Talk:Articulatory phonetics

Number of diphthongs

"For example, English has 26 consonants, 12 vowels and three diphthongs, even though there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet."

I am not a linguist, but I thought most varieties of English had more than three contrasted diphthongs. Most vowel sounds in English are diphthongs rather than the steadier monophthongs.

beet, beat = /bijt/ (or /bit/) bait, bate = /bejt/ bat = /b&t/ (may be a diphthong in some accents, e.g. /bEat/) bite = /bajt/ boot = /buwt/ (or /but/) boat = /bowt/ bout = /bawt/ boy = /bOj/ few = /fju/ (represented in a variety of other ways)

That is at least five contrasted diphthongs in the standard accents!

Compare that with the contrastive monophthongs (again, vary by accent):

bit = /bIt/ bet = /bEt/ bat = /b&t/ bot = /bAt/ but = /BVt/ bought = /bOt/ (or /bAt/ in some accents) good = /gUd/

Add in possible triphthongs, and the blanket statement about English phonology, which caused this message, could only add to the confusion!

I _am_ a linguist, and you're absolutely right. English (for the sake of argument, let's say "Standard Southern British" English) has around 8 diphthongs, which can be divided into two main types: closing, and centring.

the closing diphthongs occur in words like: "boy", "cow", "high", "hay", and "hoe". The centring diphthongs in words like "hear", "there" and "tour". (Of course, in GenAmerican English, those last three are not really produced as diphthongs, but as a long/short vowel and /r/, which is why we need to be careful when talking about "English" phonemes).

Some of the examples given above, such as "beat", "bat", "boot" are not really diphthongs, but long monophthongs, which are perhaps produced with a strong "onglide" in some dialects of English. In "few", the vowel /u/ is preceded by an approximant (consonant) /j/ (as in "_y_ou"), so wouldn't really be classed as a diphthong.

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Section on vowels

The section on vowels consists simply of a few links to other articles, and a mysterious mention of "Previous Vowel / Later Vowel". Did somebody forget to write this section, and just left a few notes? RoachPeter (talk) 16:34, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Origin of speech sounds

In fact, there are physical restrictions that make it so hard - or even impossible - to achieve a perfect foreign pronunciation. (From the Internet) Der Mechanismus zur Bildung von Sprachstimmen muss gefunden werden, da sonst die gesamte menschliche Sprache ohne Fundament ist and auf Sand basiert. (From the Internet) The theory that speech sounds are composite entities constituted by the complexes of binary phonetic features was first advanced in 1938 by the Russian linguist Roman Jakobson. (From the Internet)

But the story itself is as follows. When I was 23 years old, I decided to learn how to pronounce Russian correctly. My mother tongue is Estonian. After a few weeks of intensive practice, I came to the conclusion that the pronunciations of Estonian and Russian are radically different, like sounds of different wind-instruments,  they are born in different places. I tried  with the "compressed air" coming from the lungs and the articulation base positions to press the Russian words to their right place. The results were very poor. However, I was so convinced of my method that I offered it to phoneticians, hoping that they would develop it further. After all, they have the appropriate education and laboratories. Since they were not interested in it, I had to carry the load on my own.

Why can a man talk but not an animal? Man's closest relative - the chimpanzee - has only the voice of an animal, he is not able to make speech sounds. How did a man get speech skills, why isn't it a monkey? Phonetics faces an unsolved problem. According to some scientists, the reason is the immaturity of the animal's brain, while others defend the view that the animal's voice is not physiologically suitable for producing sounds.

The researchers concluded that the macaque is equipped with everything needed to speak. But the dumb person should also be equipped with everything he needs, as well as those who for some reason did not acquire the spoken language on time. What are the differences between of mute and speaker vocal organs? An adult cannot pronounce a new language without an accent, although he seems to be equipped with everything he needs to pronounce all the world's languages ​​correctly. For some reason, a man can only acquire the correct pronunciation in early childhood. The literature suggests times from the age of 3-4 to the age of puberty. What are the differences between the pronunciation organs of a child and an adult, between their speech instruments?

The same problems may arise in the mother tongue as in the acquisition of pronunciation in a foreign language. For example, there are places in Estonian island Saaremaa where there is no "õ"- sound; if the right time is missed, they must use "ö" instead it their whole life. It can be assumed that there is a small but important difference between the pronunciation organs of the users of these sounds.

When a small child begins to use its pronunciation apparatus to form sounds, an activated surface corresponding to each individual sound is created in the articulation base on the pharyngeal wall, all together they form the pronunciation nest of the given language. As the working positions of the articulation bases of different languages ​​are different, the activated surfaces formed by them and the properties of the sounds corresponding to these surfaces are also different.

In the example above, a part of Saaremaa residents do not have an activated surface corresponding to "õ" on the pharyngeal wall. When the macaque gets a suitable surface on the pharyngeal wall to form sounds, he begins to speak to an extent commensurate with his mental abilities.

Leonhard Klaar

83.176.5.181 (talk) 00:26, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Initiation

The section titled 'Initiation' is very brief; I think it might be more straightforward to outline the process of speech production as a whole (initiation; phonation; articulation), which would also necessitate re-working the previous section. Wanted to check before making any larger changes! Embroidering with noodles (talk) 15:11, 10 April 2024 (UTC)