Questions tagged [phonology]

The study of the abstract aspect of the sounds or *phonemes* in a given language.

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Listing the historical change between two languages (phonology)

I have been asked to list the historical change from one language to another, using a list comparing words between the languages. I need to order the rules in chronological order, and knowledge of ...
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Wals chapter 3 consonant vowel ratio

hello I just do not understand how to calculate consonant-vowel ratio referring wals chapter 3! I need to calculate the consonant-vowel ratio regarding german french and turkish! Concerning the ...
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When are we not able to make regressive nasal assimilation in phonetics?

I remember my teacher saying something about when we can ellide the schwa and something about syllabic nasals ("often more" as an example of a case where we cannot do regressive nasal assimilation due ...
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Vowels tend to be open in closed syllables and closed in open syllables

Is this a phenomenon in many languages? If so, what is its reason? For example, in French: /ø/: bleu, feu, jeu, peu, queue, etc. /œ/: neuf, peur, auteur, vainqueur, etc. /e/: -ai (first person ...
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What is the origins for the ban on crossing association lines in feature geometry?

In reading about Clements' structural representation of features, the phonetic contents of a segment are organised into feature tiers and 5 class tiers (root, lar, supralar, place, manner). In this ...
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Is there a distinction between "classes" and "natural classes" in phonology?

In a number of textbooks, and on the wikipedia page for natural classes, I see that "class" and "natural class" are used interchangeably, see excerpt below (with key words in bold) In phonology, a ...
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Serial vs. Parallel

I've heard several times the terms 'serial' and 'parallel' in phonology. In one of them the context was SPE and OT, respectively. However, from my feeble understanding of OT, the output is determined ...
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"Phonemic" distinctions induced by morphology

As a native speaker of Bengali (Calcutta dialect), I found it quite surprising that this Wikipedia article on Bengali phonology asserts, "for most speakers /s/ and /ʃ/ are phonemically distinct." I ...
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Optimality theory, Autosegmental phonology and linear phonology

The Wikipedia entry on Optimality Theory states, that OT differs from other approaches to phonological analysis, such as autosegmental phonology and linear phonology Could someone point me to a ...
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Langue vs parole in Phonetics and Phonology

How could one frame the differences between phonetics and phonology in Saussurian terms? I know langage/langue/parole were not developed to these ends, but this explanation can help me get a handle ...
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autosegmental representations of floating features like voice/nasal

While I think that I understand how tonal phenomena is meaningfully represented from an autosegmental perspective, I wonder about how other phenomena can be. I remember reading a while ago about so-...
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Vowel harmony as epiphenomenon?

I have seen references in the literature on vowel harmony to the possibility of it being a mere epiphenomenon rather than a phonological phenomenon in its own right (e.g. using alignment, agreement or ...
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Contrast of degree of aspiration in Korean

I am learning Korean pronunciation, and find it reported that the distinguishing feature of Korean consonants such as orthographic ㅂ (b) and ㅍ (p) is aspiration. However, to my ears both (b) and (p) (...
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How does autosegmental phonology deal with dissimilation?

From what I've read so far, autosegmental phonology treats dissimilation as deletion of a feature and the result of the Obligatory Contour Principle. So how is the following case treated? In Modern ...
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Can anybody recommend some textbooks/articles that deal with the adaption of loan words into Spanish?

I'm doing a phonology project on Spanish and one of the components is describing how the language adapts loanwords. I'm particularly interested in Arabic loanwords and how they are adapted as I ...
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Is there a known reason for the position of the stress in "concupisc-" words in English?

The words concúpiscent, concúpiscence, concúpiscible seem to be irregularly stressed (at least, according to their dictionary pronunciations; regularized pronunciations apparently have been heard "in ...
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How do proponents of Indo-Uralic explain the major differences between the consonant systems of pIE and pUralic?

I've been interested in Historical Linguistics (as a hobby) for quite a while and one of the recent topics that caught my attention was the hypothesis of Kortlandt, Bomhard, and others that Indo-...
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How do phonologists use the terms "phonological phrase" and "intonational phrase"?

I would like to get a handle on the difference between the concepts of phonological phrase and intonational phrase, as used in contemporary phonological theory. How do phonologists define these two ...
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What is tenseness with respect to consonants?

In korean, consonants are divided into three categories of articulation or coarticulation, one of them is called Tenseness. In korean orthography, tensed consonants are written with a reduplicated ...
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Did proto-indo-european possess sounds that are not any longer present or rare in modern IE languages?

In the movie Prometheus, David, an Android tasked with maintaining the functions on the space ship while his human comrades are sleeping in cryostatic chambers, is learning PIE during his off-duty ...
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Why is "bicycle" shortened to "bike" and not "bice"?

In my accent, at least, "bicycle" is pronounced /bɑɪsɪkʊl/, but it's shortened to /bɑɪk/, and not /bɑɪs/. The latter would be analogous to how some people shorten "decent" to "dece" /diːs/, but it ...
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Is there a computer-readable Hiberno-English pronunciation dictionary?

For American English, there's the CMUDict, but is there one for Irish pronunciation? If there isn't, is there a way to translate American to Irish pronunciation?
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Minimal Pairs Highlighting the Difference between American and British English

Does anyone have a list of minimal pairs, highlighting the difference between American and British English? Thanks.
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Different assimilation directions

Here's a question I posed to a prominent researcher in French phonology during my undergrad. We didn't spend a ton of time on it, but we couldn't come up with a satisfactory solution. Now that I've ...
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Representing consonants and vocal graphically

Why do linguists represent the vowels as a vowel diagram, but use a table instead to represent the consonants? For example, compare against a consonant table:
americo b.'s user avatar
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When did Aspirated Consonants appear in English?

As stated here : (in English) "The voiceless stops /p/, /t/, /k/ are typically aspirated when they begin a stressed syllable, becoming [pʰ], [tʰ], [kʰ] [...]" Since these consonants weren't ...
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Consonant symbol representation for /o̯/?

Specifically, what's the consonant symbol equivalent for the glide/semivowel /o̯/, like how /i̯/ is equivalent to /j/?
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Are phonemes worse recognizable in English than in Czech?

One of the specifics of the Czech phonetics is that everything is written "phonetically" and I wonder wheter one of the reasons for that could be that Czech simply uses less phonemes than English. It ...
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Terms similar to Sibilant

Is there a term, similar to sibilance with respect to sh, s, etc. that corresponds to words with respect to a and u(ah)? And also for the rest of the syllables and alphabets?
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What languages have rounding assimilation/harmony with glides?

Specifically, I'm looking for languages with a [j]/[ɥ] or [j]/[w] alternation that is triggered by the presence of a round vowel. For a hypothetical example with nonce words consider: (1) a. [ken] + [...
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Does the French R-sound come from Germanic influence?

Unless I'm mistaken, it is the same sound as the R in German, Yiddish, Danish,and Swedish.
Harry Anderson's user avatar
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how many samples do i need to collect for my research work in order to study mother tongue influence on English pronunciation?

I am doing research on the topic 'mother tongue influence on English pronunciation'. the speakers that I have selected belongs to a particular region of my country. their mother tongue is not English ...
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Is there a distinctive feature that separates alveolo-palatals from palatals?

Specifically, what distinguishes the voiceless palatal fricative /ç/ from the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative /ɕ/? (Likewise their voiced counterparts, /ʝ/ and /ʑ/.) The IPA doesn't have alveolo-...
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Vowel Symbols and Sounds [closed]

Are there any differences between vowel symbols and vowel sounds? Do i need to use / / when writing IPA symbols?
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liquids and nasals as syllable nuclei!

I have just started studying Phonology and I find a problem while dealing with Syllables. I read that nuclei are not only vowels, but they could be also liquids (l - r) or nasals (n - m - ng). But ...
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What kind of experimental procedures can be used to determine tone values (1-5)?

Unlike vowel formant frequencies, tones are trickier to determine, since the F0 of a TBU may depend on a lot of factors, such as the speaker's age, gender, mood, etc. Thus, it's quite often the case ...
WavesWashSands's user avatar
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What is the difference between formant frequencies and pitch frequency?

Sorry if this question sounds a bit basic. I haven’t had a solid grounding in phonology/phonetics yet so I am a bit confused about these concepts. We’re trying to build a model which studies certain ...
xji's user avatar
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Modern IE languages which do not permit consonant cluster at the begining of syllables

and also please guide me how to acquire such information from online linguistics resources (for example WALS.info).
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Do puns necessarily involve referring to two (or more) extant words?

What exactly constitutes a pun? Do the words in the pun have to both be extant, or can one be a nonce/nonsense word? — Over the years, I've heard numerous usages of "puns" where one word in the ...
errantlinguist's user avatar
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Are the Spanish numbers “seis” and “siete” phonetically similar?

This is a variation of this same question in the Spanish Language site, as I was told it was probably better suited here. When I was learning Japanese (a long time ago in a galaxy far far away), my ...
Charlie's user avatar
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Term for the set of rules about where sounds can occur

Preferably as specific a term as possible (i.e. not applying to other phonological rules). For example how English words can't begin with "ng" or how Spanish words can't begin with "st"
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Morphophonemic rule formulation

Can someone help me to translate this morphophonemic rule? V ⇒ ∅ / C ___ + V Vowels become null in the environment ... What is "...", i.e., what is the environment translated into English?
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How to read a value from the Spectrum Slice of Praat

I am trying to view the spectral slice of a point using the Praat Script. I have successfully generated the slice and moved the cursor to the required point but I don't know how to get the energy ...
Itban Saeed's user avatar
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Which types of phonemes mark syllable boundaries?

I'm developing a library that takes words broken down into phonemes and counts the number of syllables in them. The phonemes provided by the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary fall into eight types: ...
Luke Moll's user avatar
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Labialisation and palatisation in IPA: one consonant or two phones?

When is a consonant simply followed by labliasing sound like /u/ or /w/ and when is the consonant itself considered palatised or labialised? For instance, French point, in IPA, /pwɛ̃/ and Croatian ...
slipperyiron's user avatar
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288 views

Spanish Stem Change

I'm looking at a set of data right and I'm a bit confused on how to tackle this. The data is showing a stem alternation of some verbs with [e] and [o] and no change in others. I know this is due to ...
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What is the explanatory value of moras: why do we need syllable weight?

I understand that morae are used to determine stress and timing in some languages, so obviously there's some motivation to posit their existence in the syllable. But I am not sure I understand what ...
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On what evidence are structured feature representations posited?

When Clements structured features such that (forgive me if I miss something in this simplification): root node -> class node -> CV tier the phonetic content of a segment is organized by feature + ...
Teusz's user avatar
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Alignment in \oneof from the phonrule package

This question piggybacks off of the question/answer here, where one answer mentions how to create a phonological rule using the phonrule package. MWE here: \documentclass[a4paper,12pt,twoside,...
whatisit's user avatar
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Praat Script: How to Reverse Selected Sound File?

I want to reverse a sound file using Praat. I tried to figure out the way to do it and found that there's a shortcut Ctrl+R in the Edit menu. but I want to do the same thing using the script. ...
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