Ch. 3 Phonology Key Vocabulary

Question 1

Phonology

Answer 1

the study of the abstract categories that organize the sound system of a language

Question 2

Spectrogram

Answer 2

a graphic representation of the frequency distribution of the complex jumble of sound waves that give the hearing impression of speech sounds

Question 3

phoneme

Answer 3

any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another

Question 4

phone

Answer 4

a physical realization of a speech sound like the voiceless or the voiced alveolar approximant

Question 5

allophones of the phoneme

Answer 5

phones which function as alternant realizations of the same phoneme

Question 6

narrow transcript

Answer 6

a close transcription indicating precise details of the sounds

Question 7

distribution

Answer 7

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

Question 8

complementary distribution

Answer 8

two sounds which are distributed in such a way that one can only occur where the other cannot occur

Question 9

minimal pairs

Answer 9

a pair of words which differ in only one sound, but differ in meaning

Question 10

released

Answer 10

the act or manner of ending a sound; the movement of one or more vocal organs in quitting the position for a speech sound

Question 11

unreleased

Answer 11

a stop consonant with no release burst; no audible indication of the end of its occlusion

Question 12

free variation

Answer 12

phenomenon of two or more sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning

Question 13

neutralisation

Answer 13

the fact that in a particular context, a contrast between phonemes becomes invisible

Question 14

final devoicing

Answer 14

the fact that a voiced phoneme has a voiceless allophone in word-final position in literature

Question 15

velarised

Answer 15

refers to the velum, or soft palate, toward the back of the mouth

Question 16

aspiration

Answer 16

a delay in the beginning of vocal fold vibration after the end of the stop

Question 17

t/d-flapping

Answer 17

a specific type of lenition, specifically intervocalic weakening. It leads to the neutralization of the distinction between /t/ and /d/ in appropriate environments, a partial merger of the two phonemes, provided that both /t/ and /d/ are flapped

Question 18

sonority sequencing principle

Answer 18

a linguistic constraint according to which phoneme intensity must increase at onset, reaching a peak at nucleus and decline at offset

Question 19

rhotic

Answer 19

relating to or denoting a dialect or variety of English in which r is pronounced before a consonant and at the ends of words

Question 20

constituents

Answer 20

the elements that make up a syllable

Question 21

syllabic consonants

Answer 21

consonants which occupy the central part of the syllable

Question 22

onset

Answer 22

the prevocalic slot; the consonant or consonant blend at the beginning of a word that precedes the first vowel

Question 23

coda

Answer 23

the postvocalic slot; made up of the consonants at the end of a syllable

Question 24

vowel epenthesis

Answer 24

the technical term for the insertion of vowels into syllables

Question 25

syllabification

Answer 25

assigning syllable structure to words