General Phonetics

This book is a picture of the state of phonetic knowledge in the 1950s, valuable and interesting as much for its indication of the sources and methods and aims of phonetic study as for its descriptions and explanations. The seasoned phonetician who reads it can be promised a refreshing account of the noises people make when they talk and how they make them. Lovers of adventure among phoneticians will find some excitement in suggested connections between the physiological production of sounds and their acoustic nature. And the beginner who studies it can be assured that he or she will know what phonetics is about.

A detailed explanation of the physiology of speech and the physics of speech sounds. The principal types of speech sound are described with their variations and their occurrence both as individual phenomena and as a speech sounds in context. For the scientific linguist and the practical teacher of speech, with the emphasis on observed fact rather than on theory.

Roe-Merril S. Heffner was a professor at the University of Wisconsin — Madison.