Phonology 1: Phonemes and Allophones Flashcards
1
Q
phonology
A
- branch of linguistics that studies the sound systems of languages
- deals with the relationships between individual sounds, as well as their organization on higher tiers (syllables)
- deals with building blocks of speech sounds – the acoustic and articulatory features that help us understand how and why sounds pattern in certain ways
2
Q
segments
A
- refer to the individual sounds that make up spoken language
- can be categorized into two main types: consonants and vowels
- the basic building blocks of speech and play a crucial role in differentiating words and meanings in a language
3
Q
phoneme
A
- an abstract unit of sound that can create contrasts in meaning (i.e., a single phoneme can create a change in meaning between words)
- do not necessarily have any inherent meaning by themselves, but changing one phoneme in a word can change its meaning
4
Q
allophone
A
- Variations of the same phoneme
- are different pronunciations of a sound that do not create a change meaning
- Even though allophones of a phoneme sound different, they are considered the same phoneme because they do not change the meaning of a word
5
Q
Minimal pairs
A
- set of two words that differ by a single sound in the same position
- one of the most common ways for linguists to identify whether two sounds are separate phonemes
ex. beak and back are a minimal pair since they have the same number of segments and differ in only one sound – the vowel – in the same position
6
Q
phonemic representation
A
- showcases the phonemes making up any particular linguistic unit (word, morpheme, etc.)
- involves abstract phonemes that are in your mind
- slanted brackets / /
7
Q
phonetic representation
A
- involves all of the additional information produced during speech (aspiration, nasalization, devoicing, etc.)
- corresponds to the physical realization of speech sounds
- square brackets [ ]
