Semantics - The Study of Meanings That Are Unconsciously Understood Semantics is the study of meaning in terms of what speakers unconsciously know prescriptively (what language critics invoke during disagreements over word meaning and sentence interpretation) and descriptively (the way in which word and sentence meaning are encoded in a native language as part of mental grammar). Meaning is … [Read more...]
An Introduction to Semantics
Semantics covers a very broad list of topics dealing mainly with meaning of and the relationships between words. Most introductory linguistics courses focus on three basic areas: lexical semantics (word meaning and relatedness), phrasal or sentential semantics (sentential meaning and relatedness), and pragmatics (meaning in the context of discourse). Lexical Semantics Semantic Features Lexical … [Read more...]
Redundancy and Underspecificity
Speech sounds are defined by distinctive phonetic properties or features that, when combined, distinguish these sounds from each other. We use the features [-syll, -cont, +ant, +cor, -vce] to represent the phoneme /t/. If any feature is altered, /t/ is no longer /t/, but a combination of the altered features. For example, changing [-vce] to [+vce] yields /d/. These are distinctive features. On the … [Read more...]
Features
An Introduction to Features The most basic component of a speech sound is a feature, which can be described as the minimal specification that separates one phoneme from another. In fact, a phoneme can be described as a bundle of features, since all phonemes bear at least two or more. Articulatory features are defined in terms of the place and type of constriction of air as it travels through … [Read more...]
An Introduction to Phonology
Phonology is where you put into practice all you’ve learned in phonetics. It is the study of how sounds are strung together (phonotactics), how they interact with each other, and the rules that account for these processes. The focus of phonology at an introductory level course can be categorized into the following areas. 1. The Distribution of Phonemes Phonemes are individual sounds described … [Read more...]
Aspiration and Voice Onset Time
Each language has parameters concerning the distribution of plosives. Some languages only permit voiceless plosives, e.g., Proto-Quechua, whereas others permit both voiced and voiceless, e.g., Spanish. Still others allow a 3-way distribution of plosives, adding aspiration to the mix, e.g., Hindi. (Aspiration is symbolized by the diacritic [h].) Hindi (1) [pʰəl] ‘fruit’ [pəl] ‘moment’ … [Read more...]
Sounds and Spellings
Speech Sounds and Symbols Talking was around for quite some time before any type of writing systems were developed. There are many languages still today today that have no written form. In fact, all human beings learn language perfectly well before ever holding a pencil or decoding a scribed word. So even though symbolizing language visually is not essential to communication, written language is … [Read more...]
An Introduction to Phonetics
Many professors of Intro to Linguistics courses choose to begin the semester by launching into phonetics, much to the student’s dismay. The material is foreign, difficult to grasp (it doesn’t seem to relate to anything else in space and time), and is rarely representative of the rest of the semester. However, there is a good reason for starting off on such seemingly shaky ground. Phonetics is the … [Read more...]
Phonology: Distinctive Features Level 2
Phonology: Minimal Pairs 1.1
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