Linguistics

1. Speech sounds can be classified into two major classes: consonants and vowels. We can tell them apart from the difference in articulation. Consonant sounds are produced with constriction on the air flow through the velum and are voice or voiceless, while vowel sounds are made with no constrictions on the air flow and are usually voiced. An exception for voiceless vowels for example is “tanoshikatta,” where the “i” is a devoiced vowel.

English vowels (a, e, i, o and u), are produced by the height of tongue (high, mid or low), back, central or front position of tongue, tenseness of the lips (tense or lax) and roundedness of lips (rounded or un-rounded). However to produce the Japanese vowels (a, i, u, e and o), only the height of tongue and back central or front position determines which vowel is produced, for instance, low and central makes the “a” sound and high and back makes the “u” sound in Japanese.

To produce consonant sounds, there are two types of articulation: places of articulation and manners of articulation. Places of articulation is where the sounds are made, which includes labial, bilabial, labio-dental, dental, interdental, alveolar, alveopalatal, palatal, velar, labiovelar, uvular, pharyngeal and glottal. In English we use the labial also known as lips, labio-dental also known as the lower lip and upper teeth, inter-dental which involves our tongue in-between the teeth, alveolar which is the ridge just behind the upper front teeth, alveopalatal which is the roof area of the mouth right behind the alveolar, velar which when the tongue touches the soft area on the back of the roof and glottal which is the use of vocal fold.

Manner of articulation is the how the airflow is blocked and modified, which includes oral-nasal phones, stops, fricatives, affricates, liquid and glide. These are all used in the English language: oral-nasal phones is produced when the velum is raised (oral) or lowered (nasal), stops are made by complete shut down of airflow by the bilabial, dental, alveolar, palatal, velar or glottal, fricatives are the opposite of stops therefore is made by constant airflow, affricates is made when the stop is released therefore when air starts to flow, liquid is produced when the tip of the tongue is raised towards the dental or alveolar with the airflow through the sides of the tongue and last of all glides produced by a smooth, rapid transition between two different vowel sounds. An example of a glide used in English is the y-glide, which can be followed by any vowel, such as the word “yellow” with the vowel “e’’ following “y” and “young” with the vowel “o” following the “y” consonant. On the other hand, for Japanese y-glide, only “a,” “u,” and “o” vowels can follow it, such as the word “yaru” (to do), “yume” (dream) and “yoru” (night). Another example for English glide is the w-glides, which can also be followed by any vowels, such as “winter” with “i” following “w” and “wad” with “a” following “w.” Again, in Japanese the vowels that can follow the w-glide is stricted to only “a” such as “warau” (to laugh) and “watashi” (I, me).

Consequently, the places and manners of articulation determine which sounds are produced. For example, in English, voiced nasal (manner) labial (place) produces the “m” sound and voiced lateral liquid