Phonetics & Phonology

Question 1

What is phonology?

Answer 1

how sounds are organised in a particular language

Question 2

What is the larynx?

Answer 2

the voice box

Question 3

What is the uvula?

Answer 3

separates oral + nasal cavity
imagine like a trapdoor that opens + closes

Question 4

What is a segmental?

Answer 4

broadly vowels + consonants

Question 5

What is an articulator?

Answer 5

things used to create sound
can be active - move semi-independently
or passive - don’t move (active make contact w/ them)

Question 6

What are the parts of the tongue?

Answer 6

tip, blade, dorsum/body, back + root

Question 7

What is voicing?

Answer 7

movement of the larynx
e.g sss = voicless, zzz = voiced (feel for buzzing)

Question 8

What is the glottis?

Answer 8

within the larynx - space between vocal folds going down to lungs
can be open (voiceless) or vibrating (voiced)

Question 9

What is a pulmonic egressive airstream?

Answer 9

air comes out the lungs + vocals fold may/may not vibrate along the way
used majority of world’s language

Question 10

What is the place of articulation?

Answer 10

where obstruction is produced (labelled on top row of IPA)

Question 11

What is the manner of articulation?

Answer 11

where airflow is obstructed

plosive = complete obstruction of vocal tracks then released
nasal = obstruction of vocal tracks w/ resonance in nasal cavity
trill = multiple vibrations
fricative = turbulent airflow (buzzing)
lateral approximant = air flowing down sides of tongue

Question 12

Which articulators are active?

Answer 12

tongue, lips, larynx + uvula

Question 13

Which articulators are passive?

Answer 13

teeth, alveolar ridge, velum + hard palate

Question 14

What is a vowel?

Answer 14

sounds made w/ little to no obstruction in the vocal tract
almost always voiced (other than whispered)

Question 15

What changes vowel quality?

Answer 15

tongue + lips

Question 16

How does tongue position relate to vowels?

Answer 16

height - close to palate = close vowel, close to bottom of mouth = open vowel (also have mid ver.)

horizontal position of highest part of tongue - front, central + back

Question 17

How does lip shape affect vowels?

Answer 17

unrounded vs rounded vowels

Question 18

What are the additional things that affect vowel production?

Answer 18

nasalisation - open/lowered velum allows airflow into nasal cavity - indicated by a ~
length - tense vs lapse distinction - indicated by a :

Question 19

What is a schwa?

Answer 19

/ə/ - thought to be the sound produced with the vocal tract in neutral position

Question 20

Define monophthongs + diphthongs:

Answer 20

monophthongs - vowels that don’t change within a syllable

diphthongs - vowels that do change quality within a syllable (generally ones w/ 2 symbols)

Question 21

What is a cardinal vowel?

Answer 21

reference vowels designed to represent extremes (not produced as such in many languages)
defined by tongue height

Question 22

What is a semi-vowel/glide?

Answer 22

consonants that combine elements of vowels + consonants w/ gliding movement between articulations

Question 23

Give an example of a semi-vowel:

Answer 23

• /j/ as in ‘you’
• /w/ as in ‘water’

Question 24

What is a phoneme vs an allophone?

Answer 24

phoneme - minimal contrastive sound

allophone - phonetically similar ways of producing a phoneme

Question 25

What is a phone vs a segment?

Answer 25

phone - a speech sound - does not rely on being classified as a phoneme or allophone segment - a minimal chunk of speech - can be phones or morphs

Question 26

What is a contrastive language?

Answer 26

use phonemes to distinguish words

Question 27

What is a minimal pair?

Answer 27

pair of words that are distinguished by only 1 sound + contrast in identical environments establishes a phoneme e.g. kit + cat

Question 28

What is distribution?

Answer 28

contexts where an item/sound occurs

Question 29

What are the types of distribution?

Answer 29

phonemes = contrastive distribution predictable phonetic difference observed in phonetically similar sounds = complementary distribution

Question 30

How does complementary distribution differ from minimal pairs?

Answer 30

sounds cannot be found in identical environments so don't form minimal pairs as they never contrast

Question 31

What is the transcription for phonemes vs allophones?

Answer 31

phonemes = / / allophones = [ ]

Question 32

Define suprasegmental:

Answer 32

above + beyond the segment aka prosody

Question 33

What are different ways of classifying syllables?

Answer 33

- no. of chest pulses - prominence/amplitude peaks - phonological units some accuracy issues w/ all given syllables are generally intuitive (no formal def.)

Question 34

What is phonotactics?

Answer 34

which segments pattern in what order in a particular language

Question 35

What is the structure of a syllable?

Answer 35

rhyme, onset, nucleus + coda

Question 36

What is the rhyme of a syllable?

Answer 36

core of a syllable (consists of a nucleus + a coda) - obligatory

Question 37

What is the onset of a syllable?

Answer 37

initial segment(s) of a syllable - !obligatory

Question 38

What is the nucleus of a syllable?

Answer 38

central (prominent) segment of a syllable - obligatory (generally the vowel)

Question 39

What is the coda of a syllable?

Answer 39

closing segment(s) of a syllable - !obligatory

Question 40

What is prosody?

Answer 40

inc. stress, tone + intonation conveyed via pitch, volume + duration variation

Question 41

How does pitch vary?

Answer 41

low pitch = vocal folds shorter, thicker + less stiff → vibrate more slowly high pitch = vocal folds longer, thinner + stiffer → vibrate faster

Question 42

How does pitch affect prosody?

Answer 42

tone + stress = pitch modulation over a word intonation = pitch modulation over an utterance

Question 43

What is stress?

Answer 43

use of suprasegmental features at word level that does NOT change the meaning of that word but may change the grammatical form

Question 44

What is a stress language?

Answer 44

every word has at least one syllable which is more prominent than the others, e.g. English syllable in monosyllabic words is always stressed

Question 45

What makes something stressed?

Answer 45

- higher pitch - longer duration - greater loudness - full vowel

Question 46

What are the types of stress?

Answer 46

primary stress vs secondary stress (2<= syllables) fixed stress = stress on the same syllable in all words regardless of no. of syllables, e.g. French always = last variable stress = stressed syllable depends on no. of syllables in the word + sometimes the word too, e.g. English

Question 47

What is tone?

Answer 47

use pitch to distinguish lexical meaning can even be used to distinguish minimal pairs in languages w/ phonological tones

Question 48

What are the types of tone languages?

Answer 48

register tones languages - typically have high, mid + low tones which are used to distinguish words contour tone languages - typically have tones w/ pitch modulation (not the same pitch throughout but contours that change throughout one syllable)

Question 49

What is intonation?

Answer 49

use of suprasegmental features (esp. pitch) across an utterance can change meaning + subtext of what we say, e.g. rise at end of questions

Question 50

What is an key distinction w/ minimal pairs?

Answer 50

- must only be 1 sound changing - cannot be the removal of a sound - must be a replacement

Question 51

What is phonetics?

Answer 51

how are particular sounds produced

Question 52

What is an affricate?

Answer 52

two consonants back to back e.g ch in change and j in joy