LING test 1

Descriptivism

The act of documenting and describing what actually happens in
human linguistic behaviors; There is no right or wrong way of speaking

Prescriptivism

the act of proposing a pre-defined set of rules according to which
we must all speak; There is only one correct way of speaking

Hockett’s Design Features of Language:Arbitrariness

Language Symbols are completely arbitrary; E.g.: There is nothing inherently ”dog-like” about the utterance [dAg

Hockett’s Design Features of Language: Displacement

Humans are capable of talking about things removed from the
”here and now”; E.g.: We could talk about things that happened in the past,
will happen in the future, and even imaginary, fictional scenarios (Think of
the intro of star wars: a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away

Hockett’s Design Features of Language: Productivity

We are capable of producing an ad infinitum amount of ideas
based on a finite set of symbols & rules for combinations of said symbols. E.g.:
We could, hypothetically at least, produce an infinitely long sentence that has
never been said before in all of human history (An example otherwise known
as recursion

Hockett’s Design Features of Language: Cultural Transmission

We are endowed with a predisposition for learning &
acquiring languages. E.g.: Babies are only exposed to a finite amount of input,
and yet they are perfectly capable of grasping the ins and outs of any given
human language with ease

IPA

The International Phonetic Alphabet is a system of phonetic alphabets de-
signed to transcribe the sounds of the world’s languages. The reason why we choose
to use the IPA is because it has a 1:1 correspondence of symbols to sounds.

Phonetics

the study of the acoustic and the articulatory characteristics
of sounds (How do speech sounds sound like? How are they produced?)

Vowels

a sound that is produced without obstruction of airflow from
the vocal tract. A vowel is defined by the following features: height, backness,
roundedness, tense/lax.

Consonent

is a sound that involves the obstruction of airflow from
the vocal tract

Stops (Plosives)

sounds that are produced with a complete closure
of your mouth. Think of sounds that produce a turbulent puff of air: E.g.:
[p], [t], [k]

Frictative

sounds that are produced with a constricted airflow,
thus creating more friction and thus a ”hissing” sound. E.g.: [s], [ ʃʼ], [z], [ʒ]

Affrictative

sounds that are basically a combination of a stop
followed by a fricative. E.g.: [tʃ], [dʒ]

Nasals

sounds created with airflow, and hence resonance, in the
nasal cavity. When a nasal sound is produced, your velum stays open which
allows for airflow to pass through into your nasal cavity. E.g.: [n], [ŋ]

Approximants (liquids & Glides):

sounds whose acoustic &
articulatory qualities make them sort of ambiguous. In other words, they are
sort of like the sounds that are in between what we traditionally perceive to
be consonants/vowels. E.g.: [j], [w], [ɹ], [l]

Tap and Flap

produced by lightly tapping the articulators
(speech organs). E.g.: [ɾ](The sound in words like [])

Place of Articulation (PoA):

the place/part of your speech organ at which a
sound is produced.

Manner of Articulation (MoA):

the manner in which a sound is produced. In
other words, what kind of sound is it? E.g.: Fricatives, Stops, etc

Voicing

involves the vibration of your vocal fold. By default, all vowels/nasals/approximants are voiced

Phonology

The study of the systematic organization of sounds. (Compare with
phonetics, which deals with the acoustics and articulatory aspects of sounds)

Natural Class

A group of sounds that share one or a set of features. We create
natural classes to put sounds into one category. E.g.: The sounds [p], [t], [k] are all
voiceless plosives. The sounds [j], [w], [l], [æ] are all sonorants

Phoneme

The smallest unit of sound that makes a difference in meaning/An ab-
stract, mental representation of a sound

Allophones

The actual realizations of phonemes in day-to-day speech. Does not
make a difference in the meaning of a word. It also corresponds to an underlying
phoneme. E.g.: The sound [R] is an allophone of the phoneme [t] in words such as
writer, because the underlying phoneme is still a [t], but we pronounce it
as a [R] regardless. And the fact that we pronounce it as a [R] does not change its
meaning

Distribution

describes the environments in which two sounds appear. There are two types of distributions: Contrastive and Complementary

Contrastive Distribution

describes two sounds that
appear in the same environments

Complementary Distribution

describes two sounds that do not appear in the same environments

Minimal Pairs

If two lexical items (words) differ in meaning by one and only
one sound, they are this

Phonotactics

The study of the structure of syllables in a language. It deals with
—syllable

—obstruent

—sonarants

—onsets

—nucleaus

—metathesis

syllable

A linguistic unit that has no standard, universally agreed-upon defi-
nition. For our purposes, try to think of it as consisting of an obstruent plus
a sonorant, or simply a sonoran

Obstruent

A sound that involves a significant amount of obstruction of airflow
to produce. Sounds such as stops, fricatives, affricates are all examples of this

Sonorants

A sound that is produced with vowel-like resonance. The term itself comes from the fact that they usually more resonant and hence louder than obstruents. These include sounds such as vowels, nasals, and approximants

Onset

The beginning consonant/consonant cluster of a syllable

Nucleus

The core part of a syllable. It is possible that a syllable might not
have an onset, but it would almost always have a nucleus. This is typically
a sonorant, usually a vowel.

Coda

The ending consonant/consonant cluster of a syllable. A syllable with-
out this is often referred to as an open syllable

Sound Change

often conditioned by phonological, physiological,
or even social factors

—assimilation

—dissimilation

—insertion

—deletion

—metathesis

Palatalization

When a sound is produced closer to the palate. E.g.: When
a [d] becomes [dʒ] in front of a [j]. (Think of what you say when you ask
someone ”Did you...”) Palatalization is an instance of assimilation

Assimilation

When a sound is assimilated (i.e., becomes more similar) to a
sound that is near it.

Dissimilation

When a sound dissimilates (i.e., becomes less similar) from a
sound that is near it. E.g. [fIfθ] becomes [fIft]

Insertion

When a sound is being added E.g.: [hæmstəɹ] becomes [hæmpstəɹ]

Deletion

When a sound is deleted from a sequence. E.g.: [fæməli] becomes
[fæmli

metathesis

When two sounds are swapped places in a word. E.g.: When
[æsk] becomes [æks]