List of figures and tables ix
To readers xiii
Acknowledgements xv
1. Introduction to phonetics 1
1.1 What is phonetics? 1
1.2 What this book covers 3
1.3 Ways to talk about sounds 3
1.4 An overview of the book 5
Further reading 6
2. Overview of the human speech mechanism 7
2.1 The complexity of speech sounds 7
2.2 Breathing 7
2.3 The larynx and voicing 9
2.4 Airflow 10
2.5 Place of articulation 12
2.6 Manner of articulation 16
Summary 18
Exercises 18
Further reading 19
3. Representing the sounds of speech 20
3.1 Introduction 20
3.2 Phonetic transcription 20
3.3 Acoustic representations 32
3.4 Acoustic representations and segments 38
3.5 Representation and units in phonetics 38
Summary 39
Exercises 39
Further reading 41
4. The larynx, voicing and voice quality 42
4.1 Introduction 42
4.2 How the vocal folds vibrate 44
4.3 Fundamental frequency, pitch and intonation 45
4.4 Phrasing and intonation 48
4.5 Voice quality 52
Summary 56
Exercises 57
Further reading 57
5. Vowels 58
5.1 Introduction 58
5.2 Reference points for vowels: cardinal vowels 58
5.3 The acoustics of vowels 65
5.4 Other vocalic features 66
5.5 Vowels in English 'keywords' 67
5.6 Reduced vowels 77
5.7 Voiceless vowels 77
Summary 78
Exercises 78
Further reading 79
6. Approximants 80
6.1 Introduction 80
6.2 The palatal approximant [j] 81
6.3 A doubly articulated sound: the labiovelar approximant [w] 83
6.4 Laterals 85
6.5 'Rhotics' 91
Summary 95
Exercises 96
Further reading 97
7. Plosives 98
7.1 Introduction 98
7.2 Overview of the production of plosives 98
7.3 Voicing and plosives in English 101
7.4 Glottalisation 107
7.5 Long closure 108
7.6 Place of articulation 108
7.7 Release features of plosives 111
7.8 Taps 116
Summary 118
Exercises 118
Further reading 119
8. Fricatives 120
8.1 Introduction 120
8.2 The production of fricatives 120
8.3 Details of English fricatives 122
8.4 Non-lexical fricatives 133
Summary 138
Exercises 138
Further reading 139
9. Nasals 140
9.1 The production of nasals 140
9.2 Details of English nasals 142
9.3 Nasalised vowels 148
9.4 Syllabic nasals 150
Summary 154
Exercises 154
Further reading 155
10. Glottalic and velaric airstreams 156
10.1 Airstream mechanisms 156
10.2 The velaric airstream mechanism 156
10.3 The glottalic airstream mechanism 164
Summary 170
Exercises 171
Further reading 171
11. Sounds and structures 172
11.1 Introduction 172
11.2 Data 173
11.3 Assimilation: place of articulation across word boundaries 178
11.4 Glottal stops 181
11.5 Silent pauses within an utterance 184
11.6 Silent pauses after syntactic completion 187
11.7 Syntactically complete phrases followed immediately by more talk 191
Summary 191
Note on the data 192
Exercises 193
Further reading 194
12. Conclusion 195
Glossary 198
Discussion of the exercises 206
Further reading 212
Index 217