Break out of frame

Phonetics resources

Section home - Section policy - Wordprocessing - Back to E-Ching’s home
Phonetics - Phonology - Morphology - Syntax - Fun

If you are interested in phonetics, treat this as a starting point — there are many more fascinating websites all over the Internet!

Added Feb 26

Played in lecture

IPA for other languages/varieties

If you’re curious about the IPA transcription of another language or variety of English, the official word is the Illustrations of the IPA series. Quite a few are available from a Yale computer, such as those below.

The first dozen or so were published in the handbook, which I own and can bring to office hours upon request.

FAQ

Is English r alveolar or retroflex?

Good question, and belated apologies for my incorrect answers in email and section.

The English r is usually transcribed with the IPA symbol [ɹ] for alveolar approximants, but our textbook describes it as a retroflex approximant, which is [ɻ] in the IPA. So it’s a fair question: is it alveolar [ɹ] or retroflex [ɻ]?

For questions like this, the standard reference is Gimson’s Pronunciation of English, a detailed textbook-cum-reference used by English teachers worldwide. Gimson (7th edition, 2008) says r is slightly retroflex in Received Pronunciation (p. 220), but may be more retroflex in some other varieties of English, including American English (p. 222).

I think the reason we use the alveolar [ɹ] symbol is that English doesn’t contrast alveolar [ɹ] and retroflex [ɻ]. So we use the simpler symbol and save ourselves a little work, at the cost of some confusion.

(Note: If you don’t see IPA symbols above, you need an IPA Unicode font.)

Where does English have aspiration?

Again, belated apologies for inaccurate comments in section.

My impression is that the English voiceless fricatives [ʃ θ f] are not aspirated, but the English voiceless affricate [tʃ] is aspirated. This conclusion is based on a lot of experimenting with tissue paper corners and comparison with Mandarin, which has both aspirated and unaspirated voiceless affricates. I think the reason we don’t mark aspiration on English [tʃ] is that there is no contrast, not even the allophonic contrast we find for English pie [pʰaj] vs. spy [spaj].

As for the voiceless stops [p t k], Gimson's Pronunciation of English (7th edn, 2008, p. 159) says they are aspirated in strong positions (e.g. word-initially) before a vowel. As discussed in class, they are not aspirated in [sp st sk] clusters. Nor are they aspirated before the approximants [j w r l]; instead the approximants are devoiced, e.g. treat [tr̥iːt]. An additional wrinkle is that this devoicing is less likely in [s]-stop-approximant clusters, e.g. street [triːt] (this may be in Browman & Goldstein 1986, Phonology Yearbook 3: 219–252).

(Note: If you don’t see IPA symbols above, you need an IPA Unicode font.)

Other resources

Any suggestions for other links?