Linguistics 111: Phonology - Final Review Flashcards

Flashcards for Linguistics 111: Phonology Final Review

Phone

A single sound.

Contrastive Distribution

Same environments; difference in meaning.

Complementary Distribution

Distinct environments.

Free Variation

Same environments; no difference in meaning.

Minimal Pair

A pair of words with distinct meanings that differ in only one phone.

Locality (in phonology)

Conditioning environments should ideally be adjacent to the segment.

Naturalness (in phonology)

What is phonetically natural often implies typological abundance.

Neutralization

Two phones that used to contrast in a certain phonological position no longer contrast.

Abstractness

A UR form is sufficiently concrete if each segment surfaces intact in some context.

Natural Class

Two or more segments sharing a set of phonetic features to the exclusion of all other sounds in the language.

Underlying Representation (UR)

Can come in different forms, including being abstract/unspecified for a particular feature. One of the allophones is the basic (underlying) form.

Feeding (Rule Ordering)

The application of rule A creates an environment for the application of rule B.

Counterfeeding (Rule Ordering)

Had B applied before rule A, the application of B would have fed A.

Bleeding (Rule Ordering)

The application of rule A destroys an environment for the application of rule B.

Counterbleeding (Rule Ordering)

Had B applied before A, the application of B would have bled A.

Timing Tier

A sequence of units representing schematically the temporal manifestation of a string in autosegmental phonology.
It is made up of timing units (usually X-slots or moras) that serve as anchors or placeholders for segments (consonants and vowels) or features

Stray Erasure

When something is left unlinked and then deleted.

Well-formedness Conditions (Autosegmental Phonology)

Association lines cannot cross.

Ghosts (Autosegmental Phonology)

Empty timing slots lacking a segmental association.

Tone-Bearing Unit (TBU)

What is allowed to link to a tone in an autosegmental representation.

Twin Sister Convention

Two of the same tone linked to the same TBU will turn to one tone

Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP)

Disprefers adjacent identical tones

Optimality Theory (OT)

A non-derivational framework where constraints on the well-formedness of SRs replace rewrite rules. Evaluation happens all at once.

Onset Maximization

as many consonants as possible should be assigned to the onset of a syllable, as long as the resulting onset is phonotactically legal

Sonority Sequencing Principle

Between any member of a syllable and the syllable peak, a sonority rise or plateau must occur.

Weight-by-Position (WSP)

Rule applying in languages in which CVC syllables are heavy.

Trochee

Left-dominant foot (x .)

Iamb

Right-dominant foot (. x)

Quantity-Sensitivity

syllable weight matters for stress assignment (or other phonological processes)

Neural Commitment

Infants undergo this phenomenon and learn their phonemes and phonotactics around 6-12 months.

Child Phonology Common Processes

Simplification (CV structure), substitution, harmony (esp. consonant harmony), long-distance metathesis, consonant fusion, and chain-shifts.

Transitional Probabilities

The likelihood of a phoneme or syllable following another within a certain context, which helps infants segment speech into meaningful units.

Rule-Based vs. Constraint-Based Phonology

Rule-based phonology relies on systematic rules for sound changes, while constraint-based phonology focuses on optimizing outputs based on universal constraints.

Markedness

a rule in OT that prefers simpler, more universal, or unmarked forms

Faithfullness

A phonological constraint that requires the correspondence between the input and output forms to be preserved, minimizing alterations in the original structure.

Well-Formedness Condition (Tone)

all vowels must (eventually) bear some tone, and all tones must be borne by some vowel

Well-Formedness Condition (General)

Specifies what counts as an acceptable or possible structure in a language system. If a form violates these conditions, it's considered ill-formed or ungrammatical.

Sonority Hierarchy

vowels > glides > liquids > nasals > fricatives > stops