Consonant Articulation Stop Sounds

CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW

This chapter provides literature review, related studies, and theoretical framework of the study. The first section provides the relevant theories that are needed in relation to the topic discussion. Meanwhile, the second section presents the relevant studies that are related to the discussion of the topic. The third section discusses how the determination of the assumptions is used in correspond to the theories or concepts of the study.

A. Literature Review

This section consists of thirteen points of discussions related to the topic of the study. They are consonant articulation, stop sounds, phonological classification of stops in English, stop deletion, phonological rule, phonological analysis, licit consonant clusters in English, sound muting, sounds and spellings, the nature of phonology and orthography, the relation between orthography and spoken language, lexical borrowing, and the list of phonetic symbols used for this thesis.

1. Consonant Articulation

Consonant articulation deals with speech organ when particular sound is produced. Speech sounds are set by physical organs i.e. vocal chords, the tongue, teeth, lips, palate. Through the move of these speech organs, the sounds are articulated. The distinction of a variety of speech sounds is produced through mouth and this process is the so-called articulation Giegerich, 1992: 6-7. The 12 articulation of different sounds will affect the product of the speech in a word- utterance. In consonant articulation, the modification of sounds can be differentiated into its places of articulation and manners of articulation Aitchison, 2003: 246- 245. In places of articulation, the articulators are in contact or at their closest to the other part of articulators to produced speech sounds. They are divided mainly into labials, labiodentals, dentals, alveolars, palatals, velars, and glottal. Meanwhile, in manners of articulation, the different ways of positioning the lips, tongue, velum, and glottis are applied to produce different sound types. They can be classified into four major types, namely stops, fricatives, affricates and approximants. Furthermore, the interaction of sounds in the articulation may involve generate different processes. They can be differentiated into deletion, epenthesis liaison, and assimilation. This process has an impact to sound changes, or more specifically, phonetically conditioned change O’Grady et al., 2005: 249; Campbell, 2004: 33. This occurrence is usually related to the articulatory simplification of the word and homorganic assimilation.

2. Stop Sounds

Stop is one of the articulatory phonetics in terms of manners of articulation. To review a bit, there are dissimilarities in labeling the category of manners of articulation. Thus, to make it more comprehensible in gathering the perceptions of this case as well as to reveal the writer’s standpoint, the review of classification of manners of articulation, especially stops, will be presented accordingly. Ladefoged 1993: 8-12 states four basic manners of articulation. They are stops, fricatives, affricates, and approximants. In this sense, they are classified with regard to the ways in which articulation can be achieved. At this point, he asserts stops as a complete closure of the articulators involved. Hence, the airstream cannot come out through the mouth. Furthermore, in this state, according to the oro-nasal process, he clarifies that there are two possible types of stops. The first is oral stop and the second is nasal stop. In oral stop, there is an articulatory closure of the mouth where the soft palate is up. Henceforward, the nasal tract is blocked and the airstream will also be totally obstructed. The sounds are p, t, k, b, d, g. Meanwhile, in nasal stop, the air is stopped in the oral tract but the soft palate is down so that the airstream can leave through the nose. For nasal stop, the sounds are m, n, ŋ. Furthermore, Ladefoged clears up that the term ‘stop’ itself is more familiarly and almost constantly used by phoneticians to designate an oral stop while the term ‘nasal’ is more recognizably used to denote a nasal stop. Nevertheless, he enlightens that even though the term stop may be marked to the anticipation of air escaping through the mouth oral stop but indeed the term stop is generally used to imply a complete blockade of the airstream through both the nose nasal stop and the mouth oral stop. Hence, it can be noted that the term stop is more commonly used to cover oral stop and nasal stop rather than the oral stop alone. Likewise, Giegerich 1992: 18-26 highlights the sounds differentiation in terms of its phonation, oro-nasal, place, and manner characterization. In this point, manner of articulation is seen as the additional variable in phonetic description to specify what happens in the production of a given sound, and more precisely, to tell two different sounds apart if the other characteristic is the same. In this respect, he is more likely to classify manners of articulation as mutually exclusive features and straightforward distinctions. They are contrasted to stops or continuants, sonorants, obstruents, and approximants. By this features, he comparatively pins out the combinations of as nasal stops, as oral stops, as fricatives, and as approximants . While the fifth manner, affricates, is described as an oral-stop period that is followed by a friction period. So basically, he divides the manners into four parts. He also notes that since all English nasals are stops, hence they are simply called as nasals. Likewise, he underlines that all nasal stops are voiced. Furthermore, McMahon 2002: 28-29 categorizes manners of articulation into three main manners with one subsidiary case since the fourth case can be stated as the intermediate manner between the first two. They are stops, fricatives, approximants, and affricate. In this point of view, she identifies that the definition of a stop as the involvement of the complete, transitory obstruction in the oral cavity that also include nasal cavity. Hence, nasal sounds or simply nasals are included in the stops manner. In addition, Collins and Mees 2003: 42 classify the manners of articulation into three strict possible types. They are complete closure stops, nasals, trills, and taps, close approximation fricatives, and open approximations central approximants, lateral approximant. As stated before, stops and nasals together are categorized into a complete closure type. It is clarified as a nature of a restraint where it forms obstruction which blocks the airstream. Slightly different, Akmajian et al. 2001: 73-79 differentiate manner of articulations more numerously into six. They are stops, fricatives, affricates, nasals, liquids, and glides. In this extent, the stops are separated from nasals, while approximants are separated into liquid l and glides r, w, y. Stops are defined as sounds produced when the airflow is entirely blocked during oral speech. Meanwhile, they state that nasals are the same to voiced oral stops. The difference is that, the airflow and the sound energy are directed to the nasal passages because of the velum lowering. The other division is also provided by Clark and Yallop 1990: 82 who determine manners of articulation into seven classifications. They are stops, fricatives, approximants, nasal, and three supplementary manners that are flap, tap, and trill. At this sense, they imply stop as total constriction of the airstream and a movement to create and then release the blockage. ‘Nasal consonants’ are in one sense stops since the airflow is blocked at the oral cavity. However, since the velum is lowered to allow airflow go through the nasal cavity, therefore, nasals cannot be directly classified as stops. In this extent, they argue that nasals and stops are separate manner of articulation. Here, they define stop strictly as a sound that is produced by the construction and rapid release of a complete closure at any point in the vocal tract from the glottis to the lips and the velum is raised to block the air flow go through the nasal cavity. So here the terms of stops and nasals have been reviewed according to several experts in phonetics and phonology. By reviewing all of these classifications, it can be denoted that there are two arguments dealing with the categorization of manners of articulation particularly concerning with stops and nasals. The first claim argues that nasals are part of stops while the second argument assumes the stops and nasals as separate manners because of the matter of the airflow execution. By this case, the writer must have a standpoint to determine what is stated as a stop. By considering all these reviews, she counts nasals as a part of stops in terms of manners of articulation. At this point, the problem of the outflow of the airstream whether it is stopped completely in the oral cavity or it is released through the nose is favored as an alternative release. In other words, the main concern here is the complete closure or blockage of the airflow in the oral tract as a key point to the basic separation as what has been classified as a stop in manners of articulation. It is in line with the separation of sounds in terms of the oro-nasal process raising or lowering velum as a distinguished factor in determining oral and nasal sounds. In this case, the matter of nasal stop and the oral stop is more precise to be differentiated as the distinctive feature in the oro-nasal process the oral cavity the nasal cavity rather than in the articulation process that essentially deals with the articulators in the oral cavity.

3. Phonological Classification of Stops in English