SOME IMPORTANT NAMES IN PHONETICS

SOME IMPORTANT NAMES IN PHONETICS

AFFRICATIVE: sound produced with full stoppage of the airstream followed immediately
by constriction.
ALLOPHONE: non-distinctive phonetic variant of a phoneme.
ALVEO-PALATAL: sound produced at the hard palate just behind the alveolar
ridge.
ALVEOLAR: sound produced at the alveolar ridge, the bony ridge behind the
teeth.
APPROXIMENTS: sounds produced when the articulators approach each other
but not so closely as to cause turbulence in the airstream; they include laterals
(the tongue touches the top of the mouth but the air is allowed to pass
along one or both sides, as in [l]); central (the sides of the tongue are raised
so that air flows along the center of the mouth, as in [r]); as well as the labiovelar
[w] and palatal [j].
ASPIRATED: consonant sound released with a puff of air.
assimilation rule: phonological rule that makes a sound similar to a nearby
sound. e.g., palatalization.
BACK VOWEL: vowel produced with the back of the tongue raised toward the
soft palate.
BILABIAL: sound produced with constriction or closure of the lips.
broad transcription: the attempt to record pronunciation without regard
to non-contrastive details. See narrow transcription.
CENTRAL VOWEL; e.g., [@]—produced with the tongue raised at the center
of the mouth rather than at the front or back.
CODA: last part of a syllable; follows the nucleus.
complementary distribution: when the allophones of a phoneme occupy
different positions in words.
CONSONANT: sound produced with complete or partial obstruction of the air
flow through the mouth. .
contrastive (also distinctive): sounds used in a language to signal differences
of meaning.
DIACRITIC: phonetic symbols used to represent fine differences in pronunciation,
e.g., the [h] that indicates aspiration.
DIPTHONG: vowel unit that begins with one oral configuration and ends
with another. 
DISTRIBUTION: specific circumstances (environments) in which a sound ocDelahunty
and Garvey
Feature changing rule: rule that changes the value of a component feature
of a sound, e.g., from stop to fricative, from non-nasal to nasal, or from lax
to tense.
Foot: a rhythmic unit consisting of at least one stressed syllable and 1-2
other syllables, typically unstressed.
Fricative: sound produced with constriction of the airstream, producing
friction.
Front vowel: vowel produced with the front of the tongue raised toward
the hard palate.
Glides: sounds, e.g., [j] and [w], that are intermediate in openness and sonority
between consonants and vowels. Also called semivowels.
Glottal: sound produced by constricting or stopping the airstream at the
vocal folds.
High vowel: vowel pronounced with the mouth in the least degree of openness.

Interdental: sound produced with the tongue protruding between the
teeth.
Labiodental: sound produced with constriction between the bottom lip
and top teeth.
Labiovelar: sound produced by raising the back of the tongue to or toward
the velum and rounding the lips, e.g., [w].
Lateral: sound produced with the tongue touching the top of the mouth
with air allowed to pass along one or both sides, as in [l].
Lax: sound produced with musculature of the mouth relatively relaxed. See
tense.
Low vowel: vowel pronounced with the mouth in the greatest degree of
openness. See high vowel and mid vowel.
manner of articulation: the kind of closure or constriction used in making
a consonant sound.
Metathesis rule: phonological rule that reverses the order of segments in
words.
Mid vowel: vowel pronounced with the mouth in an intermediate degree of
openness. See high vowel and low vowel.
Minimal pair: two words of different meaning that are phonetically the same
except for one sound, e.g., pit and bit (used to demonstrate that [p] and [b]
contrast with each other).
Monophthong: vowel unit consisting of a single segment held constant
during its pronunciation. 

Phonetics and Phonolog y

Narrow transcription: attempt to record non-contrastive details of pronunciation.
Nasal, Nasalized: sounds articulated with air flowing through the nasal cavity.
Non-Contrastive (also non-distinctive): sounds not used in a language to
signal different meanings.
Nucleus: central part of a syllable, i.e., the segment with the highest sonority.
Onset: initial part of a syllable; precedes the nucleus.
Phoneme: contrastive or distinctive sound category; distinguishes words
from each other.
Phonetics (articulatory): the study of how speech sounds are produced.
Phonological rule: a general statement about the distribution of a phoneme’s
allophones and about other phonological processes.
Phonology: the study of the ways in which a given language shapes sounds
into distinctive categories of perception and of its rules of pronunciation.
Place of articulation: the area in the mouth at which the consonantal
closure or constriction occurs.
Rhyme: the nucleus and coda of a syllable.
Rounded: vowel sound produced with the lips pursed. See unrounded.
Schwa: a mid central unrounded vowel, represented as [@].
Segment deletion rule: phonological rule that eliminates a sound from
pronunciation in a word or phrase.
Sonorant: sounds produced with a smooth airflow, allowing for a high degree
of resonance.
Stop: sound produced with full stoppage of the airstream anywhere in the
oral cavity from the vocal folds to the lips.
Tense: sound produced with musculature of the mouth relatively tight. See
lax.
Unrounded: vowel produced without lip rounding. See rounded.
Velar: sound produced with constriction at the soft palate.
Voiced: sound produced with the vocal folds vibrating.
Voiceless: sound produced with the vocal folds not vibrating.
Vowel: sound produced with smooth, unobstruction air stream through the
mouth.