SAR SH 221 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Vocal Tract, Vocal Folds, Free Variation

• School: Boston University
• Department: Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences
• Course: SAR SH 221
• Professor: Perrachione

Document Summary

Contrastiveness is what makes sounds different from one another. Two sounds are contrastive if two sounds can produce two different words. Speech sounds are contrastive if they differentiate words. /b/ and /d/ are contrastive: bog vs dog. We are indicating a difference in sounds which is constructive in one word vs another word. Speech sounds are in free variation, or are called allophones, if they do not differentiate words. These differences in sound do not differentiate a word. Example: kitten vs kitten (pronounced tt vs glottal tt). Place of articulation, where in the vocal tract are we making the constriction. Manner is the type of constriction, how loose or tight it can be. Voicing is whether your vocal cords are vibrating or not. The glottis is the space between the two vocal folds. It is also open for voiceless sounds like p. Sound that is made here is g , k .