CHAPTER OUTLINE

In this chapter you will learn about: airstream generation; egressive and ingressive flow; ejectives; implosives; clicks; non-pulmonic sounds in the world's languages.

KEY TERMS

1. Click

2. Compression

3. Ejective

4. Egressive

5. Glottalic

6. Implosive

7. Ingressive

8. Pressure

9. Pulmonic/nonpulmonic

10. Rarefaction

11. Velaric

Introduction

We have seen how consonant sounds can be described in terms of voice, place and manner of articulation. We now have to consider a further important way in which consonant sounds can differ from one another: the use of different airstream mechanisms. All the sounds we have dealt with up to now have used the same airstream mechanism, known as the pulmonic airstream mechanism because it uses air expelled from the lungs. In the pulmonic airstream, the lungs supply a large volume of air under pressure, enough to power the production of one or more phrase-length stretches of speech between pauses for breath. This is the basis of all normal speech in all languages, and many languages (e.g. English) make no systematic use of any other airstream. But some languages additionally make use of other airstream mechanisms for a proportion of their consonant sounds. Small volumes of air can be pushed or pulled by muscular action in the mouth or pharynx independently of the lungs, and the resulting short-term pressure differences and airflows are enough to power the production of single consonant segments, which sound recognisably different from pulmonic sounds. There are three types of consonants produced this way, known as ejectives, implosives and clicks.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

In this chapter you will learn about: the structure of the larynx; how the larynx is used to produce voiced and voiceless sounds; how larynx activity can be observed and monitored; the role of voice in the languages of the world; the waveforms of voiced and voiceless sounds.

KEY TERMS

1. Aperiodic

2. Complex tones

3. Cycle

4. Frequency

5. Hertz

6. Larynx

7. Periodic

8. Pitch

9. Sine wave

10. Voiced

11. Voiceless

12. Whisper

Introduction

The basis of all normal speech is a controlled outflow of air from the lungs. Air flows up the trachea (windpipe) and out of the body through the mouth or the nose. On the way it must pass through the larynx, a structure formed of cartilages and visible on the outside of the neck as the ‘Adam's apple’. The airway from the larynx to the lips, and the side-branch via nasal cavities to the nostrils, contain all the organs that control the production of speech sounds, and are known as the vocal tract.

The larynx

We cannot see directly into the larynx, but it can be observed in a mirror placed right at the back of the mouth (a laryngoscope mirror) – for this, the subject must keep the mouth wide open. Another way is with a fibrescope, which can be inserted via the nose and does not prevent the subject from speaking. Both methods give a top view of the larynx, and this is how it is usually shown in pictures and diagrams.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

In this chapter you will learn about: the basic distinction between spoken and written language; the ways in which languages of the world are written; the units from which speech is composed: syllables, vowels and consonants; phonetic symbols as a means of representing speech; speech considered as an acoustic signal; the similarities and differences in the speech sounds used in languages of the world.

KEY TERMS

1. Amplitude

2. Consonant

3. International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

4. Loudness

5. Phonetic symbol

6. Phonetic transcription

7. Segment

8. Syllable

9. Vowel

10. Waveform

11. Writing system

Introduction

The way we usually represent and describe speech depends on a powerful idea that is already known by everyone who is literate in a language with an alphabetic writing system. Human listeners can hear speech as a sequence of sounds, and each sound can be represented by a written mark. In this chapter we look at how this idea can be the basis of a comprehensive system of phonetic symbols, suitable for representing reliably the sounds of any language – and at how this is different from the many existing writing systems for particular languages.

Sounds and symbols

Although there are estimated to be 5,000 to 8,000 languages in the world, each with its own particular selection of sounds, the total number of symbols required to represent all the sounds of these languages is not very large – it is somewhere around two to three hundred. This, of course, is because many sounds are found again and again in languages.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

In this chapter you will learn about: active and passive articulators; complex articulation; instrumental techniques for investigating place of articulation; the anatomy of the vocal tract; the concept of articulation; the main places of articulation for consonant sounds.

KEY TERMS

1. Active articulator

2. Articulation

3. Double articulation

4. Passive articulator

5. Place of articulation

6. Vocal tract

Introduction

In this chapter we shall look at one of the features used to describe the production of consonant sounds. In Chapter 2 we saw that consonants can differ in voicing. So, for example, [p] is voiceless and [b] is voiced, [s] is voiceless and [z] is voiced, and so on. However, it is fairly easy to see that [p] and [b], for instance, have quite a lot in common. If you say the English words pat and bat while looking in a mirror you will see that the first thing you do for each word is close your lips. It isn't so easy with [s] and [z], but you may be able to feel that for both these sounds the tip of your tongue gets very close to the roof of your mouth not far behind your upper front teeth. Try saying Sue and zoo, making the first consonant very long. The topic of this chapter is where in the vocal tract consonants are produced.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

In this chapter you will learn about: aspiration; aspiration and devoicing in English; the use of aspiration in languages of the world; larynx waveforms for normal voice and other phonation types; voice onset time and how to measure it.

KEY TERMS

1. Aspiration

2. Breathy voice

3. Devoicing

4. Fortis

5. Lenis

6. Modal voice

7. Phonation type

8. VOT (voice onset time)

Introduction

As we saw in Chapter 2, one important way in which consonant sounds may differ from one another is by voicing. However, it is important to be aware that the terms ‘voiced’ and ‘voiceless’ do not simply refer to the presence or absence of vocal fold vibration. The articulatory and acoustic events that give rise to the perception of voicing and voicelessness are somewhat more complex than the simple story we told in Chapter 2. What counts as voiced in one language may, in some instances, be perceived as voiceless in another language. In this chapter we look at the topic of voicing in more detail and consider the importance of the timing of the onset of vocal fold vibration in relation to other articulatory events. We also look in more detail at vocal fold vibration itself, and distinguish normal voice from other phonation types.

Voice Onset Time

For voiceless plosive consonants, vocal fold vibration is stopped for a period that is a little longer than the hold phase (the time when the mouth is blocked, see Chapter 4), so that there is still no vocal fold vibration around the moment of release (when the articulators part and the plosion is heard) and possibly for a further brief time afterwards.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

In this chapter you will learn: how the articulators may constrict the airstream in different ways for the production of consonant sounds; how sounds may be classified according to manner of articulation; how sounds may be classed as obstruent or sonorant; how manners of articulation are used in the world's languages.

KEY TERMS

1. Affricate

2. Approximant

3. Degree of stricture

4. Flap

5. Fricative

6. Lateral

7. Manner of articulation

8. Median

9. Nasal

10. Obstruent

11. Plosive

12. Sonorant

13. Stop

14. Tap

15. Trill

Introduction

We have now seen that consonant sounds may differ in voicing and in place of articulation. The final basic distinction between consonants is known as manner of articulation and that is the subject of this chapter. A manner of articulation label, such as ‘plosive’ or ‘fricative’, refers to the way in which the airstream used for a speech sound is modified by the primary and secondary articulators. Is the airstream completely blocked? Can the air escape through the nasal cavity? Does the air pressure inside the vocal tract rise? These are the sorts of questions we will be investigating below.

Once we have learnt to apply manner labels correctly we shall be in a position to give a three-term label to a consonant, specifying its Voice, Place, Manner, usually abbreviated VPM. VPM labels are useful shorthand for identifying most consonants of the world's languages, although they are not the complete story by any means.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

In this chapter you will learn about: the use of fundamental frequency; the difference between lexical stress and rhythmic stress; lexical stress types, including fixed stress and variable stress; lexical tone languages, including contour tone and register tone languages; intonation and its role in determining the interpretation of utterances; paralinguistic features and their use in signalling speaker attitude.

KEY TERMS

1. Accent

2. Contour tone

3. Fixed stress

4. Fundamental frequency

5. Intonation

6. Key

7. Lexical tone

8. Nuclear tone

9. Nucleus

10. Paralinguistic features

11. Pitch

12. Register tone

13. Rhythm

14. Stress, primary and secondary

15. Variable stress

Introduction

We have looked in some detail at how speech sounds are produced, how they may influence each other and how they are organised into syllables. However, speech is not just a string of speech sounds. There are features of speech that span a number of speech sounds or a number of syllables or even whole utterances. Such features are called suprasegmental or prosodic features. They include lexical and rhythmic stress, lexical tone and intonation. In this chapter we will deal with variation in fundamental frequency and pitch and see how pitch variation is used in language to signal the difference between the meanings of words in lexical tone languages and how pitch is connected with lexical stress. Pitch variation is also very important at the level of the utterance. Intonation is used to signal how a speaker intends his or her utterances to be interpreted.

Fundamental frequency and pitch

We saw in Chapter 2 that the vocal folds can vibrate at different rates.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

In this chapter you will learn about: sounds involving more than one articulation; how sounds are influenced by neighbouring sounds; overlapping articulations; variation in segment duration; how to draw diagrams of estimated articulator movements.

KEY TERMS

1. Advanced

2. Coarticulation

3. Labialisation

4. Palatalisation

5. Palatography

6. Parametric diagrams

7. Pharyngealisation

8. Pre-fortis clipping

9. Pre-pausal lengthening

10. Primary and secondary articulation

11. Retracted velarisation

Introduction

In previous chapters we have gradually built up the descriptive framework that enables us to understand most of the ways in which speech sounds can differ from each other. For example, in the case of consonant sounds, we have looked at the airstream mechanism, at the various functions of the larynx, and at places and manners of articulation. There is still more to be done, though, because so far we have been assuming for the sake of simplicity that segments occur one-at-a-time in a sequence, and that within each segment there is one articulation at a time. Both of these assumptions need to be modified, because by themselves they lead to a very static view of what speech is like. The articulators and the places of articulation we have identified, for example, are nothing like as tidy and distinct in reality as our labels suggest. We have only to look inside our own mouths with a mirror, or at an X-ray picture of the vocal tract, to be reminded that the tongue is not divided neatly into the sections we have labelled blade, front and back, or that it is very hard to say where the alveolar ridge ends and the hard palate begins.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

In this chapter you will learn: the way that sound differences are used to distinguish words; how similar, noncontrastive sounds can be grouped into phonemes; how sounds form patterns in a language; how to look for patterns in samples of phonetic data; about the grouping of sounds into syllables; differences between languages in permitted sound groupings; about widespread phonological processes in languages; about phonological features and phonological rules.

KEY TERMS

1. Allophone

2. Alternation

3. Assimilation

4. Coda

5. Contrast

6. Distribution

7. Elision

8. Environment

9. Feature

10. Lenition

11. Minimal pair

12. Onset

13. Phoneme

14. Phonological process

15. Rhyme

16. Rule

Contrast

Imagine a language where all word-initial consonants are voiceless and all consonants elsewhere in a word are voiced. This would mean that in this language a word like [pidag] is possible, but one like [bitak] is impossible. The voicing of a consonant in this language is completely determined by some aspect of the environment of the consonant, in this case the position within a word. It is impossible for this language to use the phonetic distinction between voiced consonants and voiceless ones to distinguish one word from another, even though the language has voiced and voiceless pairs of consonants. We can say that in this language there is no voicing contrast or, equivalently, that voicing of consonants is not contrastive in this language.

In English and in many other languages, voicing is contrastive for consonants. We can demonstrate this with a pair of words like fussy [fʌsi] and fuzzy [fʌzi] in English or a pair in French like choux [∫u] ‘cabbage’ and joue [зu] ‘play’.

This book grew out of an overview of Portuguese designed for undergraduate seniors and graduates with varying levels of familiarity with the language and little or no training in grammar or linguistics. Some of these students were native or semi-native speakers, while others had learned the language through formal study rather than residence in a Portuguese-speaking country. As a group, they were typical of students interested in studying language as a means of communication and literary expression rather than an end in itself, and curious to learn something about the structure and use of Portuguese without going too deep into its formal analysis under any one of the linguistic theories available. Presenting the language to those students in a systematic but interesting way turned out to be a challenging and rewarding experience. Patterned on that course, this book has been organized around several key topics seen from a linguistic viewpoint rather different from the prescriptive approach usually found in grammar manuals. Owing to its general character, Portuguese: A Linguistic Introduction introduces only a handful of the language's main aspects, leaving out several otherwise important topics and a number of details that should be taken up at a more advanced level.

This book is divided into eight chapters, the first of which, “Portuguese in the world,” surveys the external history of the language, that is the facts surrounding its development and spread beyond its original territory.

If languages were uniform and invariable, they might be easier to learn and to use, but their communicative and expressive resources would probably be rather limited. We can only wonder whether such a language would suffice for linguistically creative literary works like João Guimarães Rosa's Grande Sertão: Veredas, or António Lobo Antunes's A Hora dos Lobos, or Mia Couto's Terra Sonâmbula. More likely, a uniform language would be to real language as tic-tac-toe to chess: both games are governed by rules, but chess offers plenty more room for variation.

Language, in fact, is more like a game of chess played by multiple partners who, while abiding by the same general rules, use variants that all along require reinterpretation and accommodation if the game is to proceed. At times the rules in use diverge so sharply – as if some players suddenly decided to try out checker rules – that the game breaks down. More often than not, however, adjustments are made here and there and the match goes on.

It is only by reducing a language to a theoretical construct that we can create the illusion of immutability. Real language varies in time, in geographical space, and in the omnipresent social spectrum. Accordingly, throughout this book we have tried to complement a generic presentation of Portuguese with specific instances of variation. This chapter will take a closer look at how the use of the language relates to social variables.

The expansion of Portuguese in the world illustrates what can happen when a segment of a speech community moves out of its original territory to settle down thousands of miles away. There is an approximate parallel with the spread of Latin in the territories conquered by the Roman Empire, or, more recently, with the spread of English in the British Empire. In each situation the language has changed, sometimes drastically, borrowing words from other languages, developing some of its latent possibilities, and eventually acquiring a new countenance, close enough to the original model and yet unmistakably unique.

From the middle of the fifteenth century to the middle of the twentieth, thousands of Portuguese emigrated to other European countries, to Africa, to Asia, to the Americas and, more recently, to Australia. Throughout most of that period, once anchors had been cast off, oral communication was limited to one's immediate community on board or in the new settlements. As this happened, the language, unbeknownst to its speakers, started on a course of its own. In this chapter we will examine some of the ways in which the spread of Portuguese in continental Portugal and elsewhere in the world has fostered innovation.

Aspects of language variation

Reified expressions like “Portuguese language” or “Portuguese” convey an impression of uniformity which, while convenient for the theoretical analysis of language structure, camouflages the fact that any real language is riddled with variation.