Midterm Study Sheet PDF

# Midterm Study Sheet ## Animal Communication vs. Humans: - **Nim Chimpsky** - **Ways to communicate:** - **Scent:** Lack of tin taking, innate, readily initiate conversations, found in a finite set of messages - **Gesture:** Biologically determined - **Bioluminescence** - **Fac...

# Midterm Study Sheet ## Animal Communication vs. Humans: - **Nim Chimpsky** - **Ways to communicate:** - **Scent:** Lack of tin taking, innate, readily initiate conversations, found in a finite set of messages - **Gesture:** Biologically determined - **Bioluminescence** - **Facial expression** - **Movement** - **Electricity** - **Sound** (There is a critical period in some species) ## Hockett's 1958 Design Features: - **Interchangeability:** Send and receive messages - **Feedback:** User aware of what they're transmitting; can monitor and modify the linguistic output. - **Specialization:** No non-communicative function - **Semanticity:** Fixed relationship between symbols and meanings - **Arbitrariness:** No inherent connection between symbol and referent (not like onomatopoeia) - **Discreteness:** Isolable, repeatable units - **Displacement:** Remote in time and space - **Counterfactuality** - **Productivity:** New messages on any topic at any time - **Recursion:** (Phonenemes and larger, arbitrary, meaningful signs) - **Duality of Patterning:** - **Tradition:** Partially learned, not innate - **Prevarication:** Lying/nonsense - **Learnability:** Can learn other variants - **Metalinguistic Potential:** System can talk about itself ## Dialect vs. Lesser Language: - **Instead:** Variety - speech pattern with a set of linguistic items with similar distribution - **Also:** Idiolect - variety intrinsic to an individual. - **Dialect:** Variety spoken by a particular community. - **Accent:** Phonologically distinct dialect - **Language:** Similar definition to dialect (distinction is fuzzy) ## Mutual Intelligibility: - Speakers of 2 dialects can understand each other readily. - Perhaps Language is a group of mutually intelligible dialects. ## Prescriptive vs. Descriptive: - **Nostalgia** (Utopia where everyone speaks “correctly”) - **Discrimination by proxy:** Discrimination by saying one way of speaking is better than another. - **Why do we standardize language?** - **Classicism** - **Functionalism** - **Authoritarianism** - **Asceticism** (Discipline and avoid laziness) - **Aestheticism** (French) - **Logicism** (Logic in “common sense") ## Competence vs. Performance: - **Competence:** Speaker’s linguistic knowledge - **Performance:** Actual language production ## Chomsky’s adequacies: - **Observational:** The model can predict if an utterance would be judged as grammatical - **Descriptive:** The model assigns the same underlying structure to utterances as humans do (ex. model can predict “old house door” is ambiguous) - **Explanatory:** The model corresponds to the way humans acquire and process language ## PHONETICS! - Describing the articulation, physical properties, and perception of human languages. - **Articulatory phonetics** - **Acoustic phonetics** - **Speech perception/audition** - **Segments**: Small units of sound combined to produce words and other meaningful units (mental entities). ## Source-filter theory of Speech Production: - Constant, uniform source of sound (airflow from breathing) - Modulation from constriction of vocal folds - Shaped into different speech sounds by changing configuration of vocal tract - Different configurations enhance/distort/alter airflow, creating different sounds. ## Larynx: - **“Voice box”** (vocal folds, first stop after lungs) ## Oral Tract: - From lips to back of mouth (uvula) ## Nasal Tract: - Behind uvula, up through nose ## If vocal folds are apart: - Air flows freely - **Voiceless** ## If vocal folds close together: - Pressure in airstream, vibration - **Voiced** ## Articulators: - Above the larynx create different kinds of constrictions - Different constrictions = different sounds (**Place** and **Manner**) - **Moving parts:** Lower jaw, lower teeth, etc. - **Non-moving parts:** Upper jaw/teeth - **Active articulators:** Tongue, lower lip, etc. - **Passive articulators:** Upper teeth, alveolar ridge, etc. ## Manners of Articulation: ### Stops/Plosives: - Nasal tract closed - Oral tract closed briefly (pressure build-up) - Release - **Obstruents /t, k, p, b, d, ɡ/ ### Fricatives: - Narrow opening - Turbulent noise - **/f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, ç, x, h/ ** ### Affricates: - Start off like stops - Released to a fricative - Distinct in timing (sometimes) and organization (always) from stop + fricative - **Labio-dental** /tʃ, dʒ/ ## Places of Articulation: ### Labials: #### Bilabials: - **Passive:** Upper lip - **Active:** Lower lip - **/p, b, m, w/ ** #### Labio-dental: - **Passive:** Upper teeth - **Active:** Lower lip - **/f, v/** ### (Coronal) Dental: - **Passive:** Upper teeth - **Active:** Tip/blade of tongue - **/θ, ð/ ** ### Alveolar: - **Passive:** Alveolar ridge - **Active:** Tip of tongue - **/t, d, n, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, r, l/** ### Post-alveolar: - **Passive:** Region above alveolar ridge - **Active:** Tip/blade of tongue - **/tʃ, dʒ/ ** ### Retroflex: - **Passive:** Hard palate - **Active:** Bottom of tip of tongue - **/ Retroflex /l/ ** ### (Palatal) Dorsals: #### Palatal: - **Passive:** Hard palate - **Active:** Front of body of tongue - **/j, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ/ ** #### Velar: - ** Passive:** Soft palate - **Active:** Back of tongue body - **/k, ɡ, x (loch), ŋ/ ** #### Uvular: - **Passive:** Uvula - **Active:** Back of tongue body (throat clearing?) - **None in American English** #### Pharyngeal: - **Passive:** Pharyngeal wall - **Active:** Epiglottis (root of tongue) - **None in American English** #### Glottal: - **Involves glottis** - **/ʔ, h/ ** ## PHONOLOGY! - Investigating how sounds pattern in different languages. - **As opposed to phonetics, which studies sounds as physical events.** - Speakers have implicit knowledge of the rules that organize speech sounds in their native language. - **Phonology is the study of this implicit knowledge.** ## Contrast: - **Minimal pairs:** **[si]** vs. ** [ʃi]** - **Near-minimal pairs:** **[haut]** vs. ** [Soutda]** ## Languages can be classed according to their phonemic inventories: - On perception; speakers have difficulty hearing differences between sounds that are non-contrastive in their native language(s). - The collection of phonemes associated with a variety - Loanword adaptation (ex. Merry Christmas - Mele Kalikimaka) ## Common Features: - Most languages have ~20-25 sounds - All have vowels and consonants - Most have more consonants than vowels - Usually, consonant-to-vowel ratio = 4:1 ## Consonants: Manner - All have voiceless stops and at least one approximant. - Many have voiced stops, nasal stops, fricatives. ## Consonants: Place - All contrast labials with linguals (coronals - dorsals) - Many contrast labials, coronals, velars - All have as many or more coronals than any other simple place. - Tend to reuse places of articulation ## Vowels: - Most have at least 3. - 3 vowel systems: often **[ian]** - 5 vowel systems: often **[janeo]** - Back vowels are usually rounded. - Usually more height distinction than backness distinctions. - Height corresponds to 13th andible harmonic of base frequency. - Backness corresponds to 2nd. ## Phoneme vs. Allophone: - **Phoneme:** A minimal unit of sound that distinguishes meaning between two words. - **Allophone:** A phonetic realization of a single phoneme. ## Distribution: - The set of phonetic contexts a sound can appear in. - **Complementary Distribution:** When contexts of 2 sounds are non-overlapping (ex. Clark Kent + Superman - different realizations of the same person) - **Note!** Underlying form is the “elsewhere” (like Clark Kent) - **Rule Notation/A/B/C-D:** - **A:** sound being modified - **B:** what it’s modified to - **C:** environment the sound is in/ at the end of word (the rule applies) - **D:** environment the sound is in/ at the beginning of word (the rule doesn’t apply) ## Doing phonology problems: - **List environments that A and B appear in.** - **Look for minimal pairs/near-minimal pairs.** - **Be as general as possible in stating environments.** - **Rules should make sense** ## Natural Class: - A group of sounds sharing at least one phonological feature - Phonological processes manipulate natural classes. - **Notation:** - **V[high]** - high vowels - **[-voice]** - voiceless consonants ## Derivation Tables: - Tell order matters! - **URI:** Phonomic analysis with different orderings - **Rule 1:** You can write rules side-by-side! ## Words aren’t just strings of segments: - Speech sounds can actually be organized into abstract sub groupings - like syllables (!). ## Arguments for the Syllable: - Native speaker intuition - Language games - Poetics - Phonological rules ## Syllable-Internal Structure: - Contains at least one vowel (nucleus) - Syllable: - Rhyme: - Nucleus - Coda - All languages have CV Syllables - Nucleus: Peak of sonority in syllable. - Some languages allow sonorant consonants to be nuclei. ## Variation! ### Types of Variation: #### Phonetic: - **eg.** Creaky voice (vocal fry) - Bunched vs. retroflex /l/ - VOT (aspiration) Duration #### Phonological: - **eg.** æks vs æsk - goraz vs. gradz - prafeln vs. pateln #### Morphological: - **eg.** Hisself vs himself - If vs. himself - Tree-ish vs tree-like - Dove vs. dived #### Syntactic: - **eg.** The car needs washed #### Lexical : - **eg.** You might should choose - Ain’t no lady gonna tell me what to do - Coke vs. sodas, pop - Wicked - Bubbler - Be pissed - Ass vs arse ## Sonorants: - **Nasals:** Nasal tract open, oral tract closed, no release - / m, n, ŋ/ - **Taps/Flaps:** Like stops, but very short, no burst, no turbulence - /r/ (MUSE water) - **Trills:** Articulators close, pressure builds, articulators allow air through, and close again - rolled r’s - **Approximants:** Opening is wide, no turbulent noise (**LIQUIDS**) - **Lateral Approximants:** Air passed to side of articulators, there are lateral fricatives too - /l, ɹ/ ## Glides: - Vowel-like - **/w, j, ʍ (“hw") / ** ## Vowels: - Produced with no major constriction (ie, air flows freely) - **Resonance**: Enhancement + damping of particular acoustic frequencies - **Different resonance = different vowel** - **Note!** Syllables don’t need to have vowels. ## Vowel Classification: - **Height** (amount of jaw opening) - **Frontness** (of tongue) - **Rounding** (of lips) - **Tenseness** (vs. Lax) (closer to neutral position) - **Rhoticity** (r-like quality) - **Nasalization** - **There correspond to the harmonics of the base frequency** ## Secondary Articulations: - **Different phonetic realizations of a single phoneme** - **Labialization:** [Cw] - **Palatization:** [Cʲ] - **Velarization:** [Cˠ] - **Pharyngealization:** [Cˤ] ## So far we’ve only discussed pulmonic egressives (air pushed out of lungs): ## Non-pulmonic sounds: - **Ejectives (egressive):** Closing + pushing larynx, always voiceless - **Implosives (ingressive):** Closing + lowering glottis, always voiced - **Clicks (ingressive):** Pushing tongue, creating air pocket with tongue, air rushing creates clicking sound - common in Southern Africa, areal feature. ## Supra-segmental: - Features of sounds that “float” on top of the segments themselves - **Pitch + Tone:** - **Fundamental Frequency** - determines pitch - **Pitch:** Perception of fundamental freq. - **Intonation:** Pitch on a sentence - **Tone**: A pitch that conveys part of the meaning of the word - a majority of languages are tonal (not English). - **Vowel + Consonant Length:** - **Stress:** - **Primary stress:** [] Marked prior to syllable - **Non-primary stress:** [ˌ] - **Stressed tends to be:** - Longer - Higher pitched - **Unstressed often show vowel reduction** - **In English, reduction = centralization to [ə], [ɪ], [ʊ]** ## American English Vowels: - **[i]** Tense rounded high front - **[ɪ]** Lax unrounded high front - **[e]** Tense rounded mid front - **[ɛ]** Lax unrounded mid front phonetic - **[æ]** Lax unrounded low front - **[ʌ]** Lax unrounded mid-low central/back - **[ɑ]** Lax unrounded low back - **[o]** Tense rounded mid-low central/back - **[ɔ]** Tense rounded mid-low back - **[u]** Tense rounded low back ## Dipthongs: - **[aɪ]** - **[aʊ]** - **[ɔɪ]** - **[eɪ]** - **[oʊ]** - Some languages have CV syllables - Nucleus: Peak of sonority in syllable. - Some languages allow sonorant consonants to be nuclei. - **eg.** Syllabic [n] in button - **Rare:** Some languages allow low-sonority consonants to be nuclei. - **Typologically:** Languages tend to prefer onsets to codas. ## Vowel Classification: - **Height:** (amount of jaw opening) - **Frontness:** (of tongue) - **Rounding:** (of lips) - **Tenseness:** (vs. Lax) (closer to neutral position) - **Rhoticity:** (r-like quality) - **Nasalization:** - **There correspond to the harmonics of the base frequency** ## Secondary Articulations: - **Different phonetic realizations of a single phoneme** - **Labialization:** [Cw] - **Palatization:** [Cʲ] - **Velarization:** [Cˠ] - **Pharyngealization:** [Cˤ] ## So far we’ve only discussed pulmonic egressives (air pushed out of lungs): ## Non-pulmonic sounds: - **Ejectives (egressive):** Closing + pushing larynx, always voiceless - **Implosives (ingressive):** Closing + lowering glottis, always voiced - **Clicks (ingressive):** Pushing tongue, creating air pocket with tongue, air rushing creates clicking sound - common in Southern Africa, areal feature. ## Supra-segmental: - Features of sounds that “float” on top of the segments themselves - **Pitch + Tone:** - **Fundamental Frequency** - determines pitch - **Pitch:** Perception of fundamental freq. - **Intonation:** Pitch on a sentence - **Tone**: A pitch that conveys part of the meaning of the word - a majority of languages are tonal (not English). - **Vowel + Consonant Length:** - **Stress:** - **Primary stress:** [] Marked prior to syllable - **Non-primary stress:** [ˌ] - **Stressed tends to be:** - Longer - Higher pitched - **Unstressed often show vowel reduction** - **In English, reduction = centralization to [ə], [ɪ], [ʊ]**