New CBB

MINOR UPDATE - I've updated the formatting and produced a PDF for anyone interested.
I'm also still working on the third lesson.

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Ikasmu ati'uki nai uraiur.
Hinai nimuśim naimi nai sasamiur urukani. Śi'ama nai huhumiur na ni'amuśim nai sasamiur.
Pumaki nimuśim śima'a na ami nimuśim ara'a. Hini nihrasum i'aku tumra urukani na nihrasum sanik hraspir.

I don't think it matter very much whether you want to describe the difference between // and [] as one of phonemic-vs-phonemic, underlying-vs-surface, or deep-vs-shallow, or whatever.

Maybe it can depend a little on the exact definition of 'phoneme' and 'phone', but would not 'deep', 'underlying' and 'phonemic' mean roughly the same thing when it comes to transcriptions? The same for 'shallow', 'surface' and 'phonetic'. Is there any situation where it could lead to genuine confusion?

If I transcribe a word /tærg/ - what misunderstandings could there be if people were not aware about whether this was the 'underlying' or the 'phonemic' or 'deep' representation?

Many phonetic transcriptions are neither purely phonemic, nor purely phonetic, but lie somewhere in between. For example, when transcribing Chinese, should we only use // when using the two-vowel-analysis?

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constructedlanguages.net

A new lesson is done!
You can download the PDF here or read the lesson below.

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Lesson Three
Fricatives
As a group fricatives are distinguished from stops by the fact that they do not form a complete closure in the mouth. Fricatives are produced by forming a nearly complete closure that still allows air to pass through the mouth. The turbulent noise produced by pushing air out of the small opening is a fricative.

Based on the places of articulation for the stops you might expect English to have bilabial, alveolar and velar fricatives. However, it is lacking both bilabial and velar fricatives.*
*A velar fricative does exist in some dialects of English but that will be discussed in a later lesson.

There is however a labiodental fricative. Which means that it is produced by contact of the upper lip (labio) with the lower teeth (dental). If you try saying the word 'free' you should feel your tongue against your teeth during the first sound.

English also has a dental fricative. Unlike the labiodental a dental is produced by placing the tip of one's tongue just behind the front teeth. Occasionally, it can be pronounced interdentally with the tongue between one's teeth**. An example of this sound is at the beginning of the word 'three.'
**This sound is often difficult for non-native English speakers to pronounce.

Finally, there is also a post-alveolar fricative. Post-alveolars are pronounced with the tongue arched up just behind the alveolar ridge. One can be found at the beginning of the word 'sheep.'

Fricatives also differ from plosives because they can be sustained. If you try and prolong the / p / at the beginning of the word 'pan,' you will find yourself stuck with your mouth closed and air pressure building up behind your lips. Now, try prolonging the / f / at the beginning of the word 'fan.' This time you can keep the sound going as long as you have breath to push out.

A list of the voiceless frictives:

/ f / – voiceless labiodental fricative – 'fail'
/ θ / – voiceless dental fricative – 'thin'
/ s / – voiceless alveolar fricative – 'sail'
/ ʃ / – voiceless post-alveolar fricative – 'shale'
/ h / – voiceless glottal fricative – 'hale'

In addition, four of the above fricatives have voiced counterparts:

/ v / – voiced labiodental fricative – 'veil'
/ ð / – Voiced dental fricative – 'they'll'
/ z / – voiced alveolar fricative – 'zebra'
/ ʒ / – voiced post-alveolar fricative – 'treasure'


Minimal Pairs
A sound or feature is contrastive if a word can be differentiated solely by that one feature. Looking at the list of fricatives above you can see that voicing is a contrastive feature in English fricatives. The easiest way to prove that a feature is contrastive in a given language is to find a minimal pair. Two words that can be distinguished by changing only one sound or feature form a minimal pair.

Some examples from the sounds we've gone over so far:

'fat' /fæt/ vs. 'vat' /væt/ – voicing contrast on the initial fricative
'pat' /pæt/ vs. 'bat' /bæt/ – voicing contrast on the initial stop
'bat' /bæt/ vs. 'mat' /mæt/ – nasal contrast on the initial stop

Other languages will have different contrastive sounds and features. As mentioned before there are languages with voiced and voiceless nasals, which English does not contrast, and there are languages that don't contrast voicing in frictives like English does. For a non-native speaker these differences can be difficult to hear or reproduce, but knowing about them can help you to learn them.


Review

1. Here's a blank diagram of the mouth. Name the different places of articulation marked below.



2. Please define the following terms:
a. Fricative
b. Contrastive
c. Minimal pair

3. Please give the IPA for the bolded letters in the following words:
a. vest
b. hammer
c. issue
d. sue
e. telephone
f. earth
g. those
h. easy

_________________
Ikasmu ati'uki nai uraiur.
Hinai nimuśim naimi nai sasamiur urukani. Śi'ama nai huhumiur na ni'amuśim nai sasamiur.
Pumaki nimuśim śima'a na ami nimuśim ara'a. Hini nihrasum i'aku tumra urukani na nihrasum sanik hraspir.

If Brian Cox comes here to read your tutorial you will just have taught him to believe that /N/ and /Ng/ are the same thing (some native speakers of English actually do have a [g]~[k] there too, you know, even at both points in a world like <hanging>). :(

Great stuff, anyway. I am still worthless at actually naming sounds (I know how to write lots and lots of them in IPA and SAMPA but I don't know what to properly call them using terminology).

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‹› · Ḿḿ Ńń Ĺĺ Śś Źź Ąą Ǫǫ Ųų Æ̨æ̨ Ǽǽ Œ̨œ̨ Œ́œ́ Ɣɣ Y̋y̋ Įį Şş Z̧z̧ θ
Āā Ēē Īī Ōō Ūū ↗ Ṭṭ C̣c̣ Łł Ḍḍ Ṣṣ Ẓẓ Ṇṇ Ŋŋ e˞ o˞ ʷ ʲ ʰ ə

From what I remember it's a typical New Yorker thing to have the word <singer> as something like [siŋgə˞]. But yeah, I'm going to have a hard time of describing every dialect of English.


I never use the full names like 'voiced velar nasal.' I'll usually use a short name like 'engma' instead.

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Ikasmu ati'uki nai uraiur.
Hinai nimuśim naimi nai sasamiur urukani. Śi'ama nai huhumiur na ni'amuśim nai sasamiur.
Pumaki nimuśim śima'a na ami nimuśim ara'a. Hini nihrasum i'aku tumra urukani na nihrasum sanik hraspir.

Don't many northern English dialects have [ŋg] where others have a plain [ŋ]?

But I guess those who speak such dialect are aware that their pronounciation differs from the "standard" one (GA or RP/SSB). One can't capture every English dialect in a tutorial like this.

Many English dialects don't have dental fricatives, or /h/. Some voice the initial sound in <farmer>, some turn /f/ into /p/, and there are all kinds deviations from the "standard" if we scrutinise every English dialect.

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constructedlanguages.net

Yeah, I think he's northern English.

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‹› · Ḿḿ Ńń Ĺĺ Śś Źź Ąą Ǫǫ Ųų Æ̨æ̨ Ǽǽ Œ̨œ̨ Œ́œ́ Ɣɣ Y̋y̋ Įį Şş Z̧z̧ θ
Āā Ēē Īī Ōō Ūū ↗ Ṭṭ C̣c̣ Łł Ḍḍ Ṣṣ Ẓẓ Ṇṇ Ŋŋ e˞ o˞ ʷ ʲ ʰ ə

I've been perusing the literature on tones, tonal contours, and tonogenesis. I know that's not exactly basic, but I also know that it's very hard to find info on these very important topics. Lessons on these, or at least resources would make me a very happy werepretzel.

:)

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CarpeMors decit "ubi est balneum rubrum in hero?" dum comedeban carotam in arcae pulchrae.

Well, why not? 也 /i̯ə˨˩˧/ 説 /ʂwə˥/. It's not common to bother with phonemes in actual Mandarin works though, it seems to me they generally just use either pinyin or phones instead.