 | Term | Definition |
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Cooperative principals |
Principals speakers keep in order to ensure listeners understand them |
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Thematic roles |
The roles played by NPs and VPs in a sentence |
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Discourse |
A group of sentences |
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Phonetics |
The study of speech sounds |
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Acoustic phonetics |
The study of phonetics as it relates to sound waves in the air |
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Auditory phonetics |
The study of phonetics as it relates to the ear mechanism |
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Articulatory phonetics |
The study of phonetics as it relates to the mouth, tongue, etc. |
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Orthography |
The opposite of a phonetic alphabet |
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International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) |
The original and classic alphabet |
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Phonetic alphabet |
The opposite of an orthography |
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Glottis |
The place where air passes through the vocal cords: the deepest part of the speech mechanism |
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Larynx |
The voice box containing the glottis |
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Pharynx |
The part of the throat above the glottis and the voice box |
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Oral cavity |
The mouth |
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Nasal cavity |
The inner workings of the nose |
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Vocal tract |
The entire speech mechanism, including the oral cavity, the pharynx, and the larynx and vocal cords |
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Uvula |
The fleshy glob in the back of the mouth, used by some languages (French) to produce sounds |
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Velum |
The soft palate upwards from the uvula and downwards from the palate |
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The palate |
The roof of the mouth directly above the tongue |
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Alveolar ridge |
A ridge directly behind the upper teeth, after the palate |
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Interdental consonants |
Consonants articulated with the teeth |
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Alveolar Consonants |
Consonants articulated with the alveolar ridge behind the teeth |
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Palatal consonants |
Consonants articulated with the palate |
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Bilabial consonants |
Consonants articulated with the lips |
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Velar consonants |
Consonants articulated with the velum |
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Glottal consonants |
Consonants articulated with the glottis |
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Place of articulation |
The place where consonants are formed |
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Manner of articulation |
The phenomenon that determines how and whether airflow is blocked in the formation of consonants (it's another way of classifying consonants) |
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Voiceless consonants |
Consonants in which air flow is not blocked in the glottis, no vibrations |
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Voiced consonants |
Consonants in which air flow is blocked in the glottis, vibrations |
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Aspirated consonant |
A voiceless consonant that comes with a small puff from the glottis, a puff of air |
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Unaspirated consonant |
A voiceless consonant that does not come with a puff of air from the glottis |
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Oral sounds |
Sounds formed when the uvula blocks the nasal cavity |
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Nasal sounds |
Sounds formed when the uvula doesn't restrict air from entering the nasal cavity |
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Phonetic feature |
A feature of a sound, such as voiced or voiceless, labial or dental, etc. |
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Stops |
Sounds in which, for several milliseconds, the airstream is blocked |
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Continuants |
The opposite of stops |
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Fricatives |
Sounds in which the airstream is not stopped, but is so close to being stopped that friction is produced (x, th, etc.) |
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Affricates |
Sounds formed by a stop and then a slow release (tch, for example) |
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Liquids |
Sounds in which there is some, but not much, obstruction of the air stream |
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Glides |
The sounds j, in French, and w: produced with little obstruction and an abundance of smooth gliding |
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Approximates |
Sounds in which there is almost friction, but not quite |
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Trills |
Sounds produced with a trilling |
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Flaps |
Sounds with a quasi-trill, such as the Italian word "formaggio," or the Spanish word "Pero" |
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Lateral liquid |
L |
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Retroflex liquid |
Rib Cage |
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Vowels |
Sounds produced with almost no blockage to the air stream |
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Consonant |
A sound produced with blockage to the airstream |
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Vowel formation criteria |
1. Highness or lowness; 2. How far forward or backward the tongue is; 3. Roundness of the lips |
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Diphthong |
A sound formed with a vowel and a glide (written as two vowels) |
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Monophthong |
The opposite of a diphthong |
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Triphthong |
An imaginary, hypothetical sound involving two vowel sounds and a glide |
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Obstruents |
A major category of sounds: sounds in which the airstream is either totally, or significantly, blocked (includes stops and fricatives) |
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Sonorants |
The opposite of obstruent: a major category of sounds |
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Consonantals |
A major category of sounds: it comprises all sounds that are "very consonant-like," includes all consonants except the glides |
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Labials |
A subcategory of the consonantals: includes the bilabials and labiodentals |
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Coronals |
A subcategory of the consonantals: includes all sounds formulated with the lifting of the tongue |
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Anteriors |
A subcategory of the consonantals: includes all sounds formulated forward from the palate (not including the palate) |
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Sibilants |
A subcategory of the consonantals: sounds involving much friction |
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Syllabic sounds |
Sounds that can function as the core of a syllable |
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Prosodic features |
Features that are altogether in addition to all articulatory and voicing features; these features include stress, tone, and pitch |
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Supersegmental features |
Another way of saying prosodic features |
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Register tone |
A tone that covers the entire syllable |
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Contour tone |
A tone that does not cover the entire syllable |
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Downdrift |
Going down in tone |
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Intonation languages |
Languages in which tone is not essential (such as English; Chinese is the opposite) |
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Phonology |
The study of sound-patterns |
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Allomorph |
A variant sound for a morpheme |
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Minimal pair |
Two words that are identical except for one sound, revealing which phonemes are semantically significant |
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Homorganic nasal rule |
A rule that says nasal vowels will come with nasal consonants and vice versa |
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Phoneme |
A basic unit of sound having semantic significance, usually having one or more allomorphs |
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Phone |
A particular version of a phoneme |
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Allophone |
The phones of a phoneme |
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Distinctive features |
Features that differentiate between the phonemes |
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Nondistinctive features |
Features that do not constitute a sound a unique phoneme |
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Natural Classes |
A group of sounds that shares certain features |
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Assimilation rule |
The rule whereby a vowel makes neighboring sounds more like it |
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Ease of articulation rule |
A rule whereby sounds in languages often change for the easier |
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Dissimilation rule |
A rule whereby adjacent sounds become less similar to improve clarity |
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Epenthesis |
The phenomenon whereby vowels or consonants—sounds—are inserted into a word |
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Metathesis |
A phenomenon whereby two sounds are switched in location in a word |
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Onset |
The initial sound or sounds in a syllable, preceding the nucleus |
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Coda |
The end section of a syllable |
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Rime |
The nucleus and coda of a syllable put together |
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Phonotactic constraints |
The limitations on what sort of sounds you can create in your language |
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Lexical gaps |
Words that obey all phonotactic constraints, yet aren't real words (e.g. yulp, sarpishes, bandertactics, etc.) |
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Optimality theory |
The theory that constraints are in a ranked system, and that the higher the rank, the more the constraint constrains a language |
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Complementary distribution |
A position that proves two sounds are allophones of the same phoneme |
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Imitation, Analogy, and Reinforcement |
Two theories of language acquisition that fail to fully explain how children learn language |
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Motherese/Child Directed Speech |
Another way of saying baby talk |
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Innateness Hypothesis |
A hypothesis created by Noam Chomsky that states that language is acquired by children because they have the UG innately within themselves |
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Poverty of the Stimulus |
The main evidence for the Innateness Hypothesis |
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Impoverished data |
Data that are too poor for the child to correctly create a grammar |
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Babbling |
The first stage in language acquisition: in this stage babies speak the syllables basic to human language |
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Holophrastic Stage |
The second stage of language acquisition: in this stage the child speaks one-word sentences |
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Overgeneralization |
A mistake children make while learning language: they take words to mean more than they do, or overextend grammatical rules |
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Telegraphic speech |
One of the middle stages of language development: in this stage the child patches words together without any grammar or inflection (e.g. Daddy take car out) |
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Unitary System Hypothesis |
The theory that says children learning two languages at once (bilingual language acquisition) initially construct only one internal grammar (e.g. Padre, give me some leche please!) |
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Separate Systems Hypothesis |
The theory which is the opposite of the unitary systems hypothesis |
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Code-switching |
The phenomenon whereby a person who knows two languages switches between his languages in the same sentence for contextual or social reasons |
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Fossilized errors |
Errors in L2 acquisition that become so engrained that they cannot be corrected |
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Fundamental difference |
Between L1 and L2 acquisition there is a... |
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Synthetic Approach to learning language |
One of the two ways to learn a language: in this way the learner systematically learns the rules and lexicon of a language |
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Analytic Approach to learning language |
One of the two ways of learning a language: in this way the learner is given material to compare and translate and thus learn the language by means of analysis |
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Idiolect |
The particular, idiosyncratic way one particular person speaks his language |
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Dialect |
The peculiar way a particular group or region speaks a language |
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Systematic ways |
Dialects differ in... |
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Dialect leveling |
The phenomenon whereby dialects lose their distinctness and meld together |
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Accent |
A regional difference in pronunciation |
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Isogloss |
A dialect area |
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Social dialects |
Dialects based not upon region but upon socioeconomic status |
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Prestige dialect |
The dialect considered desirable and respectable |
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Standard American English |
The dialect of English spoken by radio announcers and news anchors |
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Hypercorrections |
Corrections that are incorrect (e.g. pronouncing the t in often) |
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African American English |
AAE |
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Lingua Franca |
A language that serves as a super-language, a language everyone understands in a certain context |
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Lexifier language |
The language of base for creating a Pidgin |
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Pidgin |
A simple, cobbled-together language used in contact between two peoples which becomes a full-fledged language if learned by babies |
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Creole |
A mature, fully-linguistic development of a pidgin |
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Argot |
The way of speaking, the jargon of a particular group of people |
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Euphemism |
A soft way of saying something disturbing |
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Taboo |
Words or actions that are frowned-upon are... |
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Sound shift |
A phenomenon whereby one sound morphs into another during a certain period of time (e.g. the great English vowel shift) |
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Genetically related |
German and English, Italian and Spanish, Finnish and Hungarian are all... |
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Proto-Germanic |
English, Dutch, and German all stem from... |
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Protolanguage |
An ancient ancestor of current languages |
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Indo-European |
Farsi, Hindi, Latin, and Greek all stem from... |
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The Great Vowel Shift |
An event in the history of English that took place between 1400 and 1600, giving birth to modern English |
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Declension |
The structure of case endings on the end of nouns (used in Latin, Old English, and Russian) |
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Case endings |
The basic elements of declension |
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Etymology |
The history of words |
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Loan translation |
A word that is loaned, but also translated (e.g. perros calientes, a Spanish translated loan of hot dog) |
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Historical Comparative Linguistics |
The study of linguistics with a view to history |
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Grimm's law |
An observation made by one Jakob Grimm stating that certain regular differences between Germanic languages and other Indo-European languages must have occurred during the development of Germanic |
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Cognate |
A word with a loan history (celebration, celebracion, celebrazione) |
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Verner's law |
A law explaining why the sounds /p/, /t/, and /k/ don't always become /f/, /θ/, and /x/ |
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Neo-Grammarians |
A group of young linguists who claimed that linguistics is perfect science and that there are no exceptions to the laws |
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Comparative construction |
The controversial way by which protolanguages can be reconstructed by means of comparison of their children |
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Comparative method |
The basic element in comparative construction |
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Unconditioned sound change |
Sound changes that occur in such a way as to run roughshod over the phonetic context |
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Conditioned sound change |
Sound change that occurs in such a way as to take phonetic context into account |
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Sudden language death |
Language death that occurs in one generation, usually when all the speakers of a language are terminated |
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Radical language death |
Language death that occurs in one generation, not by killing but by the quick adoption of another language, often at gunpoint (e.g. the Russian empire invading Poland) |
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Gradual language death |
The most common form of language death |
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Bottom-to-top language death |
Language death in which the commoners stop speaking it and it is preserved only in certain, often scholastic or ecclesiastical, contexts (e.g. Latin) |
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Polyglot |
A person who speaks several languages |
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Nostratic |
A proposed uber-protolanguage, the mother of all languages (controversial in linguistic fields) |
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Analogic change |
Change in a language that occurs when a common rule is is used to morph irregular forms into regular ones (e.g. changing "went" to "goed") |
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Loan words |
Word loaned from one language to another |
