LING101: Intro, Phonetics, and Phonology

Linguistics

Scientific study of language

Grammar

All the rules of a language (including pronunciation)

Lexicon

Mental dictionary

Determiner

A word that comes before a noun to express its reference

Preposition

A word that shows a relationship between two things

Language (Linguistics definiton)

A communication system that is composed of a set of arbitrary signs/words (lexicon) and rules on how to combine these signs (grammar)

4 Things that make up grammar

Phonology, morphology, syntax, sentences

Ambiguity

A sentence that can be taken two ways

Grammatical

When a sentence is structured in a way that makes sense in English

Linguistic competence

Implicit knowledge possessed by native speakers of a language, a person's unseen potential to speak a language

Linguistic performance

The observable performance of speaking

Performance errors

Comprehension limitations, Physical/mental complications, Slips of tongue

Descriptive grammar

An objective description of how we sactually peak

Prescriptive grammar

A set of rules that dictate how we ought to speak

Mental grammar

A set of rules that exist in the mind that enables us to understand and generate languages

Design features of language (exclusive to humans)

Arbitrariness, discreteness, displacement, productivity

Design features of language (non-exclusive to humans)

Mode of communication, semanticity, pragmatic function, interchangeability, cultural transmission

Semanticity

Whether a message is meaningful

Pragmatic function

Whether a message has a useful purpose

Interchangeability

Ability to send and receive messages

Cultural transmission

Transmission of language from one to another

Arbitrariness

A symbol is not inherently related to its meaning or function

Discreteness

Messages are built out of smaller parts

Displacement

The ability to communicate about things that are no present in space or time

Productivity

The ability to communicate in a complex and novel way

Clever Hans effect

The animal is reading the body language of the trainer rather than actually learning language

Phonetics

Study of individual sounds

Articulatory Phonetics

The study of how speech sounds are produced in our vocal tract

Auditory Phonetics

The study of how speech sounds are perceived by the listener

Acoustic Phonetics

Physical properties of speech sounds

Vocal tract

Every part of the body that is used in speech production

Articulators

Vocal organs that take part in sound production

Moveable articulators

Jaw, lips, tongue, velum, uvula, glottis, vocal folds

Immoveable articulators

Hard palate and alveolar ridge

Cavities

Oral, nasal, pharyngeal, laryngeal

Difference between consonants and vowels

consonants articulated via obstruction and vowels produced with relatively free flow of air

Bilabial

Sounds made by bringing both lips together (/p/, /b/, and /m/)

Labiodental

Sounds made by touching the lower lip to the upper front teeth (/f/ and /v/)

Dental

Sounds made by placing the tip of the tongue against or between the upper teeth (/θ/ and /ð/ )

Alveolar

Sounds made by raising the tongue to the alveolar ridge (/t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /n/, and /l/)

Post-Alveolar

Sounds made just behind the alveolar ridge (/ʃ/ and /ʒ/)

Palatal

Sounds made by raising the body of the tongue against the hard palate (/j/)

Velar

Sounds made by raising the back of the tongue to the soft palate (/k/ and /ŋ/)

Glottal

Sounds produced at the glottis (/h/ and /g/)

Voiced sounds

Vocal folds closed

Voiceless sounds

Vocal folds open

Length (we do not have in english)

Some sounds are pronounced longer in some languages, pronouncing the long or short changes the meaning of the word

Stress (we have in english)

Prominence on a syllable. The most prominent one is primary stress and others are called secondary stress. (example: "this is perfect" vs "I need to perfect this paper")

Tone (we do not have in english)

Pitch that falls on a syllable changes the meaning of the word. (Chinese is a tonal language)

Intonation (we have in english)

Pitch that is imposed on a phrase or sentence

The pitch doesn't change the meaning but changes the understanding.

Phonology

Which sounds can be combined together and how they affect each other.

Phonotactics

How sounds combine to form possible and impossible combinations in a given language.

Phonotactic constraints

Rules in our grammar that tell us what kinds of sounds or sound combinations are possible/ impossible.

Foreign accent

Applying phonetic inventory and phonotactic constraints of one language (native) while speaking another language (second language)

Phoneme

The smallest unit of a language that distinguishes meaning (written between slashes)

Allophone

Physical realization of a sound (written between brackets)

Phonetic environment

surrounding sounds of a target speech sound

Contrastive distribution

(causes a contrast in meaning) The distribution in which two sounds can occur in the same phonetic environment, and using one rather than the other changes the meaning of the word.

Minimal pairs

A pair of words that only differ in one sound

Complementary Distribution

Two allophones of the same phoneme have different phonetic environments

Free variation

two different sounds occur in the same environment but does not create a meaning change

Phonological rule

A rule of grammar that determines how phonemes are pronounced

Natural class

A group of sounds in a language that share one or more phonetic features to the exclusion of all other sounds in that language.

Assimilation

A sound becomes more similar to the neighboring sound.

Dissimilation

A sound becomes less similar to the neighboring sound.

Insertion

A sound, which is not present in the phonemic level, is inserted at the allophonic level.

Deletion

A sound, which is present in the phonemic level, is deleted at the allophonic level.

Metathesis

Two sounds change their order between phonemic and allophonic forms.

( SWITCHING ORDER OF SOUNDS)

Strengthening/ Fortition

This process makes a sound stronger. (aspiration rule)

Weakening/ Lenition

This process makes a sound weaker. (flapping rule)