Phonology Flashcards
Phonology
the study of the abstract categories
that organise the sound system of a language
spectrogram
a graphic representation of the frequency distribution of the complex jumble of sound waves that
give the hearing impression of speech sounds
distribution
the different positions in which a speech sound can occur or cannot
occur in the words of a language
complementary distribution
Two sounds which are distributed in such a way that one can only occur
where the other cannot occur
minimal pair
a pair of words which
differ in only one sound, but differ in meaning
Neutralisation
the fact that in a particular context, a
contrast between phonemes becomes invisible
final devoicing
The fact that a voiced phoneme has a voiceless allophone in word-final position
aspirated stop
a stop that is produced with an extra ‘breath of air’
non-rhotic
r-sounds do not
seem to occur in word-final position
rhotic
r-sounds can occur in word-final position
constituents
the elements that make up a syllable
syllabic consonants
Consonants which occupy the central part of the syllable
nucleus
‘slot for a vowel’ in a constituent
onset
the prevocalic slot in a constituent
coda
the postvocalic slot in a constituent
vowel epenthesis
the insertion of vowels into syllables
syllabification
Assigning syllable structure to words
Maximal Onset Principle
Given a sequence of consonants and vowels, syllabification proceeds in such a way that as many consonants as possible end up in an onset, even if the language allows codas.
sonority
the category that captures our acoustic impression
of ‘clear audibility’
Sonority Sequencing Principle
sounds preceding the nucleus (i.e. onsets) must rise in sonority, and sounds following the nucleus (i.e. codas) must fall in sonority
phoneme
the minimal distinctive unit in the sound system of the language
phone
A physical realisation of a speech sound like the voiceless or the voiced alveolar approximant
allophones of the phoneme
Phones which function as alternant realisations of the same phoneme
narrow transcription
including additional articulatory details in the transcription (such as, for example, [ ̥] in [ɹ ̥])
free variation
speakers can choose which allophone they use in a complementary distribution
