sidcn

C The usual symbol used to represent any consonant. Often found with subscript and superscript numerals, indicating a minimum and maximum number of repetitions of the symbol. For example C²₀ means a minimum of zero and a maximum of two consonants.
C-accent One of Bolinger's proposed pitch accents for English. The form of the pitch accent is a pitch skip down to the accented syllable, followed by a level or rising contour on and from the accented syllable.
Cadence [ˈkeɪdəns] The name of a binary suprasegmental feature proposed by Vanderslice & Ladefoged. [+cadence] syllables have a falling pitch contour.
Calling contour An intonation pattern used for calling to someone at a distance. In many varieties of English the calling contour consists of a fairly high level tone followed by a mid level tone.
Cardinal vowel [ˈkɑːdɪnl] One of a set of reference vowel qualities devised by Daniel Jones. There are two series: primary cardinal vowels 1-8, where 1-5 are unrounded and 6-8 rounded, and secondary cardinal vowels 9-16, where 9-13 are rounded and 14-16 are rounded. The front vowels are 1,9 close, 2,10 close-mid, 3,11 open-mid, 4,12 open. The back vowels are 8,16 close, 7,15 close-mid, 6,14 open-mid, 5,13 open. Apart from these, two close central vowels, unrounded and rounded (17 and 18) are sometimes added to the system.
Carry-over assimilation See assimilation (perseverative)
Catathesis [kəˈtæθəsɪs] Another term for downstep.
Categorical perception [ˌkætəˈɡɒrɪkl] The perception of sounds which vary along an acoustic continuum as belonging to two or more distinct categories without any intervening indeterminate cases. For instance, if a continuum of synthetic stimuli having the spectral attributes of [pa] and [ba] is produced by varying the voice onset time (VOT) from strongly negative to strongly positive, the individual tokens will be identified as either [pa] or [ba]. The VOT value at which the switch in perception takes place depends on the language background of the hearer.
Centralised [ˈsentrəlaɪzd] A centralised vowel is one which is located other than at the periphery of the vowel quadrilateral. Centralisation is symbolised by the use of a diacritic placed over a vowel symbol, as in [ɛ̈].
Central vowel A vowel where the highest point of the tongue is intermediate between front and back. [ə] is a typical central vowel.
Centring diphthong A diphthong where the final target quality is a central vowel. [ɪə] and [eə] are two examples of centring diphthongs from English.
Cepstrum [ˈkepstrəm] A signal processing method of (amongst other things) estimating fundamental frequency from the speech pressure waveform. The word was made up by reversing the first four letters of the word spectrum. The technique involves treating the Fourier transform (essentially the amplitude-frequency spectrum) of the speech pressure waveform as a signal itself and producing a second Fourier transform of that. The resulting representation shows power as a function of quefrency (the cepstral equivalent of frequency). The maximum peak in this cepstral representation corresponds to the fundamental frequency of the original input. Much more detail is given here
Chain A series of diachronic sound changes. Two kinds of chain have been hypothesised:
1. Drag-chain: a change in quality over time leaves a phonetic gap into which another unit moves, which in turn leaves a phonetic gap and so on. For example, the English Great Vowel Shift could be explained by positing the first event in time to be the diphthongisation of the high vowels. This left a gap in the vowel system into which the mid-high vowels moved and so on.
2. Push-chain: a change in quality over time means that one phonological unit becomes too close to another. The second unit begins to move until it too becomes too close to a third and so on. Under this hypothesis, the English Great Vowel Shift began with a raising of the low vowels, which exerted pressure on the mid-vowels and so on. Finally, the high vowels were forced to leave the system by becoming diphthongs.

Checked (1) The name of a distinctive feature proposed by Jakobson, Fant & Halle. [+checked] sounds have accompanying glottal closure or compression and include ejectives and implosives. (2) A term meaning the same as closed when applied to syllables. See closed syllable. A checked vowel is one which appears in a closed syllable.

Checking tone See High rise terminal.

Chest pulse A term particularly associated with the theory of speech production proposed by Stetson in Motor Phonetics. The hypothesis was that each syllable is marked by a burst of activity from the muscles controlling the expiration of air. These periods of activity were known as chest pulses. Later investigations failed to confirm the presence of a chest pulse for each syllable.

Chroneme [ˈkrəʊniːm] An abstract phonological unit which refers to the contrastive use of length for speech sounds. The term was introduced by Daniel Jones.

Citation form [saɪˈteɪʃn] The form of a word to which no connected speech processes such as assimilation or elision have applied.

Clash See stress clash.

Clear /l/ An informal term for a voiced non-velarised alveolar lateral approximant. In many accents of English /l/ is clear when it occurs in the syllable onset.

Click A sound made with an ingressive oral airstream. Clicks are found in many languages as extralinguistic sounds expressing emotion, or functioning as imitative sounds. An example is the "tut-tut" noise (a voiceless alveolar click) used to signal mild annoyance. The linguistic use of clicks is confined to the Khoisan group of languages in Southern Africa and to neighbouring Bantu languages such as Zulu and Xhosa. Clicks may be made voiceless, voiced, voiced and nasalized, and with various accompanying release features such as affricated release.

Clipping The reduction in vowel (or other sonorant) duration due to environmental factors. Two sorts of clipping are usually recognised:

Pre-fortis clipping, where a fortis (voiceless) sound following in the same syllable causes the preceding vowel to be shorter than it would be in other environments. Thus, in many accents of English the vowel in beat is shorter than that in bead. In some languages (English is an example) this sort of clipping is an important cue to the voicing status of a following consonant.
Rhythmic clipping, where the presence of other syllables in the same rhythmic unit (foot) causes a vowel to be reduced in duration compared to a vowel where the syllable is not accompanied by other syllables in the rhythmic unit. An example from English: the vowel in the first syllable of manage is shorter than that in man.

Closed phase The portion of the cycle of vibration of the vocal folds when the folds are in contact.

Closed syllable A syllable where the vowel or other syllable nucleus is followed by one or more consonants, that is a syllable where the coda is not empty. Examples of closed syllables in English are the monosyllabic words bed, bend, bends.

Close vowel See Height

Close-mid vowel See Height

Closing diphthong A diphthong where the final target quality is closer than the quality at the start of the glide. [eɪ] and [aʊ] are two examples of closing diphthongs from English.

Closing phase The portion of the cycle of vocal fold vibration during which vocal fold contact is increasing.

Cluster See consonant cluster

Cluster reduction A child phonology process. Adult target consonant clusters are reduced to a single consonant. For example, [sp], [st] ,[sk] are reduced to [p], [t], [k] respectively.

Coalescence See assimilation

Coarticulation The tendency for the articulation of speech sounds to adjust to that of sounds in their environment. A simple example is the spread of lip rounding to a preceding or following sound. Thus the first consonant in the English word twin has lip rounding because of the lip rounding of the following [w]. Compare the first consonant in tin. Almost any feature of articulation may spread in this way. Other examples are nasality spreading from a nasal stop to an adjacent sonorant sound, minor adjustments in the place of articulation (advancement and retraction) conditioned by the place of articulation of a neighbouring sound, and the devoicing of consonants caused by voicelessness in the the immediate environment. Coarticulation may be anticipatory: a sound is influenced by a following sound, or perseverative: an earlier sound influences one which follows. The distinction between coarticulation and assimilation is a difficult issue. The validity of the distinction essentially depends on the stance a writer takes as to the relationship between phonetics and phonology.

Cochlea [ˈkɒklɪə] The spiral-shaped organ in the inner ear which contains the organ of Corti and the basilar membrane.

Coda [ˈkəʊdə] A component of the syllable.

The coda is that part of the syllable which follows the nucleus. In most languages, including English, the coda may be empty, or may be filled with one or more consonants. In the monosyllabic English word text the coda is the cluster of consonants [kst].

Compact The name of an acoustically based phonological and phonetic feature. Compact sounds have a concentration of energy in the middle of the frequency range of the spectrum. An example is the vowel [a] which has a relatively high first formant which is close to the frequency of the second formant. The opposite of compact is diffuse. A diffuse vowel, such as [i], has no centrally located concentration of energy - the first and second formants are widely separated.

Compensatory lengthening The increase in the length of a segment after the deletion of a following segment, usually one in the coda of the same syllable. An example from Turkish: coffee [kahve] or [kaːve].

Complementary distribution See distribution

Complex tone A tone such as a fall-rise or rise-fall in which the pitch contour changes direction.

Complex wave Any waveform that can be produced by the addition of two or more sine waves at different frequencies.

Compound stressThe stress pattern which allegedly distinguishes compound nouns from phrases in English. Thus the compound blackbird has the stress pattern [ˈblækbɜːd] while the phrase black bird has the pattern [ˌblæk ˈbɜːd]. There are, however, many exceptional cases, where clear compounds have the pattern which is supposedly typical of phrases. An example is strawberry tart [ˌstrɔːbri ˈtɑːt]. See also phrasal stress

Compression A variation in pronunciation which reduces the number of syllables. An example from English is the two-syllable pronunciation /ˈʃɔːtnɪŋ/ of shortening, compared with /ˈʃɔːtənɪŋ/, which consists of three syllables.

Conditioning factor Some aspect of the environment of a phoneme which determines which of its allophones will be used. Examples are: the stress status of the syllable, the position within the syllable, the following or preceding sound. For instance, the Castilian Spanish /b/ phoneme has two allophones: [b] and [β̝]. The conditioning factor governing the choice between them is what immediately precedes the phoneme. If this is a pause or [m], then the [b] allophone is used. Elsewhere the [β̝] is used.

Conductive hearing loss Hearing impairment caused by damage to, or dysfunction of, middle ear structures such as the ear drum.

Connected speech feature Any of the adjustments in the pronunciation of a linguistic form which may take place when the form is found embedded in a phrase or sentence. Examples of connected speech features are assimilation and elision

Consonant As a phonological term, consonant is used to denote sounds which occur either singly or in clusters at the margins of syllables. As a phonetic term, consonant is equivalent to contoid. Often the phonetic and phonological criteria for the classification of a sound as a consonant coincide, but not always. For example, there are are languages where trills or fricatives (typical 'phonetic consonants') appear to function as syllable nuclei in a vowel-like manner.

Consonantal [ˌkɒnsəˈnæntl] The name of a binary feature, often abbreviated to [cons]. [+cons] sounds are made with a radical obstruction in the oral cavity and include plosives, fricatives, laterals and nasals. [-cons] sounds are made without such a radical obstruction and include vowels and approximants.

Consonant cluster A sequence of adjacent consonant sounds within a single syllable. Consonant clusters may consists of zero or more consonants, and may be initial or final within the syllable. Initial clusters are sometimes called onset clusters and final ones coda clusters. In the English monosyllabic word stops, the initial sequence [st] and the final sequence [ps] are both consonant clusters. However, the sequence [ndʒ] in the middle of the word enjoy would not be classed as a consonant cluster, because the two consonants are in different syllables.

Consonant harmony A child phonology process which constrains the co-occurrence of the place of articulation of consonants within a word. A typical pattern is that bilabial and alveolar consonants can co-occur freely, but velar consonants may not co-occur with bilabials or alveolars. So, for example, while the words pat dab and cook may be pronounced with adult-like consonants by a child, the same child may pronounce goat as [dəʊt] and cap as [pæp].

Constricted glottis A proposed binary feature, abbreviated to [constr]. [+constr] sounds are produced with the vocal folds tensed and drawn together. [ʔ], ejectives and implosives are examples of [+constr] consonants. Laryngealised (creaky voiced) vowels are also [+constr]

Content word Another name for lexical item (2)

Context The environment in which a linguistic form is found. The notion may be applied to individual sounds, syllables, morphemes, words and the like. For example, in the English word pity the context of [p] may be defined as #__[ɪ], that is word-initial preceding [ɪ].

Context-free Applied to phonological rules. A context-free rule affects its input wherever the relevant segment occurs. An example of a context-free rule is that which captures the phenomenon of stopping in child phonology. All adult fricatives are replaced by homorganic plosives, wherever they occur. Context-free rules are of the form A → B, and lack the usual environment statement beginning with /.

Context-sensitive voicing A process of of child phonology. Many children go through a stage in the acquisition of the phonology of their native language when the voicing of consonants is not contrastive, but is determined by the context in which the consonant appears. A typical pattern is for obstruent consonants to be voiced when followed by a vowel, but voiceless elsewhere. An example from English is the child pronunciation [bɪk] for the word pig.

Continuant The name of a binary feature, often abbreviated to [cont]. [+continuant] sounds, such as vowels, fricatives and median approximants, are produced without a complete closure in the oral cavity. [-continuant] sounds are known as stops and include plosives, affricates and nasals. Lateral approximants are also often classed as [-continuant].

Contoid [ˈkɒntɔɪd] A term introduced by Pike to act as the phonetic equivalent of the term consonant. Contoids are sounds articulated with a complete closure in the vocal tract or with a stricture narrow enough to cause friction. See also vocoid, which is the opposite of contoid. The rationale behind the introduction of these terms was to avoid confusion between the phonological use of the term consonant and its use as a phonetic term. Certain sounds, for example, [w j] are phonetically vowel-like, but are used as consonants in the phonological systems of many languages. Using Pike's terminology, we can say that these sounds are vocoids not contoids, but are consonants in a particular language (English, for example).

Contour tone A tone which is realised as a movement in pitch, as opposed to one where the pitch is relatively level.

Contrast The term contrast is used to describe the situation where the difference between two phonetically distinct sounds is also phonologically relevant in a language, in the sense that the difference between the sounds is used to distinguish words in that language. For example, there is a contrast between voiced and voiceless plosive sounds in English, but not in the Australian language Dyirbal, which has voiced and voiceless plosives phonetically, but the difference is not phonologically relevant. Also called distinction.

Contrastive distribution See distribution

Coronal [ˈkɒrənəl] The name of a binary feature. Often abbreviated to [cor]. [+coronal] sounds are produced by raising the tip or blade of the tongue. The traditional labels dental, alveolar, alveolo-palatal, postalveolar, palato-alveolar and retroflex are uncontroversially [+coronal]. The labels bilabial, labiodental, velar, uvular, pharyngeal and glottal are all [-coronal]. There has been some debate as to whether palatal sounds should be specified as [+coronal] or [-coronal].

Counter-assertive [ˌkaʊntərəˈsɜːtɪv] A mode of utterance which has implications for the placement of the intonational nucleus. Counter-assertive mode is used to contradict or correct assertions which the speaker thinks are erroneous. In English, counter-assertive mode is signalled by placing the nucleus on the auxiliary, which may be inserted especially for this purpose, or on the negative maker not. This type of nucleus placement is an example of minimal focus marking. Examples of counter-assertive utterances are the following, where the nuclear syllable is indicated by underlining:

John does speak French.

I do not want any cabbage.

They can't come on Thursday.

Counter-bleeding The ordering of two phonological rules so that Rule A, which could remove contexts in which Rule B operates, is prevented from doing so by being ordered after Rule B. See bleeding.

Counter-example A linguistic form which disproves or throws a hypothesis into doubt.

Counter-feeding The ordering of two phonological rules so that Rule A, which could provide contexts for the operation of Rule B, is prevented from doing so by being ordered after Rule B. See feeding.

Counter-presuppositional [ˌkaʊntəˌpriːsʌpəˈzɪʃənl] A mode of utterance which has implications for the placement of the intonational nucleus. Counter-presuppositional mode is used to correct perceived presuppositions which the speaker thinks are erroneous. In English, counter-presuppositional mode is signalled by placing the nucleus on a preposition in a prepositional phrase, on the to particle of an infinitive phrase or on some part of the verb phrase, excluding the auxiliary. This type of nucleus placement is an example of minimal focus marking. Examples of counter-presuppositional utterances are the following, where the nuclear syllable is indicated by underlining:

He wasn't at the station.

There isn't anything to wash up.

The house has been painted green.

Creaky voice A type of phonation. The vocal folds vibrate slowly and irregularly with a very low rate of airflow through the glottis. The arytenoid cartilages are pressed together and only the forward portions of the vocal folds vibrate. Creaky voice may be used as a paralinguistic signal of tiredness or boredom. It also occurs fairly regularly in some varieties of English (RP for example) when the speaker reaches the bottom of the voice range, for instance after a falling nuclear tone. However, the difference between creaky voice and other phonation types is contrastive in some languages. Creaky voice is symbolised as in [ɑ̰].

Creole [ˈkriːəʊl] See Pidgin

Crico-arytenoid muscle [ˌkraɪkəʊˌærɪˈtiːnɔɪd] One of a number of muscles connecting the cricoid cartilage and the arytenoid cartilages. The contraction of the posterior crico-arytenoid muscles aids in the abduction of the vocal folds. The contraction of the lateral crico-arytenoid muscles contributes to forceful adduction of the vocal folds.

Cricoid cartilage [ˈkraɪkɔɪd] One of the cartilages which make up the larynx. Below, the cricoid is attached to the uppermost cartilage ring of the trachea and above, to the thyroid cartilage.

Crico-thyroid muscles [ˌkraɪkəʊˈθaɪrɔɪd] A set of muscles connecting the cricoid cartilage to the thyroid cartilage. Their contraction has the effect of pulling the thyroid forward and downward and thereby stretching the vocal folds.

Cyclic rule [ˈsaɪklɪk] A phonological rule which operates iteratively on syntactic constituents, starting with the most deeply embedded ones. The Nuclear Stress Rule and Compound Stress Rule of Chomsky & Halle's The Sound Pattern of English are examples of cyclic rules.