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Vowels and Consonants
By: Peter Ladefoged , Sandra Ferrari Ferrari DisnereBook Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Imprint: Wiley-Blackwell
Format: ePub Encrypted (DRM)
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This popular and accessible introduction to phonetics has been fully updated for its third edition, and now includes an accompanying website with sound files, and expanded coverage of topics such as speech technology.
Describes how languages use a variety of different sounds, many of them quite unlike any that occur in well-known languages Written by the late Peter Ladefoged, one of the world's leading phoneticians, with updates by renowned forensic linguist, Sandra Ferrari Disner Includes numerous revisions to the discussion of speech technology and additional updates throughout the book Explores the acoustic, articulatory, and perceptual components of speech, demonstrates speech synthesis, and explains how speech recognition systems work Will be supported by a forthcoming accompanying website featuring additional data and recordings of the sounds of a wide variety of languages, to reinforce learning and bring the descriptions to life
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| Title of eBook: Vowels and Consonants | |
| Release Date: 01-17-2012 | |
| Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell |
This eBook download is available in the following formats:
| Parent title | Vowels and Consonants |
|---|---|
| Encrypted (DRM) | Yes |
| SKU | 9781444355031 |
| File size | 15910 |
| Security | n/a |
| Printing | Not allowed |
| Copying | Not allowed |
| Read aloud | No Sys requirements Download reader |
| Devices | Samsung Tablet, Apple Ipad & Iphone, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo eReader, Aluratek Libre, Iliad, Nokia, Blackberry, Hanlin |
| Note | Excellent navigation features are available via Adobe such as bookmarks and a quick access table of contents. Text search is easily accessible. An Adobe DRM-protected file is different than a pdf file in that it uses Adobe DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology, which authors and publishers use to protect their content from illegal online distribution and to set certain privileges such as restrictions on copying and printing. |
Vowels and Consonants
Chapter One
Sounds and Languages
1.1 Languages Come and Go
Once upon a time, the most important animal sounds were those made by predators and prey, or by sexual partners. As mammals evolved and signaling systems became more elaborate, new possibilities emerged. Nowadays undoubtedly the most important sounds for us are those of language. Nobody knows how vocal cries about enemies, food, and sex turned into language. But we can say something about the way the sounds of languages evolved, and why some sounds occur more frequently than others in the world's languages.
Although we know almost nothing about the origins of language, we can still consider the evolution of languages from a Darwinian point of view. Remember that Darwin himself did not know anything about the origin of life. He was not concerned with how life began but with the origin of the various species he could observe. In the same spirit, we will not consider the origin of language; but we will note the various sounds of languages, and discuss how they got to be the way they are. We will think of each language as a system of sounds subject to various evolutionary forces.
We will begin by considering why people speak different languages. There are many legends about this. Some say it was because God was displeased when the people of Babel tried to build a tower up to heaven. He smote them so that they could not understand each other. Others say that the Hindu God Shiva danced, and split the peoples of the world into small groups. Most linguists think that languages just grew apart as small bands of people moved to different places. We know very little about the fi
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