Week 4: Phonetics and Phonology Flashcards
What is the nucleus of a syllable?
- The vowel or vowel-like sound
What comes before the nucleus of a syllable? (if present)
The onset
What comes after the nucleus of a syllable? (if present)
The coda
What does the onset of a syllable consist of?
All the segments prior to the peak (or nucleus)
What does the coda of a syllable consist of?
All of the sound segments of a syllable following its peak
Which is the most prominent, acoustically most intense part of the syllable?
The nucleus (or peak)
Give an example of a peak standing alone
- a-way [ə’wei]
Give an example of a peak being surrounded by other sounds
- bring [briŋ]
What are the segments that compose the onset of a syllable?
Syllable releasing sounds
What are the segments that compose the coda of a syllable?
Syllable arresting sounds
The number of segments that an onset or a coda may contain is regulated by what?
The rules of the language in question
What must a syllable contain?
- A vowel or vowel-like sound
What are the 7 most common types of syllable in English? Give examples
- CV - “do” [du:]
- CVC - “them”[ðem]
- CCV(C) - “play” [pleɪ]; “plot” [plɒt]
- CCCV(C) - “street”[stri:t]; “spray”[spreɪ]
- V - “I” [aɪ]
- VC - “am”[æm]
- VCC - “eggs” [egz] or [ɛgz]
Up to how many consonant sounds can English have following the vowel? Give an example
- Four
- sixths [sɪksθs]
What are syllables that do not contain codas called? Give two examples
- open or unchecked syllables
- do [du:], glee [gli:]
What are syllables that contain codas called? Give two examples
- Closed or checked syllables
- stop [stɒp]
- window [‘wɪndəʊ]
Syllables that receive stress are what?
Strong syllables
What do strong syllables have as their peak?
one of the vowel sounds (or a diphthong) but not a schwa [ ə ]
Syllables that do not receive stress are what?
Weak syllables
Weak syllables are the ones in which the peak is one of what three things? Give an example for each
- a schwa: better [‘betə]
- i or u without a coda: happy [‘hæpi]
- ɪ without a coda and followed by a consonant:
architect [‘a:kɪtekt]
What is important to know about the stressing of strong and weak syllables?
Not all strong syllables are stressed, but all weak syllables are unstressed
Define phonetics
the general study of the characteristics of speech sounds
Define Phonology
the study of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language
Define Phoneme; what is it? How can we find them?
- Each meaning-distinguishing sound in a language
- A sound that contrasts with other sounds and gives distinction in meanings.
- If we substitute one sound for another in a word and there is a change of meaning, then the two sounds represent different phonemes
What are minimal pairs? Give an example
- When two words are identical in form except for a contrast in one phoneme occurring in the same position, (the two words are then described as minimal pairs)
- pat vs. bat - phonemes = /p/ and /b/
What is a minimal set?
When a group of words can be differentiated by changing one phoneme (e.g big, pig, rig, fig, dig, wig)
Allophones of a phoneme are in complementary distribution. What does this mean?
- In a specific environment (or contour) only one of them can occur
The phoneme /t/ has what allophones? When does each occur?
- tar [tʰa:] - aspiration of p, t, k in word-initial position or when they are at the beginning of a stressed syllable
- star [sta:] - unaspirated when p, t, k are mid-syllable or in the coda
What allophones does the phoneme /t/ have in certain varieties of English?
- better [beʔɘ] - glottal stop in intervocalic position (between two vowels)
- better [beɾɘ] - flap in v intervocalic position
Phonetic properties such as being voiced, bilabial, alveolar, nasal, approximant, plosive, fricative are distinctive. What does this mean?
Their use distinguishes one word from another (these features are information-bearing)
Do phonemes have distinctive features?
Yes
What are non-distinctive features?
The set of properties that provide a more detailed description of the pronunciation of a sound, but do not distinguish one sound (or word) from another (they are not information-bearing)
Do allophones have distinctive features?
No - they have non-distinctive features
Do the set of properties that are distinctive and non-distinctive always stay the same?
No, they vary from language to language
What is notable about I-language and non-distinctive properties?
- Due to I-language, native speakers do not hear the non-distinctive properties but do hear the distinctive ones
What can we say a phoneme is rather than a sound?
An abstract psychological unit
Explain the reason why people can understand each other when speakers never pronounce the same phoneme in the same way
- The speaker and hearer have a mental pattern or template of the sound. Speakers attempt to match their production to this mental pattern and hearers match incoming sounds to their mental pattern
- These patterns are the distinctive properties of the language
How do speakers pronounce non-native words?
They match sounds that do not occur in their own language with the closest ones that do e.g speakers of English replace French nasalized vowels with a vowel-plus-nasal sequence
What are the co-articulation effects?
- Aspiration - like tar vs star
- Assimilation
- Nasalization
- Elision
- Unstressed vowels (?)
- Intrusive [r] (insertion)
What is assimilation? Give an example
- Two segments occur in sequence and some features of one segment are “copied” by the other
- cats vs dogs (the s in cats sound is unvoiced while the s in dogs in voiced because of the consonants that respectively proceed the s)
What is an example of progressive assimilation?
- cats and dogs
Give an example of regressive assimilation
“I have to go” ends up become ahaFtugo
What is progressive assimilation
Where the sound before passes features onto the following sound
What is regressive assimilation?
When the sound after passes features onto the sound before
When does nasalization occur in terms of vowels?
Any vowel becomes nasal whenever it immediately precedes a nasal consonant in the same syllable
What is elision?
The process of not pronouncing a sound segment that might be present in the deliberately careful pronunciation of a word in isolation
- eg. he must be becomes he mus be
What happens when a vowel is reduced in English?
- It is represented by the allophone [ə], the schwa
- man vs postman (sounds more like postmun)
What is the schwa an allophone of?
All the vowel phonemes when the syllable is unstressed
What is the intrusive r a type of?
Insertion
When does the intrusive r occur?
At the end of a word that ends in a non-high vowel sound and that is followed closely by a word beginning with a vowel sound
