phonolgy Flashcards
(25 cards)
Phonology
he study of the abstract categories that organize the sound system of a language
spectrogram
a visual way of representing the signal strength, or “loudness”
phoneme
any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another, for example p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat.
allophones
one of two or more variants of the same phoneme.
narrow transcription
captures as many aspects of a specific pronunciation as possible and ignores as few details as possible
complementary distribution.
Two sounds which are distributed in such a way that one can only occur where the other cannot occur
minimal pairs
A minimal pair is a pair of words which differ in only one sound, but differ in meaning.
free variation
speakers can choose which allophone they use.
Neutralization
involves the elimination of a phonemic distinction in a particular phonological context
final devoicing
refers to the devoicing of syllable-final voiced consonants
velarised
pronounce (a speech sound) with the back of the tongue near the soft palate.
dark l
Dark L’s have two parts, The first is a vowel-like sound that is not written in IPA, but is certainly there. And the second is simply the same position as the light L.
aspirated stop
Voiceless stops are aspirated when they occur as the only thing in the onset of a stressed syllable
aspiration
is the strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents.
flapping
a consonant sound produced by a single quick flip of the tongue against the upper part of the mouth
rhotic varieties of English
include the dialects of South West England, Scotland, Ireland, and most of the United States and Canada.
nonrhotic varieties of English
The non-rhotic varieties include most of the dialects of modern England, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Constituent
can be a morpheme, word, phrase, or clause.
syllabic consonants
a consonant that forms a syllable on its own
nucleus of the syllable
usually the vowel in the middle of a syllable.
vowel epenthesis
The technical term for the insertion of vowels into syllables
cognates
two consonant sounds that are produced almost identi- cally with the articulators except that one is voiced and the other is voiceless
syllabification
Assigning syllable structure to words
Maximal Onset Principle
intervocalic consonants should be considered onsets first if possible as long there is no violation of the sonority hierarchy
