Phonetics & Phonology – Core Vocabulary

Essential vocabulary capturing the central concepts, terminology, and processes from the lecture on Phonetics, Phonology, distinctive features, syllables, and English word stress.

Phonetics

The study of the physical characteristics of speech sounds: their production (articulatory), transmission (acoustic) and perception (auditory).

Phonology

The study of the systematic, abstract sound patterns in language, including contrast, distribution, and alternations.

Articulatory Phonetics

Branch of phonetics that investigates how speech sounds are produced by the vocal tract.

Acoustic Phonetics

Branch of phonetics that examines the physical properties of speech sounds as sound waves.

Auditory Phonetics

Branch of phonetics that studies how listeners perceive speech sounds.

Obstruent

A consonant produced with significant obstruction of airflow (plosives, fricatives, affricates).

Sonorant

A sound produced with relatively free airflow and resonance (nasals, approximants, vowels).

Plosive (Oral Stop)

Consonant made by complete closure in the oral cavity, build-up of pressure, then release (e.g., [p t k]).

Nasal Stop

Stop articulated with lowered velum so air escapes through the nose (e.g., [m n ŋ]).

Fricative

Consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow constriction, creating turbulence (e.g., [f s ʃ]).

Affricate

Single segment that begins with a stop closure and releases into a fricative (e.g., [tʃ dʒ]).

Approximant

Consonant with narrowing of the vocal tract but no turbulent noise (e.g., [w j r l]).

Glide

Rapidly articulated approximant that functions like a consonant (e.g., [w j]).

Lateral

Consonant in which airflow escapes over the sides of the tongue (e.g., [l]).

Rhotic

Any ‘r-sound’; in English typically a post-alveolar approximant.

Place of Articulation

Location in the vocal tract where the active articulator approaches the passive articulator to form a consonant.

Bilabial

Place of articulation using both lips (e.g., [p b m]).

Labiodental

Consonants articulated with lower lip against upper teeth (e.g., [f v]).

Dental

Consonants articulated with tongue tip/blade at the teeth (e.g., [θ ð]).

Alveolar

Consonants articulated at the alveolar ridge (e.g., [t d s z n l]).

Post-Alveolar

Consonants articulated just behind the alveolar ridge (e.g., [ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ]).

Retroflex

Consonants articulated with tongue tip curled back toward the palate (e.g., [ɻ]).

Palatal

Sounds articulated with tongue body against the hard palate (e.g., [j]).

Velar

Consonants articulated with tongue body against the soft palate (e.g., [k g ŋ]).

Uvular

Sounds articulated with the back of the tongue at the uvula (common outside English).

Glottal

Sounds articulated at the vocal folds (e.g., [h ʔ]).

Voicing

Vibration of the vocal folds during sound production; divides sounds into voiced vs. voiceless.

Aspirated Stop

Voiceless stop released with a burst of air; marked as [pʰ tʰ kʰ] in IPA.

Distinctive Feature

Binary (or unary) phonological parameter used to describe natural classes and rules (e.g., [+voice], [nasal]).

Phoneme

Smallest contrastive sound unit in a language; an abstract category of sounds.

Allophone

Positional variant of a phoneme that does not create meaning differences.

Complementary Distribution

Situation where two sounds never occur in the same phonetic environment and are therefore allophones of one phoneme.

Minimal Pair

Two words differing by only one sound and having different meanings, showing phonemic contrast.

Natural Class

Set of segments sharing one or more distinctive features and behaving alike phonologically.

Phonotactics

Language-specific constraints on permissible sound sequences and syllable structures.

Assimilation

Phonological process where a sound becomes more like a neighboring sound (e.g., nasal place assimilation).

Epenthesis

Insertion of a segment into a word to break up illicit clusters (e.g., English plurals with [ɪ] → [ɪz]).

Lenition

Weakening of consonants (e.g., stops becoming fricatives).

Fortition

Strengthening of consonants (e.g., fricatives becoming stops).

Mora

Unit of syllable weight; short vowel = 1 mora, long vowel or coda consonant adds weight.

Syllable

Prosodic unit consisting of a nucleus (vowel) and optionally onset and coda consonants.

Onset

Consonant(s) preceding the vowel nucleus in a syllable.

Coda

Consonant(s) following the vowel nucleus in a syllable.

Rhyme (Rime)

Syllable portion consisting of nucleus plus coda.

Stress

Relative prominence of a syllable in a word, often realized via loudness, pitch, and duration.

Foot (Prosodic)

Rhythmic unit of one stressed syllable plus associated unstressed syllables (e.g., trochee, iamb).

Trochee

Foot with stressed-unstressed pattern (e.g., ‘happy’).

Iamb

Foot with unstressed-stressed pattern (e.g., ‘delay’).

Generative Phonology

Approach that derives surface pronunciations from abstract underlying forms via ordered rules.

Underlying Representation (UR)

Lexical form of a morpheme, stored as a feature bundle before rules apply.

Surface Representation (SR)

Phonetic output after phonological rules have applied.

Autosegmental Phonology

Framework representing certain features (e.g., tone, nasalization) on separate tiers linked to segments.

Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP)

Constraint prohibiting adjacent identical elements (e.g., two linked identical tones) on a tier.

Harmony

Long-distance assimilation where nonadjacent segments share a feature (e.g., vowel harmony).

Phonological Rule

Formal statement that changes feature values or inserts/deletes segments in specific environments.

Meeussen’s Rule

Bantu tonal rule where a High tone is deleted after another High within a domain.

Feature Geometry

Hierarchical model organizing distinctive features into sets like laryngeal, place, manner.

Prosodic Hierarchy

Nested levels of prosodic constituents (mora < syllable < foot < phonological word < phrase < utterance).

Stress-Timed Rhythm

Rhythmic pattern where time intervals between stressed syllables are roughly equal, characteristic of English.

Compound Stress Rule (English)

In two-part compounds, primary stress usually falls on the first element (e.g., ‘blackbird’).

Stress-Shifting Suffix

Derivational suffix that forces stress movement in the base (e.g., ‑ic, ‑ity, ‑ese).

Stress-Neutral Suffix

Suffix that leaves word stress unchanged (e.g., ‑ness, ‑ly).