Chapter 3 The Sound System: Phonology

Question 1

spectrogram

Answer 1

a graphic representation of the frequency distribution of the complex jumble of sound waves that give the hearing impression of speech sounds.

Question 2

phone

Answer 2

a physical realization of a speech sound like the voiceless or the voiced alveolar approximant

Question 3

narrow transcription

Answer 3

transcription to add additional articulatory details

Question 4

complementary distribution

Answer 4

two sounds that are distributed in such a way that one can only occur where the other cannot occur

Question 5

minimal pairs

Answer 5

a pair of words which differ in only one sound but have different meanings

Question 6

free variation

Answer 6

speakers can choose which allophone they use

Question 7

allophones

Answer 7

phones which function as alternant realizations of the same phoneme

Question 8

aspiration

Answer 8

the process of aspirating stops

Question 9

aspirated stop

Answer 9

a stop that is produced with an extra breath of air

Question 10

rhotic varieties

Answer 10

r-sounds can occur in word-final position

Question 11

rhotic varieties

Answer 11

r-sounds can occur in word-final position

Question 12

velarised

Answer 12

secondary articulation in the pronunciation of consonants when the tongue is drawn far up and back in the mouth

Question 13

constituents

Answer 13

the elements that make up a syllable

Question 14

syllabic consonants

Answer 14

consonants which occupy the central part of the syllable

Question 15

nucleus

Answer 15

the nucleus is the slot for a vowel which can be filled by a vowel, a diphthong, or a syllabic consonant

Question 16

onset

Answer 16

prevocalic slot and can be filled by one or more consonants

Question 17

coda

Answer 17

postvocalic slot and can be filled by one or more consonants

Question 18

vowel epenthesis

Answer 18

insertion of vowels into syllables

Question 19

syllabification

Answer 19

assigning syllable structure to words

Question 20

sonority

Answer 20

the category that captures our acoustic impression of “clear audibility”

Question 21

Maximal Onset Principle

Answer 21

a principle that determines underlying syllable division

Question 22

Sonority Sequencing Principle

Answer 22

sounds preceding the nucleus must rise in sonority and sounds following the nucleus must fall in sonority

Question 23

clear 1

Answer 23

non-velarised realisation [l], i.e.

Question 24

dark 1

Answer 24

The third realisation of /l/ is what is called a velarised

realisation of /l/

Question 25

stop phonemes

Answer 25

consonant sounds that are formed by completely stopping airflow. Stop sounds can be voiceless, like the sounds /p/, /t/, and /k/, or voiced, like /b/, /d/, and /g/