Phonology Flashcards
What are Phonemes?
-Mental representations
-Create a contrast in meaning
(made up of allophones)
What are Allophones?
- Sounds
- Do not create a contrast in meaning
Describe Phonological Processes
-Affect the realization of phonemes as Allophones
– Are sensitive to environment (the surrounding
sounds)
What are the phonological processes?
- Aspiration (t→tʰ)
- Glottalization (t→tʔ)
- Flapping (r→ɾ)
- Assimilation
- Dissimilation
- Deletion (A→ø)
Aspiration
(t→tʰ)
Glottalization
(t→tʔ)
Flapping
(r→ɾ)
Assimilation
To adjust to an environment
Assimilating to the place of articulation of a following consonant
(Ex: unbelievable vs umbelievable, the b is bilabial so the um is easier to say)
Insertion
The adding in of a sound
Deletion
Getting rid of/omitting a sound
Metathesis
To switch sounds ex: /ab/ to [ba] like a child saying aminal instead of animal
Strengthening
Makes a sound stronger, more emphasized
The difference between phonetics and phonology
- phonetics: physical speech sounds
- Phonology: mental representations of sounds
Example of a phoneme
/p/
Example of an allophone
[p] [p^h] [P]
What are minimal pairs
Two words that differ in one sound (one sound changes the meaning of the word)
Example of minimal pairs
lip, lid (this also tells us that [p] and [d] are contrastive sounds)
What is grammar made up of?
A lexicon and rules
What are the rules involved with grammar?
Phonetics
Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
What is Linguistic Competence?
The internal, mental cognitive system of
language that you have in your head
What is Linguistic Performance?
Everything involved
in the implementation of that system
Name the ten design features of Language
- Mode of communication
- Arbitrariness
- Semanticity
- Cultural Transmission
- Pragmatic Function
- Interchangeability
- Discreteness
- Displacement
- Structure
- Productivity
Describe Mode of Communication
The use of vocal, auditory or visual channels
Describe arbitrariness
The use of symbols. The absence of a necessary connection between a words meaning and the words sound or form (Ex: no reason to call a chair a chair, but “bark” is similar to the actual sound that a dog makes)
Describe Semanticity
The symbols mean or refer to other objects/actions
Describe pragmatic function
The relationship between Linguistic forms and the users of those forms
Describe Interchangeability
essentially turn taking and modifying parts of language to describe new circumstances
Describe Discreteness
Complex messages built from smaller parts
Describe displacement
The ability to refer to things far removed in time and place (Ex: past, present and future)
Describe Structure-Dependence
The patterned nature of language and the ability to manipulate it “structured chunks”
Describe Productivity
The openness of language/creativity/to make original
Linguistic Determinism (strong version)
The language of an individual
determines how that individual thinks
about the world.
Linguistic Relativity (weak version)
The language of an individual influences
but does not determine an
individual’s thoughts.
What are the three main types of Phonetics?
- Articulary (how we physically make sound)
- Acoustic (how speech is manifested in sound waves)
- Auditory (how speech is perceived)
What is the IPA?
- “International Phonetic Alphabet”
- Created in 1886
- Revised many times
- Intended to represent all possible distinctive sounds in human language
English orthography is__________
Ambiguous (has no one to one ratio)
ex: [k] = k, ch, ck, c
What is the difference between phonemes and allophones?
Allophones of a given phoneme occur in predictable environments
Contrastive Distribution
- have minimal pairs
- cannot occur in the same environment
- are separate phonemes
Complimentary Distribution
- Do not have minimal pairs
- can occur in the same environment
- the sounds are allophones of the same phoneme
What are Natural Classes?
a group of sounds in a
language that share one or more properties to
the exclusion of all other sounds in the
language
! /t,k,p/ are all voiceless oral stops–they are
the ONLY voiceless oral stops in the
language…thus they are a natural class.
