LTL 10: A Handbook in Phonetics

A Handbook in Phonetics

Luciano Canepari
University of Venice, Italy

The author, who was trained in the British phonetic tradition and teaches Phonetics and phonology at the University of Venice, has expanded and completed the potential of natural phonetics, i.e. articulatory, auditory, and functional, in order to update and adapt it to the descriptive and teaching needs of several languages and dialects of the world, according to the phonetic method which is explained in the book.

The handbook offers the necessary expansion of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to make it appropriate to adequately deal with hundreds of languages; not only for vowels and consonants, but also for intonation and tones. Hundreds of useful figures are provided, in particular vocograms, orograms, labiograms, palatograms, and tonograms.

The general part, although beginning in a gradual way, deals with all the segmental and suprasegmentals in depth, without neglecting paraphonics (or “paralinguistics”). The handbook provides about 1000 “linguistic sounds” with their symbols, of which at least 500 are basic, 300 complementary, and 200 supplementary.

In the second part, about 320 languages from all over the world are concisely but precisely dealt with (including 72 dead languages). In a twin volume (A Handbook of Pronunciation) the phonetic method is fully applied, by thoroughly dealing with the pronunciation of 12 languages: English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, and Esperanto.

Contents:

Foreword

1. Prelude
Transcriptions
The contents of the Handbook
Observations on terminology

2. Doing phonetics
Guide to the figures
Guide to different types of transcriptions
Transcribing by hands

3. Pronunciation and phonetics
The phonentic method

4. The phono-articulatory apparatus
The vocal folds
Resonators (5 phono-articulatory cavities)
The lips

5. The classification of sounds

6. A gradual approach
Vowels
Voicing
Consonants
Places of articulation
Manners of articulation
Prosodic elements
Stress
Sentence stress
Tones
Intonation

7. The official IPA and other notations
Official IPA
Consonants
Vowels
Prosodic indications and diacritics
How come the IPA is not used by everyone?
Quick comparison between offIPA and canIPA
The official revision of the IPA (1989-96): a missed reform
Official diacritics
Segmental diacritics
Suprasegmental diacritics
Official tones and word accents
About non-IPA alphabets
Comparison with the main non-IPA symbols used in Romanistic studies
From a couple of IPA to many different non-IPA’s
The phonetic alphabet of the Italian Linguistic Atlas: Another example not to follow!
Observations on the (non) respect of symbols
Hypostatization and “IPAstatization”

8. Vowels & vocoids
Other, less useful classifications
More about vocoids
canIPA vocoids
Articulatory practice
Diphthongs: one phoneme or two?
Vocoids of canIPA and correspondence with offIPA

9. Consonants & contoids (1)
Nasals
Stops
Constrictives
Stop-strictives
Approximants
Trills
Laterals
Memorization
Articulatory practice

10. Consonants & contoids (2)
canIPA contoids (displayed according to articulation manners)
Nasals
Stops
Stop-strictives
Constrictives
Approximants
Trills
Laterals
Table of the main canIPA contoids
Comparisons between similar contoids

11. Phonic peculiarities
Syllabic contoids
Coarticulation
Modifications
Variations
Contoids with particular offsets
Prenasalization
“Aspiration”
Non-pulmonic consonants
Ejective consonants
Injective consonants
Dejective consonants (clicks)
Nasalization of vocoids
Devoicing vocoids
Vocoids in unstressed syllables
Vocoids in singing
Generic symbols (for phonic categories)

12. Microstructures
Syllables
Scale of syllabicity
Sillabification
Syllables and the speech chain
Length
Stress
Pitch and tons
Tonetic practice

13. Macrostructures
Prominence
Rhythm and rhythm groups
Pauses
Pitch and intonation groups
Paragraph and text
Rate
Intonation
Intonation groups
Preintonemes
Intonemes
Questions
Intoneme modifications
Parentheses and quotations
Considerations on communicative “roles”
Considerations on intonation
Structures and generalizations

14. Superstructures
Paraphonics
Pitch
Other paraphonic elements

15. Phonosynteses

16. Italy

17. Europe

18. Africa

19. Asia

20. Oceania

21. America

22. Dead languages

23. “Extraterrestrial”

Utilizable bibliography

Index

Language index

ISBN 9783895864803 (Hardbound). LINCOM Textbooks in Linguistics 10. 518pp. 2005.