Week 4

Question 1

Every language has words/morphemes. What characteristics does a word have?

Answer 1

Every word has a form, meaning and a syntactic category.

Form:
Sequence of gestures (sign language)
Sequence of sounds (spoken language)

Meaning:
A lexical word is ‘a single unit of language that has meaning and can be spoken, written or signed’.

Category: noun

Question 2

How can words be further divided?

Answer 2

They can be divided into syllables.

A structure is added: one syllable with onset /w/, nucleus /ɜ:/, offset /d/

Question 3

The rhyme consists of…

Answer 3

Nucleus and offset

Question 4

What is evidence for the syllable?

Answer 4

1. Speech production errors (‘spoonerisms’):
   A malt whisky -> a whalt misky.
2. Many languages use one symbol for a syllable in the orthography (Japanese Hiragana).
3. The syllable is intuitively a clear concept (native speakers have strong intuitions about the syllabification of words in their native language).

Question 5

Syllable

Answer 5

An abstract unit that exists at some higher level in the mental activity of the speaker.

Question 6

What is recognisable about syllable structure?

Answer 6

Every syllable has a ‘centre part’ or nucleus (N).

Usually, the nucleus position is occupied by [-consonant] segments, i.e. vowels (V).

Question 7

In which languages can the nucleus be filled by a sonorant consonant (syllabic consonants)?

And what is the most sonorous part of the syllable?

Answer 7

English and German

The nucleus is the most sonorous part of the syllable.

Question 8

Syllabic consonants

Answer 8

Sonorant consonants (m, n, or l)

Question 9

How many timing positions does the nucleus have and how are these timing positions represented?

Answer 9

The nucleus can have one timing position (for short vowels and syllabic consonants) or two (for diphthongs and long vowels).

Timing positions are represented on the ‘skeletal tier’.

Question 10

Which segments of a syllable are always unstressed? What is the diacritic?

Answer 10

Schwa (always unstressed in RP and SSBE).

Syllabic consonants: m, n, or l (always unstressed)
bottom /’bɒ.tᵊm/ [‘bɒ.tˌm]
button [‘bʌ.tˌn]
bottle [‘bɒ.tˌn] noun

Question 11

What does a non-branching nucleus look like?

Answer 11

It can consist of a short vowel (lax vowel) or syllabic sonorant consonant (mˌnˌlˌ).

Question 12

Which words cannot end in a short vowel (/sɪ/) or a syllabic sonorant consonant (/tm/)?

Answer 12

Monosyllabic lexical words

Question 13

How can monosyllabic lexical words not end? And how can they end?

Answer 13

They cannot end in a short vowel or a syllabic sonorant consonant.

Monosyllabic lexical words can end in a long vowel or diphthong.

[+long] = /bi:/ ‘bee’, /ka:/ ‘car’
[-long] = */bɪ/, */kæ/

Question 14

What does a branching nucleus consist of?

Answer 14

A diphthong or a long vowel.

Question 15

How does the nucleus branch in stressed open syllables?

Answer 15

The nucleus ‘branches’ and contains a diphthong or a long vowel that is not followed by a consonant.

/haʊ/
/si:/

Question 16

Open syllables and closed syllables

Answer 16

Open syllables end in a vowel (you, see).

In closed syllables, the nucleus is followed by a consonant. The consonant is not part of the nucleus. It is in ‘coda position’ (out, eat).

Question 17

How do you form the rhyme?

Answer 17

Nucleus + coda (goose, seat)

N + C = R

Question 18

Internal syllable structure and their functions

Answer 18

1. Onset (plays a crucial role in phonotactic restrictions).
2. Nucleus (only obligatory part of the syllable).
3. Rhyme (plays a role in stress assignment).

Question 19

What is remarkable about CV syllables?

Answer 19

Every language of the world has CV syllable, i.e. syllables of the shape ‘onset + nucleus’.

Question 20

Setting up syllables

Answer 20

1. Nucleus-formation: in English, vowels and sonorant consonants are relinked to the nucleus.
2. Onset-formation: onsets are maximised, so consonants to the left are adjoined one by one as long as the configuration resulting at each step satisfies all relevant phonotactic rules of the language in question.
3. Coda-formation: all remaining consonants to the right of a vowel are linked to the ‘coda’ (obeying phonotactic rules).
4. Together, the nucleus and coda form the ‘rhyme’ of a syllable.

Question 21

What are the steps to setting up a syllable in English?

Answer 21

Nucleus, onset, coda = syllable

Question 22

Empty onset

Answer 22

It still branches out and says ‘empty onset’ in, for example, the word ‘elephant’, which starts with a nucleus.

Question 23

Onset consonant clusters

Answer 23

un.true
in.famous
ad.venture

English allows adjacent consonants in the onset of a syllable.

Universally ‘marked’; has to be learnt by the language learning infant (Joan 1;10 black -> [bak].

Also, there is phonotactic constraint: adjacent consonants in the onset must differ by a certain degree of sonority (see (10) in section 7.2).

Question 24

Sonority

Answer 24

Unconstricted vocal tract, high in acoustic energy, acoustically periodic.

1. Vowels
2. Glides
3. Liquids /l r/ sounds
4. Nasal stops
5. Fricatives
6. Oral stops

Constricted vocal tract, low in acoustic energy, acoustic aperiodic.

More detailed scale:
1. Low vowels
2. High vowels
3. Approximants
4. Nasals
5. Voiced fricatives
6. Voiceless fricatives
7. Voiced stops
8. Voiceless tops

Question 25

Sonority in onset clusters (sonority rises =…)

Answer 25

Sonority rises = obstruent +liquid
Minimal sonority distance = (*obstruent + nasal)

Question 26

This course is about…

Answer 26

1. The language users’ subconscious knowledge of speech sounds.
2. Which speech sounds are used in a language to contrast meaning (phonemes).
3. How phonemes may alter their form depending on the context (allophones).
4. How phonemes may combine with each other in syllables.

Question 27

Phonotactic restrictions in onsets (what do word-initial consonant clusters usually begin with in English?)

Answer 27

In English, word-initial consonant clusters usually begin with /p t k b d g f s/ followed by liquids /j/ or /w/ (nasal crossed out): plan, twelve, cute, dream, flew.

Segment 1: [+cons, -son]
Segment 2: [+cons, +son, -nasal]

Question 28

Loanwords and /kn/-cluster

Answer 28

Words from another language are incorporated into another language.

There is no word-initial /kn/-cluster in the phonology of English: knee [ni].

Loanwords with initial /kn/: English speaking adults perceive both sounds, but their grammar does not allow them to realise a /kn/-sequence as such.
- Knesset -> inserts a /ə/ in the cluster = epenthesis.

Question 29

Light and heavy syllables

Answer 29

In light syllables, the nucleus and rhyme does not branch.

In heavy syllables, the rhyme and/or nucleus branches.

Question 30

Onset

Answer 30

All consonants occurring before the vowel.

Question 31

What is a word in English that only has a nucleus in the syllable?

Answer 31

Eye

Question 32

Monosyllabic

Answer 32

Morphemes like bile, which contain only one syllable are monosyllabic.

Question 33

Polysyllabic

Answer 33

Morphemes may contain more than one syllable, like rider, desire, elephant.

Question 34

Which languages must contain an onset consonant in the syllable?

Answer 34

In some languages, all syllables must contain an onset consonant but in English this is not the case (empty onset in ‘it’).

Question 35

Branching onsets

Answer 35

Onsets have two segments (bring, trap, clip).

Question 36

Branching coda

Answer 36

The coda contains has more than one segment (hunt).

Question 37

Complex segments

Answer 37

/tʃ/ and /dʒ/ behave like single segments while having an internal structure which resembles two segments.

Question 38

Why can we unconsciously judge that /tlɪnk/ is ill-formed?

Answer 38

There are universal and language-specific constraints on the form that syllables may take -> sonority scale, maximal onset principle.

Question 39

What suggests that coda positions are the most basic?

Answer 39

1. Children first develop ‘canonical babbling’.
2. In cases of aphasia (damage to speech), CV syllable structures are usually the first to reappear.
3. Coda consonants are most likely to have loss of articulation.

Question 40

Maximal Onset Principle

Answer 40

The consonants that form a word-internal onset are the maximal sequence that can be found at the beginning of words. English permits only 3 consonants to form an onset.

Once 2nd and 3rd consonants are determined, only one can appear in the first position.