LING 3P53 Final Exam

Phonology

mental lexicon

mental lexicon

can be described as the dictionary or storage in our brain that holds the information we need to use language

• does not hold every version of a word

• includes roots, stems, affixes and irregular forms

• ex. wished, wishes, wishing

• ex. -s (plural), -ed (past)

+feature

the feature is present in the consonant or vowel

• ex. +spread glottis= vocal folds open, consonant is voiceless

-feature

the feature is not present in the consonant or vowel

• ex. -continuant = consonant is not continuous, therefore it is a stop

accidental gap

occur when words or morphemes COULD occur in a language but they do not occur (not words). There is no phonological rule against them but the word occurrence is an error (marked with an *)

• ex. blick (bl and k can occur in those places but blick is not a word)

vowel harmony

assimilation between vowels where one vowel takes on the properties of a neighbouring vowel

homorganic

having the same place of articulation

continuant

• anything but a stop

• does not have complete closure in the oral cavity

• ex. fricatives, approximants, vowels, and trills

epenthesis

insertion of a sound or letter within a word in a language

• ex. insertion of l

interacting rules

• an order needs to be established

• rules are then changed based on rules that happen before or after

• ex. epenthesis → devoicing or devoicing → epenthesis

homorganic nasal assimilation

when nasalization from a vowel or a consonant before or after spreads to other areas of the word

• ex. n→m / _p “impossible”

isolating language

a language in which each word form consists typically of a single morpheme and does not have inflectional morphology

ex. Chinese, English has some features as well

vowel raising

alternations in vowels based on diacritics, some languages include raising vowels

• ex. Canadian raising

vocoid

sound produced without obstruction of the vocal tract

• includes both semi-vowels and glides

• ex. vowels, j, w

morpheme

the smallest unit of word analysis, such as a root or affix

• the smallest meaning-bearing unit

distinctive features

used to distinguish sounds from one another

degemination rule

• closure duration will be longer

• two neighbouring consonants are reduced to one single consonant

structure preservation

• tendency to not get too bizarre in allophonic variation

• the outputs are modified to preserve the nature of the underlying form

• borrows the thing closest to it that already exists in that language

Underlying Form/ Underlying Representation

morpheme or word before any phonological rules are applied

• ex. (t→d) t= UF

neutralizing rule

elimination of underlying distinction between phonemes in some context

• ex. word-final devoicing

sibilant

noisy fricatives

• ex. s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ

systematic gap

the absence of certain combinations of sounds in a language because they violate phonological rules

agglutinating language

type of language where words are made up of different types of morphemes to determine their meaning

• ex. estonian

sonorants

produced with a continuing resonant sound

• nasals, liquids and glides (l,m,r,w)

glide formation

when vowels become corresponding glides when followed by another vowel

• ex. i→j

palatalization

• secondary articulation made by a superimposing j-like articulation on a consonant

• or a change of a consonant’s place of articulation to alveo-palatal

complementary distribution

where one sound occurs in an environment where the other sound never occurs

• ex [h] and [ŋ] in English

phoneme

smallest unit of speech distinguishing one word (or word element) from another

• ex. /b/ in tab vs. /p/ in tap

allophone

when a phoneme (the smallest unit of sound in speech) sounds slightly different depending on how and where it is used in a word

• [k], [kh], [kj]

post nasal hardening

a less obstructed sound becomes more obstructed (usually becomes a stop) after a nasal

• fricatives→ stops/ nasal__

• l,r → d / nasal __

signified

the mental image of something when you hear a word

• ex. picture of a frog

signifier

the word describing the mental image

• ex. the word frog

wug test

A test designed to investigate the acquisition of plural-formation and other rules of grammar such as past tenses and possessives