Phonetics and Phonology Flashcards
Studying for Midterm
Acoustic Phonetics
The branch of phonetics that studies the physical properties of speech sounds. 138
Allomorphs
A variation in the form of a linguistic unit that does not alter its basic identity-varients of a morpheme.
Allophones
A variation in the form of a linguistic unit that does not alter its basic identity-variants of a phoneme.
Ex: ‘p’ at the beginning of a word ‘p’ot is plosive, while at the end is almost unvoiced like u’p.’
Alphabet
A writing system in which a set of symbols (‘letters’) represents the phonemes of a language. 212
Articulatory Phonetics
The branch of phonetics that studies the way speech sounds are produced by the vocal organs. 130
Aspiration
Audible breath that may accompany the articulation of a sound. 169
Assimilation
The influence exercised by one sound upon the articulation of another, so that the sounds become more alike.
Progressive and regressive.
Auditory Phonetics
A branch of phonetics that studies the way people perceive sound. 148
Cognate
A language or linguistic form that is historically derived from the same source as another, e.g. Spanish and French are ‘cognate languages’, both deriving from Latin. 302
Complementary Distribution
A property of sounds that cannot appear in the same phonetic environment. 169
Consonants
A speech sound that functions at the margins of syllables, produced when the vocal tract is either blocked or so restricted that there is audible friction. 163
Diphthong
A vowel in which there is a perceptible change in quality during a syllable (time, road) 162
Free Variation
The substitution of one sound for another without causing any change of meaning. 169
Logogram
A symbol that represents a word (as in Chinese) 210
Minimal Pairs
Words that differ in meaning when only one sound is changed. 168
Obstruent
Sounds made with a constriction (plosives, fricatives, affricates) 165
Phoneme
The smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language. 168
Phonetics
The science of speech sounds, esp. of their production, transmission, and reception. 158
Phonology
The study of the sound systems of languages. 168
Phonotactics
The specific sequences of sounds that occur in a language. 168
Pictograms
A symbol used in picture writing. 207
Sonorants
A voiced sound made with a relatively free passage of air ([l] [n]).165
Stress
The degree of force with which a syllable is uttered; syllables may be stressed or unstressed in various degrees. 177
Syllabic
Said of a consonant that can be used alone as a syllable (/l/ in bottle). 172
Said of a writing system in which the symbols represent syllables. 211
