Phonetics And Language Acquisition Flashcards
Esophagus
A muscular passage connecting the mouth with the stomach
Trachea
The “windpipe” through which air flows from the lungs to the larynx
Larynx
Muscular, cartilaginous part of the respiratory tract that contains the vocal cords
Epiglottis
Cartilage that covers the opening between the vocal cords and the larynx
Vocal cords
Elastic muscles that stretch over the larynx
Voicing
Distinctive feature that describes the extent to which the vocal cords are pulled back (voiceless) or vibrate (voiced)
Alveolar ridge
Tissue above the upper teeth where the tongue rests to produce certain sounds, such as [z].
Hard palate
Front surface of the roof of the mouth, leading forward to the alveolar ridge and back to the soft palate
Soft palate (velum)
Rear surface of the roof of the mouth, leading forward to the hard palate and back towards the larynx
Place and manner of articulation
Distinctive feature that indicates the location of articulators in the production of speech sounds
Stops
Speech sound produced, in part, by complete obstruction of airflow
Frictives
Speech sound, such as /f/, produced when articulators are brought so close together that friction is created as air passes through the mouth.
Affricate
Speech sound composed of a stop followed by a frictave, for instance, the initial sound in chatter.
Nasal
Stop produced when air flows from the lungs through the nose , such as [m] or [n].
Liquid
Consonant produced when articulators are in proximity to each other but do not impede airflow, such as /l/ and /r/.
Glide
Speech sound produced by transition from one speech sound to another, such as /w/ and /j/.
Syllabic consonant
Consonant that participates or constitutes the nucleus of a syllable.
Height
Distinctive feature of vowels determined by the relative position of the tongue when producing the sound
Frontness
Distinctive feature of vowels realized when the tongue is placed toward the front of the mouth
Tenseness
Distinctive feature of vowels indicating the relatively loose (central) or tense (peripheral) position of the tongue
Offglide
Speech sound produced when a vowel moves into a glide, as in how now brown cow?
Onglide
Speech sound produced when a glide moves into a vowel, as in some pronunciations of Tuesday
Diphthong
Vowel that begins at one place of articulation and ends at another, as in right.
Natural class
Set of sounds that share features in such a way as to include all sounds in a set and exclude all others.
For instance, /p, b/ is the natural class of bilabial oral stops.
Monophthong
A single vowel articulated without change in quality throughout the course of a syllable, as in bed.
A simple and pure vowel.
Phoneme
Distinctive sound of a language
Allophone
Any variant of a phoneme; for example, perhaps realized two allophones of the phoneme /p/, one aspirated and the other not
Minimal pair
Words distinguished by only one distinctive feature of one sound, as in pat and bat.
Assimilation
Phonological process in which a sound changes to resemble a nearby sound, as when in ‘not’ becomes im in impossible
Deletion
Phonological process in which speech sounds disappear from words, for instance, as when the vowel in the second syllable of laboratory is lost in pronunciation of the word
Insertion
Phonological process in which a sound is added to a word, as in the /k/ in some pronunciations of length or the /r/ in some pronunciations of wash
Metathesis
Phonological process in which sounds switch places in the phonemic structure of a word ( aks becomes ask)
Pitch
Rate of repetition or vibration of vocal cords in the production of speech sounds
Tone
Pitch of a word that changes the meaning of the word
Intonation
Change in pitch that indicates something about the sentence meaning
Phonological rules
Express the ways in which sounds change predictably in certain environments and describe patterns or types of sound changes - descriptive rather than prescriptive
