Phonology Key Vocab Flashcards
Phonology
the study of the abstract categories
that organize 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.
Phoneme
the smallest unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another word in a language.
Phone
a physical realization of a speech sound like the voiceless or the voiced alveolar approximant
Allophone
one of the phonetically distinct variants of a phoneme
Narrow transcription
precise details of the 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 pairs
a pair of words which differ in only one sound, but differ in meaning
Released (consonant)
the release of the air that has been built up
Unreleased (consonant)
the air pressure is not released
Free variation
speakers can choose which allophone they use, which depends on a variety of factors, most of which are extralinguistic in nature, with prestige and social status among them
Neutralization
in a particular context, a contrast between phonemes becomes invisible
Final devoicing
the process by which speech sounds that are normally voiced are made voiceless immediately after a voiceless obstruent (common in German, Russian, and Catalan)
Aspirated stop
a stop that is produced with an extra ‘breath of air’
