Week 5 Flashcards
How do infants acquire speech sounds?
They pay attention to properties of speech sounds (i.e. distinctive features for consonants):
1. Laryngeal properties (voiceless - voices).
2. Place of articulation (LAB, COR, DOR).
3, Manner of articulation (stop, fricative, etc).
How do children acquire speech sounds?
Children acquire certain properties of speech sounds (like distinctive features for vowels):
1. Tongue position (front, central, back).
2 .Tongue height (high, mid, low).
3. Lip shape (spread, round).
They learn “rules” (more like generalisations).
How may phonemes alter their form depending on the context (‘allophones’)?
Language learners acquire specific “rules” for these variations.
For instance, the phoneme /p/ becomes [pʰ] when it occurs at the beginning of a stressed syllable.
These rules are language-specific and help learners understand phoneme behaviour in different contexts.
What part of the syllable would be the most sonorous (highest point in the graph) on the sonority scale?
The vowel part.
So, in film, bank, grasp the line is low in the beginning, then rises and goes back down again.
Phonotactics
Phonotactics are the rules of a language about how sounds can be arranged in words.
How are borrowed words from languages like English or Afrikaans adapted to fit isiZulu’s sound system and syllable structure?
Vowel Epenthesis: the process of adding vowels to make foreign words fit the phonotactic rules of isiZulu.
isiZulu requires syllables to follow a consonant-vowel (CV) pattern, or occasionally a nasal-consonant (NC) structure.
When loanwords don’t conform to this pattern, isiZulu adds vowels to “break up” consonant clusters or to make consonants end with vowels.
isiZulu modifies borrowed words to fit its phonological system by:
- Adding vowels (vowel epenthesis).
- Ensuring a CV syllable structure.
- Avoiding consonant clusters that don’t exist in the native language.
What are onset consonant clusters?
Onset consonant clusters are groups of consonants that appear together at the beginning of a syllable, such as br- in “bread” or tr- in “train.”
What is the main phonotactic constraint for onset consonant clusters in English?
English onset consonant clusters must generally follow a rising sonority pattern, where the first consonant is less sonorous (less resonant) than the second.
Give examples of valid onset consonant clusters in English.
What are examples of invalid onset consonant clusters in English?
br- in “bread,” tr- in “train,” gl- in “glue,”.
Examples of invalid clusters: rpond, rbell, mwiss, and lgue. These don’t follow the phonotactic rules.
What is the exception to the rising sonority rule in English?
Words with /s/-initial clusters (e.g., street, snore, sphere) are exceptions to the rising sonority rule but are still allowed in English.
How is word-initial /s/ unique in English syllables?
Word-initial /s/ behaves uniquely; it is sometimes considered extra-syllabic, meaning it does not belong directly to the onset of the syllable.
What clusters involving /s/ are allowed in English onsets?
English allows:
/s/ + C (e.g., sp-, st-, sk- as in spot, star, skip).
/s/ + C¹C² (e.g., spr-, str-, skl- as in spring, street).
What condition must /s/-initial clusters meet in English syllables?
/s/-initial clusters are only allowed in the onsets of stressed syllables, such as in street but not in unstressed syllables like /strə-/.
English words with final weak-strong-weak pattern:
agenda: a./ʤnɛn/.da
consultant: con./sʌl/.tant
arena: a./ɹ i:/.na
