Week_12___13__SoL_15

Syllable

A structural unit in speech that organizes sounds around a peak sonority, typically having one peak sonority.

Sonority

The relative openness of the vocal tract, correlated with the loudness of sounds.

Sonority Sequencing Principle

The principle stating that sonority rises to a peak (vowel nucleus) and then falls afterwards (toward coda).

Onset

The beginning sound in a syllable, typically a consonant.

Nucleus

The peak vowel in a syllable.

Coda

The ending consonant in a syllable.

Rhyme

A syllable's structural component comprising the nucleus and possibly the coda.

Phonological Phrase

Groups phonological words into a larger domain for phonological processes.

Bimoraic

A syllable structure that contains at least two moras.

Complex onset

A syllable onset that includes multiple consonants.

Phonological processes

Rules that apply during the organization of sounds in speech, often dependent on syllable and word structures.

Preferred syllable type

The universally unmarked type of syllable is the Consonant-Vowel (CV) structure.

closed-syllable shortening (Yowlumne)

A rule stating that a syllable can have either a long vowel (2 moras) or a short vowel plus a coda (2 moras), but not both.

Speaker intuition

native speaker can intuitively count syllables in words

Phonological Generalizations

Allophonic variations and alternations occur in syllable-based scope

Preferred syllable type

CV (consonant-vowel); this type is universal and hence unmarked

Mora

unit quantifying syllable weight: μ

phonological word

phonological word groups syllables and moras into a coherent unit for phonological rules

3 types of syllable structure constraints

1. the sonority sequencing constraint

2. priority onsets

3. sonority distance requirement

   1. Such constraints specify that consonants in a cluster must be a certain distance apart on the sonority scale.

Minimal Word Constraint

when a heavy syllable attracts the stress from the light syllable

ambisyllabicity

an ambisyllabic consonant is one that belongs to two syllables at once.

Prosodic hierarchy

• Utterance (U)

• Intonational phrase (I)

• Phonological Phrase (ɸ)

• Phonological Word (ω)

• Foot (F)

• Syllable (σ)

compound words

Compound words are formed when two or more words are combined to create a new word with a unique meaning, like "sunflower," "toothbrush," or "mother-in-law."

Vowel and consonant harmony

Vowel and consonant harmony are linguistic processes where vowels or consonants within a word become similar or agree in certain features, such as frontness or backness in vowels, or voicing and place of articulation in consonants, to create a more uniform sound pattern.

Phonological vs. syntactic words

for example: bookcase has two phonological words, but it has one syntactic word

Copula verb

A copula verb is a linking verb that connects the subject of a sentence to a subject complement, often describing a state of being, identity, or condition, such as "is" in "She is happy."

Clitics

Clitics are morphemes that function like words but are grammatically dependent on a host word, such as 'll in she'll or -s in it's.