Week 2: Linguistic Form

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Week 2 Linguistic Form

• a.k.a baby linguistics

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This week

• Sounds of language
• Sound production
• Phonemics
• Morphology

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Human Language

• What do children learn when they learn a
  language?
• What do adults know when they have acquired
  language?

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What is linguistics?

• Linguists study different SYSTEMS that make up
  human language.
• Even chaotic conversations have been shown to
  operate on certain principles.
• Linguistic anthropologists must understand these
  systems in order to see how they interact with
  culture and social interaction.

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Sounds of Human Language

• Phonetics focuses on identification and
  description of human language sounds
• - basic units are phones, represented in
• Phonemics (phonology) analysis of the way
  sounds are arranged in languages
• - basic units are phonemes, represented in / /
• Ottenheimer pp. 34-5

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Phonetics

• acoustic phonetics (acoustics) studies
  properties of speech sound waves
• auditory phonetics studies perception of
  language sounds
• articulatory phonetics studies production of
  language sounds

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Producing sounds

• How are speech sounds made?
• Speech sounds for spoken (not sign) languages are
  produced using the vocal apparatus

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Lungs ?
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Speech sounds vary according to

• Place of articulation (the position of your vocal
  apparatus when making the sound, or shape of your
  mouth for vowels)
• Manner of articulation (how you move your
  articulators as you make the sound)

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The IPA

• International Phonetic Alphabet
• You can reach this link through the Ottenheimer
  textbook website

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Vocal cords

• Air moves through the larynx from the lungs
• If the vocal cords are open and relaxed, they
  dont vibrate, creating voiceless sounds, e.g.
  sssss
• If the vocal cords are closed and tense, they
  vibrate, creating voiced sounds, e.g. zzzzzz

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Voiceless sounds (e.g. ssssss)
Voiced sounds (e.g. zzzzzzzz)
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Voicing

• Speech sounds are either voiced or voiceless
• Voiceless vocal cords not vibrating
• Voiced vocal cords vibrating
• Voiceless/voiced pairs p/b t/d

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Nasal/oral

• Nasal sounds allow air to escape through the
  nose oral sounds dont.
• Say mmmmm and zzzzzzz
• So, when we have a cold, instead of sounding
  nasal, we sound oral

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Consonant vs. Vowel

• Consonants Sounds made by a closure or
  narrowing of the vocal tract, producing blockage
  or considerable friction in the airflow sounds
  with audible constriction in the airflow
• Vowels sounds made without a complete closure
  in the mouth or narrowing that would produce
  considerable friction sounds with minimal
  constriction in the airflow.

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Key Features of Consonants

• Place of articulation where is the air flow
  restricted? e.g. labio-dental alveolar
• Manner of articulation how is the airflow
  restricted? e.g. stop fricative
• Examples Velar stop k
• Bilabial stop b
• Bilabial trill
  raspberry
• labio-dental fricative f

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(No Transcript)
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Vowels

• Vowels are formed by changing the shape of the
  space inside the mouth by using your tongue and
  lips
• beet, bit, bait, bet, bat, but, bite, bout,
  bought, boot, book, boat
• Using the IPA avoids the confusion of English
  spelling!

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The vowel space

• height of tongue beet vs. bat
• place of tongue beet vs. bet
• rounding of lips beet vs. boot

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Basic phonology (phonemics)

• A phonological system includes all of the
  differences that are SIGNIFICANT to speakers of a
  particular language.

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Speech sounds

• We perceive sounds as different from one another
  because they vary in particular ways.
• Speakers of different languages hear different
  distinctions.

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For example

• English distinguishes between
• LIP
• RIP
• BUT, Japanese only distinguishes the r sound,
  Cantonese, the l sound. Native speakers of
  those languages may not hear the difference
  between lip and rip.

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Phoneme

• Ottenheimer pg. 47 Sounds that function to
  distinguish one word from another in a language
• bill kill dill gill hill Jill mill nil
  pill rill sill till will
• Each language has a distinct set of phonemes.

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• Example In English, palatalizing (squishing
  your tongue up against the roof of your mouth
  while pronouncing it) an n doesnt change the
  meaning of a word, but in Russian, it does.
• English not vs. nyot
• (its still not, you just sound
  weird)
• Russian nos vs nyos
• nose he carried

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Another example Aspiration

• Aspiration is a puff of air following a
  consonant
• See Ottenheimer, pp. 50-51
• In English, aspiration is an important part of
  how we distinguish between voiced and voiceless
  consonants ( means that a usage doesnt follow
  the rules of English)
• pin phin (can you say
  pin?)
• spin sphin
• p and ph are allophones of /p/ in English.

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Allophone

• Variations of the same phoneme. Each variant
  occurs in a different environment. This is
  called conditioned variation. Ottenheimer pg.
  51
• Speakers of a language hear all of the
  allophones of a phoneme as the same sound
• Example ph and p in pin and spin
• ph occurs at the beginning of words and p
  occurs after s

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Another example /t/

• Compare ton and stun thun and stun
• Another allophone of /t/ in many dialects of
  English is the glottal stop, which occurs when
  t appears in the middle of words.
• Compare
• mitt mit
• mitten mi?n

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• th occurs at the beginnings of words
• t occurs at ends of words, or after consonants
  (like s) and in some dialects between vowels
• ? (glottal stop) occurs between vowels (some
  dialects)
• Because they occur in complementary distribution
  always in different locations, these sounds are
  part of the same PHONEME, or ALLOPHONES.

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Phoneme test

• Are sounds in complementary or similar
  distribution? (Ottenheimer, pg. 51)
• bat, pat only in similar distribution,
• dun, ton these are different phonemes
• phin, spin only in complementary
  distribution
• thon, stun these are the same phoneme

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Different languages

• Each language has its own system of phonemes.
• Ottenheimer gives an example from Hindi, where
  ph and p are two different phonemes
• ph?l fruit
• p?l rum

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Suprasegmental features

• Stress record (n) vs. record (v)
• Pitch important in tone languages like Mandarin
  Chinese
• Length vowel and consonant length can
  distinguish phonemes.
• Tewa /si/ (six) vs. /si/ (intestine)

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Suprasegmental features in English

• In English, suprasegmental features do not have a
  phonemic function, but they do have a function
• the WHITE house/ the white HOUSE
• When he approaches, the girls dont pay attention
  to him
• When he approaches the girls, dont pay attention
  to him
• JACK likes fish. Jack LIKES fish. Jack likes
  FISH.
• Thats a biiiiiiig piece of cake!

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Review phonology

• phonetics refers to the study of the sounds of
  all human languages
• A phonological system includes all of the
  differences are SIGNIFICANT to speakers of a
  particular language.

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Phonemes

• Phonemes are units of sound perceived by people
  using a phonological system
• It is important to remember that phonemes are
  made up of several phones (sounds) that speakers
  perceive as being the same even though they are
  different.
• example the p in pin and the p in spin

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Phonology Minimal pairs

• A minimal pair is a pair of words that vary ONLY
  by ONE phoneme in the same position in the word.
  
• If you have a minimal pair, the sounds in similar
  (overlapping) distribution (same place in the
  word) are separate phonemes.
• e.g. PIN/BIN
• SAP/ZAP

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Phoneme test

• Are sounds in complementary or overlapping
  distribution? (Ottenheimer, pg. 51)
• bat, pat overlapping distribution,
• dun, ton these are different phonemes
• phin, spin complimentary distribution
• thon, stun these are the same phoneme

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Phonemes vs. allophones

• Recognized by speakers as separate sounds
• Differentiate between words (kill/dill/will), so
  they appear in overlapping distribution with each
  other (all at the same place in a word)
• Phonemes are the separate sounds of a language

• Speakers hear them as the same sound
• Allophones are different versions of the same
  phoneme, so they never appear in the same place
  in a word thun, but not sthun. sthun and
  stun arent different words.
• That means allophones of a single phoneme appear
  in complementary distribution.

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• Many languages make phoneme distinctions that
  English does not.
• Example Walpiri, an Austronesian language
• IPA
• Does Warlpiri have 3 r sounds?
• marru house trill
• tjarra flame
• maru black liquid (approximant)
• tjara fat
• mardu wooden bowl retroflex flap
• tjarda sleep

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• What mistakes might an English speaker make when
  learning Walpiri?
• Say the word arrow with these three rs
• To English speakers, these rs may all sound
  like one phoneme, that is, we dont use the
  differences between these sounds to make the
  distinction between different words. However,
  for Warlpiri speakers, these are THREE phonemes,
  producing distinct words.

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Film excerpt The Human Language Evolves

• Call VID 1747 vol. 3
• This part focuses on phonetics and the evolution
  of the human language
• How the evolution of language led to trade-offs
  
• Complexity of language as an evolutionary
  phenomenon

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Morphology

• Morphology is the study of the smallest units of
  meaning in a language, and how these units are
  put together to make words. (Ottenheimer, pg. 61)
• A morpheme is a part of a word that has a
  consistent meaning or function. Morphemes can
  carry lexical meaning or grammatical meaning.

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Morphemes

• Words can be made up of one morpheme, or many
  morphemes.
• anti-dis-establish-ment-arian-ism
• help-er
• free morphemes can stand on their own as words
  (help)
• bound morphemes must be attached to another word
  they cant stand alone (anti or ism or
  er)

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Morpheme types

• base is the foundation of a word
• - in English, these are often separate words,
  but in other languages, they may not be
• affixes are added to the base to make more
  words
• Example
• base farm affixes -er, -s, -ing,
  -ed
• farm, farmer, farms, farmers, farming, farmed

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Affixes

• Prefixes precede stems
• Suffixes follow stems
• Infixes appear within the stem itself
• English has prefixes and suffixes
• happy (base)
• un-happy (prefixbase)
• un-happi-ness (prefix base suffix)
• Each language has a hierarchy, or order for
  affixes.
• For example, help-er-s, NOT help-s-er
• cat, catty, cattiness NOT
  catnessy

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• English also has an intensive infix, used to
  insert curse words into the middle of a word
  (some dialects).
• abso-fing-lutely, fan-bloody-tastic
• Other languages use infixes the same way English
  uses other types of affixes
• Bontoc, a language of the Philippines uses
  infixes
• /fikas/ strong /fumikas/ he is
• 
  becoming strong

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Other affixes

• circumfixes attach simultaneously to both ends
  of a word
• Example Russian na-/-sja na-el-sja he ate
  enough
• Muskogean i-/-o i-kchokm- o he is not
  good
• reduplication creating an affix from the base
  and adding it on pee-pee
• mpolempole very slowly

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Morpheme test

• To test for whether something is a morpheme, ask
  Can you isolate a meaning for a piece of a word?
  The meaning may be grammatical.
• Slowly slow and ly are morphemes
• - ow- is not a morpheme
• Russian pereshivat to resew
• pere, shi, iv,
  at
• re sew many times (aspect) to
  (verb/infinitive)

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Allomorphs

• Different forms of the same morpheme that occur
  in different (sound) contexts
• Ottenheimer pg. 70 gives the English example of
  the in- (not) prefix
• im-possible (used before p)
• il-logical (used before l)
• in-describable (used before d t s)