Week 4: Phonetics and Phonology

Question 1

What is the nucleus of a syllable?

Answer 1

• The vowel or vowel-like sound

Question 2

What comes before the nucleus of a syllable? (if present)

Answer 2

The onset

Question 3

What comes after the nucleus of a syllable? (if present)

Answer 3

The coda

Question 4

What does the onset of a syllable consist of?

Answer 4

All the segments prior to the peak (or nucleus)

Question 5

What does the coda of a syllable consist of?

Answer 5

All of the sound segments of a syllable following its peak

Question 6

Which is the most prominent, acoustically most intense part of the syllable?

Answer 6

The nucleus (or peak)

Question 7

Give an example of a peak standing alone

Answer 7

• a-way [ə’wei]

Question 8

Give an example of a peak being surrounded by other sounds

Answer 8

• bring [briŋ]

Question 9

What are the segments that compose the onset of a syllable?

Answer 9

Syllable releasing sounds

Question 10

What are the segments that compose the coda of a syllable?

Answer 10

Syllable arresting sounds

Question 11

The number of segments that an onset or a coda may contain is regulated by what?

Answer 11

The rules of the language in question

Question 12

What must a syllable contain?

Answer 12

• A vowel or vowel-like sound

Question 13

What are the 7 most common types of syllable in English? Give examples

Answer 13

• CV - “do” [du:]
• CVC - “them”[ðem]
• CCV(C) - “play” [pleɪ]; “plot” [plɒt]
• CCCV(C) - “street”[stri:t]; “spray”[spreɪ]
• V - “I” [aɪ]
• VC - “am”[æm]
• VCC - “eggs” [egz] or [ɛgz]

Question 14

Up to how many consonant sounds can English have following the vowel? Give an example

Answer 14

• Four

- sixths [sɪksθs]

Question 15

What are syllables that do not contain codas called? Give two examples

Answer 15

• open or unchecked syllables

- do [du:], glee [gli:]

Question 16

What are syllables that contain codas called? Give two examples

Answer 16

• Closed or checked syllables
• stop [stɒp]
• window [‘wɪndəʊ]

Question 17

Syllables that receive stress are what?

Answer 17

Strong syllables

Question 18

What do strong syllables have as their peak?

Answer 18

one of the vowel sounds (or a diphthong) but not a schwa [ ə ]

Question 19

Syllables that do not receive stress are what?

Answer 19

Weak syllables

Question 20

Weak syllables are the ones in which the peak is one of what three things? Give an example for each

Answer 20

• a schwa: better [‘betə]
• i or u without a coda: happy [‘hæpi]
• ɪ without a coda and followed by a consonant:
  architect [‘a:kɪtekt]

Question 21

What is important to know about the stressing of strong and weak syllables?

Answer 21

Not all strong syllables are stressed, but all weak syllables are unstressed

Question 22

Define phonetics

Answer 22

the general study of the characteristics of speech sounds

Question 23

Define Phonology

Answer 23

the study of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language

Question 24

Define Phoneme; what is it? How can we find them?

Answer 24

• Each meaning-distinguishing sound in a language
• A sound that contrasts with other sounds and gives distinction in meanings.
• If we substitute one sound for another in a word and there is a change of meaning, then the two sounds represent different phonemes

Question 25

What are minimal pairs? Give an example

Answer 25

- When two words are identical in form except for a contrast in one phoneme occurring in the same position, (the two words are then described as minimal pairs) - pat vs. bat - phonemes = /p/ and /b/

Question 26

What is a minimal set?

Answer 26

When a group of words can be differentiated by changing one phoneme (e.g big, pig, rig, fig, dig, wig)

Question 27

Allophones of a phoneme are in complementary distribution. What does this mean?

Answer 27

- In a specific environment (or contour) only one of them can occur

Question 28

The phoneme /t/ has what allophones? When does each occur?

Answer 28

- tar [tʰa:] - aspiration of p, t, k in word-initial position or when they are at the beginning of a stressed syllable - star [sta:] - unaspirated when p, t, k are mid-syllable or in the coda

Question 29

What allophones does the phoneme /t/ have in certain varieties of English?

Answer 29

- better [beʔɘ] - glottal stop in intervocalic position (between two vowels) - better [beɾɘ] - flap in v intervocalic position

Question 30

Phonetic properties such as being voiced, bilabial, alveolar, nasal, approximant, plosive, fricative are distinctive. What does this mean?

Answer 30

Their use distinguishes one word from another (these features are information-bearing)

Question 31

Do phonemes have distinctive features?

Answer 31

Yes

Question 32

What are non-distinctive features?

Answer 32

The set of properties that provide a more detailed description of the pronunciation of a sound, but do not distinguish one sound (or word) from another (they are not information-bearing)

Question 33

Do allophones have distinctive features?

Answer 33

No - they have non-distinctive features

Question 34

Do the set of properties that are distinctive and non-distinctive always stay the same?

Answer 34

No, they vary from language to language

Question 35

What is notable about I-language and non-distinctive properties?

Answer 35

- Due to I-language, native speakers do not hear the non-distinctive properties but do hear the distinctive ones

Question 36

What can we say a phoneme is rather than a sound?

Answer 36

An abstract psychological unit

Question 37

Explain the reason why people can understand each other when speakers never pronounce the same phoneme in the same way

Answer 37

- The speaker and hearer have a mental pattern or template of the sound. Speakers attempt to match their production to this mental pattern and hearers match incoming sounds to their mental pattern - These patterns are the distinctive properties of the language

Question 38

How do speakers pronounce non-native words?

Answer 38

They match sounds that do not occur in their own language with the closest ones that do e.g speakers of English replace French nasalized vowels with a vowel-plus-nasal sequence

Question 39

What are the co-articulation effects?

Answer 39

- Aspiration - like tar vs star - Assimilation - Nasalization - Elision - Unstressed vowels (?) - Intrusive [r] (insertion)

Question 40

What is assimilation? Give an example

Answer 40

- Two segments occur in sequence and some features of one segment are "copied" by the other - cats vs dogs (the s in cats sound is unvoiced while the s in dogs in voiced because of the consonants that respectively proceed the s)

Question 41

What is an example of progressive assimilation?

Answer 41

- cats and dogs

Question 42

Give an example of regressive assimilation

Answer 42

"I have to go" ends up become ahaFtugo

Question 43

What is progressive assimilation

Answer 43

Where the sound before passes features onto the following sound

Question 44

What is regressive assimilation?

Answer 44

When the sound after passes features onto the sound before

Question 45

When does nasalization occur in terms of vowels?

Answer 45

Any vowel becomes nasal whenever it immediately precedes a nasal consonant in the same syllable

Question 46

What is elision?

Answer 46

The process of not pronouncing a sound segment that might be present in the deliberately careful pronunciation of a word in isolation - eg. he must be becomes he mus be

Question 47

What happens when a vowel is reduced in English?

Answer 47

- It is represented by the allophone [ə], the schwa | - man vs postman (sounds more like postmun)

Question 48

What is the schwa an allophone of?

Answer 48

All the vowel phonemes when the syllable is unstressed

Question 49

What is the intrusive r a type of?

Answer 49

Insertion

Question 50

When does the intrusive r occur?

Answer 50

At the end of a word that ends in a non-high vowel sound and that is followed closely by a word beginning with a vowel sound