Linguistics Midterm

Front 1

markedness

Back 1

marked forms are complex and rarer forms
ex. people with lisps
unmarked is the general form
ex. fast, faster, fastest vs. good, better, best

Front 2

derivation

Back 2

change from underlying representation phonemic level to phonetic representation

Front 3

language/dialect distinction

Back 3

linguists don't make the distinction which is political and are concerned if its a linguistic system
chinese dialects are mutually unintelligible, meaning speakers of each variety can't understand each other

Front 4

displacement

Back 4

humans can talk about physically absent things

Front 5

recursion

Back 5

infinitely embedded structures
ex. john told susie who told mark who told casey who told joe that

Front 6

duality of patterning

Back 6

two levels of sequencing constraints
humans have duality of patterning:
1. phonetic constraints limit possible sound sequences (ex. *ks and *pt for word initial)
2. syntactic constraints limit possible word sequences (I saw the boy. *I boy the saw)

birds don't: can only convey meaning through tone

Front 7

iconic sign

Back 7

resembles signified
ex. woman on ladies room door

Front 8

symptomatic sign

Back 8

involuntary sign that reveals internal state/emotion
ex. crying

Front 9

symbolic sign

Back 9

no relation to signified
(ex. stop sign)

Front 10

diphthong

Back 10

vowels that show a change in quality within a single syllable (ex. House)

Front 11

homorganic

Back 11

sounds made at the same part of the mouth

Front 12

aspiration

Back 12

the lag in the onset with release of air
after release of certain voiceless stops

Front 13

suprasegmental

Back 13

aspects of speech that don't care about sound
ex. you can lengthen a vowel-- it doesn't matter that its a high or low vowel

Front 14

labial: place of articulation

Back 14

closure/near closure of the lips

bilabial: both lips
/p/
labiodental: lower lip and upper teeth
/f/ /v/

Front 15

dental and interdental: place of articulation

Back 15

tongue against the teeth or tongue between the teeth
/theta/

Front 16

alevolar: place of articulation

Back 16

tongue touches alveolar ridge (small ridge behind upper front teeth)
/t/, s, d, z, n, l, cha, ja

Front 17

palatal: place of articulation

Back 17

highest part of the roof of the mouth is called the palate-- tongue near this roof

shhhh, errrrrr, /j/

Front 18

velar: place of articulation

Back 18

tongue near rear of the roof of the mouth
/k/, /g/, ngggg

Front 19

glottal: place of articulation

Back 19

using vocal folds as primary articulators
/h/

Front 20

stop: manner of articulation

Back 20

obstruction of airstream and a release
/p/, /d/, /g/

Front 21

fricative: manner of articulation

Back 21

consonants produced with continuous airflow (are CONTINUANTS and opposite of stops)
/f/, theta, /s/, /h/

Front 22

affricate: manner of articulation

Back 22

consonant that has both a fricative and a stop manner

ONLY 2: cha, ja

Front 23

nasal: manner of articulation

Back 23

airflow through nasal cavity
/m/
/n/
ngggggg

Front 24

liquid: manner of articulation

Back 24

/r/ and /l/

Front 25

glide: manner of articulation

Back 25

gliding motion of articulators into the follow vowel
/w/
/j/

Front 26

voicing

Back 26

voiceless: consonants without vibration of vocal folds
/p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, theta, /s/, shhhh, cha
voiced: with vibration
/b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, all the nasals, liquids, glides

Front 27

phonotactics

Back 27

set of constraints on how sequences pattern

Front 28

distinctive features

Back 28

strident: noisier fricatives and affricates /s/, /z/ vs. theta

sonorant: vowels, glides, liquids, nasals
obstruent: stops, fricatives, affricates

labial: bilabial and labiodental sounds
coronal: interdental, alveolar, alveopalatal
dorsal: vowels, palatal and velar consonants

continuant: opposite of stops

Front 29

natural class

Back 29

share features that pattern together
ex. Natural class of fricatives
- sonorant
+ continuant

Front 30

orthographic transcription

Back 30

(spelling) writing system

Front 31

phoemic transcription

Back 31

(phonological) always done in slashes

Front 32

phonetic transcription

Back 32

(allophonic) always done in brackets and captures what is actually produced

ex. aspirations

Front 33

broad vs. narrow transcription

Back 33

broad: same symbol for 2 sounds that aren't exactly the same phonetically
narrow: more phonetically detailed transcription

Front 34

phoneme

Back 34

contrastive phonological units in a particular language
speakers perceive them as different and distinctive sounds

mental representation/way sounds are stored in your mind

Front 35

allophones

Back 35

two members of the same phoneme
[t] and aspirated [t] are allophones of the phoneme /t/

phonetically different, phonologically the same

allophones are not part of what you remember when you store a word in your mind...we automatically produce the appropriate variant of a phoneme

Front 36

minimal pair

Back 36

two forms with distinct meanings differ by only one segment found in the same position in each form

ex. sip and zip

Front 37

complementary distribution

Back 37

when two sounds always occur in different environments and never occur in the same environment (mutually exclusive environments)

variant pronunciations are phonetically similar, and the environment in which each occurs is systematic and predictable; when one occurs, the other never occurs

Front 38

contrastive

Back 38

feature of sound is contrastive if its presence is not mandatory, but serves to signal an aspect of the word's meaning

Front 39

free variation

Back 39

different transcriptions that do not signal difference in meaning
[stap]
[stap!]
!= forceful release

Front 40

phonologically rules: vowel lengthening, maximizing onsets, reflecting morphological structure in syllabification

Back 40

1. vowel lengthening: vowels are lengthened when followed by voiced obstruent consonants in the same syllable

reflecting: separate morphemes are syllabified separately (ex wife)

Front 41

rule ordering

Back 41

many rules, such as aspiration and vowel lengthening, are unordered
but two rules may have to be ordered if the application of rule A creates and environment that makes possible the application of rule B

Front 42

assimilation

Back 42

a sound becomes more like another nearby sound

intolerable
intangible

Front 43

dissimilation

Back 43

a sound becomes less like another nearby sound

February
fifths

Front 44

epenthesis

Back 44

adding segment within an existing string of segment

tend to put [p] in warmth

Front 45

metathesis

Back 45

reorder of sequence of segments so its easier to articulate

spaghetti --> pesghetti

Front 46

morpheme

Back 46

smallest unit of language that carries info about meaning or function

Front 47

free morpheme

Back 47

morpheme that can be a word by itself

Front 48

bound morpheme

Back 48

morpheme that must be attached to another element

Front 49

root

Back 49

core of the word and carries major component of its meaning

lexical content morphemes cannot be analyzed into smaller parts

Front 50

affix

Back 50

always bound morphemes

Front 51

stem

Back 51

root + affix

Front 52

lexicon

Back 52

vocabulary of a language

Front 53

types of affixes:
prefix
suffix
infix
circumfix

Back 53

prefix: attached to the front
suffix: attached to the end
infix: attached in the middle
circumfix: front and end

Front 54

inflectional morpheme

Back 54

never change the syntactic category of the words/morphemes they are attached to

book --> books
still a noun

Front 55

derivational morpheme

Back 55

changes the syntactic category of the words/morphemes attached to

love--> lovable
changes verb into adjective