Glossary: morphology and phonology

A short period of voicelessness following the release of a plosive sound. The noise is caused by air moving at high speed through the vocal tract. Aspiration is associated with plosives that have a long Voice Onset Time.

Assimilation occurs when two consecutive sounds become more alike, e.g. in place of articulation, or voicing. There are (generally speaking) two possibilities: The first one adapts its place of articulation to the second one (regressive or anticipatory assimilation) or the second phoneme adapts its place of articulation to the first (progressive assimilation). (see also: dissimilation, vowel harmony)

Lines which indicate that two autosegments are in an association relation, thus are produced at the same time.

See Advanced Tongue Root

The idea that distinctive features (such as tone features, place of articulation features, etc.) may behave independently from other features that make up a segment.

A verb that co-occurs with a main verb in a phrase to indicate values of verbal features such as tense or mood.

The part of the tongue below the soft palate.

Vowel in which the body of the tongue is in the back part of the oral cavity (mouth). The vowels [ u, o] are examples of back vowels.

A morphological process in which a real or imagined affix is removed from an existing word to create another, e.g., editor > edit, liaison > liaise.

A scale in which equal intervals of pitch as perceived by listeners are represented by equal distance on the scale.