Week 1 + 2 Flashcards
what is speech?
production of sounds for communicating ideas
what is communication?
sharing, imparting or recieving information
what is descriptive grammar?
how language is actually used and rules speakers actually follow
what is prescriptive grammar?
how language “should” be, standardized/prestige
what is phonetics?
how basic units of sounds are produced and perceived (spoken - sound waves, or signed - sign)
what is phonology?
how sounds are categorized and combined in a system
what is morphology?
how words are made of smaller pieces of information
what is syntax?
how words are put together in sentences
what is semantics?
how words and sentences are translated into meaning
what is pragmatics?
how context influences meaning
what is a morpheme?
smallest linguistic unit with meaning or grammatical function (ex: cat, -s)
what is an allomorph?
morphemes that sound different but fulfill the same function (ex: -s, -en for plurals)
what are the two morphological types of languages?
analytic or synthetic
what is an analytic language?
most words have only one morpheme, very few affixes (ex: Chinese)
what is a synthetic language? what are the three types?
words frequently contain more than one morpheme, affixes are frequent - agglutinating, fusional, polysynthetic
what is an agglutinating language?
affixes are added to the stem, they affixes and stems don’t change when they come together, each affix tends to only have ONE meaning
what is a fusional language?
affixes are added to the stem, the stem and affix often get fused together (change form when together), an affix can have more than one meaning
what is a polysynthetic language?
many stems and affixes are put together into a single word, nouns can become part of a verb (noun incorporation), very long words
what is a stop/plosive?
complete occlusion of the airstream through the oral cavity
what is a fricative?
near-complete occlusion of the vocal tract resulting in frication: turbulent, hissing airflow
what is an affricate?
begins with the occlusion of airflow, followed by frication (ex: [t͡ʃ])
what is a nasal stop?
airflow through the nasal cavity while oral cavity is fully occluded
what is a tap or flap?
contact between an active and passive articulator that is short in duration, no buildup of pressure
what is an approximant?
the active articulator approaches the passive articulator but doesn’t occlude airflow enough to cause frication - liquids and glides
what is a liquid?
consonant sound produced when the tongue partially closes the mouth (ex: [l] or [ɹ]
what are glides or semivowels?
vowel-like sounds with slightly more closure of the articulators (ex: [j] or [w])
what are the 4 features of vowels?
height, front/backness, roundness, tense/lex
what are natural classes?
everything of that category and nothing not of that category
what is lenition?
Weakening of a sound (stops > affricates > fricatives > nasals > liquids > glides > vowels)
what is fortition?
Strengthening of a sound (vowels > glides > liquids > nasals > fricatives > affricates > stops)
what is the type of lenition known as rhotacism?
The lenition of [s] or [z] to a rhotic between vowels
what is apheresis?
The loss of initial sound segments
what is apocope?
The loss of sounds at the end of a word
what is syncope?
Loss of sound segments in the middle of a word
what is haplology?
Losing an entire syllable when it is near the same or a similar syllable
what is cluster reduction?
Deleting 1+ of the consonants in a word
what is excrescence?
Adding a consonant between two consonants
what is epenthesis?
Adding a vowel in the middle of a word to break up a consonant cluster
what is prothesis?
Adding a sound at the beginning of a word
what is metathesis?
Changing the order of sounds in the word
what is fusion?
Two separate sounds fuse into one with features of both original sounds
what is compensatory lengthening?
The vowel lengthens to compensate for the loss of a consonant
what is fission?
A single sound becomes two sounds each with features of the original sound
what is vowel breaking?
A monophthong becomes a diphthong with the original vowel (first or last) and a glide
what is assimilation?
Sound neighbors cause a sound to become more like them
what is progressive assimilation?
Features of the following sound are changed to match those of the proceeding sound
what is regressive assimilation?
Features of the preceding sound are changed by the following sound (more common)
what is vowel harmony?
assimilation of one or more features of one vowel to some or all of the other vowels in the same word
what is dissimilation?
A sound changes to be less like a nearby sound
What is palatalization?
A nonpalatal sound becomes more palatial usually before a front vowel (fronting)
What is final devoicing?
Sounds at the end of the word, especially stops and fricatives, change from voiced to voiceless
What is Grassmann’s Law?
Famous example of dissimilation: in Greek and Sanskrit, when two syllables followed each other and both contain aspirated stops, the first of these lost its aspiration and became unaspirated
