LING 1001A - midterm

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

1. actually speaking the language

2. includes speaking mistakes

3. 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

1. 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

2. there is no logical or intrinsic relationship between signifier (sound pattern). Or signified (concept)

3. 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

1. the use or creation of a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes

   1. Oink, meow

duality of patterning

1. The property of human language that enables combinatorial structure on two distinct levels: 

   1. meaningless sounds can be combined into meaningful morphemes and words, 

   2. 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

1. 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).

2. 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:

1. by varying the tension of the vocal cords so as to produce pitch changes

2. by adjusting the positions of the arytenoid cartilages so as to produce different glottal strictures

3. by varying the timing of the onset of voicing relative to articulatory movements

4. 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:

1. To protect the airway from choking on material in the throat.

2. To regulate the flow of air into our lungs.

3. 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

1. What we are concerned with is describing what speakers actually do without having any opinion on what is right or wrong.  

   1. Ex: In English, the plural is formed by adding either (-s), (-z) or (-ez) to the end of nouns. 

   2. Ex:Many nouns in English are formed by adding -ness to an adjective. For example, sadness, silliness, happiness. 

Prescriptive grammar

1. 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.”

   1. 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)

1. The system that generates an e-language

2. In the Swahili example, this consists of the list of pieces of words (a-, ni-, penda. .. ), plus the rules for putting the pieces together

3. 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

1. Sounds are (generally) meaningless; combined into meaningful words

2. 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

1. the phenomenon of a morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization

2. Each of the various realizations is called an alternant

3. 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

1. occurs when a single word has more than one pronunciation, they do not distinguish meaning

2. The word economics is a case in point, since English speakers regularly pronounce it in either of two ways:

   1. [ikənɑmɪks] [ɛkənɑmɪks]

   2. [i] and [ɛ] occur in the same environment but they don’t distinguish meaning

3. 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

1. the study of the rules governing the possible phoneme sequences in a language

2. defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters and vowel sequences by means of phonotactic constraints

   1. 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

1. The form(s) of the morpheme

2. What kinds of words it attaches to and how

3. 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

1. Prefix (un-, in-, anti-): morphemes that can attach before the root

2. suffix (-ed, -ness, -s): morphemes that can attach after the root

3. 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

1. taking two words together. Therefore, it creates something new where the second noun used in the compound is based/tied to the first noun

   1. 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

1. alter a word's internal structure.

   1. Steal → stole, make → made

Suppletion

1. Cases where you randomly substitute one sequence of phonemes for another

   1. Eg. go and went

Blending

1. taking two words and taking some parts of both and then you squish them together like a sandwich.

   1. Eg. Motor + Hotel = Motel

Back-formation

1. existing words are changed into new ones by removing affixes.

   1. 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