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
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.
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)
5. The classification of sounds
6. A gradual approach
Places of articulation
Manners of articulation
7. The official IPA and other notations
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 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
Observations on the (non) respect of symbols
Hypostatization and "IPAstatization"
8. Vowels & vocoids
Other, less useful classifications
More about vocoids
Diphthongs: one phoneme or two?
Vocoids of canIPA and correspondence with offIPA
9. Consonants & contoids (1)
10. Consonants & contoids (2)
canIPA contoids (displayed according to articulation manners)
Table of the main canIPA contoids
Comparisons between similar contoids
11. Phonic peculiarities
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