Linguistic Phonetics

3-0-9 units · Graduate

The study of speech sounds: how we produce and perceive them and their acoustic properties. The influence of the production and perception systems on phonological patterns and sound change. Acoustic analysis and experimental techniques. Students taking the graduate version complete different assignments.

Fall 2015

This course is about the study of speech sounds; how we produce and perceive them and their acoustic properties. Topics include the influence of the production and perception systems on phonological patterns and sound change, students learn acoustic analysis and experimental techniques. Students taking the graduate version complete different assignments.

Readings

[Johnson] = Johnson, Keith. Acoustic and Auditory Phonetics . 3rd ed. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. ISBN: 9781405194662. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
Listed reading
Ladefoged, Peter. Elements of Acoustic Phonetics . 2nd ed. University of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780226467641.
Listed reading
Buy at MIT Press Stevens, Kenneth N. Acoustic Phonetics . MIT Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780262194044. ↗
Listed reading
Ladefoged, Peter. A Course in Phonetics. 5th ed. Cengage Learning, 2005. ISBN: 9781413006889.
Listed reading
TOPICS: 1: Introduction to phonetics and grammar · READINGS: Optional: Ladefoged, Peter. Chapter 1 in Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Languages . Wiley-Blackwell, 2000. ISBN: 9780631214120.
Reading assignment
TOPICS: 2: Audition, analog / digital conversion · READINGS: [Johnson] Chapters 1, 4 and Chapter 3, pp. 49–68.
Reading assignment
Keating, Patricia. “Universal Phonetics and The Organization of Grammars.” In Phonetic Linguistics: Essays in Honor of Peter Ladefoged . Edited by Victoria Fromkin. Academic Press, 1985, pp. 115–32. ISBN: 9780122689901.
Listed reading
Flemming, Edward. “ Scalar and Categorical Phenomina in a Unified Model of Phonetics and Phonology .” Phonology 18, no. 1 (2000). ↗
Listed reading
TOPICS: 4: Source-filter model of speech production · READINGS: [Johnson] Chapter 2.
Reading assignment
TOPICS: 5: Acoustics of vowels · READINGS: [Johnson] Chapter 6.
Reading assignment
TOPICS: 6: Spectral analysis techniques · READINGS: Ladefoged, Peter. Elements of Acoustic Phonetics . 2nd ed. University of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780226467641.
Reading assignment
TOPICS: 7: Theory of adaptive dispersion · READINGS: Liljencrants, Johan, and Bjorn Lindblom. “ Numerical Stimulation of Vowel Quality Systems .” Language 48, no. 4 (1972): 839–62. ↗
Reading assignment
TOPICS: 8: Source-filter analysis of fricatives · READINGS: [Johnson] Chapters 7 and 8.
Reading assignment
[Johnson] Chapter 5.
Listed reading
Fujimura, Osamu. “ Perception of Stop Consonants with Conflicting Transitional Cues: A Cross-Linguistic Study .” Language and Speech 21, no. 4 (1978): 337–46. ↗
Listed reading
TOPICS: 10: Speech perception II: Distinctiveness and cue strength · READINGS: No readings
Reading assignment
TOPICS: 11: The acoustics of nasals and laterals · READINGS: [Johnson] Chapter 9.
Reading assignment
TOPICS: 12: Speech production · READINGS: No readings
Reading assignment
Keating, Patricia. “The Window Model of Coarticulation: Articulatory Evidence.” In Papers in Laboratory Phonology: Between the Grammar and Physics of Speech . Edited by John Kingston and Mary E. Beckman. Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780521368087. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
Listed reading
Browman, Catherine P., and Joseph Leonard Goldstein. “Tiers in Articulatory Phonology, with Some Implications for Casual Speech.” In Papers in Laboratory Phonology: Between the Grammar and Physics of Speech . Edited by John Kingston and Mary E. Beckmen. Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780521368087. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
Listed reading
TOPICS: 14: Basic statistics · READINGS: No readings
Reading assignment
TOPICS: 15: Targets in speech production · READINGS: Villacorta, Vergilio M., Joseph S. Perkell, and Frank H. Guenther. “ Sensorimotor Adaptation to Feedback Perturbations of Vowel Acoustics and its Relation to Perception .” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 122, no. 4 (2007): 2306. ↗
Reading assignment
Mitterer, Holger. “ On the Causes of Compensation for Coarticulation: Evidence for Phonological Mediation .” Perception & Psychophysics 68, no. 7 (2006): 1227–40. ↗
Listed reading
TOPICS: 17: Phonetic grammar and lexical access · READINGS: No readings
Reading assignment
TOPICS: 18: Phonetics and sound change · READINGS: Ohala, John J. “The listener as a Source of Sound Change.” In Papers from the Parasession on Language and Behavior . Edited by C. S. Masek, R. A. Hendrick, and M. F. Miller. Chicago Linguistic Society, 1981. ISBN: 9789992924303.
Reading assignment

Prerequisites & course information

Subject meets with 24.915 Prereq: None G (Fall) 3-0-9 units

Sources

Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Fall 2015
MIT OCW syllabus ↗
MIT OCW readings ↗
MIT OCW calendar ↗
Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.