Linguistics Midterm 1 MASTERSET

The exam will cover all content from quizzes Wks02-04. In addition: You will be expected to be able to identify phonological processes (assimilation, dissimilation, insertion, deletion, metathesis) as covered in class during week 4 Some questions will pertain to syllable structure, to be covered in class on Tues 9/22 The exam will include some basic transcription tasks: rendering IPA transcriptions of English words & phrases into ordinary spelling, and vice versa.

[i]

high front unrounded tense

[u]

high back rounded tense

[ə]

mid central unrounded lax (unstressed)

[æ]

low front unrounded lax

[ɑ]

low back unrounded lax

[ʌ]

mid central unrounded lax (stressed)

monophthong

simple pure vowel sound, ex. [ɑ], [ı]

diphthong

vowel sound made up of two combined vowel sounds that transition into each other; beginning/ending mouth positions need not correspond to distinct existing monophthongs; ex. [oʊ], [eɪ]

parameters for vowel description

H(eight) - B(ackness) - R(ounding) - T/L (tense/lax)

sonorant

sounds in whose articulations the vocal tract is shaped w/o significantly obstructing airflow; made up of well-defined formant patterns; ex. vowels, nasals, approximants (ALWAYS VOICED)

obstruent

sounds in whose articulations the vocal tract is shaped in a way that obstructs airflow; ex. stops, fricatives, affricates (can be voiced OR unvoiced)

[p]

voiceless bilabial stop

[b]

voiced bilabial stop

[m]

voiced bilabial nasal

[w]

voiced bilabial semi-vowel

[f]

voiceless labiodental fricative

[v]

voiced labiodental fricative

[θ]

voiceless dental fricative

[ð]

voiced dental fricative

[t]

voiceless alveolar stop

[d]

voiced alveolar stop

[s]

voiceless alveolar fricative

[z]

voiced alveolar fricative

[n]

voiced alveolar nasal

[l]

voiced alveolar (lateral) approximant/liquid

[ɹ]

voiced alveolar (retroflex) approximant/liquid

[ʃ]

voiceless post-alveolar fricative

[ʒ]

voiced post-alveolar fricative

[tʃ]

voiceless post-alveolar affricate

[dʒ]

voiced post-alveolar affricate

[j]

voiced post-alveolar semi-vowel

[k]

voiceless velar stop

[g]

voiced velar stop

[ŋ]

voiced velar nasal

[h]

voiceless glottal fricative

[ʔ]

voiceless glottal stop

assimilation

a process in which a sound becomes more similar to adjacent sounds in one or more features to make a string easier to pronounce; ex. ten bikes —> “tembikes” (adopts bilabiality), [n] before velar becomes [ŋ], frication in Spanish stops before vowels

dissimilation

a process in which a sound is modified to become less similar to adjacent sounds in one or more features to make a string easier to pronounce

insertion

adding of a sound to a string to make it easier to pronounce; ex. british insertion of “r” in between vowels (“banana-r-ice cream”)

deletion

the elision of a sound within a string to make it easier to pronounce; ex. fifth = “fith”

metathesis

swapping of segments within a string that make it easier to pronounce; ex. ask = “aks”

complementary distribution

allophones cannot exist in the same phonetic environment; conditioned allophones have complementary distribution

overlapping distribution

allophones can exist in the same phonetic distribution; free variation and contrastive allophones have overlapping distribution

minimal pair

a pair of strings that differ in exactly one segment & have different meanings (ex. tap & lap); used to prove contrastiveness