phonetic inventories
the sounds that are produced as part of the language
suprasegmental features
A phonetic characteristic of speech sounds, such as length, intonation, tone, or stress, that “rides on top of” segmental features. Must usually be identified by comparison to the same feature on other sounds or strings of sounds
phonotactic constraints
These restrictions on possible combinations of sounds are known as phonotactic constraints.
sound substitution
Speakers use sounds of their native language to replace non-native sounds when pronouncing the words of a foreign language.
aspiration
A puff of air that comes out with a certain sound.
non-aspiration
A sound produced without excessive aspiration (air).
noncontrastive
Interchanging the two sounds does not result in a change of meaning
contrastive
Replacing one sound with another changes the word’s meaning.
Contrastive distribution is simply a case in which the two sounds occur in the same phonetic environment, and using one rather than the other changes the meaning of the word
phoneme
A set of speech sounds that are perceived to be variants of the same sound
allophone
Each member of a particular phoneme set.
That is, the various ways that a phoneme is pronounced are called allophones (t, th, etc.)
How can you find out the distribution of a phone?
To look at the phonetic environments in which it occurs.
phonetic environments
The environment in which the sound can be found. You look at the sounds that come before and after it in a word
free variation
The use of a sound that can be heard freely without any constrictions.
minimal pairs
A minimal pair is defined as two words (with different meanings) whose pronunciations differ by exactly one phoneme (sound).
complementary distribution
Two complementary parts of something make up a whole. Two sounds that cannot appear in the same environment. If sounds are in complementary distribution, they are therefore considered to be allophones of the same phoneme.
conditioning environment
In which environment a certain sound can appear. C _ D, C stands for the sound that comes before the word, D for after.
flapping
It means that a /t/ is pronounced as a [ɾ]
natural class
Is a group of sounds in a language that share one or more articulatory or auditory property, to the exclusion of all other sounds in that language. (/t/ and /d/)
sibilants
Segments that have a high-pitched, hissing sound quality. The natural class of sibilants in English is [s, ʃ, t͡ʃ, z, ʒ, d͡ʒ]
obstruents
Obstruents are produced with an obstruction of the airflow.
sonorants
Sonorants are produced with a relatively open passage for the airflow.
assimilation
Cause a sound to become more like a neighboring sound.
palatalization
Palatalization belongs with the assimilation, but is a bit more specific. A consonant becomes like a neighboring palatal. Like ‘Did you?’ becomes [dɪdʒu]
vowel harmony
This is a type of long-distance assimilation. It causes all vowels in a word to harmonize or agree in some property such as rounding or backness.
dissimilation
Dissimilation is the opposite of assimilation. It causes two close or adjacent sounds to become less similar.
insertion
Cause a segment not present at the phonemic level to be added to the phonetic form of a word. Like with: strength [stɹɛŋθ] to [stɹɛŋkθ]
deletion
Eliminates a sound that was present at the phonemic level.
metathesis
Metathesis changes the order of sounds, for example to make words easier to pronounce.
strengthening/fortition
Strengthening or fortition makes sounds stronger.
aspiration
A form of strengthening or fotition, that adds aspiration to the beginning of a stressed syllable.
weakening/lenition
Weakening causes sounds to become weaker. (flapping rule is an example)
reduction of unstressed vowels
Unstressed syllables vowels are pronounced as the mid central [ə] or the syllable’s nucleus becomes a syllabic consonant.
diphthong-raising
Diphthong /ɑɪ/ is pronounced as [əɪ] when it occurs before a voiceless sound.
What are the obligatory rules in English?
Aspiration, vowel nasalization, vowel lengthening, and liquid and glide devoicing.
What are optional rules?
May or may not be applied in any given utterance. Optional rules are responsible for variation in speech.
basic allophone
An allophone that can be used in all other instances, except for the rules in which the other allophone appear.
restricted allophone
An allophone that only appears at some places with specific rules in place.
near-minimal pairs
Minimal pairs that differ in one sound but multiple letters (heard and Bert)
phonological rules
The mapping between phonemic and phonetic elements. A rule of grammar expresses a pattern in language.
underlying form
The mapping between phonemic form is also called underlying form.