LING 080 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Minimal Pair, Free Variation, Phoneme
10 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Phonology - the selection of speech sounds, governs both the sound patterns and the systematic phonetic variation found in language. Contrast - when presence alone changes meaning. Minimal pair - two forms with distinct meanings that differ by only one segment found in the same position in each form. Environment - phonetic context a sound occurs in. Near-minimal pairs - 2 forms with segments in nearly identical environments. Phonemes - contrastive phonological units in a particular language. In some languages, differences between sounds can be crucial, or not matter at all. When 2 sounds always occur in different environments and never occur in the same env. Allophones (predictable variants) - when 2 (or more) segments are phonetically different but phonologically the same. Free variation - when an end phoneme can be pronounced differently but the meaning is not changed. Liquids have voiceless allophones after voiceless stops and voiced allophones elsewhere.
