Linguistics 110 Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology
 Autumn, 2010


Time/Location: MWF 1-2, 2 LeConte
Course Code: 52323
No. of Units: 4

Instructor:

Keith Johnson, 1222 Dwinelle
keithjohnson@berkeley.edu
Office hours: WF 2-3, and by appointment.

Graduate Student Instructors:

Greg Finley, 51 Dwinelle     Dominic Yu, 51 Dwinelle
finley@berkeley.edudypc@berkeley.edu
Office hours: TBATBA

The aim of this course is to provide the student with the practical skills and the conceptual framework to do further work in phonetics and phonology, especially as this involves the description and scientific explanation of language sound systems. It will give training in the production, perception, physiological and acoustic description, and IPA transcription of the speech sounds used in the languages of the world. It is an overview of phonetic representations and models, including the International Phonetic Alphabet, acoustic theory of speech production and Quantal Theory through recent models of intonation and the representation of prosodic structure, with some coverage of basic phenomena and theories of speech perception. It also covers some of the essential background for courses in phonological theory by reviewing the principles of phonological contrast and alternation and distinctive feature representations, and by providing the opportunity to exercise transcription skills in conjunction with other methods of observation by doing a small field project.

Textbooks:

Peter Ladefoged & Keith Johnson. (2011) A Course in Phonetics. 6th Ed. HBJ

Keith Johnson. (2003) Acoustic and Auditory Phonetics. 2nd Ed. Blackwell.

Textbook (optional)

IPA (1999) Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. CUP.


Coursework:
section participation5% of final grade
8 homework assignments (graded pass/low pass/fail)15%
10 weekly quizzes20%
midterm exam20%
final exam20%
term paper20%

Weekly Quizzes: In most weeks an on-line quiz will be posted on http://bspace.berkeley.edu. These open-book, open-notes quizzes are designed to review concepts and terminology covered in the week.

Homework assignments: Approximately every two weeks you will have a homework assignment. These homework assignments are related to the material that will be emphasized in the lectures and on the exams and are designed to encourage you to think about the course material in a deeper, more engaged way than is possible in the weekly quizzes. The homeworks will be graded as "pass", "low pass", or "fail". Because solutions to assigned exercises will be discussed in class on the day that the homework is due, late homework cannot be accepted.

Exams: The midterm exam will be given during the class hour on October 11th. One component of the midterm exam will be a production exam (in which the instructor and GSIs interview each student separately) will be given during section meetings in the seventh week October 6-8. The final will be given during the regularly scheduled exam time for this course (December 15th, 7-9:30 pm, location: 237 Hearst Gym) and it will be comprehensive. No make-up exams (midterm or final) can be given except in the case of dire documented medical emergencies, or in case the exam time conflicts with a religious obligation day (as per university policy).

Course project: This is a small field project, a from-scratch description of a language sound system, done in collaboration with a native-speaker consultant. It is intended as a practicum for using the International Phonetic Alphabet and acoustic spectrographic analysis for phonetic analysis of a language, and as a practice in the initial stages of a phonological analysis. The course project (including the required outline of the term paper) is described in some detail in a separate handout. The project report is due by 5pm on December 6th.

Tentative schedule:
1: Aug 27, & 30 Introduction to phonetic transcription

reading: Ladefoged, ch. 1 & 2
notes: Course Introduction
notes: English Consonants

2: Sept 1 & 3 Phonetic transcription

notes: English Vowels
section: Bell's "Visible Speech" alphabet, International Phonetic Alphabet
Homework 1: Transcription of English (Due Wednesday, Sept. 8) --- Sound files for HW1

3: Sept 8, & 10 Phonetics of English

reading: Ladefoged, ch 3 & 4
section: Place names in IPA transcription
Homework 2: Backward speech (Due Monday, Sept. 13) --- Sound files for HW2

4: Sept 13, 15 & 17 Sounds of the world’s languages: Consonants

reading: Ladefoged, ch 6 & 7
notes: Stop place of articulation
notes: Airstream Mechanisms
notes: Fricatives
notes: Approximants and liquids
notes: Stop Universals
Project interim report (Due Monday, Sept. 20)
section: transcription practice

5: Sept 20, 22, & 24 Sounds of the world’s languages: Vowels

reading: Ladefoged, ch 9 & 10
notes: Vowels
notes: Vowel across languages
notes: Vowel universals
section: WaveSurfer speech analysis --- sound files
Homework 3: Perceptual cues in "Damp Skunk" (due Monday, Sept 27) Sound file for HW3

6: Sept 27, 29 & Oct 1 Sounds of the world’s languages: prosody

reading: Ladefoged, ch 5 & 10
notes: Suprasegmentals
notes: Intonation
notes: Rhythm
Homework 4: Transcription of the world’s languages (due Monday, October 4)

7: Oct 4, 6 & 8 Acoustic phonetics

reading: Johnson, ch. 1 & 2
notes: Resonance
section: Production exam by appointment Oct 6-8

8: Oct 11, 13 & 15 Acoustic phonetics

Midterm exam: Oct 11.
reading: Johnson, ch. 5 & 6
notes: Source/Filter theory for vowels
Homework 5: Plot your vowels (due Monday, October 18)

9: Oct 18, 20 & 22 Acoustic phonetics

notes: Perturbation theory
notes: Fricative acoustics
notes: Stop acoustics
reading: Johnson, ch 7 & 8
section: Acoustic phonetics review

10: Oct 25, 27, & 29 Phonological contrast

reading: Ladefoged, ch 11
notes: Phonological features
notes: Cognitive organization of phonetics
notes: Allophonic relationships.     HANDOUT
handout: Tables of Phonological features (a terrible scan of a handout)
handout: Example phonology problems
section: phonology problems

11: Nov 1, 3 & 5 Phonology

reading: Supplemental reading (Odden, ch. 3)
notes: More on allophony with an introduction to morphophonology     HANDOUT
notes: Abstractness of underlying representations, interacting processes     HANDOUT
notes: Phonological processes
Homework 6: Phonological analysis (due Monday, November 8).

12: Nov 8, 10, & 12 Speech Motor control

notes: Mucles of the face and tongue
notes: Breathing and voice
notes: Speech Anatomy
reading: Supplemental reading (Lieberman & Blumstein, ch. 6)

13: Nov 15, 17 & 19 Speech Motor control

reading: Supplemental reading (Perrier, 2006)
notes: Speech motor control: Coordinative Structures
notes: Articulatory phonology

14: Nov 22 & 24 Speech Aerodynamics

reading: Supplemental reading (Catford, ch. 3, Catford ch. 7 & 8)
notes: Speech aerodynamics
notes: Aerodynamics Basics - lecture slides
notes: Speech Aerodynamics and phonology
Homework 7: Physiology and gestures (due Wednesday, November 24)
Homework 7: The "muscle score" handout that goes with Homework 7
Homework 7: The "gestural score" handout that goes with Homework 7

15: Nov 29, Dec 1, & 3 Speech Perception

reading: Johnson, ch 3 & 4
notes: Perception Basics.
notes: Perception in sound change.
Homework 8: Aerodynamics: voicing, frication, and nasality (due Wednesday, December 1)

16: Dec 6, 8, & 10 Reading week

Term paper - due on Dec 6 at 5pm.

Final exam - Wednesday, December 15, 7-9:30 pm, location: 237 Hearst Gym.

Supplemental readings:
(the relevant chapters will be made available via bspace)

Catford, J.C. (1982) Fundamental Problems in Phonetics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Lieberman P. & Blumstein, S. (1988) Speech Physiology, Speech Perception, and Acoustic Phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Odden, D. (2005) Introducing Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Perrier, P. (2006) About speech motor control complexity. In Harrington, J. & Tabain, M. (Eds.) Speech Production: Models, Phonetic Processes, and Techniques, New York: Psychology Press (pp. 13-25).

Additional helpful books:
Maddieson (1984) Patterns of Sound [P217.M238]
Ladefoged (1993) A Course in Phonetics, 3rd Ed. [P221.L25]
Ladefoged (1996) Elements of Acoustic Phonetics, 2nd Ed. [QP306.L3]
Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) Sounds of the World's Languages [P221.L274]
Ladefoged (2001) Vowels and Consonants [P221.L276 2001 V1, V2]
Pullum & Ladusaw (1996) Phonetic Symbol Guide, 2nd Ed. [P221.P85]
Denes & Pinson (1973) The Speech Chain [QP306 .D45 1973]
Borden, Harris & Raphael (1994) Speech Science Primer [P95.B65 1994]

Academic misconduct:
Academic misconduct is a serious matter, with serious consequences. Plagiarism, failing to cite a source of information, and cheating during exams are all serious offenses. I report academic misconduct to the UC Berkeley Center for Student Conduct and Community Standards.




This document is available in alternative formats upon request. Please contact Keith Johnson, Dwinelle 1222, 643-7617