LING 200 LECTURE REVIEW - Midterm 1

Morphology

Morphology

• the internal hierarchical structure of words;

• morphemes as the basic building blocks of such word-internal structure;

• the formation of new words through derivation (and other mechanisms, like compounding)

Spectrogram

Shows how the frequency spectrum of the sound wave changes with time

Phonation Process

modifications of airstream within the larynx (state of the vocal folds)

Oro-Nasal Process

velar port closed vs. open (velum raised vs. lowered)

Articulatory Process (Oral Constriction)

• lips and tongue (various parts)

Place of Articulation

location of constriction within oral cavity

Manner of Articulation

type (or degree) of constriction

Which articulators are utilized in performing the constriction gesture?

• active articulator (e.g. some part of the tongue)

• passive articulator (e.g. some “landmark” or “target” on the upper surface of the vocal tract)

Degree of Constriction (MOA)

Ranging from full blockage of airstream to slight narrowing

Laterality (MOA)

“channeling” of airstream along one or both sides of tongue (vs. along the midline of oral cavity)

Constriction Degree

• Stop (aka plosive)

• Fricative

• Approximant

Stop (aka plosive)

• complete closure, no airstream passes through

• resulting in a burst (“explosion”) upon release

Fricative

• airstream channelled through narrow constriction

• results in turbulence (= noise) being generated

Approximant

• slight constriction, airstream passes through relatively freely

• little or no turbulence, mostly just modifying the resonance properties of the cavity)

Constriction

A Constriction is formed by active articulator moving towards passive articulator

Labial Sounds

(lips as active articulator)

• bilabial: lower and upper lips brought together

• labiodental: lower lip against upper front teeth

Coronal Sounds

(tongue front [= tip/blade] as active articulator)

• dental: tip or blade against upper front teeth

• alveolar: tip or blade against alveolar ridge

• retroflex: tip (“flexed back”) against back of alveolar ridge

• palato-alveolar: blade against back of alveolar ridge

  • (a.k.a. post-alveolar sounds, though that term is sometimes used to cover retroflexes as well)

Dorsal Sounds

(tongue body as active articulator)

• palatal: tongue front/center against hard palate

• velar: tongue back against soft palate (velum)

Other Sounds (not utilized in English)

• uvular: tongue back against uvula

• pharyngeal: tongue root against pharyngeal wall

• epiglottal (very rare): epiglottis against pharyngeal wall

Glottal Sounds

no oral constriction at all

the only obstruction is at the glottis (so this doesn’t really count as a “place of articulation” in the strictest sense)

• glottal fricative [h] = English h

• glottal stop ([ʔ]), as in the English interjections unh-unh ‘no’ or uh-oh!

Stop Consonants

oral stops (no airstream escapes vocal tract at all)

nasal stops (airstream escapes via nasal cavity)

• nasal stops are usually just referred to as nasals because of this, the term stops is often used in a narrower sense, referring to oral stops specifically

Fricative Consonants

many coronal (alveolar, retroflex, palato-alveolar) fricatives have a high-frequency “hissing” or “hushing” quality (“s-like” sounds)

• caused by airstream hitting back of front teeth at high speed

  • these are standardly referred to as sibilant consonants

Affricate Consonants

sequence of stop + fricative, but behaving as a unit within the phonological system

• e.g. English ch (as in chapter, much)

Some languages have other stop+fricative sequences as affricates (i.e. single consonants)

• e.g. pf and ts (spelled z) in German

Rhotic Consonants - Trill

(r-like sounds)

• trill: one articulator vibrates against another

  • (e.g. tongue tip against alveolar ridge, or uvula against tongue back)

Rhotic Consonants - Tap/Flap

(r-like sounds)

• tap: ballistic motion of active articulator hitting the passive articulator (resulting in very brief closure)

  • if the active articulator hits its target in passing, this is known as a flap rather than a tap

    • (e.g., tongue tip moves forward from a retroflex position, striking against the alveolar ridge on its way)

    • but the terms tap and flap are often used interchangeably

Lateral Consonants

(l-like sounds)

closure along the midline, but airstream vented out across one or both sides of the tongue

(lateral approximants, however, other languages have lateral affricates, fricatives etc.)

Central Consonants

(l-like sounds)

airstream passes along the midline of the oral cavity

“central” is usually left unstated (treated as default)

Broad Transcription

(≈ phonemic transcription)

• only those details recorded (e.g. in how individual sounds are transcribed) that are capable of distinguishing meaning in that language

• /uses these brackets/

Narrow Transcription

(≈ allophonic transcription) various amounts of non-distinctive details recorded, too

• This is really a continuum rather than an “either-or” issue

• [uses these brackets]

Vowels - Position of Lips

rounded vs. unrounded vowels

Vowels - Position of Tongue Body

height dimension

• high vs. mid vs. low (a.k.a. close vs. mid vs. open) vowels

• correlated with the resonance known as the 1st formant (F1)

front-back dimension

• front vs. central vs. back vowels

• correlated with higher resonances (esp. the 2nd formant, F2)

What should we look for when categorizing vowels?

vowel categorization is often described in terms of “tongue body position”

but in fact has far more to do with acoustic properties than specific positions/gestures of the tongue

• frequencies of the vowel’s formants

• = resonances (magnified frequency bands within the spectrum of overtones/harmonics)

Suprasegmentals (aka Prosody)

Pitch / fundamental frequency (a.k.a. “F0”)

• basic frequency of the voice (rate of vocal fold vibrations)

• intonation: pattern of pitch fluctuation over the course of a sentence

  • many languages utilize pitch to distinguish words (tone)

Stress (emphasis, “Accent”)

stressed vs. unstressed syllables

• usually encoded through some combination of

  • (increased) loudness / amplitude

  • (increased) duration

  • (raised) pitch / fundamental frequency

Phonemes

In a given language, some sound differences are distinctive (a.k.a. contrastive)

• serve to distinguish words (and morphemes) within the lexicon of the language

Minimal Pairs (Sets)

Two (or more) distinct words – with distinct meanings – that differ only in one sound