The Sounds of Language An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology Linguistics in the World Series

The Sounds of Language is an introductory guide to the linguistic study of speech sounds, which provides uniquely balanced coverage of both phonology and phonetics.

• Features exercises and problem sets, as well as supporting online resources at www.wiley.com/go/zsiga, including additional discussion questions and exercises, as well as links to further resources such as sound files, video files, and useful websites
• Creates opportunities for students to practice data analysis and hypothesis testing
• Integrates data on sociolinguistic variation, first language acquisition, and second language learning
• Explores diverse topics ranging from the practical, such as how to make good digital recordings, make a palatogram, solve a phoneme/allophone problem, or read a spectrogram; to the theoretical, including the role of markedness in linguistic theory, the necessity of abstraction, features and formal notation, issues in speech perception as distinct from hearing, and modelling sociolinguistic and other variations
• Organized specifically to fit the needs of undergraduate students of phonetics and phonology, and is structured in a way which enables instructors to use the text both for a single semester phonetics and phonology course or for a two-course sequence

Preface xv

1 The Vocal Tract 1

1.1 Seeing the vocal tract: tools for speech research 2

1.2 Parts of the vocal tract 5

Chapter summary 11

Further reading 11

Review exercises 12

Further analysis and discussion 13

Go online 13

References 13

2 Basics of Articulation: Manner and Place in English 14

2.1 The dance of the articulators 15

2.2 Phonetic transcription 16

2.3 The building blocks of speech 20

Chapter summary 29

Further reading 29

Review exercises 30

Further analysis and discussion 32

Go online 32

3 A Tour of the Consonants 33

3.1 Exotic sounds and the phonetic environment 34

3.2 Pulmonic consonants 37

3.3 Non-pulmonic consonants 45

3.4 Positional variation in English 48

Chapter summary 51

Further reading 52

Review exercises 52

Further analysis and discussion 53

Go online 54

References 54

4 A Map of the Vowels 55

4.1 The landscape 56

4.2 Cardinal vowels 57

4.3 Building inventories: dimensions of vowel quality 59

4.4 Nasality and voice quality 66

4.5 Length and diphthongs 67

4.6 Tone 68

4.7 Positional variants of the vowels of English 70

Chapter summary 71

Further reading 71

Review exercises 72

Further analysis and discussion 73

Further research 74

References 74

5 Anatomy, Physiology, and Gestural Coordination 76

5.1 Anatomy and physiology of respiration 77

5.2 Anatomy and physiology of the larynx 79

5.3 Anatomy of the supralaryngeal vocal tract 85

5.4 Coordination of gestures 89

5.5 Palatography 91

Chapter summary 94

Further reading 95

Review exercises 96

Further analysis and discussion 97

Go online 98

6 The Physics of Sound: Pendulums, Pebbles, and Waves 99

6.1 What is sound? 100

6.2 Simple harmonic motion: a pendulum and a tuning fork 102

6.3 Adding sinuosoids: complex waves 105

6.4 Sound propagation 108

6.5 Decibels 110

6.6 Resonance 111

6.7 The vocal tract as a sound-producing device: source-filter theory 114

Chapter summary 116

Further reading 116

Review exercises 117

Further analysis and discussion 118

Go online 118

7 Looking at Speech: Waveforms, Spectra, and Spectrograms 119

7.1 Pre-digital speech 120

7.2 Digitization 122

7.3 Looking at waveforms 129

7.4 Spectra 131

7.5 Spectrograms 137

Chapter summary 142

Further reading 143

Review exercises 144

Further analysis and discussion 144

Go online 148

References 148

8 Speech Analysis: Under the Hood 149

8.1 Building sounds up 150

8.2 Breaking sounds down 160

Chapter summary 169

Further reading 170

Review exercises 170

Further analysis and discussion 171

Go online 172

References 172

9 Hearing and Speech Perception 173

9.1 Anatomy and physiology of the ear 174

9.2 Neuro-anatomy 181

9.3 Speech perception 186

Chapter summary 194

Further reading 195

Review exercises 195

Further analysis and discussion 196

Go online 197

References 197

10 Phonology 1: Abstraction, Contrast, Predictability 198

10.1 The necessity of abstraction 199

10.2 Contrast and predictability: phonemes and allophones 203

10.3 Some complicating factors 211

10.4 Biuniqueness, Behaviorism, and the decline of phonemic analysis 214

Chapter summary 216

Further reading 216

Review exercises 216

Further analysis and discussion 217

Further research 219

Go online 219

References 219

11 Phonotactics and Alternations 221

11.1 Phonotactic constraints 222

11.2 Analyzing alternations 225

11.3 Alternations: what to expect 232

Chapter summary 246

Further reading 246

Review exercises 246

Further analysis and discussion 248

Go online 250

References 250

12 What Is Possible Language?: Distinctive Features 253

12.1 Introduction 254

12.2 Distinctive features 257

12.3 How have our hypotheses fared? 270

Chapter summary 271

Further reading 272

Review exercises 272

Further analysis and discussion 272

Further research 274

Go online 274

References 274

13 Rules and Derivations in Generative Grammar 275

13.1 Generative grammars 276

13.2 Underlying representations 277

13.3 Writing rules 279

13.4 Autosegmental representations and feature geometry 284

13.5 How have our hypotheses fared? 298

Chapter summary 299

Further reading 299

Review exercises 300

Further analysis and discussion 300

Further research 303

Go online 303

References 303

14 Constraint-based Phonology 304

14.1 Constraints and rules in linguistic theory 305

14.2 The basics of Optimality Theory 309

14.3 Example problem solving in OT 314

14.4 Challenges and directions for future research 322

Chapter summary 324

Further reading 325

Review exercises 325

Further analysis and discussion 325

Further research 329

Go online 329

References 329

15 Syllables and Prosodic Domains 330

15.1 Syllables 331

15.2 The prosodic hierarchy 341

Chapter summary 348

Further reading 348

Review exercises 349

Further analysis and discussion 350

Further research 000

References 351

16 Stress 353

16.1 What is linguistic stress? 354

16.2 Cross-linguistic typology 356

16.3 A feature for stress? 360

16.4 Metrical structure 360

16.5 Stress in English 365

Chapter summary 370

Further reading 371

Review exercises 371

Further analysis and discussion 372

Further research 374

Go online 374

References 374

17 Tone and Intonation 375

17.1 Tone 376

17.2 Intonation 392

Chapter summary 397

Further reading 397

Review exercises 398

Further analysis and discussion 399

Further research 399

Go online 400

References 400

18 Diachronic Change 401

18.1 Languages change 402

18.2 Historical reconstruction 408

18.3 History of the sounds of English 415

Chapter summary 422

Further reading 422

Review exercises 423

Further analysis and discussion 423

Further research 423

Go online 425

References 425

19 Variation 426

19.1 Variation by place 428

19.2 Other sources of variation 437

19.3 Formalizing variation 441

Chapter summary 444

Further reading 445

Review exercises 445

Further analysis and discussion 446

Further research 446

Go online 446

References 446

20 Acquisition and Learning 447

20.1 Language Acquisition and Language Learning 448

20.2 Child language acquisition: the data 448

20.3 Theories of L1 acquisition 454

20.4 L2 Learning 457

20.5 Acquisition, Learning, and Linguistic Theory 461

Chapter summary 462

Further reading 462

Review exercises 462

Further analysis and discussion 464

Further research 464

Go online 464

References 464

Index 465

Elizabeth C. Zsiga is Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University, where she has been a faculty member since 1994, teaching phonology and phonetics to both graduate and undergraduate students, with concentrations in theoretical, applied, and socio-linguistics. She has been published in numerous linguistics journals and books. Her research describes the sound systems of diverse languages including English, Igbo, Korean, Russian, Setswana, Serbian, and Thai.