Glossary: morphology and phonology

In a person system, referring to the addressee(s).

Affixes that do not trigger the types of changes in the stem associated with primary affixes. They typically occur farther away from the stem than primary affixes.

A constriction of the vocal tract that takes place at the same time as a narrower constriction elsewhere. Dark l is an example: this sound has a primary articulation at the alveolar ridge, where the tongue tip makes a full contact. Raising of the tongue towards the soft palate is a narrowing, which makes it a phonetically secondary articulation.

See stress.

A segment is any consonant or vowel. The term is a (theory-neutral) alternative for the concept of phoneme.

The branch of linguistics that deals with meaning in human language.

Semivowels (or glides) are the consonantal realizations of vowels. Only the high vowels (i, u and sometimes y) can be realized as semivowels, i.e. as j, w and h. Many languages show productive alternations between i and j, u and w, i.e. when the vowel /i/ occurs outside the nucleus of the syllable (e.g. because of morphology), it is relaised as /j/.

A vowel of relatively short duration when compared to a vowel of similar or identical quality in the same vowel system.

A speech sound in which there is high-amplitude, turbulent noise, as in English [ s ] and [ ∫ ] in sip and ship.