FOUNDATION OF LINGUISTICS

Foundation of Linguistics

Foundation of Linguistics

Part A. Short Question Answers (400 words)

Short Question Answers

Which of the following is the odd one out and why?

affricate

rounded

fortis

plosive

Rounded is the odd one out because, affricate, fortis and plosive are consonants while rounded are vowels (Ashby & Maidment, 2005, P. 69-77). Affricate, fortis and plosives are the consonants in which there is obstruction for the air passage. On the other hand vowels allow free passage to the air and there is clear tract for the release of the air. Affricate includes 'ch' and 'j' sounds, fortis consist of 'p' and 'd' sounds, while plosives includes 'b', 'd', 'p' and 't' sounds. Rounded vowels involve more or less roundedness of lips to allow the passage of air (Ashby & Maidment, 2005, P. 69-77), which is not possible in Affricate, fortis and plosives which blocks the air passage.

2. What do plosives and nasals have in common?

One major common element is that both plosives and nasals belong to the category of consonants. Another common factor, which both these categories of consonants share, is that both these consonants are used as the stop consonants, and block the air passage. In plosive this obstruction of air passage occurs in mouth while in nasal, air is allowed to pass through the nasal cavity (www.madore.org). The constriction is same for both Plosives and Nasals. One more similarity between plosives and nasals is that both consist of three types of consonants which include bilabial 'p' 'b', alveolar't', 'd' and velar 'k' 'g'.

3. In describing vowels, what articulatory property do the labels “high” and “low” refer to? In describing and differentiating vowels, articulation plays a major role because; articulation depends on the passage of air during process of speaking and movement of muscles of speech organs. During this air passage, different articulations occur due to the movement of lips, tongue and other muscles in the mouth (Ashby & Maidment, 2005, P. 69-77).

This affects the quality, tone and pitch of the vowel which identified as high and low labels. The movement of tongue plays a major role in changing the articulation and air passage with its position. When position of tongue is high in mouth, it is high articulation and when the position of tongue is low in mouth, it is labelled as low articulatory property of vowel (Ashby & Maidment, 2005, P. 69-77). For example, schwa can pronounce with different tone and accents which depends on its articulatory property. This is very clear in the following table:

Image retrieved from: http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/tones.html

4. Convert the following from IPA into regular English spelling. Punctuate as appropriate.

It is possible to transcribe phonetically, any utterance, in any language, in several different ways, all of them using the alphabet, and conventions of the API.

(ii) Discursive Assessment: “Why do you need to study Phonology?” (1500 words)

Introduction

Phonology is the study of sound and it deals with the way this sound system work in the language and pronunciation (Davenport, & Hannahs, 2005, P.22-45). It consists of different features of language which depends on the sound system and different other related ...