LinguisticsLesson 1 of 2 in the course Phonology

Phonology: Sound Systems, Contrasts, and Theoretical Approaches

5 flashcards · 5 quiz questions · 5 match pairs · 5 fill-in sentences · English

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Summary

Phonology examines how languages organize sound or sign components to create meaningful distinctions. This lesson introduces the field, distinguishes it from phonetics, and explains how its principles apply across spoken and signed languages.

Phonology is the branch of linguistics concerned with how a language organizes the basic elements that make up its words and other linguistic forms. In spoken languages, these elements include vowels and consonants. In sign languages, they include components such as hand shape and location.

All flashcards

Allophone
A phonetic realization of a phoneme that does not create a meaning contrast in that language.
Minimal pair
Two words differing in one sound in the same position and having different meanings.
Natural phonology
An approach that emphasizes interacting universal processes whose activity varies across languages.
Generative phonology
An approach using distinctive features and ordered rules to relate underlying representations to surface pronunciations.
Optimality theory
An approach in which outputs best satisfy ranked constraints, with lower-ranked constraints sometimes violated.

Quiz questions

  1. What is a phoneme?Answer: A sound category that can distinguish meaning in a particular language.
  2. What does a minimal pair provide strong evidence for?Answer: A phonemic contrast between the two sounds that differ.
  3. Which question is most directly phonetic?Answer: How is a consonant physically produced and perceived?
  4. In English, aspirated [pʰ] in “pot” and unaspirated [p] in “spot” are typically analyzed as what?Answer: Contextual allophones of the same phoneme.
  5. How does optimality theory explain the form of a language's output?Answer: The output best satisfies a ranked set of constraints.

Based on the Wikipedia article Phonology, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Adapted into a summary, flashcards and quizzes.

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