Phonology Vocabulary

Question 1

phonology

Answer 1

the study of the abstract categories that organize the sound system of a language.

Question 2

spectrogram

Answer 2

a graphic representation of the frequency distribution of the complex jumble of sound waves that give the hearing impression of speech sounds.

Question 3

phoneme

Answer 3

any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another, for example, p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat.

Question 4

phone

Answer 4

A physical realization of a speech sound, like the voiceless or the voiced alveolar approximant.

Question 5

allophones of the phoneme

Answer 5

Phones which function as alternant realizations of the same phoneme.

Question 6

narrow transcription

Answer 6

A close transcription, indicating precise details of the sounds.

Question 7

distribution

Answer 7

the different positions in which a speech sound can occur or cannot occur in the words of a language.

Question 8

complementary distribution

Answer 8

Two sounds which are distributed in such a way that one can only occur where the other cannot occur.

Question 9

minimal pairs

Answer 9

a pair of words that differ in only one sound, but differ in meaning.

Question 10

syllabification

Answer 10

the division of words into syllables, either in speech or in writing.

Question 11

cognates

Answer 11

words that have a common etymological origin.

Question 12

free variation

Answer 12

the phenomenon of two sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect by native speakers.

Question 13

neutralization

Answer 13

the elimination of certain distinctive features of phonemes in certain environments.

Question 14

final devoicing

Answer 14

the devoicing of syllable-final voiced consonants.

Question 15

velarization

Answer 15

a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.

Question 16

aspirated consonant

Answer 16

the strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents.

Question 17

flapping

Answer 17

a phonological process whereby the voiceless alveolar stop consonant phoneme /t/ is pronounced as a voiced alveolar flap [ɾ].

Question 18

maximal onset principal

Answer 18

intervocalic consonants should be considered onsets first if possible as long there is no violation of the sonority hierarchy. That is, there is a preference for consonants to be onsets rather than codas.

Question 19

sonority sequencing principle

Answer 19

a phonotactic principle that aims to outline the structure of a syllable in terms of sonority.

Question 20

constituents

Answer 20

the elements that make up a syllable.

Question 21

syllabic consonants

Answer 21

a consonant that forms a syllable on its own.

Question 22

nucleus

Answer 22

the central part of the syllable, most commonly a vowel.

Question 23

onset

Answer 23

the consonant sound or sounds at the beginning of a syllable, occurring before the nucleus.

Question 24

coda

Answer 24

the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the nucleus.

Question 25

vowel epenthesis

Answer 25

The insertion of a vowel to break up a cluster.

Question 26

cluster

Answer 26

a group of two or more consonant sounds that come before (onset), after (coda), or between (medial) vowels.