Phonetics and Phonology Flashcards

Flashcards covering key concepts in phonetics, phonology, and morphology.

What are the key characteristics of Phonetics?

Belongs to descriptive linguistics, studies production, transmission, and reception of sound, doesn't focus on a particular language.

What are the key characteristics of Phonology?

Belongs to theoretical linguistics, studies sound patterns in different languages, can study one specific language.

What is an Allophone?

One of the set of multiple possible spoken sounds or phones used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language.

What is a Phoneme?

An ideal sound unit with a complete set of articulatory gestures, the basic theoretical unit for describing how speech conveys linguistic meaning.

What is a Phone?

The actual sounds that are produced in speaking.

What are Monophones, Biphones, and Triphones?

Sequences of one, two, and three phones, respectively, most often used to describe acoustic models.

What does 'Same Letter, Different Sounds' refer to in English?

The same letter does not always represent the same sound.

What does 'Same Sound, Different Letters' refer to in English?

The same sound is not always represented by the same letter.

What are silent letters in English?

A lot of English words have letters which, though written, are not meant to be pronounced.

What are inserted sounds with no representation?

The intrusion of sound where there is no spelling to indicate that sound.

What are variants of the plural and past tense morpheme?

Variation in the pronunciation of the plural and past tense morpheme.

What are the major aspects of speech production?

The airstream mechanism, the state of the vocal cords, the state of the velum, the place and manner of articulation.

What are the different types of airstream mechanisms?

Pulmonic egressive, pulmonic ingressive, velaric egressive, velaric ingressive, glottalic egressive, glottalic ingressive.

What are the different manners of articulation?

Oral cavity, nasal cavity, lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, palate, velum, uvula, pharynx, tongue tip, tongue blade, tongue front, tongue back, tongue root.

What are the three steps of speech sound production?

Respiration, Phonation, Articulation.

What is Sonority?

Amount of acoustic energy a sound has; the relative loudness of a speech sound.

What is a syllable?

A peak of sonority that is surrounded by less sonorous sounds.

What is the 5-point method of describing speech sound articulation?

Airstream mechanism, the state of the vocal cord, position of the velum, place of articulation, manner of articulation.

How are consonants classified?

State of the vocal cord, place of articulation, manner of articulation.

How are vowels classified?

Tongue height, tongue backness, lip rounding.

What are Consonants?

Sounds produced with some restriction or closure in the vocal tract.

What is the 'place of articulation'?

The point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active, moving articulator and a passive articulator.

What are bilabial consonants?

Formed by closure or near closure of the lips.

What are labiodental consonants?

Articulated with the lower lip touching the upper front teeth.

What are interdental consonants?

Produced by placing the tip of the tongue between the upper and lower front teeth.

What are alveolar consonants?

Articulated with the tongue against or close to the alveolar ridge.

What are Palatal consonants?

Produced by raising the blade, or front of the tongue toward or against the hard palate just behind the alveolar ridge.

What are Velar consonants?

Produced by raising the back of the tongue to the soft palate or velum.

What are Uvular consonants?

Articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula.

What are Glottal consonants?

Produced by restricting the airflow through the open glottis or by interrupting the breath stream during speech by closure of the glottis.

What are Oral sounds?

Produced with the velum raised to prevent air from escaping out the nose.

What are Nasal sounds?

Produced with the velum lowered to allow air to escape out the nose.

What is the 'manner of articulation'?

The configuration and interaction of the articulators when making a speech sound.

What are Stop consonants?

Produced by completely stopping the air flow in the oral cavity for a fraction of a second.

What are Fricative consonants?

Produced by severely obstructing the airflow so as to cause friction.

What are Affricate consonants?

Produced by a stop closure that is released with a lot of friction.

What are Approximant consonants?

Made by bringing two articulators close together without them touching as the sound is produced.

What are Trills and Flaps?

Trills are produced by rapidly vibrating an articulator; flaps are produced by a flick of the tongue against the alveolar ridge.

How are click sounds produced?

Moving air in the mouth between various articulators.

What is Morphology?

The study of the internal structure of words and the rules governing the formation of words in a language.

What is a morpheme?

The smallest linguistic unit with a grammatical function.

What is a morph?

Refers specifically to the phonological realization of a morpheme.

What are types of affixes?

Prefix, suffix, infix, circumfix.

What are the lexical categories of knowledge?

Pronunciation and meaning, grammatical class, orthography/spelling.

What is grammatical class?

Verb, noun, adjective, adverb, determiners, preposition, pronoun, conjunction, interjection.

What is orthography?

The conventional spelling system of a language.

What are open-class (content or lexical) words?

Verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs.

What are closed-class (function or grammatical) words?

Conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs, demonstratives, comparatives, quantifiers.

What are the four types of free morphemes?

Prefixes, suffixes, bases, contracted forms

What are the three types of bound morphemes?

Derivational prefixes, inflectional suffixes, suffixes

What are free morphemes?

Can stand by themselves as single words.

What are bound morphemes?

Must be attached to another form and cannot stand alone.

What are content words?

Carry clear meaning.

What are function words?

Grammatical words that glue a sentence together.

What are examples of content words?

Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.

What are examples of function words?

Articles, auxiliaries, demonstratives, quantifiers, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions.

What are derivational morphemes used for?

Used to create new words or to make words of a different grammatical class from the stem.

What are inflectional morphemes used for?

Used to show some aspects of the grammatical function of a word.

What are the grammatical functions of inflectional morphemes? (-s/-es, -er, -est)

Marks as more than one, marks for ownership, marks for comparison, marks as superlative.

What are the grammatical functions of inflectional morphemes? (-S, -d/-ed, -ing, -n/-en)

Marks to agree with singular third person, marks past tense, marks present participle, marks past participle