Vocabulary 3 Flashcards
phonotactic constraints
restriction on possible combinations of sounds, often in particular environments
What is the minimum requirement for ASL syllables?
A monosyllabic sign can’t consist of just one hand shape, location, and orientation; one of the three have to change in order to form a grammatical syllable.
Sound substitution
process whereby sounds that already exist in a language are used to replace sounds that do not exist in the language when borrowing or when a speaker is trying to pronounce a foreign word
allophone
one of a set of noncontrastive realizations of the same phoneme; an actual phonetic segment
phoneme
class of speech sounds identified by a native speaker as the same sound; a mental entity (or category) related to various allophones by phonological rules; are written between slashes (i.e., /t/)
noncontrastive
term used to describe two sounds that are not used to differentiate words in a language
contrastive distribution
the occurrence of sounds in a language such that their use distinguishes between the meanings of the words in which they appear, indicating that those sounds are phonemes of the language in question
complementary distribution
the occurrence of sounds in a language such that they are never found in the same phonetic environment
overlapping distribution
occurrence of sounds in the same phonetic environments
free variation
term used to refer to two sounds that occur in overlapping environments but cause no distinction in the meaning of their respective words
phonological rules
description of a relationship between a phoneme and its allophones and the conditioning environment in which the allophone appears
underlying form
the phonetic form of a word or morpheme before phonological rules are applied
conditioning environment
neighboring sounds of a given sound that cause it to undergo a change
natural class
group of sounds in a language that satisfy a given description to the exclusion of other sounds in that language
Flowchart for identifying the type of distribution two or more sounds in a language have
Start: Identify the sounds you are interested in investigating –> List the phonetic environments in which the sounds in question appear –>
Do the sounds occur in the same environment? –> (Yes) The Sounds are overlapping –> No prediction is possible. –> Do the words have the same meaning –>
If yes, the sounds are in free variation. If no, the words form a (near) minimal pair –> The sounds are in a contrastive distribution. –> The sounds are allophones of different phonemes. //
Do the sounds occur in the same environment? (No) The sounds are in complementary distribution. –> Prediction is possible. –> The sounds are allophones of the same phoneme.
near-minimal pairs
similar to a minimal pair, but whereas the words in a minimal pair are identical apart from the contrastive sounds, the words here are only almost identical, apart from the contrastive sounds
restricted allophone
an allophone of a phoneme that appears in a more limited set of phonetic environments
The steps to do a phonemic analysis
- Look at the environments to find natural classes.
- Look for complimentary gaps in the environments.
- State a generalization about the distribution of each of these sounds.
- Determine the identity of the phoneme and its allophones
What is the goal of a phonemic analysis?
To draw conclusions about the psychological organization of a language, which isn’t necessarily observable.
maximally distinct
consonants that have very few qualities in common with the vowels, and the vowels are likewise very different from the consontants
implicational law
observation about language universals that takes the form of an implication (e.g., If A then B, meaning that if a language has feature A, then we can expect it to have feature B).
Observations related to more common and less common sounds
Sound inventories, frequency & distribution, acquisition of sounds, sound change
Obligatory English rules include what? (4)
Aspiration, vowel nasalization, vowel lengthening, and liquid and glide devoicing
Optional rules are responsible and depend on what?
Responsible for variation in speech and depends on rate and style of speech
Obstruents and sonorants are the segments that describe what?
Natural classes
