Approximants + Secondary Articulations - Bases Produced

Approximants +
Secondary Articulations
November 27, 2009

Minor Details
• Transcription exercise for Monday:
• Bengali (VOT distinctions)
• Arabic (Fricatives)
• Quebec French (Fricatives + Approximants)
• For next Friday: final production exercise (#4)
• Both assignments have already been posted….
• Your production exercise #3 grades will be returned by
Monday.

Review Time
• So far, we have talked in detail about the following classes
of sounds:
• Vowels
• Stops
• Trills
• Fricatives
• Affricates
• Ejectives, Implosives, Clicks
• A basic distinction: vowels and consonants

• Vowels
Vowels and Consonants
• Relatively unconstricted flow of air through vocal tract
(above the glottis)
• Shape (filter) the source of sound made at the glottis
• Consonants
• Completely or severely constricted flow of air through
vocal tract (above the glottis)
• Create a source of sound at the constriction (e.g.,
release bursts, turbulence)
• Voicing may be difficult
• Note: this is a phonological distinction, not a phonetic one.

Obstruents and Sonorants
• Phonologically speaking, there are also different kinds of
consonants.
• One important distinction is between obstruents and
sonorants.
• Obstruents
• Stops, fricatives, affricates
• Obstruct flow of air through the vocal tract so much that
voicing is difficult
• Sonorants
• Nasals, approximants (glides, liquids), trills, flaps
• Allow air to flow freely through vocal tract so that
resonance (voicing) is still possible

Approximants
• Approximants = one articulator is close to another, but
without producing audible turbulence.
• They come in two flavors:
1. Glides (English [w], [j])
2. Liquids (English , [l])
• This distinction is also phonological…
• Glides are essentially high-vowel articulations which
are not in a syllabic peak.
• In English, liquids may form syllables (or syllable
peaks).

Glides
• Each glide corresponds to a different high vowel.
Vowel Glide Place
[i] [j] palatal (front, unrounded)
[u] [w] labio-velar (back, rounded)
[y] labial-palatal (front, rounded)
velar (back, unrounded)

Glide Examples
• French contrasts palatal, labio-palatal and labio-velar
glides:
• Japanese has velar vowels, but not necessarily velar
glides...

Glide Acoustics
• Glides are shorter than vowels
• They also tend to lack “steady states”
• and exhibit rapid transitions into (or from) vowels
• hence: “glides”
• Also: lower in intensity
• especially in the higher formants

[j] vs. [i]

[w] vs. [u]

Vowel-Glide-Vowel
[iji] [uwu]

More Glides
[wi:] [ju:]

Secondary Articulations
• A secondary articulation is made by superimposing a
glide-like articulation on top of another constriction
elsewhere in the vocal tract.
• Note that secondary articulations are different from
double articulations.
• In double articulations, both constrictions are of equal
degree.
• Ex: labio-velar stops ([kp])
• With secondary articulations, there are two constrictions
with an unequal degree of closure.
• primary articulation: more constricted
• secondary articulation: less constricted

Primary / Secondary
• One example of a secondary articulation is velarized .
• Also symbolized:
• Primary articulation: [l]
• direct contact with tongue tip
• Secondary articulation:
• approximation of velum with back of tongue
• The other commonly found secondary articulations are:
• [ w ] labialization
• [ j ] palatalization
• pharyngealization

Labialization Examples
• In labialization, lip rounding (specifically, protrusion) is
superimposed on a fricative or stop constriction.
• Examples from Bura (spoken in Nigeria):

Timing
• The reason that [k w ] is not transcribed as [kw] has to do
with timing.
• [k w ]: peak of labial protrusion occurs during stop closure
velum
lips
[k]
[ w ]
• [kw]: peak of labial protrusion occurs after stop closure
velum
lips
[k]
[w]

[m] vs. [m w ]
[m w anta]

Palatalization
• Consonants are palatalized by making a secondary [j]
constriction.
• Russian has contrastive palatalized consonants.

[p] vs. [p j ] vs. [pj]
“sweat” (male name) “drink”

Post-vocalic Position
[tot h ]
• The acoustic effects of secondary articulations
operate in reverse, when they appear after a vowel.

Pharyngealization
• Consonants are pharyngealized by superimposing a
pharynx narrowing gesture on the regular consonant
articulation.
• Mid-sagittal diagrams from Arabic:

Arabic Examples
• Arabic contrasts pharyngealized and non-pharyngealized
consonants.

[ti:n]
[t] vs.
• Pharyngeal constrictions raise F1 and lower F2
• an -like formant pattern

• What about F3 distinctions?
• They’re unusual.
• For auditory reasons:
A Note About F3
• sensitivity to frequency distinctions drops off in the
higher frequency regions.
• However: English has very low F3.

English
• English is distinctive because it has a very low F3.

And Again

Toothpick Time
• typically combines three different approximant
constrictions:
1. Post-alveolar (retroflex)
2. Lip rounding (labialization)
3. Pharyngeal constriction (pharyngealization)
• Hence, might be a better transcription.
• English speakers make the retroflex constriction in two
different ways:
1.Tongue bunching
2.Tongue curling
• ⇒ The articulation of is very complex.

Bunching and Curling

Back to the videotape…

Rhoticized Vowels
• Retroflexion is a feature which may be superimposed on
other vowel articulations.
• These vowels are said to be rhoticized.
• Rhoticized vowels are contrastive in Badaga, a language
spoken in southern India.

Retroflex Vowel Spectrograms
[be]

Rhoticized vowels in English
• Vowels before in Canadian + American English are
consistently rhoticized.
• Check out Bruce + Peter’s productions of “hard”.
• Recall that there is a reduced set of vowel contrasts in
this environment:
•
• Also note that there are alternative transcriptions for
syllabic .
• Namely: