Ling 201 Test: Misc.

voiceless

sounds produced without vibration of vocal cords

voiced

sounds produced with vibration of vocal cords

stop

complete stop + release

nasal

closure (velum down) + air through nasal cavity

fricative

narrow gap + friction

affricate

stop + fricative

approximant

articulators close but not enough for friction

lateral

tongue blocks middle, air flows out sides

front vowel sounds

beet (i), bit (ɪ), bait (e), bet (ɛ), bat (æ)

central vowel sounds

sofa (ə), nurse (ɜː), cup (ʌ)

back vowel sounds

food (u), good (ʊ), go (o/oʊ), bought (ɔ), balm (ɑ)

phoneme

occur in contrastive distribution, meaning they can appear in the same environment (position) and change the meaning.

the smallest units of sound in a language.

allophone

predictable, different pronunciations of the same phoneme that occur in specific contexts and don’t change meaning (complementary)

open vocal cords

voiceless sounds (no vibration)

closed (vibrating) vocal cords

voiced sounds

natural class of sounds

a set of phonemes in a language that share certain distinctive features

production of speech

initiation (setting air in motion)

phonation (voicing, modification of airflow passing larynx)

articulation (manner, shaping of airflow to produce certain sounds)

articulatory phonetics

sound production

acoustic phonetics

sound transmission

auditory phonetics

sound reception

phonetics

physical sounds, how sounds are produced, transmitted, and heard

phonology

sound use in language - how sounds are organised, patterned, and used to distinguish meaning

variation in speech sounds

speed, context, accent, dialect, errors, etc

broad transcription (phonemic)

simple record using phonemes, meaning-focused, represents careful speech

narrow transcription (phonetic)

records detailed, realistic pronunciation using allophones, diacritics, etc, and represents natural speech

stressed

syllable pronounced with more emphasis (louder, longer, clearer vowel)

unstressed

syllable with less emphasis (shorter, weaker, often reduced vowel like [ə])

vowel

produced with open airflow (no obstruction), forms the core of a syllable

consonant

produced with some obstruction (closure or narrowing), usually surrounds the vowel

diacritic

a small symbol added to a sound to show its specific pronunciation details

passive articulator

speech organs that stay still and are contacted by active ones (e.g. teeth, ridge)

active articulator

speech organs that move to create sounds (e.g. tongue, lower lip)

identifying phonemes

minimal pair test

identifying allophones

1. look at the environment each variation occurs in (position of sound, adjacent sounds)

2. identify patterns in surrounding sounds

3. establish rules for when each variant occurs

sonorant redundancy

all sonorants in English are voiced, don’t need [+voice]

marked

less expected/less common

e.g. obstruents are -voice but can be +voice

unmarked

default/common form

e.g. obstruents are -voice but can be +voice

distinctive features

binary phonological properties that make up phonemes, distinguish contrasts in a language, group sounds into natural classes, underpin phonological rules

distinctive features vs IPA

ipa = tells you what a sound is

df = tells you what makes the sound what it is

labial articulation

lips - bilabial, labiodental

coronal articulation

tongue tip/blade @ teeth/palate - dental, alveolar, post-alveolar, retroflex, palatal

dorsal articulation

tongue body - velar, uvular

pharyngeal articulation

tongue root/pharyngeal wall

glottal articulation

larynx

assimilation

a sound becomes more similar to a neighbouring sound (e.g. handbag → hambag)

progressive assimilation

earlier sound affects later sound (e.g. plural ending copies voicing of sound before it)

regressive (anticipatory) assimilation

later sound affects earlier sound (e.g. n → ŋ before k so both sounds are made in the same place, easier + faster)

partial assimilation

sound changes a bit but stays different

total assimilation

sound changes so much that it becomes the same as the next sound

word stress

one syllable is more prominent
(fixed - always in same position in language, variable - position changes bc production, etc)

stress & vowel quality

stress may change vowel quality/which vowel sound is produced

rewrite rules

instructions that convert underlying forms into actual pronunciations based on context.

they describe how one sound changes into another in a specific environment.

Underlying Representation (UR)

the “mental” or stored form in your head, abstract, not always what you hear

Surface Representation (SR)

the actual pronunciation (what comes out)

rule feeding

earlier rule enables later rule

rule bleeding

earlier rule blocks later rule

combining rules using alpha notation

e.g. [-son] → [αvoice] / __ [-son, αvoice]

If the α value in the focus is +, then all outputs are +

If the α value in the focus is -, then all outputs are -

neutralisation

Two phonemes contrast underlyingly but merge into the same surface sound in a specific environment (often restricted positions like word-final)

e.g. /m/ and /n/ contrast, but both surface as [n] word-finally

neutralisation - final devoicing

voiced and voiceless obstruents lose their contrast in word-final position, with all surfacing as voiceless consonants

e.g. a word that underlyingly ends in /d/ will be pronounced with [t] at the end

neutralisation - nasal place neutralisation