матковська

98 Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics

she chooses the progressive aspect. All these grounding elements are layered around the event schema like the layers of an onion around its core according to the principle of conceptual distance or proximity, and together form the sentence (onion).

4.6 Further reading

The introduction to (English) grammar closest to this presentation and developing its elements in further detail is Radden and Dirven (2005). Other introductions to syntax, from a cognitive-functional viewpoint are Givón (1993) and Haiman ed. (1985). The theoretical foundation of the present approach is o ered by Langacker (1987, 1991a, 1991b, 1999). A detailed analysis of one particular event schema and the predicate “give” is Newman (1996). An analysis of grammatical morphemes such as the Dative or the Instrumental is Janda (1993). A construction approach to ditransitives is Goldberg (1995, 2002). The Goal-over-Source principle has been described by Ikegami (1987). A thorough and many-faceted analysis of ‘grounding’ is o ered in Brisard, ed. (2002). An overall semantic approach to grammar is Wierzbicka (1988).

Assignments

1.Analyze the described events as follows: (i) Is there an energy flow? If so, from where to where? (ii) What are the semantic roles of the participants? (iii) Which event schema is used?

a.Dad must fix the telephone.

b.It fell down last night.

c.My brother is a doctor.

d.He goes to Great Britain.

e.He has given me all his books.

f.He will take a few books to Britain.

g.He watches a lot of television.

2.Which type of Essive relation do you find in each of the following sentences?

a.She is a year older than her brother.

b.She is my niece.

c.A mule is not a horse and not a donkey.

Chapter 4. Putting concepts together 99

d.This puppet is my favourite one.

e.My friend is not at home.

f.There are many problems left.

3.Characterize the subtype of “doing” schema in the following examples. Or is it not really a “doing” schema?

a.He was tickling his brother.

b.The brother was laughing.

c.He was drawing a train on the blackboard.

d.Then he wiped o¬ the train.

e.He put water on the blackboard.

f.Then he dried it.

4.Characterize the subtypes of possession in the following examples.

a.Have you any good red wine left?

b.I haven’t the slightest idea.

c.That wine bottle has a pretty label.

d.Would you like to have a glass of wine?

e.No, I have got a terrible headache.

f.Well, if you want one, I have got an aspirin here.

5.Analyze the following sentences as in assigment 1. Then comment on the (subtle) meaning di¬erences between each pair.

a.He will read from the Bible.

b.He will read the Bible.

c.The children washed in the bath.

d.The children washed the bath.

6.Below the sentences from example (8) are repeated. Which of the elements indicated in parentheses can occur alone and which cannot? Is there evidence for any general principle(s) like Goal over Source, Source over Goal, or Path over Goal.

a.The apple fell from the tree into the grass.

(Source + Goal)

b.I climbed from my room up the ladder onto the roof.

(Source + Path + Goal)

c.It went on from ten all night long till two.

(Start + Duration + End)

d.The police searched the house from noon till midnight.

(Start + End)

e.The weather changed from cloudy to bright in one hour.

(Initial State + Resultant State + Duration)

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f.She changed from an admirer into his adversary.

(Initial State + Resultant State)

7.What are (i) the event schemas, and (ii) the sentence patterns of the sentences below (repeated from examples (2))?

a.Kim is the one who did it.

b.The window broke.

c.Kim broke the window.

d.Kim felt very angry and tried to hit Bruce.

e.Kim had a baseball bat in his hand.

f.The baseball bat went through the window.

g.Bruce had given Kim a nasty picture of himself.

8.The following pairs of phrases and sentences have di¬erent grounding elements. For each pair indicate (i) which grammatical verb morphemes are grounding elements, (ii) which one of the phrases or sentences is an unmarked case (if there is one), (iii) which one(s) is/are marked. (iv) Explain the semantic di¬erence between each pair.

a.Mum, answer the phone now!/Mum answers the phone often.

b.Mum must answer/may answer the phone now.

c.Mum answered/has answered the phone.

d.Mum has answered/had answered the phone.

e.Mum is answering/answers the phone.

5The sounds of language

Phonetics and Phonology

5.0Overview

In the preceding chapters we have talked about meaningful units in language: syntactic groups consist of words, which in turn consist of morphemes. Each is meaningful at its own level. In this chapter, we will look at the parts that make up morphemes: speech sounds. A separate speech sound on its own does not have meaning, but when combined with other sounds, a small distinction such as it vs. fit may make a meaningful di erence.

This chapter describes speech sounds in their general, physical appearance and in their functioning in one specific language, i.e. English. This di erence constitutes the basis of the two sciences of speech sounds, i.e. phonetics and phonology.

First the speech organs and the main types of speech sounds are analyzed and the ways to describe them are discussed. These speech sounds are the consonants, vowels and diphthongs. In the sound system of a particular language, things may be di erent from another language: what counts as two di erent sounds in one language, may just be two variants of one element in the sound system of the other language. Therefore a distinction between a sound and a phoneme is introduced as well as a distinction between a phonetic description and a phonemic one.

Groupings of sounds form a syllable and such groupings are again subject to highly language-specific combination patterns. Syllables form words, which are characterized by their own stress patterns. Words are combined in a sentence, which carries one of the various intonation patterns possible in a language. In the longer units of word groups or sentences, the sounds of single words undergo massive changes such as linking, elision, assimilation etc. All these processes enable a quick and e cient delivery of speech production and transmission.

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5.1 Introduction: Phonetics and phonology

Human beings can make an infinite number of speech sounds. If you say the same word several times, or ask di erent people to say the same word, there will be di erences between the pronunciations. In spite of these di erences, we would still want to say that the pronunciations are in some important respects “the same”.

The same holds with the written language. The following symbols all have a di erent shape. Nevertheless, we are able to regard the di erent shapes as examples of the “same” entity, i.e. the “first letter of the alphabet”.

A very general cognitive ability is involved here: categorization, i.e. the ability to perceive di erent things as examples of the same category. One aspect of knowing a language is the ability to categorize the great variety of speech sounds heard in that language. The sound categories that a speaker of one language recognizes will not necessarily coincide with those that a speaker of another language will “hear”. Speakers of Thai hear the two “p”-sounds in pie and spy as di erent; conversely, for the Japanese, the “s” and “sh” sounds in sushi are the same.

Here we have the basis of the distinction between phonetics and phonology. Phonetics studies speech sounds as sounds, in all their complexity and diversity, independent of their role in a given language. Phonology studies speech sounds as these are categorized by speakers of a given language. In standard British English, there are about 45 di erent categories of speech sounds, called phonemes. As the languages of the world go, English is about average. Some languages have fewer phonemes (Japanese has about 20). Others, e.g. !Xóõ, one of the Bushman (“Khoisan”) languages of Southern Africa, have over a hundred, amongst which a very intricate system of click sounds [!].

5.1.1 Spelling and pronunciation

Some languages (e.g. Spanish) have a writing system that is (almost) a phonemic one, i.e. each phoneme is always represented by the same letter, and vice versa. But in English the relationship between pronunciation and spelling is, as we all know, far from perfect. There are various reasons for this. First there are more phonemes (about 45) than there are letters of the alphabet (26). Next, there are historical reasons: when English spelling was standardized, many

Chapter 5. The sounds of language 103

centuries ago, it was broadly phonemic in character. Spelling has remained virtually the same, while pronunciation has changed considerably over the centuries, and continues to do so. The vowels of English have been especially “unstable”. Moreover, English has borrowed from other languages. Words of foreign origin may be spelt according to the rules of the donor language, thereby introducing numerous “irregularities” into English spelling. Examples include French borrowings like rouge, chateau, champaign, quiche. Furthermore, spellings have sometimes been influenced by speakers’ beliefs about etymology (etymological spelling). Debt is a borrowing from Old French dette. The “b” was never pronounced, but was inserted to show the supposed relation of the word to Latin debitum. Finally, there is a very marked tendency for a given morpheme always to be spelled the same way, even though its pronunciation may vary from context to context. The is spelled the same way in the man and the apple, although it is pronounced di erently. You can recognize the invariant spelling of the root morphemes in photograph and photographer, clean and cleanse, sign and signature, family and familiar, even though the morphemes are pronounced di erently in each case.

Speakers sometimes attempt to re-establish the link between spelling and pronunciation, not by changing the spelling, but by modifying the pronunciation. At the beginning of this century, waistcoat was pronounced /ÁweskIt/ or /Áwesk6t/, to rhyme with biscuit. The current pronunciation /ÁweistÀk6ut/ is a spelling pronunciation; the pronunciation is based on the conventional spelling. Speakers who pronounce the “t” in often are likewise being influenced by the spelling.

5.1.2 Phonetic symbols

Because spelling is not a faithful representation of pronunciation, it is useful to have a set of special symbols whose values are generally agreed upon. This is the function of the phonetic symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet

(IPA). These symbols are in general use amongst linguists and are employed in this book. Most modern dictionaries now give pronunciations of words using these symbols.

5.2 Production of speech sounds

We can distinguish two main stages in the production of speech sounds: phonation and articulation.

104Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics

–Phonation stands for the airstream becoming voiced or voiceless as explained further on (Figure 1). As air is expelled from the lungs, it passes through the glottis (located behind the “Adam’s apple”). Located in the glottis are the vocal folds — two flaps of flesh that can be brought together or held apart. Phonation refers to the modulation of the airstream in the glottis. If the vocal folds are brought together, they may vibrate, to produce voice. If air passes freely through the glottis, the air stream is minimally a ected (this is the state of voicelessness).

–Articulation refers to the creation of a special resonance space for each sound (Figure 2). This involves the shaping of the vocal tract (i.e. the tubular structure above the larynx), by adjustment, in the oral cavity, of the tongue, jaw, velum (soft palate), lips, etc. The great variety of speech sounds that we are able to make depends very largely on the manner in which we shape the vocal tract.

Phonation and articulation will be discussed in more detail below.

5.2.1 Phonation

If you clasp your hand tightly over your larynx while saying the word zoo, you should be able to feel a certain vibration. The vibration is that of the vocal folds, technically known as voice. Both [z] and [u] are voiced sounds.

If you repeat this exercise while saying a prolonged [s], you should feel no vibration in the larynx. [s] is a voiceless sound.

For the production of voice, the vocal folds are brought together. When air is pushed out from the lungs, it encounters the vocal folds as an obstacle. Air pressure builds up under the folds until the folds are literally blown apart, and air escapes through the glottis. The folds then return to their original position. Air pressure builds up again, and the cycle is repeated. This repeated cycle makes the folds vibrate. Each opening and closing cycle is very brief. In men, the frequency ranges from about 80 to 150 cps (cycles per second), in women, from about 120 up to 300 cps. For children, the rate may be even higher.

The frequency of the opening and closing cycle determines the pitch of the sound; the higher the frequency, the higher the perceived pitch. The auditory sensation of pitch is produced by the pattern of regular bursts of air passing through the glottis.

Voicelessness ensues when the vocal folds are completely brought apart. When air from the lungs reaches the larynx, it encounters no obstacle, and flows

Chapter 5. The sounds of language 105

Nasal cavity

Uvula

Oral cavity

Pharynx

Larynx

Glottis

Esophagus

Windpipe

lungs

Figure 1. The vocal tract airflow

freely though the glottis. Whisper is characterized by voicelessness throughout. For obvious reasons, it is not possible to produce a voiceless sound with pitch, or with pitch variations.

When the airstream, in passing through the oral cavity, is “obstructed” to a marked degree, the sounds thus formed are collectively known as obstruents. Many obstruents come in pairs of voiced and voiceless sounds. Here is a list of the English obstruents, in their voiced/voiceless pairings.

106 Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics

The other main class of consonants, the sonorants, are typically voiced. (We can think of sonorants as the “hummable” consonants.) These include the nasals [m], [n] and []], the liquids [l] and [r], and the glides [j] and [w].

[m]“me”

[n]“knee”

[]] “sing”

[l]“love”

[r]“ray”

[j]“yes”

[w]“when”

5.2.2Articulation

The second major component of speech production is articulation, i.e. the shaping of the vocal tract as air passes through it. Aspects of articulation will be studied in the next sections, which deal with the characterization of consonants and vowels.

5.3 Consonants

Consonants and vowels are distinguished mainly in terms of the degree of constriction in the vocal tract. Consonants involve some major constriction, which obstructs the airflow at some point. Vowels on the other hand merely involve a distinctive shaping of the oral cavity, with relatively little impedance of the air flow.

Consonants can be described in terms of two major parameters: the place in the vocal tract at which constriction occurs (place of articulation), and the nature of the constriction (manner of articulation).

5.3.1 Places of articulation

In the articulation of a consonant, a movable articulator (usually some part of the tongue, or the lips) is moved towards a more stable articulator (e.g. the upper teeth, or some part of the palate). The following terms describe the more common places of articulation.

–bilabial [p, b, m]. The lower lip articulates with the upper lip

Chapter 5. The sounds of language 107

–labiodental [f, v]. The lower lip articulates with the upper teeth

–dental [θ, ð]. The tongue tip articulates with the top teeth

–alveolar [t, d, n, l, s, z]. The tongue tip articulates with the alveolar ridge. Also many articulations of “r”.

–alveopalatal [w, Š]. The tongue front (excluding the tip) articulates with the back part of the alveolar ridge.

–palatal [j]. The tongue blade articulates with the back part of the alveolar ridge.

–velar [k, :]. The tongue back articulates with the velum (soft palate). [k, :] before back vowels, as in core, gore.

Nose: nasals

Figure 2. Vocal tract: Places of articulation

5.3.2 Manner of articulation

Manner of articulation describes the kind of constriction that is made. The following are the major categories (see Table 1):

–stops (plosives) [p, t, k, b, d, :, ‘]. Stops are made by completely blocking the airstream at some point in the oral cavity.

–fricatives [f, v, θ, ð, s, z, w, Š]. They are made with a very narrow gap between the articulators. The airstream passes through this gap under high pressure, causing friction.

–a ricates [tw, dŠ]. They are complex sounds, consisting of a stop followed immediately by a fricative at the same place of articulation. Here, the stop is gradually released so as to form a narrow constricted gap for the air to flow through; this is the fricative part of the a ricate.