Phonetics Terms

Question 1

Glottal state

Answer 1

refers to whether the sound is voiced or voiceless.

Question 2

Place of articulation

Answer 2

refers to the place in the vocal tract that has the greatest constriction.

Question 3

Manner of articulation

Answer 3

one of various configurations of diffeent areas of the vocal tract (lips, teeth, velum, etc.) to make sounds.

Question 4

Stop

Answer 4

a sound made with a complete closure either in the oral cavity or the glottis.
[p] [k] [t]

Question 5

Fricative

Answer 5

a consonant produced with a continuous airflow through the mouth.
[v] [h] [s]

Question 6

Affricate

Answer 6

a phonetically complex sound made with a stop and a slow release of the closure. There are two in English.
[tʃ] [dʒ]

Question 7

Obstruent

Answer 7

any non-sonorant consonant

stops, fricatives, affricates

Question 8

Nasal

Answer 8

a sound made with the airflow coming out of the nasal cavity.
[m] [n] [ŋ]

Question 9

Liquid

Answer 9

a class of sounds that contains the numerous variants of [l] and [r].

Question 10

lateral

Answer 10

varieties of l that, as articulated, allow air to escape the mouth along the lowered sides of the tongue.
[l]

Question 11

Glide

Answer 11

a rapidly articulated non-syllabic segment that shows properties of both consonants and vowels.
[y] [w]

Question 12

Aspiration

Answer 12

a lag or brief delay of sound before the voicing of a following vowel accompanied by a release of air.
[pʰ] [tʰ]

Question 13

Unreleased stop

Answer 13

a stop, often word-final, where the sound is not released after the closure.
[kʰæp ̚ ]

Question 14

Monophthong

Answer 14

Simple vowel - vowels whose quality does not change during their articulation (represented by a single segment)

Question 15

Major diphthong

Answer 15

vowel sounds whose quality change is easy to hear.

Question 16

Minor diphthong

Answer 16

vowel sounds whose quality is harder to hear.

Question 17

Fixed-stress language

Answer 17

a language where the position of the stresses in words are always consistent.

Question 18

Variable-stress language

Answer 18

A language in which the position of the stresses in words is not fixed.

Question 19

Stress-timed language

Answer 19

In terms of thythm, the time between stresses are the same.

e.g. English

Question 20

Syllable-timed language

Answer 20

In terms of rhythm, the amount of time between syllables is the same.
e.g. French

Question 21

Coarticulation

Answer 21

A phonetic situation where there is more than one articulator.

Question 22

Process

Answer 22

a change in sound during the production of connected speech - often occurs to make sounds easier to articulate.

Question 23

Epenthesis

Answer 23

A process that inserts a segment within an existing string of segments.
[wormpθ] vs. [wormθ]

Question 24

Deletion

Answer 24

a process that removes a segment from certain phonetic contexts.
[pʰərejd] vs [pr̥ejd]

Question 25

Assimilation

Answer 25

a number of different processes in which one sound influences another - one sound becomes more like another nearby sound.

Question 26

Nasal assimilation

Answer 26

a nasal sound influenced one nearby.

“can” [kæ̃n]

Question 27

Place assimilation

Answer 27

the place of sound influences the way it is articulated.

“Banff” [bæm̪f] or “sink” [sɪŋk]

Question 28

Voicing assimilation

Answer 28

voicing in first consonant influences voiding in the second.

voiceless plural: [kæts] vs. [dɑwgz]

Question 29

Metathesis

Answer 29

process that occurs with the change in placement of sounds (doesn’t really happen in English).
“ask” [æsk] => [æks] “aks”