phonetics

noun [fəˈnɛtɪks]

pronunciation

CMU Pronouncing Dictionary via pipeline/ipa-en.mjs (lemma phonetics), open source

Phonetics is the branch of linguistics that studies speech sounds: their production, acoustic properties and notation, apart from phonology and from morphology.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Definitions

ling. / gram. Branch of linguistics (and of grammar in a wider sense) devoted to speech sounds: it describes their production in the articulatory apparatus, their acoustic properties, and ways of writing them down (transcription), kept apart from phonology (the sound system of a language) and from morphology (word structure).

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
hist. lex. In historical-lexical talk: Webster 1913 sense 1 treats PHONETICS as a study of voice sounds (there equated with phonology). Sense 2 covers notation of those sounds by written characters. Arct 1921 records Polish Fonetyka as głosownia. Lexical evidence only.

source
Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (PHONETICS sense 1 and 2); M. Arct 1921 (Fonetyka = głosownia), open source
hist. / adj. In the adjective register (Webster 1913, PHONETIC): of or pertaining to the voice, or its use; representing sounds (phonetic characters, phonetic spelling). Related forms include phonetically, phonetician, phonetist. Lexical evidence only; not a modern disciplinary definition.

source
Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (PHONETIC; PHONETICALLY; PHONETICIAN; PHONETIST), open source
colloq. In casual and press talk: often a loose tag for any remark about pronunciation or spelling, without an articulatory or acoustic method. Informal range, pending review confirmation.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Examples

The seminar kept phonetics for how speech sounds are produced and measured, and phonology for the sound system of a language: one side asks about articulation and acoustics, the other about systemic oppositions.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Her textbook placed phonetics among the linguistics branches beside morphology and syntax, and left semantics and pragmatics as peer layers of inquiry into sense and use.

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
In the lecture they noted that Arct (1921) equates Polish Fonetyka with głosownia and the study of sounds, that Webster 1913 gives PHONETICS as a science of voice sounds and an art of notation, that Skeat 1910 derives PHONETIC from Greek φωνή, and that Brückner 1927 has no separate lemma fonetyka.

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
A columnist warned that brushing a dispute aside as mere phonetics of debate often dodges any account of articulation and any naming of physical sound description versus the sound system.

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
She contrasted a phonetic transcription of an utterance with a bare catalogue of spellings, asking where articulatory description ends and orthographic convention begins.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Usage

Casual English often confuses the lemma with phonology, or treats it as a vague tag for pronunciation tips. Exact prose marks four layers: disciplinary (speech sounds: articulation, acoustics, notation), historical-lexical (Arct on Fonetyka as głosownia; Webster on PHONETICS and PHONETIC; Skeat on the Greek trail from φωνή), historical overlap with phonology (Webster equates PHONOLOGY with phonetics), and informal tags without criteria. Name the layer you mean. Otherwise the label slides into phonology, morphology, and bare guesswork about how words sound.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

On the English side, Webster 1913 clusters PHONETIC with the voice and with representing sounds (phonetic characters; phonetic spelling against Romanic spelling). PHONETICS develops sense 1 as the science of human-voice sounds (phonology) and sense 2 as the art of writing vocal sounds with signs. Related forms include phonetically, phonetician, phonetism, phonetist, phonetize, and phonics (See Phonetics). PHONOLOGY is defined as the science of elementary speech sounds and equated with phonetics. Exact quotation sits in the etymology field; those glosses are lexical evidence only.

source

Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open source

On the etymological trail, Skeat presents PHONETIC as representing sounds and points back to Greek speech vocabulary built around φωνή. He also notes older English phonics (phonicks in Blount, 1706) as an earlier label for the science of sounds, and lists derivatives that feed phono- compounds in later English. Arct 1921 records Polish Fonetyka as głosownia and the study of sounds, plus phonetic spelling; Fonologia points back to Fonetyka. OCR is often garbled. Brückner 1927 has no separate lemma fonetyka.

source

Editorial team; facts: W. W. Skeat 1910; M. Arct, Słownik wyrazów obcych, 9th ed., Warsaw 1921; A. Brückner 1927 (no lemma fonetyka), open source

Writers often reach for pairings such as phonetic analysis, phonetic transcription, or articulatory features. Phonetic and phonetical are the adjectives (Webster records phonetic and related forms). Precise usage keeps the term apart from phonology as the sound system of a language, from morphology as word-internal structure, from semantics as sense of language units, and from pragmatics as use in situation. Borders still shift by author. Linguistic phonetics is not a vague tag for any remark about pronunciation.

source

Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (PHONETIC; PHONETICS), open source

Word forms

Regular English noun. Usually uncountable when naming the discipline (phonetics is...). Countable singular appears in phrases such as a phonetics of consonants. Plural phonetics as a count form is rare; the -ics ending already marks the field name.

word forms

przypadek	forma
uncountable (usual)	phonetics
countable singular (a theory / treatise / approach)	a phonetics
related adjective	phonetic

Word forms: Editorial team

Collocations

phonetic analysis

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
phonetic transcription

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
phonetic spelling

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Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (Phonetic spelling); M. Arct 1921 (fonetyczna pisownia), open source
articulatory features

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
linguistic phonetics

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Synonyms · Antonyms

Synonyms inquiry into speech sounds (editorial didactic approximation; not a full synonym in every register), science of sounds of the human voice (historical neighbour via Webster 1913 sense 1; not a full substitute for every modern register), account of articulation and acoustics (didactic approximation; scope to confirm at review)

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Antonyms phonology without physical sound description (classroom contrast: sound system versus articulatory-acoustic account; not a strict modern opposite everywhere), pure morphology without sound (classroom foil: word structure against speech sounds; editorial didactic scope), ignoring pronunciation (contrastive neighbour in debate; editorial label, to confirm at review)

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Etymology

English phonetics is a learned label from the Greek trail of φωνή (a sound). Webster 1913 prints PHONETIC (of the voice; representing sounds, as in phonetic characters and phonetic spelling) and PHONETICS: sense 1 names a doctrine about sounds of speech (there equated with phonology), sense 2 names the craft of marking vocal sounds with signs and letters, with related phonetically, phonetician, phonetism, phonetist, phonetize, and phonics. Skeat 1910 summarises PHONETIC as representing sounds and derives it from Greek φωνητικός (belonging to speaking) via φωνή, linked to φημί (I speak) and the root BHA (to speak; whence also English ban); he lists phon-ics, phono-graphy, phono-logy, phono-type, and anti-phon. Arct (9th ed., 1921) enters Polish Fonetyka as głosownia (grammar part on voice sounds), the study of sounds, and phonetic spelling; Fonologia points back to Fonetyka. Brückner 1927 has no separate lemma fonetyka. Linguistic phonetics is not phonology in the modern classroom sense and is not a casual label for pronunciation tips. Service definitions are written apart from those dictionary wordings. The Polish counterpart noun is fonetyka.

source

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open source

also

W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910 (PHONETIC: Gk. φωνητικός; φωνή; φημί; Ban; phon-ics; phono-logy), open source

also

M. Arct, Słownik wyrazów obcych, 9th ed., Warsaw 1921 (Fonetyka = głosownia; nauka o dźwiękach; fonetyczna pisownia; Fonologia), open source

also

A. Brückner, Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego, Kraków 1927 (no lemma fonetyka), open source

Related words

phonetic , adjective: relating to speech sounds or to representing sounds (Webster 1913: PHONETIC)
phonology , lexical neighbour (ling. / gram.): talk of the sound system against talk of physical sound description (Webster 1913 equates PHONOLOGY with phonetics historically)
morphology , lexical neighbour (ling. / gram.): talk of word structure against talk of speech sounds
syntax , lexical neighbour (ling. / gram.): talk of clause structure against talk of speech sounds
semantics , lexical neighbour (ling. / philos.): talk of meaning of language units against talk of speech sounds
pragmatics , lexical neighbour (ling. / philos.): talk of use in situation against talk of speech sounds
semiotics , lexical neighbour (ling. / philos.): talk of sign systems against talk of speech sounds
fonetyka , etymologically related Polish noun (Arct: Fonetyka = głosownia; Skeat/Webster Greek trail)

Related entries

The same entry in Polish: fonetyka

Questions and answers

What does phonetics mean?

It names the linguistics branch that studies speech sounds: articulation, acoustic properties, and notation. Webster 1913 sense 1 and Skeat 1910 record that trail. Informal talk often flattens the name into a vague tag for pronunciation. Context decides.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Where does the word phonetics come from?

Greek supplies φωνή (a sound) and φωνητικός. Skeat 1910 and Webster 1913 print that trail. Arct 1921 enters Polish Fonetyka as głosownia. Brückner 1927 has no separate Polish lemma. The English field name is the -ics noun beside the adjective phonetic.

source

Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913; W. W. Skeat 1910; M. Arct 1921; A. Brückner 1927 (no lemma), open source

How is phonetics pronounced, and what is the IPA?

Editorial IPA on this page is /fəˈnɛtɪks/, from the CMUdict lemma phonetics via pipeline/ipa-en.mjs. Primary stress falls on the second syllable. The related adjective phonetic is recorded in Webster 1913 and in CMUdict as /fəˈnɛtɪk/.

source

Editorial team; facts: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary via pipeline/ipa-en.mjs (lemma phonetics), open source

How does phonetics differ from phonology, and is it the same as Polish fonetyka?

Linguistic phonetics centres on speech sounds as articulatory and acoustic phenomena. Phonology centres on the sound system of a language. Polish fonetyka is the didactic counterpart of phonetics in the linguistics register. The contrast is editorial and didactic. Everyday speech often flattens the names.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)