phonetics

The vocal tract

The human vocal tract is composed of two primary parts: the larynx, where sound is produced; and everything above it, where sound is filtered and shaped into the vast array of vowels and consonants found in human language. This second part is mostly made up of the mouth and the nasal cavity, and its anatomy is fairly obvious; the anatomy of the larynx takes a little practice to become familiar with.

Put your fingertips against your throat. You’ll feel a couple hard ridges of cartilage. The most prominent of these is the thyroid cartilage, which moves during swallowing motions - the Adam’s apple is the name for the part of this cartilage that protrudes the most. Feel around your Adam’s apple while swallowing and you’ll be able to feel the sides of the cartilage moving up and down as well. Directly behind your Adam’s apple is where the vocal cords or vocal folds are located.

Moving your fingers down, you’ll encounter another ridge of cartilage. If you apply a little bit of pressure, you’ll start to feel a gagging sensation in your throat. This is the cricoid cartilage, a ring of cartilage encircling the larynx. This moves when you swallow as well, but not as much. Below the cricoid cartilage is the trachea or windpipe.

Moving up from the thyroid cartilage, just above the Adam’s apple, you may be able to feel a third ridge, much narrower vertically than the others, just below the angle where your neck starts to turn into jaw. This is not cartilage but the hyoid bone, and is not considered to be part of the larynx, but the larynx is suspended from it. This is a U-shaped bone that attaches via muscle to many different segments of the vocal tract: in particular, the larynx below, and the tongue above. something about positioning blah blah blah

There are a couple other pieces of cartilage that you can’t feel with your fingers. The first is the epiglottis, an elastic leaf-shaped flap of cartilage anchored near the Adam’s apple, whose primary function is to cover the trachea when swallowing so that food doesn’t end up in the airway.

At the back of the ring of cricoid cartilage there are a pair of cartilages called the arytenoid cartilages.

Articulators

• lips
• tongue
  • blade
  • body
  • root

Phonation

Consonants

Manner of articulation

A stop is a consonant that completely blocks the airflow. Air builds up behind the point of closure, and is then released.

A fricative interrupts the airflow enough to create friction and noise, but not enough to stop it completely. sibilant vs non-sibilant

An affricate is a stop that is released into a fricative.

Stops, affricates, and fricatives form a class of consonants called obstruents.

A trill is a consonant where air is directed over an articulator until it vibrates rapidly, repeatedly striking the point of closure.

A tap is a brief contact with the passive articulator that does not obstruct all airflow.

An approximant does not involve any closure, merely a reshaping of the airflow.

lateral vs central

Place of articulation

Lateral airflow is not possible with these consonants because they do not make use of the tongue.

Bilabial consonants are articulated with both lips. They are some of the most common consonants crosslinguistically.

voiceless stop p and voiced stop b

nasal m and voiceless nasal m̥

voiceless fricative ɸ and voiced fricative β

approximants

tap?

trill ʙ

Labiodental consonants are articulated with the top teeth against the lower lip.

stops don’t really exist as phonemes

nasal ɱ is ubiquitous as an allophone of nasals before labiodental fricatives but only known to exist as a phoneme in one language

voiceless fricative f and voiced fricative v

approximant

tap

a labiodental trill is not possible

Linguolabial consonants are articulated with the tongue against the upper lip (hence their inclusion in the coronal category rather than the labial — the tongue is the active articulator). These are pretty rare sounds in the world’s languages, largely cropping up in a few of the languages of Vanuatu, plus one in Guinea-Bissau and one in Brazil. They’re by no means hard to produce — they’re common paralinguistically, as well as in disordered speech.

voiceless stop p̪ or t̼ and voiced stop b̪ or d̼

nasal m̪ or n̼

voiceless fricative ɸ̪ or θ̼ and voiced fricative β̪ or ð̼

approximant

tap

trill ʙ̪ or r̼ is only known in onomatopoeia

The laterals, approximant l̼, voiceless fricative ɬ̼, and voiced fricative ɮ̼, are only known from disordered speech, but I see no reason why they couldn’t exist in a language. A lateral tap would likely to be difficult to distinguish from a regular flap.

Dental consonants are articulated with the tongue against the teeth. Most commonly this involves the tongue against the back of the top teeth, but they can also be interdental, with the tongue between the top and bottom teeth.

stops

nasal

fricatives, interdental or dental θ and ð and dental sibilants s̪ and z̪

approximant ɹ̪

tap?

trill r̪

laterals

Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against the alveolar ridge. Denti-alveolar consonants involve broad contact from the teeth to the alveolar ridge.

stops

nasal

fricatives

approximant ɹ

tap ɾ

trill r

laterals

Postalveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against the back of the alveolar ridge.

Retroflex consonants are articulated with the underside of the tongue tip against the hard palate or the back of the alveolar ridge. This use of the underside of the tongue is described as subapical.

dorsal

Alveolo-palatal

Palatal consonants are articulated with the body of the tongue against the hard palate.

Velar consonants are articulated with the body of the tongue against the soft palate or velum.

Uvular consonants are articulated with the body of the tongue against the uvula.

laryngeal

Laterals are not possible at these places of articulation.

Pharyngeal consonants are articulated with the tongue root against the pharyngeal wall. Epiglottal consonants are articulated with the aryepiglottic folds against the epiglottis.

stop

nasal?

fricative

approximant

tap

trill

Glottal consonants are articulated with the glottis alone.

stop

fricative

Consonants may also be doubly articulated, involving two points of articulation. By far the most common of these are the labio-velars.

stops

nasals

No doubly articulated fricatives have ever been confirmed in a human language; it’s possible to produce them, but much harder to discern them auditorily.

approximants

trill?

Airstream mechanism

• pulmonic egressive
• pulmonic ingressive?
• glottalic egressive - ejectives
• glottalic ingressive - implosives
• lingual ingressive - clicks
• lingual egressive?

Other stuff

• nasalization
  • pre-nasalization
• gemination

secondary articulations

• labialization
• palatalization
• velarization
• uvularization
• pharyngealization
• glottalization
• combined

release

• unreleased
• lateral release
• nasal release
• stop release [anecdotal]

onset

• pre-stopped nasal
• pre-nasalized stop
• pre-glottalized stop
• preaspiration

contour consonants, airstream contours extipa - bidental fricative nonexplosive stops? atr vot

Vowels

Height

Backness

Roundedness

Diphthongs

Vowel length

Building a phonetic inventory

Consonants

Vowels

Sources

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