1. Phonetics ~ Class 6
CD 233
Lisa Lavoie
(there is no class 5)

2. Today’s goals
Discuss exam
Recap course structure and progress
Learn the definition and major areas of
linguistics
Explore helpful linguistics concepts
Get ready to study Clinical Phonetics

3. The three chunks of our course
1. Broad transcription
2. Articulation
I’m including Linguistics here
3. Narrow transcription/variation

4. You’ve been learning how to:
Use phonetic symbols to transcribe
speech accurately
Listen to unfamiliar sounds and
categories of sounds (ear training)
Have you changed how you listen to
your world? To family? Friends?
Strangers?

5. The task of transcription
Seems clerical (it’s applied)
But you find order in chaos!
Transcription uncovers generalizations
that casual listening misses
Must continue ear training and accuracy
Must add articulatory component now

6. Where we go next
Now we move to how sounds are articulated
Both more embodied and more theoretical
Train your brain to understand the connection
between a change in articulation and the
change in sound so you can figure out what
people are doing to make the sounds you hear
Continue transcribing to make sense of
pronunciation variation

7. First, a stopover in linguistics
Scientific study of language
Well, what’s language?
A system that uses some physical sign
(sound, gesture, mark) to express meaning
Examples: spoken languages, signed
languages, computer programming
languages

8. Linguist Attitudes
Lisa says: “I’m not cooking for a chef.”
Others say: “I’m not talking for a
linguist.”
Sociologists don’t study how societies
should be, but rather how they are
Physiologists study athletic endeavors
but athletes carry them out

9. Humans: the only language users
Other animals communicate
Bees inform other bees where food is
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7ijI-g4jHg
Cats arch their backs to scare other cats
Chimps can learn primitive sign language to
communicate desires

10. Humans: the only language users
Humans can separate vocalization/signs
from a given situation (cats only arch
back in appropriate situation)
Humans can lie (animals only report)
Humans can speculate (animals are bad
at counterfactuals)

11. Is it really only humans?
Alex the African Grey Parrot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXoTaZotdHg
Washoe the Chimpanzee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V_rAY0g9DM
Koko the Gorilla
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuZ4OE6vCk

12. Three main parts of linguistics
Language form or structure = grammar
Language meaning = semantics
Language in context = pragmatics

13. What linguists do
Explicitly describe linguistic knowledge
Explain how linguistic knowledge is acquired
and how it is used

14. Language form = grammar
Parts of grammar
Phonology (sound structure)
Morphology (word structure)
Syntax (sentence structure)
& Semantics (language meaning)

15. Creativity of language
Linguistic knowledge enables all speakers to
be very creative (and consistent) using their
language
…produce & understand sentences they’ve
never heard before
…judge whether Ss belong to their language
…form new words from words they’ve never
heard before
…adjust foreign words to fit

16. Preludes to linguistics
Three dichotomies:
Prescriptive vs. descriptive
Competence vs. performance
Function word vs. content word
They help us see what’s systematic and
what’s idiosyncratic

17. Prescriptive vs. descriptive
Prescriptive grammar
 How you’re supposed to speak
 Holds people to a standard (often arbitrary)
 “Linguistic purism”
Descriptive grammar
 How people actually speak
 No value judgments attached

18. Be prescriptive … aggravate
It’s the endless wait for luggage that
aggravates me about air travel.
Getting hit on the head by a brick
aggravated my already painful
headache.

19. Be prescriptive … amount
The elephant drank an amazing amount
of water.
The elephant sprayed that water at an
amazing amount of spectators.

20. Be prescriptive … between
We shared the money between Anna,
Bob and me
The duck swam between the reeds
You’ll find my brain between my ears
The house was built between the pine
trees

21. Be prescriptive … hopefully
“Hopefully, I shall be spared the
guillotine,” thought the prisoner.
Hopefully, the prisoner approached the
guillotine. His hope was misplaced. So
was his head.

22. Be prescriptive … unique
Fenway Park is unique.
Massachusetts has many unique
baseball fields.
None of those may be more unique than
the field that Braintree High calls home

23. Competence vs. performance
Competence is the system of linguistic
knowledge possessed by native speakers of a
language (idealized)
Performance is the way the language system
is used in communication

24. How would you study that?
How would you study someone’s
linguistic competence?
How would you study someone’s
linguistic performance?
What kinds of constraints do you find on
each of these?

25. Content word vs. function word
Which words are which?
Open class vs. closed class
Special qualities of function words with
respect to phonetics and their ability to
reduce in connected speech

26. Content words
Content words are words that have a
culturally shared meaning in labeling an
object or action
Content words are necessary to convey
an idea to someone else
They are an “open” class

27. Function words are the glue
Function words are like thumbtacks. We
don’t notice thumbtacks; we look at the
calendar or poster they are holding up. If
we were to take the tacks away, the
calendar or poster would fall down.
From Aronoff & Fudeman

28. Take away the function words
And speech would be hard to
understand because we wouldn’t know
the relationships between words
What could these sentences be?
 people low self-esteem earned
 book children book kid read

29. With function words
“Most people with low self-esteem have
earned it.”
George Carlin
“Every book is a children's book if the kid
can read.” Mitch Hedberg

30. Function words reduce more
Phonemes: f o r
 It’s for hand combat vs. it’s forehand combat
Phonemes: h I m
 Sing him a song vs. Sing hymn or song
Phonemes: t u
 Go to pieces vs. go two paces
Phonemes: t + ju
 They’ll get you vs. They’ll get unionized

31. Levels in linguistics
Language is organized into levels
Familiarity with the levels helps pinpoint
a client’s problem
From narrowest to widest… bottom to
top... smallest to largest …
Phonetics, phonology, morphology,
syntax, semantics, pragmatics

32. Phonetics
What we have been doing!
Studying the physical phenomena of
sound / quantifiable reality
Articulatory
Acoustic
Auditory

33. Phonology
The study of how sounds pattern within and
across languages
Function, behavior and organization of sounds
Each language has an inventory of abstract
phonemes and rules
Rules combine phonemes into legal
(sequences, clusters, syllables) words of the
language

34. Phonological rules
Example rules: an English word can…
 End, but not begin, with engma
 Begin, but not end, with h or j or w
Phonological rules reveal themselves when
borrowed foreign words are adjusted
 Spanish borrowing of “switch” or “strike”
 Japanese Starbucks as “sutarubukusu”
 Sbarro restaurant pronunciation

35. Try out some phonology
The plural “s” sounds different
depending on the sound that precedes it
Cat + s
Dog + s
Fish + s

36. General awareness of plural sound
Aware Not aware

37. Morphology
Study of “shape” borrowed from biology
The study of the internal structure of words
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit,
including root words, prefixes, suffixes (and a
couple of sketchy infixes)

38. Words
Many morphemes are words on their own, too
Approx 3 million words in English; ~200K in
common use

39. Un-do some morphology
Separate these words into morphemes…
Cats, untrue, rejoin, woodchuck,
Signpost, spacious, squirrel, fewest
Massachusetts, tricycle,
thickeners, unspeakably, incompletely
Bess’s, unionize, hymnal,
museum, Vermont, government

40. The Wug Test
Have you heard of this before?
What does it test?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElabA5YICsA
http://blog.onbeing.org/post/12115178026/sunday-morning-

41. Inflectional morphemes
The endings we add for specific situations
(plural, possessive, tense, 3rd singular -s)
Present progressive “-ing”
Plural “-s”
Possessive “ ’s”
3rd person singular “s” (she writes)
Regular past “-ed”
Irregular past tense forms (went, brought)

42. English informal infixing
Make the following more intensive
Unbelievable
Absolutely

43. Syntax
Principles and rules for constructing
phrases and sentences of a language
What are the possible strings of word in
your language?
Is word order “free” or “fixed”?
Subject + Verb + Object
How do you form questions from
statements?

44. Try out some adjectival syntax
Here are four sentences. Make them into one.
I want to buy a blue car.
I want to buy a new car.
I want to buy a European car.
I want to buy a beautiful car.

45. Try out more adjectival syntax (1)
Chip wants a (stone, square, gray)
coffee table
The ambassador took a (European, 2-
week, exhausting) tour.
These are (chocolate chip, delicious,
miniature) cookies!

46. Try out more adjectival syntax (2)
Isabella prefers (leather, Italian, black)
furniture.
Archeologists get very excited when
they find (animal, large, prehistoric)
bones.
Kittens love to chase (laser, red, fast)
light.

47. Try out some interrogative syntax
Here are some statements.
Transform them into questions.
Write the “rules” you used
She is a guest.
You are a student.
He has a sister.

48. Now make these into questions
Donna sings doo-wop.
Dick does dishes.
What rule do you need now?

50. Yoda
Probably the single most important
“individual” to draw attention to word
order
How does Yoda talk?
Or … describe Yoda’s syntax

51. Yoda statements
Still much to learn, there is.
Obi Wan, my choice is.
To fight Lord Sidious, strong enough you are not.
Not far, are we, from the emergency ship.
To a dark place, this line of thought will carry us.
Stink, this mud does.
When you look at the dark side, careful you must
be ... for the dark side looks back.

52. Semantics is Language Meaning
The study of meaning that is used to
understand human expression through
language
Meanings of individual words and
combinations of words
Meaning is the conditions under which a
sentence is true (“the truth conditions”)
There can still be ambiguity in
interpretation

53. Humorous ambiguity
I just met the old Irishman and his son,
coming out of the toilet.
I wouldn’t have thought there was room
for the two of them.
No silly, I mean I was coming out of the
toilet. They were waiting.

54. Groucho Marx line
In his movie Animal Crackers
“One morning, I shot an elephant in my
pajamas; how he got into my pajamas,
I’ll never know.”
#53 on list of top 100 movie quotes

55. Try out some ambiguity
Combination of syntax and semantics
 Mary claims that John saw her duck.
 Flying planes can be dangerous
 Every man loves a motorcycle.
 The French teacher is beautiful.
 Look at the man in the chair with the broken leg.
 I just went to the bathroom and man was it big.

56. Pragmatics
The contribution of context to meaning
The relationships between linguistic
forms and the users of those forms, Yule
All meaning may not actually be there in
the words and different speakers may
mean different things

57. Pragmatics is language in context
Three major communication areas…
• Using language
• Changing language
• Following rules
Pragmatics may challenge people on the
autism spectrum, and adults who’ve had
a brain injury or stroke

58. Pragmatics
Use language for certain purpose
 Greet, inform, demand, promise, request
 Routinized language, hi/thanks/goodbye
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj4HLySvJfw
Change language for the situation
 Baby, unfamiliar, playground/classroom
Follow rules for conversations and story telling
 Take turns, stay on topic, rephrase, make eye
contact, respect personal space

59. People with pragmatic problems
Say inappropriate or unrelated things
Tell stories in a disorganized way
Have little variety in language use
May have lowered social acceptance!

60. Try out some pragmatics
To fully understand spoken utterances, must
take context into account … give me some
contexts for these
“It’s hot in here”
“Can you reach the ketchup?”
“Are you gonna eat that?
 “Do you like this show?”

61. Train station pragmatics
Which track is the 11 am train from
Philadelphia coming in on?
I’m wondering which track the 11 am from
Philadelphia is coming in on
Uh…the 11 am from Philadelphia
The train from Philadelphia
I have a friend who lives in Philadelphia
Same answer to all: Track 8

62. Combination fields
Using the different parts of linguistics
with or in other fields of inquiry
Historical linguistics, psycholinguistics,
neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics,
computational linguistics, forensic
linguistics
Clinical linguistics

63. Historical linguistics
How languages change over time
For ex., how Latin evolved into all of the
Romance languages
Phonetics example for us:
How did “newt” come from “ewt?”
How did “apron” come from “napron?”

64. Contested historical linguistics
“Ultraconserved” words
Proto-Eurasiatic, 15,000 years ago
“You, hear me! Give this fire to that old
man. Pull the black worm off the bark
and give it to the mother. And no spitting
in the ashes!”

65. Psycholinguistics
Language as a psychological
phenomenon
How we acquire language
How we assemble our speech (and
writing)
How we understand others
How we store and use vocabulary

66. Neurolinguistics
Language in the brain
Studying processing patterns
What happens to language when
particular regions of the brain are
injured? Aphasias

67. Sociolinguistics
The study of language and society
Effects of society on how language is
used
What clues can language give to the
social situation?
How do people mark or try to change
their social status through speech?

68. Computational linguistics
How computers mimic speech
production (speech synthesis)
How computers mimic speech
perception (speech recognition)
Finding generalizations over huge
quantities of data (using computers)

69. Forensic linguistics
Application of linguistic knowledge,
methods, and insights to the law
Understanding the language of the law
Understanding language use in forensic
and judicial process
Providing linguistic evidence
A varied field with varied practitioners

70. Clinical linguistics
Applies linguistic theory to the field of
communication disorders
Uses linguistics to describe, analyze,
and treat language disabilities
Clinical Phonetics
An area in its own right
Application of phonetics to disorders

71. Applied linguistics
Interdisciplinary field
Identifies, investigates, offers solutions
to language-related real-life problems.
Related fields: education, psychology,
computer science, communication
research, anthropology, and sociology

72. Applying sociolinguistics
A Revere, Mass. firefighter had a stroke
Will you worry in therapy that he cannot
produce /r/ in all positions of the word?
Will you worry that he lost the distinction
between “cot” and “caught”?
Not necessarily! You take his variety of
English into account

73. Clinical phonetics
Application of phonetics to development
and disorders
Perception and production of speech
sounds
Acoustic, articulatory, auditory, applied
Must acquire skill in perception to
understand what’s going on with clients

74. Scoring in clinical phonetics
See the “cube” sheet from your book
Linguistic complexity
 Sound in isolation
 Word
 Sentences
 Continuous speech
More complex to produce = more complex to
evaluate

75. Scoring, cont.
Response Complexity
Single vs. Multiple Sound(s)
System Complexity
Two-way scoring
Five-way scoring
Infinite scoring = phonetic transcription

76. Two-way scoring
Right vs. wrong ~ or ~
Typical vs. atypical ~ or ~
Socially acceptable vs. unacceptable

77. Five-way scoring
Correct (everyone forgets this one)
Substitution
Omission
Distortion
Addition