiple ways (different place/manner of articulation)
I don't think there is much hope for reconstructing what the instructor was talking about based on your recollection, and asking him is your best bet. However, there is a somewhat well-known fact that ...
- 73k
4
votes
Accepted
The difference between [w] and [u] (especially between the states of the lips)
The sounds [u] and [w] really do resemble each other, just as [u] and [o] resemble each other: resemblance is weaker than identity. I don't know what the actual problem is that Russian language ...
- 73k
4
votes
Accepted
Phonetic characters of Arabic emphatic consonants
"Co-articulation" and/or "double articulation" is something the IPA has a hard time representing. And to a first approximation, [s͜ħ] isn't wrong. ص does indeed involve two constrictions, one up in ...
- 57.5k
4
votes
Do voiceless approximants exist? What is the consensus among phoneticians/phonologists?
The phonological answer is pretty brief, since "approximant" is a phonetic terms, not a phonological one. The phoneticians category of "approximant" doesn't correspond to any phonological category, ...
- 73k
4
votes
Accepted
Dental plosive with no apical obstruction
I have not seen all papers in phonology, but I don't think that a bidental plosive or a bidental stop (that would be technical terms for that sound) was ever described in literature. A bidental ...
- 27.7k
4
votes
Accepted
Dental plosives without top teeth
The apex of the tongue against the lower teeth does not block the airflow enough to make a plosive. The tongue against the front of the palate right behind where the teeth would be (the alveolar ridge)...
- 2,334
4
votes
Any languages that consider the alveolar and uvular trill distinct consonant phonemes?
Another example is (certain Eritrean dialects of) Tigrinya. There is a trill which can be transcribed in IPA as [r], a clear alveolar trill, which is phonologically /R:/ (using "R" to unify ...
- 73k
4
votes
Is there any articulatory difference between these two IPA symbols?
In theory, the IPA symbol ɲ is a palatal nasal stop, which means there's a complete closure blocking airflow through the mouth (near the palate), and all the airflow is exclusively through the nose. ...
- 57.5k
4
votes
What is the relationship between on-glide/off-glide of a phone and the transition period between articulation of phones?
There are two candidate terms. One is "coarticulation", which focuses on the articulatory cause of the transitional acoustic properties that exist in sounds in sequence. The other is "...
- 73k
4
votes
Unaspirated plosives vs their voiced counterparts
It depends on what language you are talking about, what language you speak, and whether you are talking about phonological analysis, or physical implementation.
Terminologically speaking, we usually ...
- 73k
3
votes
Can a single vowel (or consonant) be pronounced in multiple ways (different place/manner of articulation)
There is a stage art called ventriloquism where this indeed happens. A ventriloquist needs to articulate some replacement sound for sounds involving visible labial movement (e.g., /b, p, w, v, m/) ...
- 27.7k
3
votes
Is there a variation in the point of articulation for the alveolar tap depending on word?
When we say "the alveolar this" or "the velar that", we're seldom talking about a sound with absolutely only one possible articulation but a whole class of similar sounds whose differences are not ...
- 4,796
3
votes
Accepted
Disambiguating place vs Manner of articulation
You can't represent a manner graphically because... it's a manner, not a thing. By the way, you better think of manner in terms of "type of obstacle". Indeed, all sounds need a stream of air to be ...
- 2,513
3
votes
Accepted
Voiced fricatives are just breathy approximants?
I would be surprised if your native language has these phonemes, which suggests that they are the result of you attempting to produce sounds based on instructions in a phonetics class. If not, you ...
- 73k
3
votes
Accepted
Should secondary articulation in front of the uvular nasal have a sonic effect?
I suggest recording and measuring your measurements (but be careful to not totally believe the numbers). I found that in all cases including [n] vs. [nʷ], there was some difference in formants, though ...
- 73k
3
votes
Accepted
Formant frequencies of consonants
Unfortunately, the answer is no.
The space of vowels is continuous: given any two vowels, you can find a midpoint between them, and that's also a perfectly valid vowel that people can pronounce.
But ...
- 57.5k
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