Week 2

Question 1

Aspiration

Answer 1

Audible puff of air that occurs after another sound.

/king/
/tan/
/pen/
/pan/

Question 2

How are aspiration and unaspirarion transcribed?

Answer 2

Aspiration is transcribed with a small and raised /h/.

Unaspiration is transcribed with an equals (=) sign.

Question 3

Phonemes

Answer 3

Smallest units that can make a meaning difference. They appear in different forms depending on their environment.

Question 4

Allophones

Answer 4

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/.

Question 5

Different levels of allophonic transcription

Answer 5

1.Broad transcription shows enough detail to show which phonemes are present / spin /.

2. Narrow transcription, one type is allophonic transcription, which uses [ sp=in ]

Question 6

Minimal pairs test

Answer 6

Pairs of words that only differ in one sound, and mean different things. So /pin/ and /tin/ are minimal pairs.

Question 7

What is the timing relationship of aspiration?

Answer 7

The release of the stop -> to the start of the voicing (vocal cord vibration).

Question 8

Voice Onset Time (VOT)

Answer 8

1. Long Voicing Lag (aspiration): takes a while for the voicing to begin (60 to 100 ms).
2. Short Voicing Lag: voicing starts a little later than the release but not so late that it is aspiration (0 to 25 ms).
3. Voicing Lead ‘prevoicing’: the voicing begins before the stop is released (-125 to -70 ms).

Question 9

Why is there not a minimal pair for [n] and [h]?

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

Complementary distribution

Answer 10

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/.

Question 11

Devoicing

Answer 11

Sounds that would be classified as voiced can be produced without vocal cord vibration (obstruents). This is indicated by a small circle above.

Question 12

Aspiration and unaspiration only apply to…

Answer 12

Voiceless plosives /p t k/ (in English). In other language fricatives and affricates can be aspirated too.

Question 13

Aspirated and unaspirated allophones can only occur in…

Answer 13

Stressed onsets

Question 14

Positive Onset Time

Answer 14

A delay in voicing

Question 15

How can a delay in voicing (e.g. a vowel) occur?

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

What does the vertical red line represent in the parametric diagram? And what do the horizontal black lines represent?

Answer 16

The red line shows the stop’s release. The black lines represent the vocal cord activity through time.

Question 17

Negative Onset Time

Answer 17

Early voicing.

Question 18

When is the Voicing Onset Time (VOT) zero?

Answer 18

If the voicing is initiated between the occlusion phase and following vowel (see diagram).

Question 19

Which languages have a similar VOT contrast to English? What are these languages called?

Answer 19

German, Danish, Icelandic, English. These are called aspiration languages.

/pear/ (positive)
/bear/ (roughly zero)

Question 20

Which are voicing languages

Answer 20

Dutch, French, Spanish, Russian, Hungarian.

/peen/ (slightly positive)
/been/ (negative)

Question 21

Pre-fortis clipping

Answer 21

Sounds are shorter when they come before a voiceless consonant in the same syllable.

Question 22

Glottal replacement

Answer 22

[rat] becomes [ra?]

[mutton] becomes [‘mu?n]

Question 23

Which sounds are never pre-glottalised and which can be?

Answer 23

Voiced stops (g d b) never are, voiceless (t p k) stops are optionally pre-glottalised.

Question 24

Why is /p/ a phoneme? And what are different allophones of this phoneme?

Answer 24

It can make a meaning difference.
/pæn/ vs. /bæn/

/p/ has different realisations depending on where it is in the syllable (h, =, ?).

Question 25

Difference between a phoneme and allophone

Answer 25

A phoneme is an abstract unit. An allophone is a concrete unit, the phonetic realisation of a phoneme.

Question 26

Contrastive distribution

Answer 26

There is a meaning difference, leads to a change in meaning.

The ‘t’ sounds in cat, team, stone, city.

Question 27

How can you tell two sounds are variants of the same phoneme?

Answer 27

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).

Question 28

Broad transcription vs. narrow transcription. And what is a type of narrow transcription?

Answer 28

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.

Question 29

Explain what coarticulation is, and perseverative and anticipatory coarticulation.

Answer 29

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.

Question 30

Variations of voice

Answer 30

1. Coarticulation
2. Complementary and contrastive distribution
3. Devoicing
4. Aspiration
5. Allophones