a) English voiced oral plosives/stops are made at three places of articulation. What are the three places, and what are the IPA symbols for each of the three voiced stops?Plosives are described as sounds that are produced through the blocking of the air-stream just for a short time.The three places of articulation for English voiced oral plosives/ stops are the following:1. Bilabials -- Low FrequenciesIt means that the sound is articulated through both lips. It can be said that the active articulator is the lower lip and the passive articulator is the upper lip. The sound being produced in this particular place is called voiced bilabial plosive.
The IPA symbol for this sound is b. However, other English bilabial sounds include [p] and [m].Alveolars-- High FrequenciesIt means that the sound is articulated by using either the blade or tip of the tongue, or the active articulator, against the alveolar ridge, or the passive articulator. The IPA symbol for the voiced alveolar plosive is d. Other English sounds are [s], [t], [z], and [l].Velars (e.
g., /g/, /n/, /x/) -- Middle FrequenciesIt means that the sound is articulated through back part of the tongue, which is the active articulator, and the soft palate, which is the passive articulator. The IPA symbol for the voiced velar plosive is g. Other English sounds include [n] and [x].b) What is the difference between the plosive (or oral stop) [b] and the nasal (or nasal stop) [m] in terms of articulation? That is, what do you do differently in your mouth between [b] and [m]?Answer: In producing the sound [b] and [m], two things should be took into consideration in order to see how the two sound are produced.
First, we should look on what type of consonants they are. [b] is an oral consonant, which means that it is a sound allowable to escape through the mouth. On the other hand, [m] is a nasal consonant which is a sound that could pass through the nose. However, we should look on the similarity of the two according to their airstream mechanism. [b] and [m]could be produced through pulmonic egressive.
It means that the sound could be produced through pushing out the air from the lungs all throughout the vocal tract and not from the mouth or the glottis.c) On the vowel charts for Australian and New Zealand English shown in the lecture and give below, a position is given for the Australian English monophthong (pure vowels) in the word hair. There is no corresponding word hair on the New Zealand English monophthong chart (nor, on the website, for the British RP (Received Pronunciation) nor the US English monophthong charts). Given that all these varieties of English have the word hair, why do you think it’s not marked on these non-Australian monophthong charts?Answer: Despite that all four varieties of English (Australian, New Zealand, British, and American) have the word hair, still, it is only the Australian monophthong which has the word marked on its chart. If we would analyze the Australian monopthong, we would find out that it really has no difference with the three aforementioned monopthongs (Mannell). It’s just that the Australian English monopthong can be divided into two.
The first one would be based on the analysis of Bernard in 1970. Here, she focused on the vowel productions of Australians in general.They particularly represent the speakers during the 1960s, and therefore, the vowel productions of older Australians. However, the second chart was done by Cox in 1996. It features the vowel production of a much younger batch of Australian speakers, particularly those from Sydney.
In this particular chart, the word hair was marked. Thus, I think that one of the probable reasons why the other three charts do not have the word hair is because of the two divisions in the Australian English monopthong. In addition, because the word hair only disappeared in the 1996 version of the Australian monophtong, it means that it is more recent than the monopthongs of the three other English varieties. It suggests that new developments have occurred in the vowel productions of the Australian speakers today.
