Re: Stupid Question of the Week Saul Epstein Thu, 06 Nov 1997 09:56:38 -0600 At 08:52 AM 11/6/97 -0600, Rob wrote: >Linguists measure sounds with several rulers. They measure the place >of the articulation (or air obstruction): > > labial: lips (A. English p), or lips and tongue and tongue? > labio-dental: lips + teeth (A. English f) > dental: tongue + teeth (A. English th) > alveolar: tongue behind teeth (A. English t) Dentals also involves the very tip of the tongue, whereas alveolars involve the front. So the tongue as a whole may be in almost identical positions for the two. That is, the tip of the tongue may be just behind the teeth for an alveolar, but the place of articulation gets its name from the alveolar ridge -- the rear edge of the shelf between the teeth and the palate -- which is where the primary obstruction actually occurs. > postalveolar: In between the back of the teeth and the top > of the mouth (A. English sh) or just behind the alveolar ridge. This place is also sometimes referred to as pre-palatal. ;-) > palatal: top of mouth (German ch) only before front vowels like i, for instance in "ich." Before back vowels, German is a velar fricative, for instance in "buch." > velar: behind the top of the mouth but before the soft > part (A. English k) Actually, it is the soft part of the top of the mouth. The velum is also called the soft palate. > uvular: way back in the mouth (Arabic q, French r) Yup. The Uvula is the part of the roof of the mouth that hangs down in back, often depicted as wagging back and forth in the mouths of screaming cartoon characters. pharyngeal: involving the throat all of the places so far, except the labials, involve the tongue as the articulator. > glottal: back in the throat (British tt in bottle glottal > stop). or between the syllables of "uh-uh." >Linguists also measure how much the air is obstructed, from completely >to just a bit: > > stop: the air flow ceases altogether: p b, t d > fricative: the air is obstructed enough to cause friction noise: f v > > approximate: the air is barely impeded: r w > affricative: a stop plus a fricative ch sound in church (t + sh) Actually, those are "approximant" and "affricate." Affricates are also sometimes described as stops with fricative release. >Lastly, Linguists measure whether or not the vocal cords vibrate or >not while saying the consonant. If the vocal cords vibrate, they call >the sound Voiced. If not, then they call the sound Voiceless. When air >travels thru the nasal passages as well as the mouth, we call those >sounds Nasal (like n and m). Nasals like n and m are produced entirely by air passing through the nose. When air passes through both the nasal and oral cavities, they're called nasalized, as in nasalized vowels. >When one releases the stops lightly with a >puff of air, we call those sounds Aspirated ( Saul why don't you describe >this one). The "puff" is actually the standard description of aspiration. Normally, you release a stop and proceed directly into the following sound. But if you push the air that releases a stop out a little more forcefully, there's a very short h-sounding space between the stop and whatever follows it. In English, voiceless stops at the beginnings of words are ALWAYS aspirated. We actually listen to the aspiration to distinguish between voiced and voiceless stops at the beginning of words more than we listen to the voicing itself. >When one raises the tongue towards the top of the mouth when >saying the consonant, we call it Palatalized (like the A. English r). > >Saul, if you could give us a review of how Linguists measure vowels, >I'd appreciate it. I still get confused about those. Sure. It's confusing because it's rather flaky. I'll see what I can do. -- from Saul Epstein liberty uit net www johnco cc ks us sepstein "Surak ow'phaaper thes'hi thes'tca'; thes'phaadjar thes'hi suraketca'." -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at