siddn

DAF [ˌdiː eɪ ˈef] = Delayed auditory feedback
dB [ˌdiːˈbiː] See decibel
Dark /l/ An informal term for a voiced velarised (or pharyngealised) alveolar lateral approximant. /l/ is dark in many accents of English when followed by a consonant or when found in pre-pausal position. The symbol is [ɫ].

De-accenting The process where a word fails to be accented because the speaker deems it to be recoverable from the context, or because some other word needs to be highlighted for reasons of contrast. For example, in the following fragment of conversation the word pounds is likely to be de-accented in B's reply:

A: That'll be ten pounds, please.

B: I thought you said it cost five pounds.

De-alveolar assimilation Assimilation affecting alveolar consonants, changing their place of articulation. See assimilation.

Debuccalisation [ˌdiːbʌkəlaɪˈzeɪʃn] The loss of all supralaryngeal strictures resulting in the replacement of a sound by [h]. An example comes from Merseyside English, where the word what may be pronounced [wɒh].

Decibel [ˈdesɪbel] A unit of relative intensity or amplitude. Usually abbreviated to dB. When dealing with intensity ratios the decibel is defined by the formula 10 log(I₁/I₂), where I₁ and I₂ are the intensity values of the two sounds concerned. For amplitude or pressure ratios, the formula is 20 log(A₁/A₂). A₁ and A₂ are the amplitude or pressure values for the two sounds. For the measurement of speech sounds, the unit dB IL (Intensity Level) or dB SPL (Sound Pressure Level) is often used. In this case the I₁ or A₁ is the intensity or amplitude of the speech sound concerned and I₂ or A₂ is a reference representing the intensity level (10^-16 watts/cm²) or amplitude value (0.0002 dynes/cm²) of the threshold of human hearing. On this scale, normal conversation has a level of approximately 60dB, shouting or singing a level of about 75dB and a sound loud enough to cause physical pain a level of about 130dB.

Declination [ˌdeklɪˈneɪʃn] The tendency of fundamental frequency to lower gradually over the course of an utterance. Declination is a global phenomenon which operates in time from the beginning of the utterance, irrespective of the tonal specification.

Defective distribution The distribution of a sound is said to be defective when it does not occur in some environments where phonetically similar sounds may occur. An example of an English consonant sound with a defective distribution is [ŋ], whereas [m n] may occur both in the onset and in the coda of a syllable, [ŋ] may occur only in the coda.

Defective vowel system A vowel system where (a) there is no open vowel and/or (b) for mid and high regions there is at least one vowel [αhigh, βback] which is not matched by a [αhigh, -βback] vowel. Missing vowels in defective systems are almost always [e] [o] or [u]. See Maddieson for more detail.

Degemination [ˌdiːdʒemɪˈneɪʃn] The change from a geminate (long) consonant to the equivalent single (short) consonant. An example from Finnish: [kirkko] church (nominative) : [kirkon] genitive.

Delayed auditory feedback A technique whereby a speaker's voice is replayed to them as they speak, but with a slight delay. This can cause severe disruption in the speaker's ability to control speech movements. The amount of disruption depends on the duration of the delay.

Delayed release The name of a binary feature, often abbreviated to [del rel]. [+delayed release] stops have a slow release of the stop closure, resulting in local friction noise. [delayed release] is used to distinguish affricates ([+del rel]) from plosives ([-del rel]).

Dental [ˈdentl] The name of a place of articulation. The active articulator is the tongue tip and the passive articulator is the upper front teeth. Some writers distinguish between plain dental where the tongue tip articulates with the back of the teeth and interdental where it protrudes between the upper and lower teeth, articulating with the edges of the upper teeth. Dental sounds include [θ ð]. Many dental sounds are symbolised by the addition of a diacritic beneath the symbol for an alveolar consonant, as in [n̪].

Denti-labial [ˌdentiˈleɪbiəl] The name of a place of articulation. The articulators concerned are the upper lip and the lower front teeth. Articulations of this sort are encountered in disordered speech, but are not known to be used by normal speakers in any language.

Derivation An ordered sequence of phonological rule applications which convert the underlying phonological form of a lexical item into its surface phonetic form. The example below derives the surface form [sɪŋə] from an underlying form /sɪng+ə/

Underlying representation - /sɪng+ə/
Assimilation - [sɪŋg+ə]
Velar plosive deletion - [sɪŋ+ə]
Output - [sɪŋə]

Designated terminal element (Abbrev. DTE) The single element at the foot of a metrical tree which is reached by starting at the root of the tree and by passing only through s nodes. See

where the third syllable of the word is the DTE.

Devoicing Partial or total loss of vocal fold vibration for a speech sound. For example, in English obstruent sounds are usually devoiced when adjacent to voiceless sounds or to silence. The initial and final plosive sounds of the word dog, when it is uttered in isolation, have little or no vocal fold vibration.

DFT See Fourier analysis.

Diacritic [ˌdaɪəˈkrɪtɪk] A small symbol or mark attached to a phonetic symbol to provide further phonetic detail of the sound symbolised. Examples: [ ʰ ] (aspiration), [ ʷ ] (labialisation)

Diacritic feature A feature used in phonological rules to indicate non-phonetic information such as the exceptional behaviour of a linguistic form. An example is the feature [romance] which has been used to distinguish those forms in English which undergo velar softening from those which do not.

Dialect [ˈdaɪəlekt] A variety of a language defined by its syntactic, lexical, phonological and phonetic features. The term is usually opposed to the more specific term accent, which refers to phonological and phonetic features only.

Diffuse The name of an acoustically based phonological and phonetic feature. The opposite of compact.

Diglossia [daɪˈɡlɒsiə] The situation where an individual or a whole speech community has native-like command of two languages.

Diphthong [ˈdɪfθɒŋ] A complex vowel which changes its quality within a single syllable. A diphthong has an initial quality and a target quality. Examples from English: [eɪ aʊ ɪə]. Diphthongs may be categorised in a number of ways:- (1) Closing vs Centring (2) Rising vs Falling

Dissimilation [dɪˌsɪmɪˈleɪʃn] A phonological process whereby segments become less similar to one another. Synchronic examples of dissimilation are rare, except perhaps for what might be called dissimilatory elision. For instance in many American accents of English an /r/ in the coda of a syllable is often deleted if the word contains another /r/. An example is the pronunciation [bəˈzɜrk] instead of [bərˈzɜrk] for the word berserk. Occasionally in English the articulation of complex consonant clusters like [ksθs] is simplified by dissimilation, so we get, for example, [sɪksts] for sixths. Another possible synchronic example comes from Japanese. Lyman's law prevents the occurrence of two voiced obstruents in the second element of a compound. On the other hand, dissimilation processes acting over time are well attested. One good example is the process which changed one of two r segments within a word into an l in the development of Latin into modern-day Romance languages. Thus Latin arbor (tree) became Spanish arbol. Latin peregrinus (pilgrim) became French pélérin.

Distinctive feature See binary feature

Distinction A synonym for contrast

Distributed The name of a binary feature, often abbreviated to [distr]. [+distr] sounds have a relatively long stricture (measured from the front of the vocal tract to the back), and include sounds like [ʃ θ ç]. [-distr] sounds include [s t ʈ].

Distribution The total sum of the environments in which a sound can occur in a given language. Two sounds may have identical environments and are said to be in parallel distribution, or have partially similar distributions (overlapping distribution). Both of these situations are examples of contrastive distribution. If, however, two sounds may never occur in similar environments they are said to be in complementary distribution

Disyllable [ˈdaɪsɪləbl] A word consisting of two syllables.

Dorsal [ˈdɔːsl] Articulated with the body of the the tongue (the dorsum), that is with the front or back of the tongue and excluding the tip, blade and root.

Double articulation A sound produced with two simultaneous strictures of equal rank (see manner of articulation). Examples: voiced labial-palatal approximant [ɥ], voiceless labial-velar fricative [ʍ].

Double-stressed Of compounds in English -- having two accented syllables, the second of which is the main accent of the compound. Most noun compounds in English are not double-stressed. However, there are some that are. Here are some examples: ˈstrawberry ˈjam, ˈPiccadilly ˈCircus, ˈcity ˈcentre. Many compound adjectives are double-stressed: ˈred-ˈfaced, ˈsky ˈblue, ˈold-ˈfashioned.

Downstep A local, stepwise lowering of pitch at specific accents. Unlike declination, downstep is not a property of the complete intonation phrase but of each particular accent. The notion of downstep derives from the behaviour observed in African tone languages, where H tones are lowered or downstepped when preceded by a L tone. Thus, whereas in a sequence HH, the two high tones will be scaled at a similar F0 level, in the sequence HLH, the second H will realised at a much lower level than the first H due to the presence of the intervening L tone. Also called catathesis.

Drag-chain See Chain

DTE See Designated terminal element