Linguistics Stack Exchange
Linguistics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [phonetics]

The study of the production and perception of sounds or "phones".

1006 questions
8
votes
2 answers

How are voiced and voiceless consonants distinguished while whispering?

When I whisper, none of my consonants is voiced. But I can tell the difference between voiced and voiceless consonants. How is that possible?
EMBLEM
  • 283
  • 2
  • 5
6
votes
3 answers

Does any language have Final-Obstruent voicing?

Some languages such as Georgian for example have final-obstruent devoicing and voiced /b,d,ɡ/ become devoiced to [pʰ,tʰ,kʰ] before voiceless consonants and before a pause, for example the word "ზოგადად" ("zogadad" "generally") has a word-final /d/…
LinguisticsFanatic
  • 953
  • 3
  • 17
6
votes
2 answers

does F3 correspond to any articulatory features?

when describing vowels, increased F2 implies that the tongue is more front, and increased F1 implies that the tongue is more low. Does F3 correspond to anything, articulation wise?
RECURSIVE FARTS
  • 1,524
  • 3
  • 13
  • 28
5
votes
2 answers

Is jaw position essential or incidental in vowel production?

My classical voice teacher emphasizes an exercise where I am to sing through a sequence of vowels while maintaining the same open jaw position. The idea is that a singer should be able to produce vowels with the tongue and lips alone, never needing…
user3091
  • 183
  • 8
5
votes
1 answer

What makes /l/ an approximant, instead of a fricative?

My understanding of approximants is that they are produced without the tongue coming into direct contact with any of the articulators in the mouth, which is true for /w/ /r/ and /j/. But /l/ is classed as an approximant even though - at least in my…
Lou
  • 1,280
  • 11
  • 22
5
votes
1 answer

Does the primary distinction of retroflex consonants lie in their effect on surrounding phonemes?

As an English speaker, I've had very little experience with retroflex consonants, but have recently come upon their use in Polish, and am having difficulty hearing them as particularly distinct from non-retroflex consonants at similar articulation…
Pat Muchmore
  • 257
  • 1
  • 4
4
votes
4 answers

Is it possible for an ejective consonant to be realized as a non-ejective consonant allophonically?

In my native language, Georgian, there's a phoneme transcribed as /qʼ/ in IPA which is most of the time realized as some kind of a fricative or an affricate, like [χʼ] or [q͡χʼ]. Recently however, I noticed that I sometimes use an allophone which…
LinguisticsFanatic
  • 953
  • 3
  • 17
4
votes
1 answer

How can I learn to produce "harsh voice"

I'd like to work on my ability to identify creaky and harsh voice. Creaky voice is not a huge problem - I already have a reasonable idea of what that sounds like and there are a million YT videos explaining how it's done. Harsh voice is another…
rchivers
  • 465
  • 2
  • 8
4
votes
1 answer

Why are vowels distinguishable merely by formant frequencies and not formant intensities?

So it is commonly said that what distinguishes the qualities of different vowels in a language are the frequencies of the first two or three peaks (formants) on a spectogram, so that one can plot all vowels in a two- or three-dimensional space with…
John Goodrick
  • 201
  • 1
  • 4
4
votes
1 answer

Recordings with Echoes?

I recently recorded some subjects reading lists of words and sentences. The recordings were taken on a ZOOM H4N recorder, sampled at 44100HZ, on a head-mounted condenser microphone. The recordings would be high-quality if there were no echo. I want…
axme100
  • 460
  • 2
  • 12
3
votes
1 answer

Teeth and dental clicks

I would like to know how a person without teeth, produces, dental clicks (in a language where dental clicks are a characteristic). Does such person use a different language in adult life, or what? Thanks.
Joselin Jocklingson
  • 187
  • 5
3
votes
2 answers

Is the reduction or disappearance of alveolar trill [r] a cross-linguistical phenomenon?

The sound [r] has become several other sounds, such as in English [ɹ], French [ʁ], Norwegian [ɾ] etc., while it is still widely found in the languages world-wide. Besides, are there any assumed examples that another sound could be developed into…
wodemingzi
  • 1,057
  • 5
  • 9
3
votes
0 answers

Are there languages more suitable for loud or crowded situations than others?

I'm an Italian native speaker but I speak English everyday for work. When I'm with English native speakers I often hear them asking to repeat words, especially if there's a lot of noise around. I realized this kind of situation happens very rarely…
Fez Vrasta
  • 131
  • 1
3
votes
1 answer

Shift from /sk/ → /ʃ/

I'm not sure if this is a legitimate question to ask,but I noticed this sound change in a few germanic languages, such as Old English and German. How did it happen?
X30Marco
  • 891
  • 4
  • 9
3
votes
1 answer

What books give a comprehensive analysis of intermorphemic consonant clusters in English?

Some examples here. The clusters are marked: A law that states that... I spend three months there. the best structure It reflects those differences. It seems that people reduces these pronunciations or combine them in some way in spoken language.…
wodemingzi
  • 1,057
  • 5
  • 9
1
2 3 4 5 6 7