Phonetics/Phonology

What are some examples of a natural class of voiceless fricatives in English?

/f, s, ʃ, θ, h/

Examples of stops

/p/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /b/ /g/

Affricates

Air is built up by a compete closure at a place of articulation (like a stop), then released & continued (like a fricative)

Fricatives

Air is forced through a narrow opening at some point in the vocal tract

We define speech sounds

By how they pass through the vocal tract

When two sounds can never occur in the same environment, those sounds are in _____.

Complementaty Distribution

Allophones

Contextual variations of phonemes. Are in complemtary distribution.

A linguist would say that English has 5 vowels- a. e, i, o, u.

False

A linguist would say that [s] is a soft sound?

False

A linguist would say the vowel sound in "beet" or "bait" are long vowels.

False

Allophones of a phoneme are the different realizations, or pronunciations, of a phoneme.

False

IPA only works with standard English. We can't use ot to transcribe the different sounds of different languages.

False

The allophones of a phoneme contrast. They occur in contrastive environments.

False

The first sound in the word "gym" is a velar stop [g]

False

The words "thin" and "think" begin with two consonant sounds, [t] and [h]

False

When we pronounce words, we pronounce each sound individually and no sound in a word influences the way the sounds around it are pronounced.

False

[e] has the sound of the vowel as in the word 'bet'

False

Consider the sounds [e] vs [a] in [tometo] vs [tomato]. The sounds are in contrastive distribution in a minimal pair.

False. They are in free Variation

Place (vowel)

Front/Mid/Back

Vowels

HOW vocal tract shapes the air

Height (vowels)

High/mid/low

Manner

How much of the sound is impeded

Which pair contains vowels that are both high and lax? I, ʊ i, I æ, a e, o

I, ʊ

Stops, nasals, fricatives, affricates, approximates, and others

Manner

assimilation of place

Neighboring sounds have a tendency to take over each other's place of articulation. (Mostly alveolars)

Can a nasal be voiceless?

No, nasals can NEVER be voiced

Which of the following words is pronounced with an aspirated /p/? pale sprint map spoil

Pale

A set of ____ in a language is the set of distinctive, or contrastive, sounds in that language.

Phonemes

The following symbols contrast in which articulatory feature? [p], [t], [k]

Place

bilabial, labiodental, interdental, alveolar, palatal, velar

Place

Which of the following pairs of words is an example of a minimal pair? Spin and Din Sleep and Sleet Cough and Laugh Rain and Strained

Sleep and Sleet

The following sounds are distinguished by what features? [i] vs. [I] And [e] vs. [ε]

Tense/lax

Allophone: Surface form

The Actual pronunciation of a sound

Phoneme: Underlying form

The Mental representaion of a sound.

How can we tell if a sound 'makes a difference in meaning?'

The Minimal Pair Test

complementary distribution

The occurrence of sounds in a language such that they are never found in the same phonetic environment. Sounds that are in complementary distribution are allophones of the same phoneme.

Consider the following Data: Are these minimal pairs?

These are Minimal Pairs. They have the same # of sounds, but differ in only one sound, which that difference makes a difference in meaning.

If two sound contrast in a minimal pair:

They are Phonemes, which are in contrastive distribution, and you cannot predict phonetically where they will occur.

Contrastive Distribution

Two sounds occur in the same phonetic environment and using one rather than the other changes the meaning of the word

What are the articulatory features of θ?

Voiceless interdental fricative

[s] is a

Voiceless, alveolar fricative

The sound [p] in [pin] is distinguished by the sound [b] in [bin] by what feature?

Voicing

Voiced or voiceless

Voicing

Dipthongs

Vowel sounds in which the tongue starts in one place and glides to another

free variation

When two sounds can occur in the same position in a word, but do not signal a difference in meaning.

place

Where the sounds occur

The IPA vowel in the word "hot"

[a]

Which of the following is a stop? [b] [v] [s] [m]

[b]

What is the transcription for the word "bright"?

[braIt] or [brajt]

Which of the following sounds is a fricative? a) [f] b) [t] c) [k] d) [m]

[f]

Which of the following sounds is velar? [p] [m] [g] [s]

[g]

What is the IPA vowel in "seat"?

[i]

Which of the following sounds is bilabial? [g] [t] [d] [p]

[p]

Which of the following sounds is voiceless? [d] [s] [z] [n]

[s]

Which of the following sounds is voiceless? [s], [z], [d], [n]

[s]

What is the phonetic transcription for the word spit?

[spIt]

The IPA vowel in the word "bat"

[æ]

Which of the following is a lax vowel? [e] [o] [ɛ] [i]

[ɛ]

The IPA in the vowel "bet"

[ε]

regressive assimilation

a sound segment influences a preceding sound

Nasals

consonants produced by lowering the velum, allowing the stream of air to pass through the nasal cavity instead of the oral cavity.

Natural Class

contains all (and only) the sounds that share a particular set of features

articulatory phonetics

focuses on the human vocal apparatus and describes sounds in terms of their articulation in the vocal tract

Stops

formed when air is built up in the vocal tract and suddenly released through the mouth

progressive assimilation

occurs when a phoneme's identity changes as the result of a phoneme preceding it in time

Approximants

produced by two articulators approaching one another almost like fricatives but not coming close enough to produce friction

Phonemes

smallest unit of sound. Distinguish meaning. Are in contrastive Distribution.

Tenseness

tense vs lax

acoustic phonetics

uses the tools of physics to study the nature of sound waves produced in human language

Voicing

whether the vocal cords are vibrating or not

Which word is transcribed as [jæm]

yam