Glossary: morphology and phonology

The vocal folds moving apart. Contrast adduction.

An inflectional value of the feature case, with the meaning ‘(away) from’.

Vowel alternation resulting from a change in grammatical function, e.g. drive vs. drove in English (cf. umlaut). Also called apophony.

The elimination of an underlying phoneme in all contexts, so that it always merges with some other phoneme. See also neutralization.

In ergative case systems, the case associated with the object of a transitive verb or the subject of an intransitive one.

A syllable made prominent by pitch (commonly a pitch peak). In English intonation, a stressed syllable made prominent by being accompanied by the start of a new trend in the pitch contour of the utterance.

The morphological case of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and participles that occupy the position of object to the verb or some prepositions. Nouns and pronouns are typically assumed to receive accusative case by government, while adjectives and participles receive it by agreement with the noun.

The study of physical vibrations (sounds).

A word derived by taking the initial letter of all or most words in a string and pronouncing them together, e.g., scuba < selfcontained underwater breathing apparatus. Cf. alphabetism.

See voice (morphology).

The articulator that moves to form a constriction in the vocal tract. For example, in palatal sounds the active articulator is the front of the tongue which moves towards the hard palate (cf. passive articulator).

Bringing the vocal folds together. Contrast abduction.

A word that can function as the head of an adjective phrase (AdjP). Adjectives qualify or describe the referents of nouns. Examples of adjectives include the English words large, quiet, indispensable, and ambiguous.

A term that refers collectively to prepositions and postpositions.

Produced slightly further forward in the vocal tract. For instance, the first consonant in the English word keen is an advanced velar and is produced with a closure towards the front of the velum (cf. retracted).

Phonological feature, abbreviated as [ATR]: Having the root of the tongue pulled forward so as to widen the pharynx (and, often, to raise the body of the tongue nearer to the roof of the mouth). Pharyngeal sounds are [−ATR], as the pharynx is narrowed.

A word that modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a preposition, or a larger unit such as a phrase or sentence. It often expresses some relation of manner or quality, time, or degree. Examples from English include quickly, often, carefully, soon, and very.

A form which is conjoined with another word (the root) and cannot be used in isolation. Affixes can be prefixes (before the root, e.g. re- in rewrite) or suffixes (after the root, e.g. -ity in nicety). Circumfixes and infixes also exist.

A consonant sound produced with a complete closure between two articulators and with a velic closure preventing air escaping through the nasal cavity. The articulators part relatively slowly and the compressed air escaping between them becomes turbulent, resulting in an audible friction noise [ts t∫ kx] are examples of affricates.

A semantic role; the instigator of an action.

Adjective applied to languages (or to morphology, as in aggutinative morphology) characterized by words containing several morphemes, of which one belongs to a lexical category and the others are clearly identifiable affixes, each with a single semantic function.

The process by which one lexical category is inflected to express the properties of another, or the result thereof, e.g., a verb bearing person and number morphology that reflect those of the subject. Also called concord.

One of a number of ways in which airflow can be created in the vocal tract for the purpose of producing speech sounds. The most common airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive.

In case systems, one of the cases, with the meaning ‘motion towards, onto’.

The different shapes of a single morpheme which appear in different phonological environments. E.g. the third person singular morpheme in English includes the allomorphs [s] (he cuts), [z] (he digs) and [iz] (he blushes).

The different shapes of a single phoneme which appear in different phonological environments, e.g. different allophones of /t/ in English.

A system of writing, like that used for English, where the symbols that are used represent the individual vowels and consonants of the language. Other languages that use other, different alphabetic writing systems include Russian, Greek and Mongolian.

An abbreviation consisting of initial letters that are read with the letters’ alphabet values, e.g. English CD [si:di:]. Contrast acronym.

The phenomenon that morphemes or phonemes have different shapes when they appear in different phonological contexts (see also allophones, allomorphs).

The name of a place of articulation. The active articulator is the tip or blade of the tongue. The passive articulator is the alveolar ridge. [t s n l] are examples of alveolar sounds.

The front part of the roof of the mouth, just behind the upper front teeth.

See alveopalatal.

A consonant produced by placing the tongue on the hard palate behind the alveolar ridge. Also alveolopalatal.

Noise in the environment which may interfere with the recording of sounds.

A consonant that belongs to two syllables simultaneously (e.g. perhaps [d] in Eng. ladder). The existence of ambisyllabicity is disputed.

A measure of the up-and-down extent of a waveform (as distinct from its frequency). For a sound wave, the extent of pressure variation above or below atmospheric pressure.

The creation of linguistic forms based on a proportion A : B :: C : X. Mostly associated with historical changes, e.g. the replacement of irregular forms, such as chicken - chickens :: cow - kine (the old plural of 'cow'). Kine was replaced by cows.

A language whose words usually contain only one morpheme, such as Vietnamese.

See host.

A semantic property of nouns that has to do with whether a noun denotes a living (or sentient) thing.

Gender In languages that divide nouns into classes on the basis of animacy, the noun class that consists primarily of words denoting living things. Animate gender contrasts with inanimate gender.

The second but last position (usually in "antepenultimate stress"). E.g. in the English word confidential, the syllable 'fi' is antepenultimate.

Anterior sounds are defined articulatorily as sounds that are produced with a stricture in front of the palato-alveolar region in the mouth. Labial and dental consonants are therefore [+ant] (in SPE) while non-anterior sounds are produced with a stricture further back, e.g. velars and glottals. In current phonological theory, the feature anterior is only used to make a distinction between coronals.

An event-changing operation signalling that there is no ‘cause’ element and no agent role in the derived event structure.

An action in which one of the speech organs that is not involved in making a particular sound moves toward its position for a subsequent sound. For example, the rounding of the lips during [ s ] in swim is due to the anticipation of the lip action required for [ w ].

A function-changing operation that backgrounds the patient.

In tense systems, a tense that indicates the occurrence of an action in the past, without indicating whether the action is completed.

Americanist Phonetic Alphabet (an unofficial name given to a particular set of transcription symbols).

Of a waveform: one that does not have a regular repeating pattern.

A language or speech disorder caused by brain damage.

An articulation involving the tip of the tongue.

See ablaut.

A valence-changing operation that creates a new object argument.

A consonant sound made with a constriction between two articulators which is not narrow enough to cause air turbulence (=friction). [w l j] are examples of approximants.

A theoretical segment which is only partially specified for phonetic properties, omitting some properties such as voicing or nasality, which may be determined by rule.

A semantic role that is assigned to a noun by the verb.

A constriction in he vocal tract.

The parts of the vocal tract involved in the production of speech sounds (the lips, teeth, tongue, alveolar ridge, hard palate, soft palate, uvula, pharyngeal wall and vocal folds).

Two small cone-shaped cartilages located on the upper surface of the cricoid cartilage. The vocal folds are attached at the back of the arytenoids and the positioning of the cartilages is largely responsible for the position and the tension of the vocal folds.

An inflectional category that encodes the relationship of an event or action to the passage of time, especially in reference to its duration, completion, or repetition. For example, the perfect is a verb form that expresses an action or state that has ceased or been completed at the time of speaking or a time spoken of.

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.