Phonology

Question 1

Phonology

Answer 1

the study of how sounds are organized within a language and how they interact with each other

Question 2

phoneme

Answer 2

a set of speech sounds that are perceived to be variants of the same sound

Question 3

allophone

Answer 3

each member of a particular phoneme set

Question 4

contrastive distribution

Answer 4

two sounds occur in the same phonetic environment, and using one rather than the other changes the meaning of the word

Question 5

minimal pair

Answer 5

two words (with different meanings) whose pronunciations differ by exactly one sound

Question 6

complementary distribution

Answer 6

sounds that do not occur in the same phonetic environments

Question 7

phonological rules

Answer 7

the mapping between phonemic and phonetic elements

Question 8

natural class

Answer 8

a group of sounds in a language that share one or more articulatory or auditory property, to the exclusion of all other sounds in that language

Question 9

sibilant

Answer 9

segments that have high-pitched, hissing sound quality

Question 10

obstruents

Answer 10

are produced with an obstruction of the airflow

Question 11

sonorants

Answer 11

are segments produced with a relatively open passage for the airflow

Question 12

palatalization

Answer 12

refers to a special type of assimilation in which a consonant becomes lie a neighboring palatal

Question 13

vowel harmony

Answer 13

a back vowel becomes front when preceded by a front vowel in the same word

Question 14

manner dissimilation

Answer 14

a stop becomes a fricative when followed by another stop

Question 15

insertion

Answer 15

cause a segment not present at the phonemic level to be added to the phonetic form of a word

Question 16

deletion

Answer 16

may be deleted in unstressed syllables

Question 17

CV metathesis

Answer 17

when three consecutive consonants occur, the first consonant trades places with the preceding vowel

Question 18

basic allophone

Answer 18

assumed to be the closest approximation of the mental “sound” that speakers store in memory

Question 19

phonetic inventories

Answer 19

the sounds that are produced as part of the language

Question 20

sound substitution

Answer 20

speakers use sounds of their native language to replace non-native sounds when pronouncing the words of foreign language

Question 21

overlapping distribution

Answer 21

when sounds can occur in the same environment; sounds that are in contrastive distribution and sounds that are in free variation

Question 22

underlying form

Answer 22

the mapping between the phonemic form

Question 23

nasal place assimilation

Answer 23

an alveolar nasal assimilates to the place of articulation of a following consonant

Question 24

strengthening

Answer 24

make sounds stronger; also called fortition

Question 25

obligatory phonological rule

Answer 25

always applies in the speech of all speakers of a language or dialect having the rule, regardless of style or rate of speaking