LING 2100 Exam # 2 Study Guide Chapter 3: Phonology Phonology- The study of the distribution of sounds in a language and the interactions between thosedifferent sounds - Phonotactic Constraints o Restrictions on possible combinations of sounds - Sound Substitution o Sounds that exist in a language a speaker knows are used to replace sounds that do not exist in that language when pronouncing the words of a foreign language - Allophones and Phonemes o Phoneme  A class of speech sounds that seem to be variants of the same sound o Allophone  Each member of a particular phoneme class  Correspond to an actual phonetic segment produced by a speaker  Various ways that a phoneme is pronounced o Nonconstrastive Interchanging two words with different sounds does not change the meaning  Ex: different pronunciations of the same word o Contrastive  Replacing one sound with the other in a word can change the word’s meaning - Distribution o The set of phonetic environments in which the phoneme occurs o Contrastive Distribution  Two sounds occur in the same phonetic environment and using one rather than the other changes the meaning of the word o Minimal Pair  A pair of words whose pronunciations differ by exactly one sound and that have different meanings  When you have a minimal pair you know that the two sounds that differ are contrastive Ex: pen vs. pan o Complementary Distribution  Sounds are considered to be allophones of the same phoneme  Sounds appear in different sets of environments If two sounds are in complementary distribution in a language, there will never be a minimal pair that uses them to distinguish words; that is, they are not contrastive  You can always predict one of the allophones but not the other - Ex: [s] occurs after voiceless consonants (prediction) [z] occurs elsewhere (not predictable) o Contrastive  Relation to phonemes - Allophones of separate phonemes  Predictability of distribution - Unpredictably distributed  How you can tell - Contrastive distribution; minimal pairs o Allophonic  Relation to phonemes - Allophones of the same phoneme  Predictability of distribution - Predictably distributed  How you can tell - Complementary distribution o Free Variation  Relation to phonemes - Allophones of the same phoneme  Predictability of distribution - Unpredictable  How you can tell - Overlapping distribution with no difference in meaning - Free Variation o More than one pronunciation of a given sound may be possible without changingthe meaning of the word o You may not be able to predict exactly which sound will occur o Overlapping Distribution Because these sounds can occur in the same environment they are in what is called overlapping distribution (they can occur in same environment)  Sounds that are in contrastive distribution and sounds that are in free variation are therefore both considered to have overlapping distribution; only sounds that are in complementary distribution do not overlap  Ex: in English both [t] and [d] are overlapping because they occur in the same phonetic environment with lit and lid- Phonological Ruleso A speaker’s knowledge of phonological rules allows him to “translate” phonemes into actual speech sounds- Natural Classes o A group of sounds in a language that share one or more articulatory or auditory property, to the exclusion of all other sounds in that language o In order for a group to be a natural class, it must include all of the sounds that share a particular property or set of properties, and not include any sounds that don’t o Sibilant  Segments that have a high-pitched, hissing sound quality [s, S, tS, z, 3, d3] o Labial  [f, v, p, b, m, w, w(with the small circle)] o Obstruent  Produced with an obstruction of the airflow  Stops, fricatives, and affricates o Sonorant  Segments produced with a relatively open passage for the airflow  Nasals, liquids, glides, and vowels - Types of Phonological Rules o Assimilation  Cause a sound to become more like a neighboring sound with respect to some phonetic property  The segment affected by the rule of assimilates or takes on a property from a nearby segment  Nasal Place Assimilation - An alveolar nasal assimilates to the place of articulation of a following consonant  Palatalization - A consonant becomes like a neighboring palatal - Ex: when you say ‘Did you?’ quickly it sounds more like [dId3u] taking on the j sound  Vowel Harmony - Typically causes all the vowels in a word to “harmonize” or agree in some property such as roundness or backness - Ex: In Finnish, a back vowel becomes front when preceded by a front vowel in the same word o Dissimilation  Cause two close sounds to become less similar with respect to some property, by means of a change in one or both sounds  Manner Dissimilation- In Greek, a stop becomes a fricative when followed by another stop o Insertion  Cause a segment not present at the phonemic level to be added to the phonetic form of a word  Voiceless stop insertion - In English, between a nasal consonant and a voiceless fricative, a voiceless stop with the same place of articulation as the nasal is inserted - Ex: Hamster when we say it we add a p in the middle of the word o Deletion  Eliminate a sound that was present at the phonemic level  /h/ Deletion- Common in fast speech because it saves time and articulatory effort - Apply to a sentence like He handed her his hat; losing the h in her and his o Metathesis  Change the order of sounds  Usually makes words easier to pronounce or easier to understand o Strengthening  AKA Fortition  Makes sounds stronger  Aspiration - Voiceless stops become aspirated when they occur at the beginning of a stressed syllable - Ex: the pronunciation of the [p] in pat is aspirated o Weakening  AKA lenition  Cause sounds to become weaker  Flapping - An alveolar stop us realized as a flap when it occurs after a stressed vowel and before an unstressed vowel - Multiple Rule Application o Schwa Insertion  Insert a schwa between two sibilants o Voicing Assimilation  Ex: /z/ -> [s] Takes on the voicing specifications of the preceding sound Chapter 4: Morphology  Morphologyo The component of mental grammar that deals with types of words and how words are formed out of smaller meaningful