Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs (phones): their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status. Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs (phones): their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status. Phonetics as a research discipline has three main branches: Phonetic insight is used in several applied linguistic fields such as: Phonology, on the other hand, is concerned with the abstract, grammatical characterization of systems of sounds or signs and how they pattern in and across languages. Phonology has been argued to relate to phonetics via the set of distinctive features, which map the abstract representations of speech units to articulatory gestures, acoustic signals or perceptual representations. The first known phonetic studies were carried out as early as the 6th century BCE by Sanskrit grammarians. The Hindu scholar Pāṇini is among the most well known of these early investigators, whose four-part grammar, written around 350 BCE, is influential in modern linguistics and still represents 'the most complete generative grammar of any language yet written'. His grammar formed the basis of modern linguistics and described several important phonetic principles, including voicing. This early account described resonance as being produced either by tone, when vocal folds are closed, or noise, when vocal folds are open. The phonetic principles in the grammar are considered 'primitives' in that they are the basis for his theoretical analysis rather than the objects of theoretical analysis themselves, and the principles can be inferred from his system of phonology. Advancements in phonetics after Pāṇini and his contemporaries were limited until the modern era, save some limited investigations by Greek and Roman grammarians. In the millennia between Indic grammarians and modern phonetics, the focus shifted from the difference between spoken and written language, which was the driving force behind Pāṇini's account, and began to focus on the physical properties of speech alone. Sustained interest in phonetics began again around 1800 CE with the term 'phonetics' being first used in the present sense in 1841. With new developments in medicine and the development of audio and visual recording devices, phonetic insights were able to use and review new and more detailed data. This early period of modern phonetics included the development of an influential phonetic alphabet based on articulatory positions by Alexander Melville Bell. Known as visible speech, it gained prominence as a tool in the oral education of deaf children. Before the widespread availability of audio recording equipment, phoneticians relied heavily on a tradition of practical phonetics to ensure that transcriptions and findings were able to be consistent across phoneticians. This training involved both ear training—the recognition of speech sounds—as well as production training—the ability to produce sounds. Phoneticians were expected to learn to recognize by ear the various sounds on the International Phonetic Alphabet and the IPA still tests and certifies speakers on their ability to accurately produce the phonetic patterns of English (though they have discontinued this practice for other languages). As a revision of his visible speech method, Melville Bell developed a description of vowels by height and backness resulting in 9 cardinal vowels. As part of their training in practical phonetics, phoneticians were expected to learn to produce these cardinal vowels in order to anchor their perception and transcription of these phones during fieldwork. This approach was critiqued by Peter Ladefoged in the 1960s based on experimental evidence where he found that cardinal vowels were auditory rather than articulatory targets, challenging the claim that they represented articulatory anchors by which phoneticians could judge other articulations. Consonants are speech sounds that are articulated with a complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. They are generally produced by the modification of an airstream exhaled from the lungs. The respiratory organs used to create and modify airflow are divided into three regions: the vocal tract (supralaryngeal), the larynx, and the subglottal system. The airstream can be either egressive (out of the vocal tract) or ingressive (into the vocal tract). In pulmonic sounds, the airstream is produced by the lungs in the subglottal system and passes through the larynx and vocal tract. Glottalic sounds use an airstream created by movements of the larynx without airflow from the lungs. Click consonants are articulated through the rarefaction of air using the tongue, followed by releasing the forward closure of the tongue. Consonants are pronounced in the vocal tract, usually in the mouth. In order to describe the place of articulation, the active and passive articulator need to be known. In most cases, the active articulators are the lips and tongue. The passive articulator is the surface on which the constriction is created. Constrictions made by the lips are called labials. Constrictions can be made in several parts of the vocal tract, broadly classified into coronal, dorsal and radical places of articulation. Coronal articulations are made with the front of the tongue, dorsal articulations are made with the back of the tongue, and radical articulations are made in the pharynx. These divisions are not sufficient for distinguishing and describing all speech sounds. For example, in English the sounds and are both coronal, but they are produced in different places of the mouth. To account for this, more detailed places of articulation are needed based upon the area of the mouth in which the constriction occurs.