Ling2002 Flashcards
Phonetics:
About the physical nature of speech sounds, their production and physical properties (articulation, acoustic properties, perceptual properties).
Phonology:
About the way that languages use/organise these sounds to encode meaning. I.e. how differences in sound are used to differentiate words in a language. How sounds are sequences within words, etc.
Articulatory phonetics:
The study of the organs of speech and their use in producing speech sounds.
Acoustic phonetics:
The study of the physical properties of sounds produced in speaking.
Auditory/perceptual phonetics:
The study of the perception of speech sounds by the ear, nervous system and brain.
Articulatory undershoot:
In normal speech, the the articulators frequently do not meet their (presumed) articulatory targets.
Articulatory undershoot may vary according to:
- The style of speed of speaking. E.g. ‘g’ in ‘recognition’ completely stops airflow in careful pronunciation; allows airflow in casual.
- Physical and emotional state.
- The phonetic targets of neighbouring sounds.
Co-articulation:
Transition between targets can result in an incidental simultaneous articulation which is not a specific phonetic target.
Co-ordination between the two constrictions:
- (Near-)simultaneous: both targets at the same time
- Sequential: one after the other
- Simultaneous onset, sequential release: articulators form two constrictions, one released just before the other (clicks, ejectives, implosives).
Passive articulators:
Articulators that do not move.
Apico-
Top of tongue
Lamino-
Blade of tongue
Egressive airstream:
flowing outwards (of the vocal tract)
Ingressive airstream:
flowing inwards (of the vocal tract). Sounds like clicks and implosives.
Pulmonic airstream:
airstream produced by action of the lungs. This is the majority of speech sounds.
Glottalic aistream:
airstream produced by movement of the (closed) glottis. Implosives (ingressive) and ejectives (egressive).
Velaric airstream:
airstream produced by the action of the tongue. Clicks (ingressive).
Voiced sounds:
The edges of the folds are held loosely together in such a way that air under pressure from the lungs can pass between the folds only in very small bursts
Voiceless sounds:
The folds are held relatively wide apart and the airstream passes through relatively undisturbed.
Whispering:
The folds are held closely together to create a narrow opening through which a high energy airstream is forced.
Creaky voice:
Results when the rear of the vocal folds are held tightly together but air is allowed to pass through the front of the glottis in small bursts.
Murmer:
The folds are held apart but the rate of airflow is so high that the folds ‘flap in the breeze’
Voice Onset Time (VOT):
The interval in the production of an individual consonant phone between the release of the supra-glottal constriction (e.g. at the lips) and, the (re-)start of the voicing for the following vowel.
Strong aspirated:
Large positive VOT, > 50ms.
Unaspirated voiceless:
Zero VOT
Fully voiced:
Negative VOT (or not measured)
Partially voiced
Negative VOT
Lower F1:
Tongue higher
Higher F1:
Tongue lower
Lower F2:
Backer
Higher F2:
Fronter
On-glide:
A longer, syllabic component and a shorter or non-syllabic component that precedes.
Off-glide:
A longer, syllabic component and a shorter or non-syllabic component that follows.
Broader transcription:
less precise or less detailed.
Narrower transcription:
more precise or more detailed.
English R-Liason:
- Linking R: Where it occurs between words in r-less dialects and the first orthographic word has final ‘r’.
- Intrusive R: Where it occurs between words but the first orthographic word does not end in ‘r’.
Place Assimilation:
Alveolar assimilates to bilabial, alveolar assimilates to velar, alveolar to post-alveolar, fusion with post-alveolars.
Manner assimilation:
Assimilation with preceding sound, mostly affecting [ð] and mostly affecting grammatical words, of which many in English have initial [ð].
Absence of [h]:
From words like ‘he’ and ‘him’. Absent when relatively unstressed, not at the beginning of an utterance.
Conventionalised variants:
Variant forms of some words are often conventionalised as strong and weak/reduced forms.
Phoneme:
A unit that represents a range or set of phones that don’t contrast with each other in a given language. Phonetic differences which do not alone differentiate words in the language.
Allophones:
The individual phones within a range or set.
Mutually exclusive distribution:
If two phones never occur in the same phonetic contexts
Complementary distribution (mutually exclusive):
The two phones are not contrastive in the language. They are allophones of the same phoneme.
Free variation (freely interchangeable in the same words):
The phones are not contrastive and are allophones of the same phoneme.
Minimal pairs:
The phones are contrastive and are allophones different phonemes.
Phonemic transcription:
Represents a single segment, word or utterance as a sequence of phonemes.
Phonetic transcription
Represents, with variable precision, actual utterances as a sequence of phones.
Allomorph:
Variant forms of a morpheme.
Morpheme:
A word component with discrete phonological form and a distinct meaning.
Unique Underlier Principle:
- Wherever plausible, account for allomorphy as the result of: a single underlying form of each morpheme, which is modified by general phonological processes.
- As a general principle, phonological allomorphy with phonological conditioning is analysed in terms of two components: a single basic form of each morpheme in the lexicon (the underlying form) + one or more general phonological processes that are expressed rigorously as rules.
Three things for comparing competing analyses.
Naturalness, simplicity, generality.
Naturalness:
- Is the phonological process phonetically motived. Can we account for it in terms of general phonetic principles?
- Is it common in the word’s languages.
Simplicity:
An analysis with fewer, simpler rules is preferred over one with more and/or more complex rules.
Generality:
A general phonological process is one which applies to a given sequence of segments wherever it arises, and is not just a matter of a specific morpheme.
Phonological rules can be said to interact if they:
- Affect the same segment(s) in a representation, or
- One rule affects segments that are part of the conditioning context of another rule.
Rule application is transparent if:
Both output and the conditioning context are always observable in the surface representation.
Major Class Features:
[±syllabic], [±consonantal], [±sonorant]
(Oral) Place Features:
[+coronal] ([±anterior], [±distributed]), [+labial] ([±round]), [+dorsal] ([±high], [±low], [±back])
Manner Features
[±continuant], [±strident], [+lateral], [+nasal], [+tense], [+ATR], [+CP]
Laryngeal Features
[±voice], [SpreadGlottis], [ConstrictedGl]
Universal Rules:
[+low] = [-high], [+sonorant] —> [+voice], [-cons, +back, -low] —> [+round]
Tone phenomena share segment aspects with:
- Length (long vs short) of vowels/consonants, behaviour of geminate consonants
- (Sequential) complex sounds, eg affricates and diphthongs
- Assimilation, including vowel and consonant harmony
- Some types of apparent metathesis (ab —> ba)
Syllable:
A recurring structural unit within words.
Sonority:
A kind of prominence often described as the inherent loudness of a particular segment. Related to the degree of constriction involved in the production of a speech sound.
Sonority Sequencing Generalisation:
The sonority of segments rises towards the central part (peak or nucleus) of the syllable, and falls in any segments after the nucleus.
Syllables provide a better account of the phonological properties of words:
- Phonotactics
- Phonological rules
- Motivation of phonological process
Heavy syllables:
With a coda consonant or a diphthong
Light syllable:
Without a coda consonant or a diphthong
Onset
Preceding consonants (of the nucleus)
Coda
Following consonants (of the nucleus)
