week 5 and 7- Phonemes and stress

Question 1

Complementary Distribution

Answer 1

Relation between sounds of forms whose distributions do not overlap. If forms are in complementary distribution they are allophones and not phonemes.

Question 2

Contrastive Distribution

Answer 2

Relation between sounds of forms whose distributions overlap and the overlap leads to a meaningful distinction. For instance /m/ and /k/ are in contrastive distribution in the words mat and cat.

Question 3

what is a minimal pair

Answer 3

minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme , and have distinct meanings.
eg. /pat/ and /bat/

Question 4

Distinctive feature theory

Answer 4

Argues that a phoneme is just a category for a whole series of articulatory gestures.

• In this theory the basic unit is the feature (not the phoneme)
• features can’t be broken into smaller units.
• Features are binary; all phonemes either have [+] or don’t have [-] a particular feature.
• Features may be based on:
• Acoustic properties (e.g., strident, voice).
• Articulatory properties (e.g., high, back, lateral, coronal).
• Function in a syllable (e.g., consonantal, vocalic).

Question 5

in distinctive feature theory, what does + or - stop mean

Answer 5

the sound is produced with full closure in the mouth

Question 6

in distinctive feature theory, what does + or - nasal mean

Answer 6

raising or lowering of the soft palette.
Raised= minus nasal eg. p, b
Lowered= plus nasal eg. m, n

Question 7

in distinctive feature theory, what does + or - labial mean

Answer 7

produced at the lips = plus labial

not produced at lips= minus labial

Question 8

in distinctive feature theory, what does + or - apical mean

Answer 8

place of articulation that’s produced by the tip or blade of the tongue
produced with tip of tongue= plus apical eg. t, d , n

produced elsewhere= minus apical eg. b, p, m

Question 9

in distinctive feature theory, what does + or - dorsal mean

Answer 9

produced by front or back of tongue

produced by back of tongue- plus dorsal eg. k, g

produced elsewhere= minus dorsal eg. t, d, n

Question 10

in distinctive feature theory, what does O mean

Answer 10

does not apply

Question 11

in distinctive feature theory, what do fortis and lenis mean?

Answer 11

always opposite (unless O= does not apply)

fortis= Articulated with relatively strong pressure of the airstream below the glottis, as in English (p) and (t) compared with (b) and (d).

lenis = Articulated with relatively low pressure of the airstream below the glottis, as English (b) and (d) compared with (p) and (t).

plus fortis = p, t, k
plus lenis= b, d, g
O= m, n

Question 12

what is elegance

Answer 12

how little words you can use to say something

- You can reduce the categories as something will either be nasal OR non nasal and fortis OR non fortis.

Question 13

coronal

Answer 13

sounds that are produced with the tip or blade of the tongue above the point of rest.

Question 14

anterior

Answer 14

sounds that are produced at or in front of the alveolar ridge. E.g. Velars are produced at the back of the mouth so are minus anterior.

Question 15

continuant

Answer 15

a consonant which is sounded with the vocal tract only partly closed, allowing the breath to pass through and the sound to be prolonged (as with f, l, m, n, r, s, v).

Question 16

strident

Answer 16

the fricatives that are being produced where the air is squeezed out through a gap in the tongue.

Question 17

glide

Answer 17

the tongue moving

Question 18

In praise of the phoneme

Answer 18

‘Yet there is something lost if the phoneme is abandoned. It is important to know that different accents of a language have different numbers of phonemes, because it means that some people have fewer possibilities for making distinctions between words and some have more, and this is a fact of language which should not be glossed over ’ O’Connor J. D. (1973)

Question 19

what is the syllable template

Answer 19

onset, nucleus, and coda.

onset and coda= consonants, or consonant clusters, that appear at the beginning and the end of the syllable respectively.

nucleus=the core of the syllable; it is most often a vowel, or a combination of vowels

Question 20

Maximal onset principle

Answer 20

A phonological principle proposed by some writers which determines the placement of syllable boundaries in cases of doubt. The principle states that, unless doing so would violate universal or language-specific constraints, consonants should be assigned to the syllable onset rather than the syllable coda.

Question 21

sonority scale

Answer 21

a list of phonetic segments showing the relative resonance of phonetic segments in relation to other segments.

9 Open Vowels (mouth as open as possible)
8 Close vowels 
7 Laterals 
6 Nasals 
5 Approximants 
4 Trills 
3 Fricatives 
2 Affricates 
1 Plosives (mouth almost closed)

Question 22

syllable timed languages

Answer 22

French. Each syllable should take roughly the same time to produce.

Question 23

stress timed language

Answer 23

English

feature syllables that are stressed at regular intervals and for a longer period than vowels in unstressed syllables

Question 24

stress timing

Answer 24

English timing is called a foot. Starts on a stress and then moves onto the next stress. Each one of the feet should take about the same time to pronounce.

Question 25

what is articulatory stress

Answer 25

it appears to depend on speakers using more muscular effort. The intercostal muscles are more active and produce a higher subglottal pressure during the articulation of a stressed syllable
➜a more intense sound and increased vocal fold vibration

Question 26

stress perception

Answer 26

A stressed syllable:

1. feels louder than an unstressed one.
2. feels longer than an unstressed one.
3. feels as if it is on a higher pitch.
4. contain vowels of a different quality e.g. babibababibababiba
   - most salient part of speech

Question 27

what is the function of stress

Answer 27

Lexical distinctions –
below V billow, /ˈbɪləʊ/ /bɪˈləʊ/

refer V reefer ? / ɹiˈfɛː/ ˈɹi:fə/

Question 28

what do you need to be able to locate stress in nouns?

Answer 28

1. Syntactic information - a record, to record, a present, to present
2. Morphological information - root or prefix/suffix
3. Phonological information – ult (final) or penult (second to last) or anti penult (third to last) or pre-anti penult (fourth to last)

Question 29

what is a free vowel

Answer 29

A free vowel is a vowel which can occur at the end of a one syllable word.

Question 30

what is the ult

Answer 30

final syllable

Question 31

what is the penult

Answer 31

second to last syllable

Question 32

what is the anti penult

Answer 32

third to last syllable

Question 33

what is the pre-anti penult

Answer 33

fourth to last syllable