Phonetics
Study of speech sounds, their production and acoustic properties, and the written symbols used to represent their production.
Phoneme
Smallest unit of speech that has meaning
Allophone
Variant of a phoneme; do not change the meaning of the word
phonetic transcription
Narrow; in brackets; uses diacritics; marks allophones
Phonemic transcription
Broad; is in virgules; does not depict allophones
Consonants
Phonemes produced by narrowing of the vocal tract
Vowels
Phonemes produced with open vocal tract
Releasing sounds
Sounds in syllable-initial position
Arresting sounds
Sounds in syllable-final position
Stops
/p, b, t, d, k, g/
Production:
Complete closure; built up air pressure; released air resulting in burst of noise;
Duration:
Short
Fricatives
/s, z, f, v, th, sh, zh, ch, dj/
Production:
Air forced through narrow channel
Affricates
/ch, dj/
Production:
Quick release of an obstructed airstream
Nasal
/m, n, ng/
Production:
Closed oral tract and open velopharyngeal port
Glides
/w, j/
Production:
Constricted cavity, gliding motion; produced like diphthongs
Liquids
/l, r/
Production:
Semivowels; tract obstructed only slightly more than it is for vowels
Distinctive Feature
An articulatory or acoustic parameter that according to its presence or absence helps define a phoneme
Vocalic
Distinctive Feature;
All vowels; /l,r/
Consonantal
Distinctive Feature
All consonants except /h, w, j/
No vowels
High
Distinctive Feature
/k, g, sh, zh, ch, dj, ng, j/
/i, I, u, upsilon/
Low
Distinctive Feature
/h/
/ash, ah/
Back
Distinctive Feature
/k, g, ng/
/ah, aw, o, u, upsilon/
Anterior
Distinctive Feature
/p, b, t, d, f, v, s, z, th, m, n, l, w/
No vowels
Coronal
Distinctive Feature
/t, d, s, z, sh, zh, ch, dj, th, n, l, r/
No vowels
Round
Distinctive Feature
/r, w/
/er, aw, o, u, upsilon/
