sidan

A-accent One of the types of intonational accent proposed for English by Bolinger (1958). The pitch pattern of this accent is a fall from the accented syllable. A-accent marks the place of primary focus.
AAVE Abreviation for African American Vernacular English.
Abduction [æbˈdʌkʃn] The drawing apart of the vocal folds.
Ablaut [ˈæblaʊt] The change in the quality of a vowel in a root which is not conditioned by the phonetic context. An example is the vowel change seen in Classical Arabic verbs: write perfect tense [katab], imperfect tense [ktub].
Accent (1) (noun [ˈæksənt] verb [ækˈsent]) A degree of prominence imparted to a syllable by a combination of rhythmic stress and pitch features.
Accent (2) A variety of pronunciation of a language. The term is usually confined to the phonetic and phonological aspects of a language variety, unlike the term dialect, which may refer to phonetic, phonological, syntactic and lexical aspects.
Accidental gap A non-existent linguistic form (for example, [ɡlʌk] in Enɡlish), which appears not to contravene any general well-formedness constraints of the language.
Acoustic cue A feature of the acoustic properties of a speech sound, such as formant frequency, voice onset time, burst frequency, which are known to be used by humans to distinguish one speech sound from another. For example, the frequency of a plosive burst is one one the acoustic cues to place of articulation for plosives.
Acrolect [ˈækrəʊlekt] See lect.
Active articulator A part of the vocal tract which moves towards another (the passive articulator) to form a constriction during the articulation of a sound. Articulators which may be active are: upper lip, lower lip, tongue tip, tongue blade, tongue front, tongue back, tongue root, vocal folds. For bilabial and glottal articulations, both articulators are active.
Acute [əˈkjuːt] The name of an acoustically based binary feature, originally introduced by Jakobson, Fant & Halle. Acute sounds have a concentration of energy in the higher frequency regions of the spectrum. Typical examples of [+acute] sounds are front vowels, dental, alveolar and palatal consonants. These sound classes all also share the articulatory feature of being produced with a constriction in the middle (front to back) of the vocal tract. The opposite of acute is grave.
Adaptation Any change in a person's normal speech patterns which is an attempt to make the speech more similar to that of the surrounding community.
Adduction [əˈdʌkʃn] The drawing together of the vocal folds.
Advanced Of a speech sound, produced further forward in the vocal tract. For instance, the first sound in the English word key is an advanced voiceless velar plosive. The closure for this sound is towards the front of the velum, under the influence of the following high front vowel. The diacritic for advancement is a + sign below the relevant symbol, thus [k̟iː]
Advanced tongue root The name of a binary feature, often abbreviated to ATR. [+ATR] sounds are produced with the root of the tongue drawn forward and the pharyngeal cavity enlarged. [+ATR] corresponds to the older feature specification [+tense] and [-ATR] to [-tense]. The long vowels in English [iː ɑː ɔː uː ɜː] are [+ATR], while the short vowels [ɪ e æ ʌ ɒ ʊ ə] are [-ATR].
Affricate [ˈæfrɪkət] The name of a manner of articulation. Affricates are articulated in a manner similar to plosives in that they are oral stop consonants. The release of an affricate, however, is slower than that for a plosive, giving rise to the perception of a plosive followed by a brief homorganic fricative. Examples of affricates are [tʃ] and [dʒ].
Affrication [ˌæfrɪˈkeɪʃn] The production of a brief weak homorganic fricative on the release of a plosive. An example is the affricated voiceless alveolar plosive [t^s] which is heard in some accents of English in place of an aspirated [t].
African American Vernacular English (abbrev. AAVE) A dialect and accent of USA English, which, at least in matters of phonology, has much in common with Southern States USA English.
Airflow There are two types of airflow important for the production of speech sounds. (1) Laminar flow where the air particles all move in the same direction and in essentially parallel lines. This sort of airflow is found in sonorant sounds such as vowels, approximants and nasals. (2) Turbulent flow where the movement of the air particles becomes chaotic and eddies are formed. This sort of flow is found in obstruent sounds such as fricatives, the fricative portions of affricates and the burst noise of plosives. A quantity called the Reynold's Number (Re) is a fairly good predictor of whether the flow in a pipe (such as the vocal tract) will be laminar or turbulent. The relevant equation for the number is Re = QD/νA , where Q is the volumetric flow rate in m³/s, D is the diameter of the pipe in m, v is the kinematic viscosity of air in m²/s, and A is the cross-sectional area of the pipe in m². It is easy to see that an increase in Q and/or a decrease in A will cause an increase in Re. When Re < 2300 laminar flow usually results. Turbulent flow is usual when Re > 4000. For intermediate values of Re both laminar and turbulent flow is possible, depending on factors like surface roughness and flow uniformity.
Airstream mechanism The manner in which an airstream is set in motion for the purposes of speech. Airstream mechanisms may produce ingressive (inward) or egressive (outward) airflow. An airstream mechanism consists of the movement of an initiator. Speech sounds are produced with one of three airstream mechanisms, or occasionally by a combination of two of these. The mechanisms are:

Name	Initiator	Egressive	Ingressive
Pulmonic	lungs	most speech sounds
Glottalic/Pharyngeal	closed glottis	ejectives	voiceless implosives
Velaric/Oral	velar closure		clicks
Velaric + Pulmonic			voiced clicks
Pulmonic + Glottalic			voiced implosives

Aitken's Law [ˈeɪtkɪn] (Also called the Scottish Vowel Length Rule) A phonological rule which deals with the length of vowels in Scottish accents of English. Vowels are long before [r v ð z] or before a word or morpheme boundary, but short elsewhere.
Alignment [əˈlaɪnmənt] A term used in intonational phonology to refer to the details of the synchronisation of salient points in the pitch pattern for a tone with the segmental aspects of speech. For instance, in English a falling tone usually has a pitch peak early in the accented syllable.
Allophone [ˈæləfəʊn] (adj. allophonic [ˌæləˈfɒnɪk]) A speech sound viewed from the perspective of its membership of a phoneme. Allophones of a phoneme may be viewed as variants of a single underlying abstract phonological unit. An example from English: the sounds [t tʰ tʷ ] are physically different, yet from the point of view of native speakers and hearers of English they represent a single object , the phoneme /t/. Allophones of a phoneme are typically in complementary distribution with one another.
Alpha notation See Greek letter variable.
Alternating stress rule A phonological rule proposed by Chomsky & Halle which assigns primary lexical stress to the antepenulimate syllable of words where the main stress rule has assigned primary stress to the final syllable. The final primary stress is reduced by the rule to a secondary stress. Thus the output of the main stress rule for the word baritone is [bærɪˈtəʊn]. The alternating stress rule converts this to [ˈbærɪˌtəʊn].
Alternation [ˌɔːltəˈneɪʃn] A term used to denote the relationship between variant forms of the same linguistic unit. An example of a three-term alternation is the regular plural morpheme in English which has three variants: /s z ɪz/
Alveolar [ˌælviˈəʊlə] A place of articulation name. The active articulator is the tip or blade of the tongue and the passive articulator is the alveolar ridge. Examples of alveolar sounds - [t d n s z l r].
Alveolar ridge The bony ridge just behind the upper front teeth. It is the passive articulator for alveolar sounds.
Alveolo-palatal [ˌælviˌəʊləʊˈpælətl] also alveo-palatal [ˌalviəʊˈpælətl] The name of a place of articulation. The IPA contains two symbols so labelled, both fricatives: [ɕ ʑ], voiceless and voiced respectively. There is some dispute over how exactly to characterise such articulations. One suggestion is that they are palatalised postalveolars.
Ambisyllabicity [ˌæmbiˌsɪləˈbɪsəti] (adj. ambisyllabic [ˌæmbisɪˈlæbɪk]. An ambisyllabic consonant is one which is regarded as being simultaneously the final consonant in the coda of one syllable and the initial consonant of the onset of the following syllable. The notion is not universally accepted.
Amplitude [ˈæmplɪtjuːd] The extent of pressure variation above or below atmospheric pressure during the production of a sound.
Amplitude-frequency spectrum A graph showing the relative amplitudes of the frequency components of a complex sound.
Anacrusis [ˌænəˈkruːsɪs] A defective foot, one without a leading stressed syllable. In the sentence There are too many people here it is likely that the first rhythmic stress will occur on the syllable too. In this case, the first two words of the sentence, There are, constitute an anacrusis.
Anaptyxis [ˌænəpˈtɪksɪs] The insertion of a vowel between two consonants, usually sonorants. An example is the pronunciation [fɪləm] for film, which is common in some accents of English. Also called svarabhakti.
Anechoic chamber [ˌænɪˈkəʊɪk] A sound-proof enclosure whose walls, floor and ceiling are treated to minimise sound reflection. This commonly involves covering the internal surfaces with projecting cones or wedges of sound absorbing material such as fibre-glass wool. Anechoic chambers are used to produce high quality, distortion-free recordings for the purposes of speech research. Follow the link to see a picture and a description of the anechoic chamber at UCL.
Angma [ˈæŋmə] A name for the symbol [ŋ].
Anterior [ænˈtɪəriə] The name of a binary feature. Often abbreviated [ant]. [+anterior] sounds are articulated on the alveolar ridge or further forward. Examples of [+anterior] sounds are [t θ f m]. Examples of [-anterior] sounds are [c g q]. In terms of traditional place of articulation labels bilabial, labiodental, dental and alveolar are [+anterior], postalveolar, palatal, retroflex, velar, uvular, pharyngeal and glottal are [-anterior]. It is not clear what the specification for the traditional labels palato-alveolar or alveolo-palatal should be in terms of this feature.
Anticipatory assimilation See assimilation
Antiresonance See zero
Anvil [ˈænvɪl] Also called the incus. One of the three bones of the middle ear which link the eardrum to the cochlea. The other bones are the hammer (malleus) and the stirrup (stapes).
Aperiodic [ˌeɪpɪəriˈɒdɪk] Of a waveform, displaying no regularly repeating pattern.
Apex [ˈeɪpeks] The tip of the tongue.
Aphaeresis [æˈfɪərəsɪs] Word-initial deletion. An example is the historical loss of initial k in English in such words as knife, knot.
Apical [ˈeɪpɪkl] (of consonant articulations) Made by raising the tip of the tongue. [t s θ ð] are examples of apical articulations.
Apico-palatal [ˌeɪpɪkəʊˈpælətl] Another term for retroflex.
Apocope [əˈpɒkəpi] Word-final deletion. An example is the deletion of the final consonant in of in a phrase like a cup of tea [ə ˈkʌp ə ˈtiː]
Approach A term usually applied to the articulation of plosive sounds. The approach stage of a plosive is when the active articulator is approaching the passive articulator to form a closure. Often found in the phrases: lateral approach and nasal approach.
Approximant [əˈprɒksɪmənt] The name of a manner of articulation. Also called frictionless continuant. Approximants are produced with an aperture between the active and passive articulators which is not narrow enough at a moderate airflow velocity to cause air turbulence and audible friction. When approximant articulations are devoiced, the airflow is usually strong enough to cause slight turbulence and weak audible friction. Approximants may be median (examples: [w j]) or lateral (example: [l])
Archiphoneme [ˈɑːkiˌfəʊniːm] A term introduced by Trubetskoy and particularly associated with the Prague School of Phonology. An archiphoneme is a phonological unit which expresses the common features of two or more phonemes which are involved in a neutralisation. For example, the difference between [t] and [d] is neutralised in word-final position in German. In a phonological representation using the archiphoneme concept, the final sounds of words like Rad, gesund would be transcribed with the symbol /T/ in final position. This symbol represents an alveolar plosive archiphoneme which is unspecified for voicing. For more information see neutralisation.
Areal feature [ˈeəriəl] A linguistic feature shared by languages in a particular geographical area, even though the languages concerned are not all genetically related. Examples of speech-related areal features are the occurrence of clicks in Southern Africa in Khoisan and Bantu languages and the occurrence of retroflex consonants in both Dravidian and Indo-European languages in the Indian sub-continent.
Articulation The movement of one part of the vocal tract towards another part to cause a constriction for the purposes of producing a speech sound.
Articulator [ɑːˈtɪkjuleɪtə] A part of the vocal tract capable in being used to form a constriction for the purpose of producing a speech sound.
Arytenoid [ˌærɪˈtiːnɔɪd] One of a pair of small cartilages of approximately pyramidal shape which are located on top of the cricoid cartilage in the larynx. Each arytenoid has a vocal process which is inserted into one of the vocal folds. Various muscles connect the arytenoids to one another and to the cricoid cartilage. Contraction of combinations of the muscles alter the position of the arytenoids in various ways. The position of the arytenoids is an important factor in the position and tension of the vocal folds themselves and hence the size and shape of the glottis.
Ash [æʃ] A name for the vowel symbol [æ] normally used to represent the vowel in the English word cat. The quality of this vowel is front unrounded below open-mid.
Aspirate mutation [ˈæspɪrət] One of the word-initial consonant mutations of Welsh, which occurs in a small number of grammatical environments, most notably following the possessive pronoun ei (her) [i] Voiceless plosives are replaced by (near-)homorganic voiceless fricatives. Example: papur (paper) [ˈpapir], ei phapur hi (her paper) [i ˈfapir hi].
Aspiration [ˌæspɪˈreɪʃn] (adjective [ˈæspɪreɪtɪd])
(1) Weak cavity friction following the release of a sound, usually a plosive. Aspiration for plosives is associated with a relatively long voice onset time. Aspiration is symbolised by a small raised "h" following the symbol for the sound concerned. In many accents of English, voiceless plosives have aspirated allophones when initial in a stressed syllable. Some languages, Thai is an example, have contrasts between aspirated and unaspirated plosives. Languages where aspiration is contrastive for sound types other than plosives are rare. Modern Standard Chinese is a language with contrastively aspirated and unaspirated affricates. and Burmese has aspirated and unaspirated voiceless fricatives.
(2) The traditional name of one of the word-initial consonant mutations of Irish. The name is inappropriate, as the result of the mutation is never, in fact, an aspirated sound. The changes are rather complex, mainly because of the interaction of the mutation with the slender or broad nature of the consonant involved. What follows is a somewhat simplified account. The mutation occurs in a number grammatical environments, including, for feminine nouns, after the definite article in the nominative or accusative case, for masculine nouns, after the definite article in the genitive case, for all nouns, after the the possessive adjectives mo (my), do (your) and a (his), for all verbs in the past tense. The changes that occur are:

[f] is deleted

[p] is replaced by [f]

[m] and [b] are replaced by [v] if slender and by [w] if broad

[t] and [s] are replaced by [ç] and by [h] if broad

[d] and [ɡ] are replaced by [j] if slender and by [ɣ] if broad

Assimilation [əˌsɪmɪˈleɪʃn] There are various types of assimilation, all of which have in common that one sound (the target) copies a feature or features of a sound in its environment (the source). Assimilation may be classified in a number of ways:
by direction:
1. Anticipatory (Regressive): The source of the assimilation is the second sound in the sequence. An example from English: [n] → [m] in the phrase ten billion [tem bɪljən]. Here it is the bilabial place of articulation which has been copied from the following [b].
2. Perseverative (Progressive): The source of the assimilation is the first sound in the sequence. An example from English: [n]→ [m] in the word happen [hæpm]. Here it is the bilabial place of the preceding [p] which has been copied.
by distance:
1. Contact: the source and target are adjacent, though not necessarily in the same syllable or word. Examples as in 1. and 2. above
2. Distant: the source and target are separated by other segments. This is most common with vowel sounds and is called vowel harmony or umlaut. Distant assimilation of consonant features does occur in child phonology where it is usually called consonant harmony.
by feature(s) copied:
1. Place: The place of articulation of a sound is altered to agree with some sound in its environment. In English, for example, alveolar consonants are particularly susceptible targets for this kind of assimilation. An example is good girl [gʊg gɜːl], where the plosive at the end of the first word copies the velar place of the following consonant.
2. Voice: Examples can be found where voiced consonants become voiceless, or voiceless consonants become voiced, under the influence of a neighbouring segment. An example of the former change often occurs in the English phrase has to [hæs tuː]. An example of the latter change can be seen in French: as (ace) [as], as de pique (ace of spades) [az də pik].
3. Manner: The manner of articulation of a sound is altered to agree with the manner of a sound in the environment. An example of this from English is the occasional copying of nasal manner, as in the phrase good night [gʊn naɪt].
by extent:
1. Partial: only some phonetic features are copied from source to target.
2. Complete: the target is changed to become identical with the source. An example of this is the definite article [əl] in Arabic. The final consonant changes to become identical with the initial consonant of a following noun, if this consonant is apical. Example: [əd dar] the house.
3. Coalescent (bidirectional): two segments combine to give a single output segment. Example from English: [dɪd juː] → [dɪdʒuː].
Assimilation and coarticulation are very similar phenomena. The distinction between them is largely one which rests on the analyst's theoretical outlook. In traditional phonemic phonology, assimilation results in a phoneme different from the target, whereas coarticulation does not. Also the term assimilation is usually reserved for those changes which are completely optional. Coarticulation on the other hand is usually deemed to be more or less automatic and obligatory.

Association A concept in non-linear or autosegmental phonology. Units on one tier of a phonological representation may be associated to units on another tier. This is represented diagrammatically by association lines linking the units in question. There is a general well-formedness condition on such representations that association lines may not cross.
Attenuation [əˌtenjuˈeɪʃn] The reduction in intensity of a sound or of some frequency component of a sound.
ATR An abbreviation for Advanced tongue root
Audiogram [ˈɔːdiəʊɡræm] A graph of a hearer's ability to detect pure tones at various frequencies.
Audiometer [ˌɔːdiˈɒmɪtə] A machine for investigating a person's hearing ability.
Auslautverhärtung [ˈaʊslaʊtfɐhɛʁtʊŋ] The German term for final obstruent devoicing.
Autocorrelation [ˌɔːtəʊkɒrəˈleɪʃn] A signal processing method for estimating the period of periodic portions of the speech pressure waveform. A windowed portion of the waveform is compared to another windowed portion which starts a little later. A correlation coefficient between the two portions is calculated. The delay of the second window is increased and the process repeated. This process repeats, building a function of the magnitude of the correlation coefficient with respect to the delay. The delay which coincides with the maximum correlation coefficient is then used as an estimate of the period of the waveform in the original window. This window is then advanced in time and the process starts all over again.
Autosegmental phonology [ˌɔːtəʊseɡˈmentl] A theory of phonology in which representations are viewed as consisting of independent tiers of units. Typically, a central or skeletal tier consists of place-holders or timing slots. Other tiers, usually called "melodic" tiers are associated to the central tier. Melodic tiers contain information about such things as vowel quality, features of articulation for consonants, nasalisation, lexical tone. The main function of this multi-tiered representation is to capture the fact that phonological processes may operate upon certain aspects of the phonological form (delete a lexical tone, for example) while leaving others unaltered. See Goldsmith for more information.