LING403 Quiz 4

can native speakers count syllables in words without difficulty

yes

fairly … intuitions about where to place syllable boundaries

clear

what constitutes the implicit knowledge of the syllable

internal structure of the syllable

phonotactic rules or constraints

what do we represent the syllable with

greek letter sigma (σ)

onset

consonant or consonant sequence at the beginning of the syllable

rhyme

includes the vowel (nucleus) and the final consonant or consonant sequence (coda)

are codas obligatory

no, they are optional often

is the nucleus of a syllable obligatory

yes

monosyllabic

consisting of a single-syllable

disyllabic or bisyllabic

consisting of 2 syllables

syllabification method

Scanning from left to right, identify the vowels in the word, and
project a nucleus node from them.

Project a rhyme node from the nucleus node.

Project a syllable node from the rhyme node.

If there is a consonant to the left of the vowel, project an onset node
from it and connect it to the syllable node.

If there is a consonant to the right of the vowel, project a coda node
from it and connect it to the rhyme node.

Unlinked segments are then linked to existing onset and coda nodes,
respecting the Sonority Sequencing Principle wherever possible,
and the process is repeated with other sonorous sounds like glides
and liquids now serving to project syllable nuclei.

many languages only allow … and … syllables

CV and CVC

languages have rules on what kinds of sounds may or may not combine that is shaped strongly by…

the syllable

are there different restrictions for beginnings and ends of syllables, and combinations across syllable boundaries

yes

sonority sequencing principle

in a syllable, the sonority increased from the edges to the nucleus

sonority reaches peak at nucleus, then declines again

phonetic idea of sonority

the more open the air passages, the more sonorous (ie the louder it is)

the sonority hierarchy (high to low)

vowels → glides → liquids → nasals → obstruents

within obstruents, stops are considered the least sonorous (less sonorous than fricatives)

is the sonority sequencing principle universal

Yes, but its application is language-specific

despite cross-linguistic differences, we see some effect of sonority sequencing principle in every language

does english conform to the sonority sequencing principle 100%

no (s in complex codas and onsets does not obey SSP)

what is a language that obeys sonority sequencing principle 100%

spanish

maximal onset principle

during syllabification, try to maximize the onset as long as you do not violate the phonotactics of the language

rules of syllabification are…

persistent

how are the rules of syllabification perisitent

underlying phonological representations are syllabified by the syllabification rule and when the phonological rules apply, the syllabification rule reapplies if possible

open syllables

ends in a vowel or dipthong (ie has no coda)

closed syllable

ends in a consonant (ie has a coda)

by referring to syllables, we avoid…

looking at 2 following segments

the syllable is relevant to…

the description of some phonological rules

the syllables forms the basis for…

describing stress patterns in languages

onsets are often…

obligatory

onsets are articulated…

more forcefully (fortition)

what is the locus of rich phonemic contrast

onsets

codas are articulated…

less forcefully (weakening/lenition)

what are the focus of phonological neutralization (including deletion)

codas

is there a language that forbids onsets

no

is there a language that requires every syllable to have a coda

no

universal syllable

present in every language

CV

are there usually more restrictions for onsets or codas

codas

ex: english no [h] in coda position

languages have … on what sounds can be in the onset vs coda position

different restrictions

restrictions in clusters can be related to…

sonority distance

ex: in english, segments that come from adjacent sonority classes are disallowed (stops cannot be followed by fricatives)

do english codas impose sonority distance constraints

no, sequences rules out in onsets are fine in codas

syllable weight depend on

how heavy the rhyme is

heavy syllable

contains long vowels, dipthongs, or a coda in the rhyme

light syllable

contains just a short vowel in the rhyme (and no coda)

mora

𝛍

important prosodic unit relevant in many languages, especially Japanese

stress is often attracted to which kinds of syllables

heavy rather than light

stress

relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word

does stress = accent/focus

no

do all languages have stress

no but all have accent/focus

most common phonetic properties correlated with stress

amplitude

duration

high/low pitch or pitch changes

in english, stressed syllables carry more

vowel distinctions

in english vowels in stressed syllables are

more resistant to coarticulation

is there an invariant physical realization of stress, even within a single language

no (true of rhythm in general)

interaction between stress and segments are…

highly language-specific

Some diagnostics for detecting English stress

Vowel reduction /æ, a, ɛ, ɔ, ɪ, ʊ, ʌ/ reduce to schwa or [ɨ] when stressless

Flapping: /t,d/ → [ɾ] / [-cons]___[+syl,-stress]

/t/ Insertion: ∅ → [t] / [n]___[s][+syl,-stress]

l/ Devoicing: /l/ → [-voice] / [s]__[+syl,-stress]

Medial Aspiration: [-cont, -voice] → [+spread glottis] / [-stri]__([+son])[+syl,+stress]

lexical (free) stress

stressed syllable not predictable based on phonology, needs to be memorized

paradigmatic stress

depends on morphological information for which syllable is assigned stress, like lexical category or affixes (english mostly)

positional stress

fixed stress, very predictable

suffixes that carry primary stress in english

-ain (verbs only)

-ee

-eer

-ese

-ette

-esque

suffixes in english that change stress placement in the stem

-ous

-graphy

-ial

-ic

-ion

-ity

more paradigmatic aspects of english stress

verbs vs nouns have different stress patterns (word classes have different stress patterns)

in a compound word, which element is stressed

first

why does stress shift

to maintain rhythmicity

when there is a clash, stress shifts…

left

levels of stress

primary and secondary

primary stress is … than secondary

stronger

quantity sensitive

stress system sensitive to syllable weight

quantity insensitive

stress systems that do not care about syllable weight

tone languages

languages that use pitch differences (on the syllable level) to make distinctions in word meaning

tones fall on…

multiple or all syllables of a word depending on the language

most syllables have… which may then change as they are combines

an underlying tone

what percent of the world’s languages are tonal

50-60% by conservative estimates

intonation languages

languages that use pitch on the phrasal level to create meaning differences in phrases/sentences

each phrasal/sentence type has a special ‘tune’ that is associated to the phrase/sentences

pitch accent languages

one syllable is considered more prominent than another in a word, typically with a specific pitch contour used

japenese, Swedish, basque, serbian

how are pitch accent languages different from tone languages

not all syllables in a word carry an “accent” in pitch accent languages

how are pitch accent languages different from stress languages

only pitch is used for pitch accent languages and contour remains stable

pitch contrasts distinguishes…

words from one another

how can we describe a language’s tonal inventory

number of tones

tone height

level vs contour

Typically, tone languages found in East/Southeast Asia consist of… in the underlying form

level and contour tones

shape of tone is most important for conveying meaning

it is more common in african tone languages (most bantu langiages) to have just … tones in the underlying form

level (register) tones

any contour tones can be derived from concatenation of underlying level tones

African tone languages

many have systems where certain words/morphemes will be associated with a specific tonal melody

often inflectional (ie grammatical) information may be indicated solely by tone (rather than a specific morpheme)

tone sandhi

phonological changes from one tone to another

focus for tone sandhi is on tone languages from africa because…

tonal spreading patterns are more easily observed with register tone languages, as they also often have specific tonal melodies associated with words/morphemes

non-local environments

cases in which the trigger of a phonological process can occur at an extended distance from the target

autosegmentalism

non-local processes are actually local

all nonlocal operations are local on a tier; the set of tiers constrains the set of non-local environments

autosegmental phonology was initially formalized to address…

tonal phenomena but was later extended to vowel/consonant harmony and feature spreading

is there always a one to one mapping of tones to syllables

no

two tones can occupy one syllable

two syllables could be occupied by one tone

tones are best viewed as an …. in the phonology

independent level

are tones a part of the segmental system

no

when vowels are deleted, tones associated with the vowels are…

often retained

phonological representation are composed of

multiple tiers of segments

tiers correspond to … and differ according to …

gestures of speech

the features that are specified for the segments on them

association lines

lines that link segments on tonal tier to segments on segmental tier

An association line between 2 segments on 2 tiers means…

they are articulated simutaneously

do we need a one to one mapping between segments of 2 tiers

no

one to one mapping

traditional view of tonal association

each tone mapped to a single vowel

many to one mapping

a single syllable is produced during the period of two distinct tones

multiple linking

3 syllables produced during a period of a single low tone

is autosegmental phonology linear

no

is autosegmental phonology derivational or inflectional

derivations (SR derived from UR via rule application)

nasal spreading in english

nasality spreads from nasal consonant to a preceding vowel