Week 2 Flashcards
Aspiration
Audible puff of air that occurs after another sound.
/king/
/tan/
/pen/
/pan/
How are aspiration and unaspirarion transcribed?
Aspiration is transcribed with a small and raised /h/.
Unaspiration is transcribed with an equals (=) sign.
Phonemes
Smallest units that can make a meaning difference. They appear in different forms depending on their environment.
Allophones
Replace one phoneme for another in a word and see if they make a meaning difference. If they don’t, then we know they are allophones.
For example, in English an aspirated p (as in pin) and unaspirated p (as in spin) are allophones of the phoneme /p/.
Different levels of allophonic transcription
1.Broad transcription shows enough detail to show which phonemes are present / spin /.
- Narrow transcription, one type is allophonic transcription, which uses [ sp=in ]
Minimal pairs test
Pairs of words that only differ in one sound, and mean different things. So /pin/ and /tin/ are minimal pairs.
What is the timing relationship of aspiration?
The release of the stop -> to the start of the voicing (vocal cord vibration).
Voice Onset Time (VOT)
- Long Voicing Lag (aspiration): takes a while for the voicing to begin (60 to 100 ms).
- Short Voicing Lag: voicing starts a little later than the release but not so late that it is aspiration (0 to 25 ms).
- Voicing Lead ‘prevoicing’: the voicing begins before the stop is released (-125 to -70 ms).
Why is there not a minimal pair for [n] and [h]?
Because they never occur in the same environment. This is known as complementary distribution. [n] only occurs in codas and [h] only occurs in onsets.
Complementary distribution
Same meaning, but different distribution. For some pairs, there are no minimal pairs [h] and [ņ] because they never occur in the same environment.
The first sounds in paint, taint, saint.
Wandelaar
Tekenaar
Another example is allophones of English /l/; clear, devoiced and dark /l/.
Devoicing
Sounds that would be classified as voiced can be produced without vocal cord vibration (obstruents). This is indicated by a small circle above.
Aspiration and unaspiration only apply to…
Voiceless plosives /p t k/ (in English). In other language fricatives and affricates can be aspirated too.
Aspirated and unaspirated allophones can only occur in…
Stressed onsets
Positive Onset Time
A delay in voicing
How can a delay in voicing (e.g. a vowel) occur?
When aspiration occurs, the following vowel can be delayed in voicing, because the air is still flowing through the vocal tract.
When unaspiration occurs, the following vowel is fully voiced.
What does the vertical red line represent in the parametric diagram? And what do the horizontal black lines represent?
The red line shows the stop’s release. The black lines represent the vocal cord activity through time.
Negative Onset Time
Early voicing.
When is the Voicing Onset Time (VOT) zero?
If the voicing is initiated between the occlusion phase and following vowel (see diagram).
Which languages have a similar VOT contrast to English? What are these languages called?
German, Danish, Icelandic, English. These are called aspiration languages.
/pear/ (positive)
/bear/ (roughly zero)
Which are voicing languages
Dutch, French, Spanish, Russian, Hungarian.
/peen/ (slightly positive)
/been/ (negative)
Pre-fortis clipping
Sounds are shorter when they come before a voiceless consonant in the same syllable.
Glottal replacement
[rat] becomes [ra?]
[mutton] becomes [‘mu?n]
Which sounds are never pre-glottalised and which can be?
Voiced stops (g d b) never are, voiceless (t p k) stops are optionally pre-glottalised.
Why is /p/ a phoneme? And what are different allophones of this phoneme?
It can make a meaning difference.
/pæn/ vs. /bæn/
/p/ has different realisations depending on where it is in the syllable (h, =, ?).
Difference between a phoneme and allophone
A phoneme is an abstract unit. An allophone is a concrete unit, the phonetic realisation of a phoneme.
Contrastive distribution
There is a meaning difference, leads to a change in meaning.
The ‘t’ sounds in cat, team, stone, city.
How can you tell two sounds are variants of the same phoneme?
By replacing a phoneme for another in a word and seeing if they make a meaning difference. If they do not, we know they are different versions of the same phoneme (allophones).
Broad transcription vs. narrow transcription. And what is a type of narrow transcription?
Broad transcription (//) includes enough detail to show which phonemes are present.
Narrow transcription ([]) gives a more detailed explanation. Allophonic transcription shows which allophones are present and (un)aspiration.
Explain what coarticulation is, and perseverative and anticipatory coarticulation.
After silence or a voiceless sound, it can take some time for the vocal folds to start vibrating, so it may not be voiced all the way through.
Likewise, before a voiceless sound or silence, the vocal folds prepare to stop vibrating and may stop early.
If a sound is affected by what comes before, this is called perseverative coarticulation. If a sound is affected by what comes after it, this is called anticipatory coarticulation.
So, the /ɡ/ in ‘gold’, when the word is produced in isolation, is devoiced because of the silence that comes before it. The /d/ of ‘gold’, when the word is in isolation, is devoiced because of the silence that comes after it.
Variations of voice
- Coarticulation
- Complementary and contrastive distribution
- Devoicing
- Aspiration
- Allophones
