Phonology

Question 1

Phonology

Answer 1

• concerned with how the sounds are represented and stored in the brain
• studies their abstract mental representations
• grammar of sounds, our implicit knowledge of sound structure

Question 2

Goals of phonology

Answer 2

1.determine what phonological knowledge is like
2.How sounds are stored + represented in brain
3.How mental representations result in systematic phonetic variation in speech,
o at the level of segments or suprasegmentals;
o within a given language and across languages.
-phonological knowledge deals with representations at various levels:
-Word level, syllable level, segment level, and feature level.

Question 3

Phonological contrasts

Answer 3

• Some segments in a language contrast with each other, while others don’t.
• alveolar fricatives [s] and [z] in English are contrastive, because substituting [z] for [s] and vice versa changes the word meaning

Question 4

minimal pairs

Answer 4

-forms have distinct meanings, yet differ only in
one segment ([s] or [z])

Question 5

phonemes

Answer 5

Segments that contrast with each other in a given language

• part of our phonological knowledge; they are represented in the brain
• Not all sounds pronounced in a language need to be stored in the brain

Question 6

allophones

Answer 6

• Predictable variants
• we have clear intuitions about phonemes of the language (because we store them in the brain), but not about allophones (because we do not store them, but produce automatically when we speak)

Question 7

levels of representation

Answer 7

phonemic representation

phonetic representation

Question 8

phonemic transcription

Answer 8

contrastive segments only

-/ /

Question 9

phonetic transcription

Answer 9

non-contrastive, allophonic detail

-[ ]

Question 10

complementary distribution

Answer 10

Segments that occur in different, non-overlapping environments

Question 11

Phonological analysis

Answer 11

-determine the phonemic status of segments in a given language: Are they separate phonemes or allophones of a phoneme?

Question 12

steps of Phonological analysis

Answer 12

-Determine the environments which they occur
-State your generalizations about the environments:
Are the environments in which the segments occur the same/overlapping/are they completely different?
-Conclude whether separate phonemes/allophones. need to be phonetically similar for allophones
-If allophones, determine which allophone is the basic one(elsewhere). basic allophone is assumed to be phoneme

Question 13

Environments

Answer 13

-Linear order relation: after x (voiceless consonants), before x, betw. x and y, word initially/word finally
-Higher level than segments: position in the syllable
-If same or overlapping, segments are separate phonemes. (You are done.)
o If environments completely different, segments are likely to be allophones of a phoneme

Question 14

logical possibilities

Answer 14

Two phonemes,
One phoneme, /A/,[A] env. x [B] env. y
One phoneme, /B/ [A] env. x [B] env. y

Question 15

near-minimal pairs

Answer 15

two sounds occur in nearly identical environments (and the word meaning is different)

Question 16

Allophonic variation

Answer 16

usually systematic, based on segments’ phonetic properties

Question 17

class

Answer 17

Phonemes that are similar phonetically tend to pattern together, as a class
generalization pattern together

Question 18

rules

Answer 18

formal statements about how phonemes of UR converted to allophones of PR

Question 19

derivation

Answer 19

rule application

• applies when in right context
• doesn’t apply if does not have the right context (we say that the rule is not applicable here)
• should be sufficiently general, should capture generalizations about segments affected by processes or triggering these processes

Question 20

Rule format

Answer 20

• which segment/class of segments is/are affected (the undergoer of the process),
• how it is or they are affected (what changes into what) and
• in which particular context (the environment)

Question 21

rule format

Answer 21

• undergoer should include all the segments that undergo the change + exclude the segments that do not undergo it
• environment should include all segments/other contexts that trigger change
• change should specify what segment property has changed without mentioning properties that haven’t changed

Question 22

prose rule format

Answer 22

What (undergoer of the process) becomes what when/where

Question 23

natural classes

Answer 23

Groups of segments that commonly pattern together

based on articulatory properties the segments share

Question 24

Major classes

Answer 24

consonant/vowel, sonorant/obstruent, syllabic/non-syllabic

Question 25

Consonants classes

Answer 25

oLaryngeal (glottal) states: voiced/voiceless, aspirated, murmured;
oManner: nasal/oral, stop, fricative, affricate, lateral, liquid, glide;
oPlace of articulation:-labial: biliabial, labiodental
-coronal: dental, alveolar, alveopalatal, palatal
-dorsal: velar, uvular;
-glottal

Question 26

Vowel classes

Answer 26

oMajor types: simple vowel, diphthong 
oHeight: high, mid, low
oBackness: front, central, back
oRounding: rounded/unrounded
oTenseness: tense/lax
oLength: long/short
oOther: nasalized, retroflexed, reduced, devoiced

Question 27

syllable

Answer 27

• Many allophonic processes refer to the syllable structure.
• Rhyming in poetry
• Language games often refer to the internal structure of the syllable

Question 28

syllable structure

Answer 28

 nucleus (N): the peak of the syllable
 onset (O): the syllabic unit before the nucleus
 coda (Co): the syllabic unit after the nucleus
 rhyme (R): the nucleus and coda together

Question 29

Universality of the syllable

Answer 29

• All languages have syllables.

- have the syllable types of V and CV, with CVC

Question 30

Phonotactics

Answer 30

-refers to constraints on what segments can go into -Onset, Nucleus, and Coda, and in what order
-Combinations of consonants primarily depend on the manner of articulation, thus sonority
More sonorous consonants (glides, liquids, and nasals) tend to occur closer to the nucleus
some languages have onset or coda clusters that violate sonority

Question 31

Onset Clusters

Answer 31

/s/-vls. stop-liquid/glide (non-nasal sonorant C)

sprint: a gradual increase in sonority towards the nucleus and a decrease after it

Question 32

Accidental gaps

Answer 32

Not all combinations are possible in a language. There are two types of gaps in the system
forms that are possible but happens not to occur in the language
o snook, splick, sclop, trock

Question 33

Systematic gaps

Answer 33

-violate the language phonotctics, ungrammatical

o/tl-/ /bz-/ /pt-/ /fp-/ in English: *tlick, *bzough, *ptag, *fpew, etc

Question 34

Loanwords

Answer 34

involve phonological adaptation of the source words so as to fit the native phonotactics
Accidental gaps–no need to fix
ovodka (from Russian), taco (from Spanish), ninja (from Japanese)
Systematic gaps–need to fix
o psychology (from Greek): onset */ps-//s-/;

Question 35

Syllabification

Answer 35

the procedure for setting up syllables
Step 1 - Nucleus formation
Step 2 - Onset formation
o Identify segments before/to the left of N and project O maximizing onsets. Link the O to σ.
Step 3 - Coda formation
o Identify the leftover segments and project them into Co. Link Co to R.

Question 36

order: Nucleus formation > Onset formation > Coda formation

Answer 36

• Nucleus is head of the syllable
• CV is cross-linguistically universal syllable type
• Onset formation
• CVC is common but not universal syllable type, there is cross-linguistic tendency for onsets to syllabify before codas

Question 37

Differences in syllabification

Answer 37

• In apply /p/ and /l/ are tautosyllabic (same syllable), onset
• In Atlantic /t/ and /l/ are heterosyllabic (different syllables)

Question 38

Rule ordering

Answer 38

• Order: A > B
• Order: B > A
• Rules A and B have to be ordered:
• Rule A has to precede Rule B otherwise output is partly ungrammatical
• Two given rules do not always have to be ordered