File 3.0-3.3, 3.5: Phonology (F)

Question 1

phonetic inventories

Answer 1

the sounds that are produced as part of the language

Question 2

suprasegmental features

Answer 2

A phonetic characteristic of speech sounds, such as length, intonation, tone, or stress, that “rides on top of” segmental features. Must usually be identified by comparison to the same feature on other sounds or strings of sounds

Question 3

phonotactic constraints

Answer 3

These restrictions on possible combinations of sounds are known as phonotactic constraints.

Question 4

sound substitution

Answer 4

Speakers use sounds of their native language to replace non-native sounds when pronouncing the words of a foreign language.

Question 5

aspiration

Answer 5

A puff of air that comes out with a certain sound.

Question 6

non-aspiration

Answer 6

A sound produced without excessive aspiration (air).

Question 7

noncontrastive

Answer 7

Interchanging the two sounds does not result in a change of meaning

Question 8

contrastive

Answer 8

Replacing one sound with another changes the word’s meaning.
Contrastive distribution is simply a case in which the two sounds occur in the same phonetic environment, and using one rather than the other changes the meaning of the word

Question 9

phoneme

Answer 9

A set of speech sounds that are perceived to be variants of the same sound

Question 10

allophone

Answer 10

Each member of a particular phoneme set.

That is, the various ways that a phoneme is pronounced are called allophones (t, th, etc.)

Question 11

How can you find out the distribution of a phone?

Answer 11

To look at the phonetic environments in which it occurs.

Question 12

phonetic environments

Answer 12

The environment in which the sound can be found. You look at the sounds that come before and after it in a word

Question 13

free variation

Answer 13

The use of a sound that can be heard freely without any constrictions.

Question 14

minimal pairs

Answer 14

A minimal pair is defined as two words (with different meanings) whose pronunciations differ by exactly one phoneme (sound).

Question 15

complementary distribution

Answer 15

Two complementary parts of something make up a whole. Two sounds that cannot appear in the same environment. If sounds are in complementary distribution, they are therefore considered to be allophones of the same phoneme.

Question 16

conditioning environment

Answer 16

In which environment a certain sound can appear. C _ D, C stands for the sound that comes before the word, D for after.

Question 17

flapping

Answer 17

It means that a /t/ is pronounced as a [ɾ]

Question 18

natural class

Answer 18

Is a group of sounds in a language that share one or more articulatory or auditory property, to the exclusion of all other sounds in that language. (/t/ and /d/)

Question 19

sibilants

Answer 19

Segments that have a high-pitched, hissing sound quality. The natural class of sibilants in English is [s, ʃ, t͡ʃ, z, ʒ, d͡ʒ]

Question 20

obstruents

Answer 20

Obstruents are produced with an obstruction of the airflow.

Question 21

sonorants

Answer 21

Sonorants are produced with a relatively open passage for the airflow.

Question 22

assimilation

Answer 22

Cause a sound to become more like a neighboring sound.

Question 23

palatalization

Answer 23

Palatalization belongs with the assimilation, but is a bit more specific. A consonant becomes like a neighboring palatal. Like ‘Did you?’ becomes [dɪdʒu]

Question 24

vowel harmony

Answer 24

This is a type of long-distance assimilation. It causes all vowels in a word to harmonize or agree in some property such as rounding or backness.

Question 25

dissimilation

Answer 25

Dissimilation is the opposite of assimilation. It causes two close or adjacent sounds to become less similar.

Question 26

insertion

Answer 26

Cause a segment not present at the phonemic level to be added to the phonetic form of a word. Like with: strength [stɹɛŋθ] to [stɹɛŋkθ]

Question 27

deletion

Answer 27

Eliminates a sound that was present at the phonemic level.

Question 28

metathesis

Answer 28

Metathesis changes the order of sounds, for example to make words easier to pronounce.

Question 29

strengthening/fortition

Answer 29

Strengthening or fortition makes sounds stronger.

Question 30

aspiration

Answer 30

A form of strengthening or fotition, that adds aspiration to the beginning of a stressed syllable.

Question 31

weakening/lenition

Answer 31

Weakening causes sounds to become weaker. (flapping rule is an example)

Question 32

reduction of unstressed vowels

Answer 32

Unstressed syllables vowels are pronounced as the mid central [ə] or the syllable’s nucleus becomes a syllabic consonant.

Question 33

diphthong-raising

Answer 33

Diphthong /ɑɪ/ is pronounced as [əɪ] when it occurs before a voiceless sound.

Question 34

What are the obligatory rules in English?

Answer 34

Aspiration, vowel nasalization, vowel lengthening, and liquid and glide devoicing.

Question 35

What are optional rules?

Answer 35

May or may not be applied in any given utterance. Optional rules are responsible for variation in speech.

Question 36

basic allophone

Answer 36

An allophone that can be used in all other instances, except for the rules in which the other allophone appear.

Question 37

restricted allophone

Answer 37

An allophone that only appears at some places with specific rules in place.

Question 38

near-minimal pairs

Answer 38

Minimal pairs that differ in one sound but multiple letters (heard and Bert)

Question 39

phonological rules

Answer 39

The mapping between phonemic and phonetic elements. A rule of grammar expresses a pattern in language.

Question 40

underlying form

Answer 40

The mapping between phonemic form is also called underlying form.