Ch. 3 Phonology Key Vocabulary

Question 1

Phonology

Answer 1

the study of speech sounds in language

Question 2

phone

Answer 2

sound, voice

Question 3

phoneme

Answer 3

in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

Question 4

Allophones of a phoneme

Answer 4

Phones which function as alternate realizations of the same phoneme

Question 5

narrow transcription

Answer 5

includes symbols to represent both the speech sounds produced and symbols that describe slight variations in the production of those sounds

Question 6

Distribution

Answer 6

the different positions in which a speech sound can occur or cannot occur in the words of a language

Question 7

complementary distribution

Answer 7

The occurrence of sounds in a language such that they are never found in the same phonetic environment. Sounds that are in complementary distribution are allophones of the same phoneme.

Question 8

minimal pairs

Answer 8

a pair of words that differ by only 1 phoneme (dog/bog) but differ in meaning

Question 9

Spectrogram

Answer 9

a graphic representation of the three major parameters that describe the acoustic characteristic of any sound: time, frequency, and intensity

Question 10

free variation

Answer 10

refers to allophone production that is not tied to a particular phonetic environment

Question 11

Constituents of a syllable

Answer 11

the elements that make up a syllable

Question 12

syllabic consonants

Answer 12

a consonant that serves as the nucleus of a syllable

Question 13

nucleus of a syllable

Answer 13

the part of every syllable that consists of a vowel phoneme or a syllabic consonant

Question 14

Onset

Answer 14

the prevocalic slot of a syllable

Question 15

Coda

Answer 15

postvocalic slot of a syllable

Question 16

syllabification

Answer 16

Breaking words down into their syllables

Question 17

Maximal Onset Principle

Answer 17

assigns any series of intervocalic consonants to the syllable on the right

Question 18

Sonority

Answer 18

the loudness of a sound relative to that of other sounds with the same length, stress, and pitch

Question 19

Sonority Sequencing Principle

Answer 19

in any syllable, there is a segment constituting a sonority peak that is preceded and/or followed by a sequence of segments with progressively decreasing sonority values

Question 20

Aspiration

Answer 20

Breathing fluid, food, vomitus, or an object into the lungs

Question 21

Velarised

Answer 21

pronounce with the back of the tongue near the soft palate.

Question 22

Released consonant

Answer 22

the release of the air that has been built up with a consonant sound

Question 23

Unreleased consonant

Answer 23

no release of built up air during a consonant sound

Question 24

Vowel epenthesis

Answer 24

insertion of a vowel between two consonants