Lecture Notes on Linguistics - Phonology and Sound Structure

A collection of vocabulary flashcards drawn from lecture notes on the concepts of phonology, phonetics, and the structure of sound in language.

Phonetics

The study of the physical properties of speech sounds and how those sounds are produced and perceived.

Phonology

The study of the distribution of sounds in a given language and how those sounds interact with one another.

Speech Perception

The process by which the sounds of language are heard, interpreted, and understood.

Phoneme

The mental representation of a sound, which is stored in the mind.

Allophone

The different acoustic realizations of a phoneme; these are the sounds actually produced.

Minimal Pair

Two words that differ in meaning and are identical in all but one sound.

Contrastive Distribution

When replacing one sound with another in the same phonological environment results in a change in meaning.

Free Variation

When two sounds can occur in the same context without a semantic effect.

Complementary Distribution

When one sound is found in environments where the other sound is not, indicating predictable patterns.

Assimilation

A phonological process where a sound becomes more like a neighboring sound in terms of some phonetic property.