LIN200H1 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Phonology, Voicelessness, Sociolinguistics
LIN200H1
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
LIN200 September 21st 2017
-what we think of as [h] and [i] in the word he is exactly the same articulation
-same for who and how
-h is very different depending on what sound it’s next to
-so is [h] a real thing?
-voiceless i diacritic followed by i
-a word like hay would be pronounced voiceless e e
-why do native speakers of english still think h is only one sound?
-phonetics is concerned with the physical implementation of language
-phonology is more abstract: the mental organization of these sounds
-/h/ is a phoneme
-a phone is the actually physical thing that we produce
-it is possible to have something in between a phoneme, and a distinct unique phone
-so a phone could be [h] or [i sub dot] [a sub dot] etc
-the former is broad transcription and the latter is narrow transcription
-there is no such thing as THE only broad transpiration, narrow transcription
-in different contexts you need to be precise in different ways so the definition changes
-/ / denotes abstract mental categories, while the [ ] can be very narrow or broader
-so /h/= [i sub dot], [u sub dot], [a sub dot] etc
-phoneme = set of phones (called allophones of the phoneme_
-allophones are part of a set which we identify in our minds as the phoneme
-the phoneme /m/ is set containing get the phone [m], and [m] is the only allophone of
this phoneme, there’s no variation
-others, like /h/ are pronounced differently depending on context—in a predictable way
-it’s only valid to do a broad transcription in slashes
-in brackets you can do broad and narrow transcription
-/ai/ is pronounced differently for some speakers in some words
-ex. for canadians in some words like site and side
-in side it’s closer to ai
-in site it’s closer to upside down v i
-called canadian raising: the upside down v is produced higher in the mouth than
the a
-canadian raising is done when the consonant that comes after is voiceless
-ai remains if it’s at the end of a word, or before a voiced sound
-complementary distribution=no overlap in environment (can’t occur in the same place)
-environment: what comes before, what comes after==at least one of these will matter
and will decide what category you’re in
-if you can always find a way that they occur in the same position, then that’s contrastive
distribution
[b] and [m]
bat and mat
#_ae t is the full environment for both these words (# means edge of the word)
-because the b and m are in the same environment (but still mean different things) it is
contrastive distribution
-contrastive distribution: the phones can occur in the same environments
-proves that they must be different sounds
-bat and mat are a minimal pair —b and m are allophones of three separate phonemes
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
-they cannot be the same sound
-they must be different phonemes
-english speakers understand b and m are separate phonemes, while they consider the
various h sounds to be one phoneme
-ex. th and dh—thin and then are almost minimal pairs, but there’s one extra
difference between them
-it’s hard to find true minimal pairs
-another hard one is (sh) and (zh)
-almost minimal pairs are : haitian and asian, mission and vision
-kinda cheating: fission and fishin’
-so we know that there’s a phoneme /ai/ that’s got two allophones [upside down v i] and
[ai]
[upside down v i]
#_s
r_t
h_t
write down the complete environments of the words
[ai]
b_#
r_d
h_d
-what happens on the left can be the same, but we notice that on the right there is
always a split
-so the right side is the side that matters
-upside down v i only shows up before certain consonants
-categorize all possible environments
-step three is to find the pattern: what do these environments have in common? can we
collapse them into the same set?
-natural class: sounds that pattern together and are phonetically similar
-[upside down v i] occurs before voiceless consonants ___voiceless
-[ai] occurs before voiced things and at the end of words __voiced and __#
1. list environments
2. reduce to the side that matters
3. reduce to natural classes
then, we can construct a phonological rule
-the phoneme /ai/ is pronounced as /upside down vi] before a voiceless consonant
-we assume a principle of faithfulness: don’t change anything unless a rule says to do so
phonological rule
hypothesis 1: raise ai in some environments (before voiceless consonants)
hypothesis 2: lower upside down v i in some environments (before voiced sounds or end
of word)
Which hypothesis is correct?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
What we think of as [h] and [i] in the word (cid:1688)he(cid:1689) is exactly the same articulation. H is very different depending on what sound it"s next to. A word like hay would be pronounced voiceless e e. Phonetics is concerned with the physical implementation of language. Phonology is more abstract: the mental organization of these sounds. A phone is the actually physical thing that we produce. It is possible to have something in between a phoneme, and a distinct unique phone. So a phone could be [h] or [i sub dot] [a sub dot] etc. The former is broad transcription and the latter is narrow transcription. There is no such thing as the only broad transpiration, narrow transcription. In different contexts you need to be precise in different ways so the definition changes. / / denotes abstract mental categories, while the [ ] can be very narrow or broader.
