U3 - Sounds in Language Flashcards
(15 cards)
What is speech?
It is a continuous flow of sound with interruptions only when necessary to:
-Take in air to breathe
-Organise our thoughts.
How can we analyse speech?
We analyse speech with the process of segmentation: by dividing up the continuous flow of sound into smaller sound units (segments) that are easier to deal with.
What are segments?
Segments are smaller sound units that correspond to vowels and consonants.
They do not operate in isolation but combine to form words.
What is the evidence of the existence of Speech Segments?
Evidence for the existence of Speech Segments:
* Spoonerism/ Speech errors → swapping consonants between words, causing slips in the tongue.
* Phonological processes → one sound is changed.
* Spelling systems →
How segments of sound are used in speech?
From a functional point of view, segments of sound are used in phonemes and allophones.
What are phoenemes?
Members of a set of ABSTRACT units. Not directly observable and only exists in the mind of the speaker/listener.
Together form the sound system of a given language and through which contrasts of meaning are produced.
A phoneme is a contrastive or distinctive sound of language. They can change the meaning of a word. A phoneme is a contrastive or distinctive sound of language.
Minimal Pair Tests → /men/ - /pen/
casa, cara, cama, cata, cala
How is the phonemic inventory for NRP English?
It has:
20 vowels
24 consonants
What is alophonic variation?
It is the variation in each phoneme.
The variants are called allophones.
What are allophones?
They are the physical/CONCRETE realisations of a phoneme (they can be recorded, stored, reproduced and analysed in acoustic and articulatory terms).
They are Members of the same phoneme family: Allophones of any single phoneme have considerable phonetic similarity (they sound similar or are articulated in a somewhat similar way). They can’t change the meaning of a word.
Minimal Pair Tests →/tha:l/ /lot/ - /lait/ miɫk
/t/ (category/phoneme) → [th] - [t] (allophones)
/l/ (category/phoneme) → [ɫ] - [l] (allophone)
How allophones of the different phonemes are produced?
They are dependent on the context in which they are pronounced.
They may be determined by matters such as the formality of the circumstances, socio-economic background, etc.
Therefore, native-speaker intuition has to be regarded as the most decisive factor in the allocation of allophones to phonemic categories.
How can alophones be classified?
They are classified into two categories:
1. Complementary Distribution: When an allophone occurs in one context, the other cannot.
2. Free Variation: We cannot predict from the context which allophone will be selected.
What is Phoneme Neutralisation?
It is a process where two phonemes may show overlap in phonetic realisation and we can assign an allophone to other phonemes and the oposition has been neutralised.
Examples of Phoneme Neutralisation
- /m/ is bilabial
- /n/ is alveolar
But both of them are nasals.
So, when they occur before labio-dental /f,v/ as in “emphatic” and “infatuated”, we can assign a labio-dental nasal [ɱ] to either of these phonemes, and the opposition between them has been neutralised.
initial clusters after /s/: The initial stops have none of the energy and aspiration which characterise the other allophones of /p,t,k/ but are close to the allophones of /b,d,g/.
What are Marginal Morphemes?
They are sounds which are not part of the pasic phoneme system.
Examples of Marginal Morphemes
Welsh English has an extra vowel /iu/ giving a contrat in pairs like through /thu:/ - threw /thiu/
Most Scots, many Irish and some Americans have the voiceless labio-velar fricative [ʍ] as an additional phoneme that provides contrast with /w/ in: where - wear, which - witch
German, Yiddish, Scots Gaelic or Spanish have voiceless velar fricative phoene [x] in Bach, chutzpah, sassenach, rioJa.
