IWA #2 - Linguistics

Question 1

What is Phonology?

Answer 1

Phonology is concerned with the abstract representation of articulations:

• their mental organization
• sound systems of languages
• speaker knowledge of patterns

Question 2

What is a phoneme? How can we identify them?

Answer 2

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can distinguish meaning between words (phonemic contrast).

They can be identified via minimal pairs.

Question 3

What is a minimal pair?

Answer 3

A minimal pair is two words that differ by just one sound/phoneme, but have entirely different meanings. These distinguishing factors (phonemes) can vary depending on the language.

Question 4

How many speech sounds are there in the world?

Answer 4

There is a finite number of speech sounds humans can produce.

Question 5

What are Phonological Representations?

Answer 5

The underlying sound structures of words stored in long term memory.

Question 6

What is an allophone?

Answer 6

The various predictable ways phonemes are produced in different environments (surrounding sounds - phonetic context).

One phoneme may have several allophones.

Question 7

What are the properties the specific allophones of a particular phoneme share?

Answer 7

• they are phonetically similar
• they are in complementary distribution (they never appear in the same environment as another)

Question 8

Explain Articulatory vs. Phonological disorders.

Answer 8

A patient with an articulatory disorder has troubles making certain sounds. This is easily treated.

But a person with a phonological disorder has trouble properly ordering these sounds, or affects many different sounds at once. This is far more difficult to treat.

Question 9

What is Semantics concerned with?

Answer 9

Word meaning, and how such meanings are represented in our minds.

Question 10

What is the relationship between concepts and words? Is it a 1-1 ratio?

Answer 10

Words seem to represent concepts, but we have far more concepts than words. We also have words that don’t correspond to any concept (interjection).

Question 11

What is concept in linguistics?

Answer 11

Concept refers to our mental representation of a meaning of a word.

The two theories of concept are:

1. Semantic features
2. Prototype theory

Question 12

Provide an example of a phonemes identified in a minimal pair.

Question 13

Provide an example of allophones identified in their complementary distribution.

Question 14

Explain concept as semantic features (componential analysis).

Question 15

Explain concept through prototype theory.