Chapter 3- Phonology
Example of palatalization
'Bet you' pronounced as 'betcha' or 'did you' as 'didja'
Example of dissimilation
'February' as 'feb[j]uary', with the first /r/ sounds like a word becoming a glide
Vowel reduction refers to
(A type of lenition) the conversion of unstressed vowels to more schwa-like allophones
Example of assimilation
/n/ being pronounced as [m] in the English word 'input'
Example of metathesis
A child's pronunciation of 'animal' as 'aminal' or the pronoun citation of Brett favre's name as 'farve'
Minimal pair refers to
A pair of words with different meanings that differ in only one sound occurring in the same environment (think phonetic transcription not how it's orthography)
Phoneme refers to
A sound that is used to contrast words with different meanings
Palatalizarion refers to
A subtypes of assimilation in which a velar or alveolar consonant is produced in the palatial region when adjacent to a high vowel, a front vowel of the palatial glide
[p t k ʔ] are a natural class because
All of the sounds are voiceless stops and since this data set comprises the entire set of voiceless stops in the English IPA chart
If a minimal pair is found for two sounds in a language, that means the two sounds are:
Allophones of two separate phonemes
The phonological change of the final consonant in English 'knife' [naif] when it appears next to [z] in the plural 'knives' [naivz], illustrates which type of common phonological process?
Assimilation
How is the concept of minimal pairs important in phonology?
Because minimal pairs demonstrate the contrastive nature of sounds
Example of a lenition
British English 'herb' and American English 'herb'. In the former pronunciation the consonant is stressed (H-erb)
If we can write a rule to correctly predict which of the two sounds will occur in what environment in a language, that means those sounds are in which type of distribution?
Complementary distribution
An example of a pair of words that represent a minimal pair for [s] and [ʃ] in English?
Crash [kɹæʃ] and crass [kɹæs]
Natural class refers to
Groups of sounds that behave together in a phonological system
Examples of word that are not minimal pairs
Grout vs clout Remain vs restrain Singer vs finger Mat [mæt] vs mole [mol]
Example of insertion
In the past tense of English words that end in alveolar stops, such as 'better' and 'provided'
An example of a pair of words that represent a near minimal pair for [k] and [g] in English?
Kit [kit] and guitar [gitaɹ]
The phonological change of 'ask' from English dialect [æsk] to Ebonics vernacular English dialect [æks] illustrates which common phonological process?
Metathesis
Dissimilation refers to
One sound becomes becomes less like another sound
Assimilation refers to
One sound becomes like another sound
Allomorphs refers to
Phonetic variants of a single morpheme
Example of minimal pairs (in English)
Rain vs raid Boot vs suit Sled vs slayed
Allophones refers to
Sounds that occur in complementary distributions
Insertion refers to
The insertion of a vowel between the two consonants
Deletion refers to
The loss of a sound
Example of deletion
The loss of final /n/ in 'hymn' or final /b/ in 'crumb'
Example of vowel reduction
The second vowel in 'emphasis' as compared to 'emphatic'
Free variation refers to
The situation in which two different sounds can occur in the same environment in the sam word
Complementary distribution refers to
The situation when there is no single environment in which two sounds could both appear
Constructive distribution refers to
The situation when two sounds occur in the same position in minimal and n at minimal pairs
Criteria for a set of sounds to form a natural class
The sounds must all share one or more phonetic features The sounds must be the complete set of sounds sharing those features in the given data
Fortition refers to
The strengthening of a sound
Lenition refer to
The weakening of a sound; mainly altering consonants, making them more sonorous and more vowel-like
Metathesis refers to
Two sounds are transposed (causing two or more sounds to change place with each other)
Example of fortition
Word-initial aspiration in English or the fortition of [s] to the affricate [ts] in words like 'dance'
What represents allophones of /t/ in free variation?
[bait̚] 'bite' and [bait] 'bite'
Example of contrastive sounds
[p], [t], [n], [d], [e] and [u]
What set of sounds represent the natural class of voiceless alveolar consonants in English?
[t, s]
What set of sounds represents the natural class of rounded vowels in English?
[u, ʊ, o]
What represents the environment for [z] in buzz [bʌz]?
ʌ__#
