Phonology Vocab Flashcards
Phonology
Is the study of the abstract categories
that organize the sound system of a language.
Spectrogram
A spectrogram is a graphic representation of the frequency distribution of the complex jumble of sound waves that
give the hearing impression of speech sounds.
Phoneme
Unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another in a particular 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
If we want to analyse allophones of a particular phoneme, it is sometimes necessary to include additional articulatory details in the transcription
Distribution
Refers to the different positions in which a speech sound can occur or cannot occur in the words of a language.
Complementary distribution
The distributional facts make it very likely that [ɹ] and [ɹ ̥] belong to the samephoneme in the sound system of English.
Minimal pairs
A minimal pair is a pair of words which
differ in only one sound, but differ in meaning.
Free variation
Speakers can choose which allophone they use
Released
You notice that /p/ is realised differently, or, to be precise, you really see /p/ only in spectrogram
Unreleased
You see mostly white space. The air pressure is not released.
Neutralisation
In a particular context, a contrast between phonemes becomes invisible.
Final devoicing
A voiced phoneme has a voiceless allophone in word-final position.
Velarised
Has three different realisations.
Dark 1
Auditory Impression/
Clear 1
Auditory Impression/
Aspirated
The variant of /p/ that occurs in pin is called an
aspirated stop.
Aspiration
The process of aspirating stops.
Flapping
The phonemic contrast is, however, neutralised in intervocalic position.
Non-rhotic
R-sounds do not seem to occur in word-final position
Rhotic
Varieties of English are those in which r-sounds can occur in word-final position.
Constituents
Like all elements of linguistic structure,
the elements that make up a syllable are termed constituents.
Syllabic consonants
Consonants which occupy the central part of the syllable
Nucleus
The nucleus can be filled by a vowel, a diphthong,
or a syllabic consonant.
