Chapter+3+Phonology

Patty Wagner

Phoneme- Mental construct-rather than a physical unit-smallest unit of sound. Example- Link-http://www.readingresource.net/phonemicawarenessactivities.html Patty Wagner Minimal Pairs- Made up 2 forms that contain the same number of sound segments. Example- /kaet/ cat /paet/ pat-three sound segments, differ only in the initial consonant, and have different meanings. Link-http://www.manythings.org/pp/ Patty Wagner Distinctive Feature- Trait that distinguishes one phoneme from another. Example- In English, /p/ can be phonemically distinguished from /b/ by voicing- /b/ is voiced, /p/ is not Link-http://pragnyamontessori.com/pri_distinctive.html Patty Wagner Marked sounds- Complex, less common in language and learned by children later than unmarked sounds. Example- The pair composed of bilabial stops, /b/ and /p/-however, /p/ may be thought of as more basic than /b/. Link-http://www.developingteachers.com/phonology/sounds_intro.htm Patty Wagner Binary system- Classification system in which a feature is either present of absent. Example- If a sound is voiced, it will be a [ + voice ], while a voiceless souns is shown as [- voice]. Link-http://www.bachelorandmaster.com/criticaltheories/roland-barthes-structural-activity.htm-Patty Wagner

6/5/11
Displacement- Is the ability to communicate about things earlier or after those situations are present. For example, the text mentioned how the bee dances when it has found a nectar, and it also dances when it returns to the hive to inform other working bees about where the nectar can be found. [|__http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7ijI-g4jHg__]

Prevarication- Is the ability to communicate about things that he or she has evidence of proving. For example, the majority of Disney movies represent fictional characters that individuals have never heard of or seen before. I found it very interesting when I read in the book about how the main difference between animals and humans is that animals “lie” because of genetic programming whereas humans within time learn to lie. [|__http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2007-11-15-pinoccio.jpg__]

Articulatory phonetics- Is mainly focused on the sender rather than the receiver of a message and is considered the study of sounds. For example, I found it interesting when I read in the text how a human speech is derived from the respiratory and digestive tracts in the human body. Prior to this class I never paid attention to how our bodies work in order to express sounds or words. [|__http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPEBlP2cbIQ__]

Accent- An accent is a way of pronouncing particular words that help one distinguish where a particular individual may be from. For example, when I visited New York with my mom, as soon as we arrived at our hotel the taxi driver asked us if we were from Chicago because he could tell from our accents. I found it funny because prior to someone pointing out my accent I would have never assumed I had one. [|__http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgpfSp2t6k__]

Clever Hans’s effect- Is a way of determining if ones behavior is natural or only occurring because of unintentional cues caused by others. For example, in the text I read about the Ape Language studies that believed that apes had the ability to learn language, yet when Herbert Terrace viewed the video tapes of the apes learning process he believed the apes were only putting together words in hopes of gaining positive feedback from their trainers. [|__http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxqy5fif_YA__]



**Phonology-** from the text, phonology is the study of the sound system of language. **I**t is what sounds are in the language and the rules for combining those sounds into larger units http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpD3MlQUFZw Kathy Sullivan

**Phone **
A phone is also referred to as a __phonetic unit__ and describes a speech sound produced by the vocal tract. According to the textbook, a phone can be described on the basis of its articulatory, auditory, and acoustic characteristics. For example, each sound we make when creating a word is represented by a particular phonetic symbol, much like letters in the English alphabet. However, these "letters" indicate the sounds that are made when speaking a word, rather than the alphabet letters that are used to write a word. While I was unable to post the phonetic alphabet I found on this web site, I can offer the link to the page that hosts a lot of great ways to learn the phonetic alphabet. The games might be a little childish, but they are still fun to play and a great way to learn the sounds. [|Click here] By: Molly Caldera

**Phoneme-**
Phoneme- a phoneme is a perceived unit of language that signals a difference in meaning when contrasted to another phoneme according to Rowe and Levine. A phoneme is the smallest phonetic unit in language. The link below is an interactive game where kids can blend phonemes to form new words. I have used this website several times with my students and it is a great learning tool. [] Kathy Sullivan

**Allophone**
An allophone is two slightly different pronunciations of the same phoneme. The differences in sound may be caused by a difference in aspiration. The difference in pronunciation, called an allophone, does not change the meaning of the word. Listen to this man give many examples and provide an explanation for the meaning of an allophone. [] By: Michelle Staszak June 7th

**Distinctive--**
Distinctive feature is a trait that distinguishes one phoneme from another. An example of a distinctive feature can be observed in articulation. An example can be seen in the following video from you tube. [] Kathy Sullivan

**Etic**
By: Molly Caldera
 * A study performed by a linguist who is considered a cultural outsider. This can be, for example, if you or I were to travel to a country where we were unfamiliar with the language and cultural rules, and were to take notes on their language and communication. Our textbook describes it as sitting on a hill, looking over a town and observing them from a distance.**

**Emic**
[] <span style="color: black; font-family: 'inherit','serif'; font-size: 15px;">This chart shows an example of what emic and etic covers. [] By Araceli Rodriguez June 6
 * Emic is an inverse of etic, meaning that where etic uses concepts and categories not familiar to those being studied, __emic uses concepts and categories and concepts that have meaning to those being studied.__ This approach is good to determine what categories of sounds are significant to the native speaker (Rowe, Levine, 2009). For example, the best way to familiarize yourself with a group of friends is to listen to what they talk about and determine what is most relevant to their group. Studying linguistics, I imagine, is relative to this. In order to know what components of language are the most significant, one must use categories of sound that are most relevant to the speakers. Here is a link to Thomas N. Headland's debate on etic versus emic studies.[|link]**
 * By: Molly Caldera**
 * Etic**- Accordance with Rowe & Levine is an unstudied language that is an outside. For example when I go to Wisconsin Dells I cannot understand the language because their English is so different from the ones living in Chicago, they have like high intonation and they speak so fast. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'inherit','serif'; font-size: 15px;">This image covers what is etic and emic stands for.
 * Etic**- Accordance with Rowe & Levine is an unstudied language that is an outside. For example when I go to Wisconsin Dells I cannot understand the language because their English is so different from the ones living in Chicago, they have like high intonation and they speak so fast. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'inherit','serif'; font-size: 15px;">This image covers what is etic and emic stands for.
 * By Araceli Rodriguez June 6**
 * Emic**- <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px; line-height: 115%;">account of behavior is a description of behavior in terms meaningful (consciously or unconsciously) to the actor, the insider view.

A **phonem**e is the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language. My students practice the Jollyphonics song in order to learn the phoneme. This video show an example of one Phoneme G is pronouncd and it gives examples of words that starts with Gg like guitar, gifts, and glass. [] By Araceli Rodriguez June 5

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">**Phone**- A phone is an unanalyzed sound of a language. It is the smallest identifiable unit found in a stream of speech that is able to be transcribed with an IPA symbol. This video talks about how a teacher teachers the difference of the letter P and English and Spanish to his class he puts a paper in front of them in order to see air moving when they say the p words and then in Spanish and when the students do it in Spanish the paper does not move at all. [] By Araceli Rodriguez June 5

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px; line-height: 115%;">**Phonology**- is the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'inherit','serif'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 115%;">For example teaching the abc song to the students. This you tube video shows how to sing an abc’s song .\ <span style="color: black; font-family: 'inherit','serif'; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">[] By Araceli Rodriguez June 5

**Utterance**
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">An utterance is stretch of speech between two periods of silence. It can be a conversation that someone is having. An utterance is a unit of speech that is under study by a linguist. If I said, “How are you doing today?”, then paused because I had completed my sentence, a linguist would call this an utterance and could analyze it. Please go to the following link for an additional definition. [] <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">By: Michelle Staszak June 7th

**Corpus**
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Corpus is the collection of data a linguist will use to study to find patterns and rules to a newly discovered language. The corpus is unknown information that the linguists sort through to make sense of. It is similar to an archeologist collecting materials and data from past cultures and trying to sort through it to find the details of human history. In the following video this man describes what corpus means to linguists. [] <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">By: Michelle Staszak June 7th

**Minimal set**
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">A minimal pair consist of two words, phrases or sentences that have only phonetic sound difference which changes the meaning. Each pair must have the same number of segments and the change in phonetic sound must occur in the same place in each pair. For example, fan/van (difference is found in the beginning of the word) or late/let (difference is found in the middle of the word). For those needing practice with minimal pairs, there is a video where you can see and hear someone pronounce these words. You can practice saying them out loud to match the speaker in the video. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">By: Michelle Staszak June 7th
 * According to our textbook,a minimal set is when more than two forms (words, phrases, sentences) differ in meaning, yet contain the same number of sound segments, and display only one phonetic difference, which occurs at the same place in the form. I found this concept to be a little confusing, but the example the book gave simplifies the definition well. For example, __cat__ and __pat__ both have three sound segments [p] [a] [t], [c] [a] [t] and are only different because of the initial consonant. Despite their similarities, the two words mean two completely different things. This would be a minimal pair. However, if we include, __cat, pat, rat, bat,__ and, __fat__ in this grouping, it becomes a minimal set. This table from Wikipedia shows the English examples of minimal sets.**
 * By: Molly Caldera**
 * ~ word 1 ||~ word 2 ||~ IPA 1 ||~ IPA 2 ||~ note ||
 * pin || bin || /pɪn/ || /bɪn/ || initial consonant ||
 * rot || lot || /rɒt/ || /lɒt/ ||^  ||
 * zeal || seal || /ziːl/ || /siːl/ ||^  ||
 * bin || bean || /bɪn/ || /biːn/ || vowel ||
 * pen || pan || /pɛn/ || /pæn/ ||^  ||
 * hat || had || /hæt/ || /hæd/ || final consonant ||
 * By: Molly Caldera**
 * Minimal Pair **

**Substitution frame--**
Substitution frames- Rowe and Levine define substitution frames as a form that has a “slot” that can be filled with different items, and is used to identify different phonemes. I have always called these word families. For example, the /at/ family can be used to make a variety of words with a single phoneme. My students use word card families and add consonants to the word family to create new words such as mat, cat, rat, sat, fat, bat, etc. We do the same with a host of other families including in, an, ot, etc. Kathy Sullivan

**Free variation: A condition in which phonetically different sounds (phenomes or allophones) may**
=**Change in syllabicity~**= A change in syllabicity involves an alternative pronunciation of a syllable from an idealized pronunciation. I feel like this can be due to just the different ways people speak. Some people may add a sound in a word while others may keep some out. Personally, I think it would make more sense to delete a sound to make the words come out faster however I can also understand why some would add a sound. People who are new to the language may do this from time to time in order for them to adjust but in actuality people who are native speakers do this too so I guess it all depends.
 * occur in the same environment without changing meaning. Donna Hughes**

Nena Awad

**Narrow transcription (phonetic transcription): represents the actual sounds that a person utters**

 * in as much detail as possible. Donna Hughes**

**Broad transcription (phonemic transcription) represents the idealized sounds, called phonemes,**

 * which are actuallly classes of sounds (the class being made up of allophones) rather than physically real speech sounds. Donna Hughes**

**Feature matrix: Lists sound segments (or other phenomena) along the horzontal axis, and**

 * features on the vertical axis. Donna Hughes**

**Natural class**
(@http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsANaturalClass.htm) Natural class means a set of sounds that have certain phonetic features in common. For a group of sounds to be considered as a natural class, they must all share one or more features and there should be no other sounds in the language that have this feature or combination of features. A natural class reminds me of the Periodic Table of Elements, the table looks weird, but every element is part of a certain group and they all form one big family. The following link is a link showing a natural class chart from California Polytechnic State University http://cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/phon/nat_class.html. By: Courtney Margis 6.5.2011


 * Phonological processes**

**Obligatory phonological process**
Rowe and Levine define the obligatory phonological process as a rule that most native speakers of a specific language apply to make a string of phonetics easier to pronounce and perceive. In English, nasalized vowels occur because of assimilation, which makes pronouncing words easier. For example, using the same sounds to pronounce __cat__ as we would use in the word __can__, or using the same vowel sound to pronounce __cut__ as would be used in the word __come__. Here is a passage from a study on obligatory phonetics for the assimilation in the Dutch language:

An example of an obligatory rule in Dutch phonology is the devoicing of syllable-final obstruents. Speakers are not free to pronounce Dutch words like bed (bed) or kwab (lobe) with a voiced final consonant. An example of an optional rule in Dutch is schwa epenthesis in words with final clusters, e.g. of liquids and non-coronal obstruents [1]. Words like melk   -milk- ) and dorp (/drp/ -village-) can be realized as /melk/ and /drp/, respectively. A speaker is free to use the standard form or the phonological variant, and listeners have to take into account that a word can be realized in different ways.

By:Molly Caldera June 12th

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Tameka Caldwell June 5, 2011
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Obligatory phonological process **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">is a rule that most native speakers of a specific language apply to make a string of phonetic sounds easier to pronounce and perceive. For example, vowels typically do not have a nasal soung but in the word //ham// it is easier to nasal the //a// before the //m//. To learn more about how the phonological process affects speech development view this website: []

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Tameka Caldwell June 5, 2011
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Optional phonological process **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">is the use of a pattern that is not characteristic of native speakers. It is a stylistic choice and creates differences in speech style. For instance, in the word //something//, -ing is sometimes the //g sound// fully pronouced and sometimes the //g// is completely dropped.

**Assimilation--**
Rowe and Levine assimilation as the obligatory phonological process that makes it easier to pronounce combinations of sounds by making those sounds share a distinctive feature that in other environments one of the sounds would not have. Wikipedia uses the example of the word "hot potato" the /t/ in hot isdropped as the mouth and vocal cords prepare to say the /p/ in potato. Kathy Sullivan

**Manner assimilation: Making a string of sounds easier to pronounce by making one of them conform to the manner of articulation**
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Tameka Caldwell June 5, 2011 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Tameka Caldwell June 5, 2011
 * of the other. Donna Hughes**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Voice assimilation **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">occurs when a sound comes to agree with surrounding sounds in its voicing. We hear voice assimilation in the words //play// and //pray//. The //p// and the //l// in play combines for one sound and the //p// and //r// combines in the word //pray// for one sound. For more details view this website: []
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Place assimilation **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">is the agreement of adjacent sounds in their place of articulation. For example, the prefixes //im// and //in// (both mean //not//) can be pronounced completely different depending on its placement within a word. Pronounce the words //impossible// and //interrupt//. The //im// in the word //impossible// is bilabial and //in// in the word //interrupt// is alveolar. For more details view this website: []

**Redundancy**
Redundancy means the state of being redundant; superfluous repetition or overlapping, especially of words. For example, when I was in grade school, all of my middle school teachers made us write out our spelling words and definitions at least 20 times each. By doing this, I feel, it was simply busy work and I could have learned the words in a more fun way. I like how in today's classroom, teachers are trying to be less redundant in their lesson planning as they were even 5 years ago. The following link is a picture of a redundant restaurant @http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://raykollbocker.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/633736624671351060-redundancy.jpg&imgrefurl=http://raykollbocker.wordpress.com/category/random/&usg=__eVRA_InxNeOwDpJfxNEQ0bMLDkg=&h=600&w=800&sz=61&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=qlJHE_iIq52_VM:&tbnh=112&tbnw=153&ei=LR3rTfO2Aoy2twe7spmtAQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dredundancy%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D543%26tbm%3Disch%26prmd%3Divns&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=448&page=1&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0&tx=55&ty=55&biw=1366&bih=543. By: Courtney Margis 6.5.2011
 * (Dictionary.com)**

**Markedness: As it relates to phonetic, a contrast in complexity and rarity of sounds. As it relates to**

 * semantics, is the concept that some words or morphemes are more common or usual than others. Donna Hughes**

**Unmarked sounds: More basic, more common in the language, and learned by children earlier than**

 * marked sounds. Donna Hughes**

**Marked sounds: More complex, less common in the language, and learned by children later**

 * than unmarked sounds. Donna Hughes**

** Free variation **
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Free Variation (Dictionary.com) means the relation between the members of a pair of phones, phonemes, morphs or other linguistic entities such that either of the two may occur in the same position with no change in the meaning of the utterance: in the first syllable of “economics,” “e” and “ē”. An example would be if a child says, “Me no stay.” when the child means that he or she will not be able to stay after school. The following link is a picture of the word ‘Linguistics’ with a bunch of words around it, the words around it are free variance words @http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dPc79tJJ8ys/RvAB4ranUMI/AAAAAAAAAF4/m67dAatxcZE/s200/linguistics.jpg&imgrefurl=http://saraugourmet.blogspot.com/2007/09/free-variation.html&usg=__4urFaohr6EahOsKzYzsv6yxbEf4=&h=200&w=200&sz=13&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=sB6phLoHbR7PgM:&tbnh=128&tbnw=128&ei=bADtTZq1DsajtgeT9MiZAQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dfree%2Bvariation%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D543%26gbv%3D2%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=330&vpy=292&dur=900&hovh=160&hovw=160&tx=115&ty=139&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:15,s:0&biw=1366&bih=543. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Courtney Margis 6.5.2011

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">A person will use a **narrow transcription** when they are trying to show someone exactly how a word sounds. They must always enclose their transcription in brackets [ ]. Narrow transcripts give the phonetic detail needed to pronounce the word and will show both the distinctive and nondistinctive features. This is a link to a website that discusses some of the guidelines to forming narrow transcripts. [] and the following is a link to a video that show someone’s examples of their narrow transcriptions, in English for the numbers 1-20 and you can hear their pronunciation. [] <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">By: Michelle Staszak June 7th

**Devoice**
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Devoice (thefreedictionary.com) means to pronounce, a normally voiced sound, without vibration of the vocal chords so as to make it wholly or partly voiceless. I could not find a media clip or picture regarding devoice, so the following like is how to pronounce the word @http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=denounce&submit=Submit. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Courtney Margis 6.5.2011

**Phonotactic**
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Phonotactic (Dictionary.com) means the constraints in English that prevent the occurrence of consonant clusters (sr and dl) at the beginning of words. The main reason why we have these constraints has to do with the limits on the talker’s ability to pronounce sequences of sounds as one syllable, and the listener’s perception of how many syllables he or she hears from a given sequence of phonemes (@http://clas.mq.edu.au/phonetics/phonology/syllable/syll_phonotactic.html). Consider for example a sequence like /pʁ/ i.e. a voiceless bilabial followed by a voiced uvular fricative. Most of us with some training can produce this sequence (e.g. /pʁa pʁit/ etc.) as //<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif';">a monosyllabic //word even though it doesn't occur in English. Now try reversing the order of the cluster. With some phonetics training, you could almost certainly produce /ʁp/, but what is much harder (even for a trained phonetician) is to produce the sequence before a vowel such that the resulting sequence is monosyllabic. For example, try /ʁpi/ -- even your best attempts at producing the /ʁ/ followed by the /p/ will probably still lead to a percept of two syllables when /ʁp/ precedes a vowel (This example is taken directly from the phonotactic.html url, I could not phrase it better). The following link is a short video on an intro to phonology giving examples from Spanish words @http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKaK23cK888. Courtney Margis 6.5.2011 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Tameka Caldwell June 5, 2011
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Phonotactics **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> is an area of phonology that studies what combinations of phonemes are allowed in the formation of syllables, consonant clusters and sequences of vowels. If you want to experiment with phonotactics a little more view this website: []

Stephanie Signore - June 8
 * Phoneme-** (Dictionary.com) A phoneme is one set of speech sounds in a given language that serve to distinguish one word from another. One example of a phoneme would be the "s" in sing. []


 * Allophone -** (Dictionary.com) An allophone is a set of multiple possible spoken sounds. An example of an allophone would be the "p" in pit and keep. [[image:allophone.jpg width="144" height="94" align="left"]][]

In this picture there are five allophones of the phoneme /t/. Stephanie Signore - June 8

Stephanie Signore - June 8
 * Minimal Pairs-** (A Concise Introduction to Linguistics) Minimal pairs are two forms that differ in meaning, contain the same number of sound segments, and display only one phonetic difference, which occurs at the same place in the form. An example of a minimal pair is "best" and "vest". []

Stephanie Signore - June 8
 * Assimilation -** (A Concise Introduction to Linguistics) Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. After reading the web articles for class, I found some examples of assimilation. Sometimes a sound may change to become more like a nearby sound (e.g. baseball may become bapeball). The nearby sound may be separated by one or more sounds from the one that changes (e.g. yellow become lellow). []

Stephanie Signore - June 8
 * Utterance -** Utterance is the stretch of speech between two periods of silence. I have used examples of utterance every day. One example could be me saying "I am happy". For more information plus additional information that may be useful in teaching ESL students please refer to my link. []

[]
 * Phoneme**- A phoneme is a set of sounds that distinguish one word from another in a language. [] (Alison Winkler June 12)
 * Allophone**- An allophone is a set of multiple sounds used to create a single phoneme. An example of an allophone is the /p/ in pin and spin. (Alison Winkler June 12)
 * Distinctive feature**- A distinctive feature is any trait that distinguishes one phoneme from another. For example, /p/ can be distinguished from /b/ bye voicing. /p/ is not voiced but /b/ is. (Alison Winkler June 12)
 * Assimilation**- Assimilation is the process that makes it easier to pronounce combinations of sounds by giving those sounds a shared distinctive feature that in other environments one of the sounds would not have. Sometimes sounds changed when placed next to other sounds to make it easier to pronounce or say. (Alison Winkler June 12)
 * Free variation**- This is a condition that occurs when phonetically different sounds, including phonemes and allophones, may occur in the same environment without changing meaning. This happens a lot with beginning speakers. We often hear young children saying things such as “Me go up” “Me no want to” (meaning the child wants to be picked up or does not want to do something.) (Alison Winkler june 12)


 * Noof Alshahin (June 13, 2011)**
 * 1. Complementary distribution is the relationship between two different elements, where one element is found in a particular environment and the other element is found in the opposite environment. It often indicates that two superficially different elements are in fact the same linguistic unit at a deeper level. In some instances, more than two elements can be in complementary distribution with one another. [] EX) For instance, in English, [p] and [pʰ] are allophones of the phoneme /p/ because they occur in complementary distribution. E.g. Only at daytime Only at night, Sun, Stars []**
 * 2. ‍Phonotacticis a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactic defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters, and vowel sequences by means of** **phonotactical constraints**.[] ex: []
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">3. Etic: ****<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">An "etic" account is a description of a behavior or belief by an observer, in terms that can be applied to other cultures; that is, an etic account attempts to be 'culturally neutral'. ****<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Relating to or denoting an approach to the study or description of a particular language or culture that is general, nonstructural, and objective in its perspective. [] [] **
 * 4. Phoneme** **is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances. An example of a phoneme is the /k/ sound in the words //kit// and //skill//****//[]//**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 115%;">5. Free variation ****<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 115%;">is the phenomenon of two (or more) sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect by native speakers **** . for example, that //tomato// is pronounced differently in British and American English, or that //either// has two pronunciations which are fairly randomly distributed. [] **
 * Noof Alshahin (June 13, 2011)**