ASPECTS OF LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE 3SEPT 06, 2013 – DAY 5

Brain & LanguageLING 4110-4890-5110-7960NSCI 4110-4891-6110Harry HowardTulane University

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Course organization• The syllabus, these slides and my recordings are

available at http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/LING4110/• If you want to learn more about EEG and neurolinguistics,

you are welcome to participate in my lab. This is also a good way to get started on an honor's thesis.

9/6/13 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University

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ReviewArticulatory phonetics

9/6/13 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University

Place/Manner

Bilabial Labio-dental

Inter-dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal

Stop p b t d k g ʔ

Nasal m n ŋ

Affricate ʧ ʤ

Fricative f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ h

Liquid l,r

Glide ʍ w y ʍ w

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How do you pronounce these words?bilabial stops

alveolar stops

velar stops

pin tin kin

spin stink skin

nip nit nick

bin din begin

sbin sdin sgin

nib bid big

9/6/13 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University

[pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] - voiceless aspirated[p, t, k] - voiceless[p˺, t˺, k˺] - voiceless unreleased[b, d, g] - voiced[*b, *d, *g] - ungrammatical voiced[b, d, g] - voiced

How many voiceless stops does English have?

Can words be distinguished by aspiration or lack of release?

(see next slide)

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The answer is …

9/6/13 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University

/p, t, k/

[pʰ, tʰ, kʰ]at the beginning

of a syllable[p˺, t˺, k˺]

at the end of a word[p, t, k]

everywhere else

these are phonemes; realm of phonology and distinctive features

these are phones or allophones; realm of phonetics and non-distinctive features

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ReviewPhonology

9/6/13 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University

Khmer contrastive voiceless stops

[pɔ:ŋ] to wish [pʰɔ:ŋ] also

[tɔp] to support [tʰɔp] be suffocated

[kat] to cut [kʰat] to polish

English/p/

[p] [pʰ]

Khmer

[p] [pʰ]

/p/ /pʰ/

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ASPECTS OF LINGUISTIC COMPETENCEIngram §2: Prosody

9/6/13 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University

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Segmental vs. suprasegmental• So far, we have been talking about discrete units of

speech, e.g. [k, i, m].• These are called segments, because they act like isolatable bits of

speech.• But there is another group of speech ‘sounds’ that are

much more difficult to isolate into free-standing, repeating units.• These are called suprasegmentals, because they are either larger

than segments or dependent on segments in some sense.• They make up the study of prosody.

9/6/13 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University

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Intro to prosody• What is a syllable?

• Smallest unit that can be pronounced.• Usually contains a vowel:

• a > ra > tra > tran > trank > strank• English is strange:

• ladder [læ.dɹ̩], ladle [le.dl̩], laden [le.dn̩]; bottle [ba.ʔɹl̩]

• What are the building blocks of prosody?• stress

• prominence relations among syllables• rhythm

• patterns of stress in time• intonation

• linguistic use of voice pitch• And maybe volume, though there is not much to say about it.

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(Word) stress• What did you learn about (word) stress?• Is it contrastive in English?

• address ~ address• compress ~ compress• export ~ export• insult ~ insult• convert ~ convert

• Compare to Spanish• termino ~ termino ~ termino

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Changes in stressphrase compound nounhot dog hotdog

burn out burnout

green house greenhouse

How do you pronounce ‘14’?After eating fourteen, cakes did not tempt him.

After eating fourteen cakes, he threw up.

9/6/13 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University

‘frankfurter’‘dog which is hot’‘exhaustion’‘burn until all gone’‘glass building’‘house which is green’

After eating fourteen cakes, he threw up.

English stress tends to fall at the end of a unit,but it can be ‘retracted’ onto the previous syllable.

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Intonation• What did you learn about intonation?

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ASPECTS OF LINGUISTIC COMPETENCEMorphology

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A quick intro• Divide the following words into morphemes.• Be sure you can tell which morphemes are free, bound,

prefixes, suffixes, roots and stems.• blueberry• cranberry• vision• antidisestablishmentarianism• anti – dis – [establish] - ment - ari – an - ism

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NEXT TIMEQ1 – 10 items (multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank)Finish §2: syntax & summary

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