Phonology
bilabial | sound produced at the lips (e.g., /b/) |
interdental | sound produced between the teeth (e.g., /th/--eth) |
alveolar | sound produced at the alveolar ridge (e.g., /t/) |
alveopalatal/palatal | sound produced at the hard palate (e.g., /ç/) |
velar | sound produced at the velum (e.g., /k/) |
uvular | sound produced at the uvula (e.g., /R/) |
laryngeal | sound produced at the larynx (not in English) |
glottal | sound produced at the glottis (e.g., /?/, as in Liverpool "butter" or NY "Latin") |
stop/plosive | the air stops during articulation |
affricate | a stop followed immeadiately by a fricative during articulation |
fricative/spirant | air forced through a constricted passage during articulation |
nasal | air passes through the nose during articulation |
lateral | air passes along the sides of the mouth during articulation |
retroflex | the tongue is curled at the alveolar ridge during articulation |
semivowel | /w/ and /j/ |
aspiration | puff of air during articulation |
phoneme | smallest meaningful speech sound |
allophone | noncontrastive variant of a phoneme |
high, mid, low | vowel classifications referring to vertical vowel space |
front, center, back | vowel classifications referring to horizontal vowel space |
diphthong | two vowel sounds in the same syllable |
glide | diphthong which terminates with the semivowel /j/ |
prosody | the stress system of a language |
[...] | represents an articulated sound |
/.../ | represents a phoneme |
cardinal vowel | the general area of articulation for allophones of a particular vowel phoneme |
minimal pairs | lexemes that differ by one phoneme: <fox>, <box>; <pat>, <bat>; etc. |
distribution | specific environments in which a given phoneme is possible. Complementary distribution refers to two or more related phonemes that appear exclusively of one another in a single phonetic environment. |
free variation | describes two or more phones that can appear in the same environment without changing the meaning of a lexeme. /kar/ and /kaR/, for example. |
Vowel Quadrilateral | (know this!) |
homophones | two or more letters that represent the same phoneme: <s> and <c>, as in city and silly |