Phonology

Question 1

Define co-articulation.

Answer 1

Where a sound occurs in two places in the mouth. E.g. /w/

Question 2

Define allophone.

Answer 2

Where you have two phoneme variants. E.g. /n,/ and /n/; /l/ and /l,/.

Question 3

Define monopthong.

Answer 3

A vowel that stays in one place in the mouth.

Question 4

Define dipthong.

Answer 4

A vowel that moves position in the mouth.

Question 5

Define the schwa vowel.

Answer 5

/ə/

Question 6

Define the strut vowel.

Answer 6

/ʌ/

Question 7

Define the near-close, near-back rounded vowel.

Answer 7

/ʊ/. E.g. ‘book’.

Question 8

Define articulatory phonetics.

Answer 8

The umbrella term for place and manner of articulation.

Question 9

Define place of articulation.

Answer 9

Where the sound’s made. E.g. bilabial plosive -> place of articulation is the bilabials.

Question 10

Define manner of articulation.

Answer 10

How the sound is a made. E.g. bilabial plosive -> manner of articulation is the plosive.

Question 11

Define /b/ and /p/.

Answer 11

Bilabial plosive. Easy phonemes for children. Often substitute harder ones for these sounds. /b/ is voiced and /p/ is voiceless.

Question 12

Define /t/ and /d/.

Answer 12

Alveolar plosives. Fairly easy for children to grasp. /t/ is voiceless and /d/ is voiced.

Question 13

Define /k/ and /g/.

Answer 13

Velar plosives. /k/ is voiceless and /g/ is voiced. Also fairly easy for children but not as easy as the other plosives due to their place of articulation being further back in the mouth.

Question 14

Define /f/ and /v/.

Answer 14

Labiodental fricatives. /v/ is voiced and /f/ is voiceless. Fricatives are not as easy as plosives, but these two are the easiest fricative. Labiodental are easier than dental due to an easier place of articulation.

Question 15

Define /ð/ and /θ/.

Answer 15

Dental fricatives. /θ/ is voiceless and /ð/ is voiced. Children often substitute these with alveolar plosives or labiodental fricatives - though this could also be an accent/idiolectal.

Question 16

Define /s/ and /z/.

Answer 16

Alveolar fricative. Fricatives are not as easy as plosives but these two are the easier fricative phonemes.

Question 17

Define /ʃ/ and /ʒ/.

Answer 17

Post alveolar fricatives. /ʒ/ is voiced and /ʃ/ is voiceless. Children find these challenging and often substitute these sounds for the alveolar fricatives. E.g. /ʃ/ shell; /ʒ/ treasure.

Question 18

Define /tʃ/ and /ʤ/.

Answer 18

Post-alveolar affricates (stop the air and then release without friction). Children find these really challenging and may substitute these for alveolar plosives. E.g. /tʃ/ choose; /ʤ/ jet.

Question 19

Define /l/ and /l,/.

Answer 19

Alveolar laterals (raise the tongue and the air flows past one or both sides of the tongue). These are neither easy or hard. /l/ is light and /l,/ is dark. E.g. /l/ lucky; /l,/ full.

Question 20

Define /m/.

Answer 20

Bilabial nasal. These are easy phonemes - which is why children often say ‘mamma’ first.

Question 21

Define /n/ and /n,/.

Answer 21

Alveolar nasals. /n,/ is known as a ‘syllabic’ (a consonant that replaces the vowel). E.g. ‘even’. These two variants of ‘n’ are called allophones.

Question 22

Define /ŋ/.

Answer 22

Velar nasal. This is the ‘ing’ sound on present particle verbs like ‘dancing’. If a child misses this, it’s likely due to spontaneity and idiolect or accent.

Question 23

Define /r/.

Answer 23

Alveolar approximant. This is a difficult phoneme as it involves curling the bottom lip to the top teeth. Children often substitute /r/ for /w/.

Question 24

Define approximants.

Answer 24

Consonants which are similar to vowels in articulation. One articulator approaching another but without the tract becoming narrow to create friction.

Question 25

Define /w/.

Answer 25

Labial-velar approximant. This is a ‘co-articulated’ consonant as it is labial and velar. This is fairly easy as it involves the lips as a place of articulation. Children often substitute /r/ for /w/.

Question 26

Define /j/.

Answer 26

Palatal approximant. This is not as hard as other phonemes but it certainly isn’t the easiest. E.g. yet, yesterday.

Question 27

Define /h/.

Answer 27

Glottal fricative. Neither easy nor hard. Likely idiolectal if deleted.

Question 28

Define /ʔ/.

Answer 28

Glottal stop/glottal plosive. Neither easy nor hard. Idiolect feature.

Question 29

Define susbtitution.

Answer 29

When children replace one sound for another. E.g. substituting the alveolar approximant /r/ for the labial-velar approximant /w/.

Question 30

Define spoonerism.

Answer 30

Where we mix up sounds in words , e.g. instead of saying ‘lighting a fire’, you may accidentally say ‘fighting a liar’. This shows how sometimes assimilation is accidental.

Question 31

Define unstressed syllabic deletion.

Answer 31

Where children drop quiet syllables - e.g. banana becomes ‘nana’.

Question 32

Define initial consonant deletion.

Answer 32

Where the initial consonant is deleted, e.g. grass - ‘rass’.

Question 33

Define final consonant deletion.

Answer 33

Where the end consonant is deleted, e.g. dog becomes ‘do’.

Question 34

Define consonant clusters.

Answer 34

They are also difficult for children to grasp. These are where you get two or more consonants together. They find initial consonant clusters hard e.g. tree - tii, sky - kai. They also find final consonant clusters hard, e.g. milk - mil or mik.

Question 35

Define reduplication.

Answer 35

Children sometimes pronounce different syllables in a word in the same way. Bottle may be ‘bubu’. Sometimes the words sound quite unlike their adult counterparts.

Question 36

Define segmenting.

Answer 36

Identifying individual sounds.

Question 37

Define phonics.

Answer 37

Teaching links between graphemes and the phonemes.

Question 38

Phonetic spelling.

Answer 38

Spelling how words sound. E.g. ‘greedy’ as ‘gredi’.