Phonetics - Terms

Front 1

Minimal Pairs

Back 1

Change that is minimally different.

Front 2

Allophones

Back 2

Two types; can be in a complementary distribution or free variation.

One of the sound variants within a phoneme class; often used in a specified phonetic context.

Front 3

Free Variation

Back 3

When allophones can be exchanged for one another in a given phonetic context.

Front 4

Phonotactic Constraints

Back 4

Each language has different rules about what goes together.

Front 5

Clinical Phonetics

Back 5

The branch of phonetics that deals with error or abnormality in the production of sounds.

Front 6

Deletion

Back 6

A speech production error in which a sound is omitted.

Front 7

Diacritic Marks

Back 7

A special symbol used to modify a phonetic symbol to indicate a modification of sound production.

Front 8

Dialect

Back 8

Different rule usage patterns; speakers of one dialect may not easily understand speakers of another dialect of the same language.

Front 9

Distortion

Back 9

A speech production error in which a sound is recognizable but it is not produced exactly correctly.

Front 10

Five Way Scoring

Back 10

Four wrong categories:

Deletion or Omission
Substitution
Distortion
Addition

Front 11

Graphemes

Back 11

Letters; a unit in the writing system of language.

Front 12

Idiolect

Back 12

"Idio" makes personal or distinct.

An individual pattern of language usage determined by community, background, social class, and individual factors.

Front 13

Lexicon

Back 13

The inventory or list of morphemes in a language.

Front 14

Linguistic Complexity

Back 14

Some tasks require a clinician to score/transcribe only one target sound; where others score two or as many as four targets per word.

Front 15

Broad Transcription

Back 15

Includes symbols to represent the consonants, vowels, and dipthongs produced in a speech sample.

Front 16

Phoneme

Back 16

A basic sound segment that has the linguistic function of distinguishing morphemes.

Front 17

Phonetic Symbols

Back 17

A written character [k] that represents a particular speech segment. Placed within brackets.

Front 18

Narrow Transcription

Back 18

Symbols represent the target sounds (consonants, vowels, diphthongs) and symbols that describe slight variations in the production of the target sounds.

Front 19

Phonetics

Back 19

The study of the perception and production of speech sounds.

Front 20

Phonology

Back 20

The study of sound systems of language; the structure and function of sounds in languages.

Front 21

Two-Way Scoring

Back 21

Dichotomous decision making about speech behavior. Two classes; right or wrong, correct or incorrect, etc.

Front 22

Phonetic Transcription

Back 22

Description of behavior; represents what is being said rather than scoring or judging it by an arbitrary standard.

Done only by clinicians; broad or narrow depending on symbols used.

Front 23

Response Complexity

Back 23

The number of target sounds to be transcribed. This may vary from only one sound to all sounds occurring in a section of speech.

Front 24

Speech Community

Back 24

A group of people who live within the same geographical boundaries and use the same language.

Front 25

Sign Language

Back 25

Manual communication that uses symbols such as hand position, postures, and movements to express language.

Front 26

Substitution

Back 26

A speech production error in which a sound is replaced by another sound.

Front 27

Target Sounds

Back 27

The sound to be transcribed as it occurs in isolation or together with other speech sounds.

Front 28

Two Areas of Study in Phonetics

Back 28

Articulation - how sounds are formed.

Acoustics - the acoustic properties of sounds.

Front 29

Addition

Back 29

A sound is said correctly, but is preceded or followed by an additional sound.

Front 30

Morpheme

Back 30

Minimal unit of meaning; the smallest unit of language that carries semantic interpretation.

Front 31

Minimal Contrasts

Back 31

Contrasts between two morphemes that only differ in one sound segment.

Front 32

Morphemic Transcription

Back 32

A written record of the morphemic content of an utterance.

Front 33

Closed

Back 33

A syllable that ends in a consonant.

Front 34

Final

Back 34

The final position or segment in a word. (ex., the t in bat is a final consonant).

Front 35

Initial

Back 35

The first position or segment in a word (the b in a bat).

Front 36

Medial

Back 36

A middle position or segment in a word (b in toothbrush).

Front 37

Open

Back 37

A syllable that does not end in a consonant.

Front 38

lingua-dental

Back 38

When the front of the tongue is between the front teeth, the sound made is said to be this.

Front 39

lingua-palatal

Back 39

fricative; a sound in which the flow of air out of the body is constricted by touching the tongue to the hard palate.

(azure, pleasure, rouge)

Front 40

lingua-velar

Back 40

k sounds.

Front 41

glottal

Back 41

space between vocal folds; h sounds. (happy, hello)

Front 42

apical

Back 42

tip of the tongue.

Front 43

laminar

Back 43

silent or smooth.

Front 44

dorsal

Back 44

articulation placed at tongue back.

Front 45

bilabial

Back 45

two.

Front 46

labia-dental

Back 46

the vocal chords are not used (voiceless) as in fire and laughter, and /v/ in which they are used as in very and of.

Front 47

liingua-alveolar

Back 47

English has two lingua-alveolar fricatives — voiceless /s/ as in say and class, and /z/ which is voiced as in zebra and is.