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syllable
Segments (consonants and vowels) are organized into a sequence of groups called syllables. Syllables aren’t entirely about phonetics (generally, most English speakers agree that the word hire has one syllable and higher has two, showing that syllables are more abstract).
Onset
everything before the nucles
Coda
everything after the nucleus
combines with nucleus to become the rhyme
competence
native speakers ability to recognize when certain utterances are not acceptable
ie. Speakers of Canadian English know that the different vowel sounds in the words: bat, bet, but, and bit are crucial to their meanings.
performance
actually speaking the language
includes speaking mistakes
Ex: He was kicking around a tin tan (instead of tin can)
Phonetics
looking at the physical aspects of language. e-language (external language)
Phonology
concerns the study of more complex and abstract sound patterns and structures (syllables, intonation, etc.).
Morphology
the study of the patterns of how sounds are put together to create words
Syntax
the study of how sentences are put together
Semantics
the study of meaning
Pragmatics
the strategies (above and beyond the grammar) that guide the way speakers use and interpret language
Grammar
the collection of principles defining how to put together a sentence
(un)grammatical sentence
it is not considered correct because it does not obey the rules of grammar and is not seen as grammatical by native speakers
(grammatical) rule
rules of a language governing the sounds, words, sentences, and other elements, as well as their combination and interpretation
arbitrariness of the sign
refers to the fact that the meaning of linguistic signs is not predictable from its word form, nor is the word form dictated by its meaning/function
there is no logical or intrinsic relationship between signifier (sound pattern). Or signified (concept)
ei. one word that is the same phonetically could have many different meanings across different languages
sound symbolism
the perceptual similarity between speech sounds and concept meanings
Onomatopoeia
the use or creation of a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes
Oink, meow
duality of patterning
The property of human language that enables combinatorial structure on two distinct levels:
meaningless sounds can be combined into meaningful morphemes and words,
which themselves could be combined further
High vowels (symbols)
[i], [ɪ], [u], [ʊ]
Mid Vowels (symbols)
[ej], [ɛ], [ə], [ʌ], [ow], [oj]
Low vowels (symbols)
[æ], [aj], [aw], [ɑ]
Articulatory phonetics
The study of speech production
Acoustic phonetics
The study of the sound of speech
Auditory phonetics
The study of the perception of speech sounds. Think of sound waves
Stop
Complete closure of the vocal tract
Fricative
Very narrow opening, creating a noisy sound
Affricate
Stop followed by a fricative
Nasal
The velum is lowered during a stop closure, allowing air to escape through the nose
Liquid
Larger opening, less noisy airflow
Lateral
Air escapes along the side(s) of the tongue
Glide
Largest opening, most vowel-like
Flap
A very brief voiced stop
Bunched
Your tongue is pointing down when pronouncing something
Retroflex
Your tongue is pointing up when pronouncing something tongue is curled backward
Bilabial
a sound made by using both lips
Labiodental
pronounced by bringing the bottom lip into contact or near contact with the upper teeth
(inter)dental
produced by putting the tip of the tongue between the upper and the lower teeth
Alveolar
consonant sounds that are produced with the tongue close to or touching the ridge behind the teeth on the roof of the mouth
Alveopalatal
articulated with the blade or front of the tongue approaching or touching the front of the hard palate near its junction with the alveolar ridge; having a primary palatal articulation and a secondary alveolar articulation
Palatal
a consonant sound produced by raising the blade, or front, of the tongue toward or against the hard palate just behind the alveolar ridge (the gums).
Velar
articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (also known as the “velum”).
syllable
Segments (consonants and vowels) are organized into a sequence of groups called syllables. Syllables aren’t entirely about phonetics (generally, most English speakers agree that the word hire has one syllable and higher has two, showing that syllables are more abstract).
Think of them as groupings of sounds (like units) as an organization of the speech stream.
consonant
a consonant is a sound with audible noise produced by a constriction.
vowel
a vowel is any sound with no audible noise produced by constriction in the vocal tract
Larynx
Languages use the larynx in four ways:
by varying the tension of the vocal cords so as to produce pitch changes
by adjusting the positions of the arytenoid cartilages so as to produce different glottal strictures
by varying the timing of the onset of voicing relative to articulatory movements
by raising or lowering the whole larynx to form ejectives or implosives.
vocal folds
the vocal folds are folds of tissue located in the larynx (voicebox) that have three important functions:
To protect the airway from choking on material in the throat.
To regulate the flow of air into our lungs.
The production of sounds used for speech.
Voiced vs unvoiced sounds
For voiced consonants, the vocal cords are engaged, making sound. For unvoiced consonants, the vocal cords are not making sound, there is just air passing through them. Consider: “m” vs “ʃ”
Descriptive grammar
What we are concerned with is describing what speakers actually do without having any opinion on what is right or wrong.
Ex: In English, the plural is formed by adding either (-s), (-z) or (-ez) to the end of nouns.
Ex:Many nouns in English are formed by adding -ness to an adjective. For example, sadness, silliness, happiness.
Prescriptive grammar
Will not be used when we look at people actually talking in real life. Telling people how to write and speak correctly (prescriptive grammar) is not important in this class. Keyword: “should.”
Ex: Brung should never be used as the past tense of bring. You shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition.
External language (e-language)
What speakers produce and linguists can observe
Internal language (i-language)
The system that generates an e-language
In the Swahili example, this consists of the list of pieces of words (a-, ni-, penda. .. ), plus the rules for putting the pieces together
The speaker’s knowledge of that system
Place of articulation
Where in the vocal tract two articulators come together
Manner of articulation
How closely or far apart the two articulators come together
Performance
The behaviour of speakers.
Ex: Performance ≈ actual games played by players (chess, D&D. . . )
Competence
what speakers know when they know a language. Competence is mostly hidden! How do we know about competence? By looking at performance!
Ex: Competence ≈ the rules of the game
Duality of signing
Two layers of structure
Sounds are (generally) meaningless; combined into meaningful words
Words are in turn combined into sentences
syllabic consonant
syllable with no vowel that surrounds a more sonorous consonant like a liquid or nasal. Ex: bottle, button, better
vowel articulation
To articulate a vowel sound, the tongue, jaw and lips are placed to create a tube between the larynx and lips. Refer to IPA Charts
diphthong
have a change of quality in a single syllable. a vowel combined with a glide
major diphthongs: change is extreme and easy to hear (buy ([aj]), boy ([oj]), and now ([aw]))
minor diphthongs: harder to hear and less dramatic (play ([ej]), go ([ow]))
monophthong/ simple vowel
do not show a noticeable change in quality during articulation
Nasalized
A nasal consonant is a consonant whose production involves a lowered velum and a closure in the oral cavity, so that air flows out through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants are [m], [n], and [ŋ] (as in think and sing).
Phonemes vs allophones
Phonemes are written in slanting brackets, e.g. /p/.
Allophones are [p], [ph], etc, which are square brackets.
A Phoneme is a class of sounds,
such as [p] and [ph] are kinds of /p/s in English.
Members of that phoneme are called ALLOPHONES (and of each other).
Phonemes are used by languages to distinguish the meanings of words; allophones are not.
Phonological rules express the speakers’ knowledge of how each phoneme is pronounced in different environments.
phonemic form
representation of the word. Also called the underlying form. The phonemes of a language are the segments that contrast in the underlying forms. “//”
phonetic form
how it is actually pronounced after rules governing allophonic variation have been applied. also called the surface form. This is the phonetic realization, and is represented with brackets in transcription. “[]”
Distribution
Pairs of sounds like [p] ∼ [ph], or [l] ∼ [R] can be in contrastive or in complementary distribution
Contrastive distribution
The two sounds can occur in the same environment
Minimal pairs are possible: words that differ only by the sounds in question
[p] ∼ [ph] in Hindi; [l] ∼ [R] in English
Any pair in constrastive distribution are not allophones, they are separate phonemes
Complementary distribution
Minimal pairs are impossible
Why? Because then they would be occurring in the same environment and therefore be in contrastive distribution.
Phones in complementary distribution are allophones of the same phoneme
A generalization (statement) is possible about the environments of each sound
[p] ∼ [ph] in English; [l] ∼ [R] in Korean
Phonological rules
express the speakers’ knowledge of how each phoneme is pronounced in different environments
Minimal pairs
A pair of words where there is a single different phoneme and it changes the meaning. Ex: Meant vs vent. → [mɛnt], [vɛnt]
Environment, phonetic context
the phonetic environment of a given instance of a speech sound (or "phone") consists of the other phones adjacent to and surrounding it
Alternation
the phenomenon of a morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization
Each of the various realizations is called an alternant
An example is in minimal pairs, where some cases call for one phone and other cases use a different alternant
Ex. in [mɛnt], [vɛnt], [m] and [v] are alternants of each other
Free variation
occurs when a single word has more than one pronunciation, they do not distinguish meaning
The word economics is a case in point, since English speakers regularly pronounce it in either of two ways:
[ikənɑmɪks] [ɛkənɑmɪks]
[i] and [ɛ] occur in the same environment but they don’t distinguish meaning
Can occur for separate phones and different phonemes
phonological rule
Rules that derive phonetic representations from underlying representations, accounting for alternations among allophones.
conditioning environment
an environment in which one sound is found and the other is not
Phonotactics
the study of the rules governing the possible phoneme sequences in a language
defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters and vowel sequences by means of phonotactic constraints
Phonotactic constraints are highly language-specific
Picking a phoneme
Determining which is the ‘parent’ phoneme and which is the ‘child’, the phoneme that occurs in a more general environment / in more locations is the underlying ‘parent’, while the allophone is the one that occurs in specified / special places
Lexical category
Can act as a head
Consist of (N) nouns, (A) adjectives, (Adv) adverbs, (V) verbs, and (P) prepositions
Derivation
make new ‘words’ out of old ‘words’
Derivation (morphology)
An affixational process that forms a word with a meaning and/or category distinct from that of its base. Eg. king→kingdom
Derivation (phonology)
The application of phonological rules to underlying representations.
Derivation (syntax)
The process whereby a syntactic structure is formed by syntactic operations such as Merge and Move
Inflection
creates forms of the same ‘word’. ei walk → walked. The same affix can be applied to many more words of the same lexical category compared to derivation
Morpheme
the smallest piece of word that has a meaning
To define a morpheme, gather the following information
The form(s) of the morpheme
What kinds of words it attaches to and how
What kind of word it makes eg. what meaning it contributes
Allomorph
forms that relate to each other but are slightly different
Root
central morpheme of a word
Stem
any form to which an affix attaches
Affix
morphemes other than roots
Prefix (un-, in-, anti-): morphemes that can attach before the root
suffix (-ed, -ness, -s): morphemes that can attach after the root
Infix (not in english): goes inside the root
free morpheme
can stand by themselves as an individual word, like dog, walk…
bound morpheme
are not free (adding something like un- (unhappy, unwell…))
content morpheme
a morpheme with a clear meaning such as book or un- (meaning not). can be a free or bound morpheme
function morpheme
Compounding
taking two words together. Therefore, it creates something new where the second noun used in the compound is based/tied to the first noun
Eg. A giraffe table is a kind of table, but a table giraffe is a giraffe who likes to be on a table
Duplication
duplicating the whole word, or part of the word (reduplication) to change the semantic meaning. not found in english
internal change
alter a word's internal structure.
Steal → stole, make → made
Suppletion
Cases where you randomly substitute one sequence of phonemes for another
Eg. go and went
Blending
taking two words and taking some parts of both and then you squish them together like a sandwich.
Eg. Motor + Hotel = Motel
Back-formation
existing words are changed into new ones by removing affixes.
Vaccination → Vaccinate
Clipping
Taking words and shortening them
Eg. Telephone → phone
Agreement
relates to the correspondence between words in a sentence. Eg: she watches vs I watch
grammaticality judgment task
a native speaker reads a sentence and judges if it is grammatical or not
Note
Flashcard