Page 83- 86 Flashcards
a good theory is a good theory if it can satisfy 2 requirements:
must describe a large class of observation of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements.
it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.
explains how hundred of different phones are perveived by ordinary speakers of a language as a smaller set of phonemes
phonological theory
what does the phonological theory predict?
that the sound systems of all human langauges will funtion in this way.
Native speakers categorize all the sounds they hear into?
phonemic families
and do not perceive differences within the families becuase these differences cannot change meaning
Linguitstics call all members of a phonemic family?
allophones
prefix allo
variation of
allophone
phones that are different varieties or pronunciations of of a phoneme
why don’t we produce one sound for each phone?
Because the human vocal tract isn’t capable of accurately producing distinct, different speech sounds in a rapid sequence
each sounds we produce is affected by?
the sounds that come before and after it.
speech sounds are produced by?
the shape of the mouth
and the position of the tongue.
We cannot move our ___ and ____ fast enough to prrevent what?
mouth
tongue
prevent influence from the preceding and following positions
coarticulation
phones show the influence of neighboring sounds
what does coarticulation explains?
the great majority of the differences and variations of phonemes
Coarticulation is reflected in what?
in the universal game of “tongue twisters”
word sequence that are very difficult to produce rapidly, especially repeatedly
tongue twisters
what is the idea of a tongue twister
that your tongue will become confused or ‘twisted’ as it attempts to change from certain sounds to other sounds.
This will make you fail to produce the sounds accurately
___ work by forcing speakers to ___ rapidly aross __ __, oftem with ____ sequence that are difficult to __ for.
tongue twisters alternatre close boudaries assymetical plan
T/F: because articulation of speech is not ___ and because each sound is influenced by the preceding and following sounds, most speakers fail to maintain a clear distinction between sounds; and they either swap one sound for the other in the wrorng place ot produce sounds that are somewhere between the two targets.
TRUE
Do speakers produce articulatory errors in normal speech
YES
What can tongue twisters teach us ?
- human vocal tract is limited in terms of speed and accuracy
- reveals that there is a range of sounds for each of the phones we recognize
Range between sounds?
Not true for all communication systems that rely on sound
Telephones system use __produced sounds to encode ___, but each sound is___ and ___, and there is no ___ between successive numerals
digitally numerals distinct precise range
In technical language, we say that each digital sound is
Discrete (not affected by neighboring sounds)
T/ F: Computers can produce discrete digital sounds, in a sequence at very rapid rate without any variation in discrete sounds
TRUE
The ___ ___ is a highly ___ instrument that produces a great many different sounds over a continious __-.
vocal tract
variable
range
__ and __ do not ordinarily perceive this range (allophones) ; but what do they perceive ?
speakers
hearers
but only a relatively small set of distinct speech sounds (phonemes)
English speakers perceive how many vowels and consonants
13-15 Vowels
24-26 consonants
T/F: Speakers perceive hundred of speech sounds, though they perceive a smaller set
TRUE
T/F : Speakers unconsciously assign every sound they hear to one of the phonemic categories of their language and mentally filter out the nuances (phonetic differenced that are not phonemic) in speech signals
TRUE
Vocal tract severe limitation in what?
precision and speed
The vocal tract can produce hundreds or thousands of different sounds, it cannot do so rapidly and precisely in varied sequences.
Solution
A solution for this dilemma is applied universally in human languages
It’s is to use a relatvely small number of recognized speech sound categories, in many different combinations, to convey ideas
The number of recognized speech sound categories is relatively small (nearly less than 100 and on average of 36) the many hundred of sounds that speakers can actually produce can be __ into relatively __ number of __ which allows each category to be fairly __.
grouped
small
categories
broad
T/F :by organizing sounds this way, the target for each recognized sound becomes fairly wide, and speakers can hit these wide targets.
True
broad targets
allophone set (phonemes)
the system speakers use to evaluate the shots (the sounds the speakers produce)
Phonological system
Native speakers intuitively know?
which allophones belong to which phonemes
T/F: The human ear is unable to hear the details in the speech system.
False
the ear is sensitive to wide ranges of sounds, and can discriminate among aprox. 1200 different pitches
Does speech perception activate a totally different mode of hearing than listenting to other sounds?
YES
non speech sounds:
they can hear a nuanced waveform taht varies continuously along the dimensions of pitch and loudness.
sounds perceived as speech
automatically switch to categorical perception( a special mode of heaing)
they automatically filter out the nuances in the speech stream and categorize the sounds into discrete categories that correspond to phonemes of their language.
categorical perception
T/F: people untrained in linguistics tend to believe that speech consists of a fairly small inventory of discrete sounds.
TRUE
Phonological processing
ingenious mental manipulations (without is human speech is impossible)
