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Phonological Constraints
Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek 'voice, sound' and 'having to do with arranging') is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters and vowel sequences by means of ''phonotactic constraints''. Phonotactic constraints are highly language-specific. For example, in Japanese, consonant clusters like do not occur. Similarly, the clusters and are not permitted at the beginning of a word in Modern English but are permitted in German and were permitted in Old and Middle English. In contrast, in some Slavic languages and are used alongside vowels as syllable nuclei. Syllables have the following internal segmental structure: * Onset (optional) * Rhyme (obligatory, comprises nucleus and coda): ** Nucleus (obligatory) ** Coda (optional) Both onset and coda may be empty, forming a vowel-only syllable, or alternatively, the nucleus can be occupied ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syllabic Consonant
A syllabic consonant or vocalic consonant is a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable on its own, like the ''m'', ''n'' and ''l'' in some pronunciations of the English words ''rhythm'', ''button'' and ''awful'', respectively. To represent it, the understroke diacritic in the International Phonetic Alphabet is used, . It may be instead represented by an overstroke, if the symbol that it modifies has a descender, such as in . Syllabic consonants in most languages are sonorants, such as nasals and liquids. Very few have syllabic obstruents (i.e., stops, fricatives, and affricates) in normal words, but English has syllabic fricatives in paralinguistic words like ''shh!'' and ''zzz''. Examples Germanic languages In many varieties of High and Low German, pronouncing syllabic consonants may be considered a shibboleth. In High German and Tweants (a Low Saxon dialect spoken in the Netherlands; more Low Saxon dialects have the syllabic consonant), all word-final syllab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yod-dropping
The phonological history of English includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters. H-cluster reductions The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, involving consonant clusters beginning with that have lost the (or become reduced to ) in some or all dialects. Reductions of /hw/ The cluster (spelled ⟨wh⟩ since Middle English) has been subject to two kinds of reduction: * Reduction to before rounded vowels (due to being perceived as a with the labialization characteristic of that environment). This occurred with the word ''how'' in the Old English period, and with ''who'', ''whom'' and ''whose'' in Middle English (the latter words having had an unrounded vowel in Old English). * Reduction to , a development that has affected the speech of the great majority of English speakers, causing them to pronounce ⟨wh-⟩ the same as ⟨w-⟩ (sometimes called the ''wine–whine merger'' or '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elision
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run together by the omission of a final sound. An example is the elision of word-final /t/ in English if it is preceded and followed by a consonant: "first light" is often pronounced "firs' light" (). Many other terms are used to refer to specific cases where sounds are omitted. Citation forms and contextual forms A word may be spoken individually in what is called the citation form. This corresponds to the pronunciation given in a dictionary. However, when words are spoken in context, it often happens that some sounds that belong to the citation form are omitted. Elision is not an all-or-nothing process: elision is more likely to occur in some styles of speaking and less likely in others. Many writers have described the styles of speech in wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken language in the United States and, since 2025, the official language of the United States. It is also an official language in 32 of the 50 U.S. states and the ''de facto'' common language used in government, education, and commerce in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and in all territories except Puerto Rico. Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide. Varieties of American English include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other forms of English around the world. Any North American English, American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markedness ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Approximant Consonant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class is composed of sounds like (as in ''rest'') and semivowels like and (as in ''yes'' and ''west'', respectively), as well as lateral approximants like (as in ''less''). Terminology Before Peter Ladefoged coined the term ''approximant'' in the 1960s, the terms ''frictionless continuant'' and ''semivowel'' were used to refer to non-lateral approximants. In phonology, ''approximant'' is also a distinctive feature that encompasses all sonorants except nasals, including vowels, taps, and trills. Semivowels Some approximants resemble vowels in acoustic and articulatory properties and the terms ''semivowel'' and ''glide'' are often used for these non-syllabi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stop Consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips (, ), or glottis (). Plosives contrast with nasals, where the vocal tract is blocked but airflow continues through the nose, as in and , and with fricatives, where partial occlusion impedes but does not block airflow in the vocal tract. Terminology The terms ''stop, occlusive,'' and ''plosive'' are often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on the distinction being made. "Stop" refers to the stopping of the airflow, "occlusive" to the articulation which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract, and "plosive" to the plosion (release burst) of the consonant. Some object to the use of "plosive" for inaudibly released stops, which may then instead be called "applosives". The International Phonetic Association and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessment to form Cambridge University Press and Assessment under Queen Elizabeth II's approval in August 2021. With a global sales presence, publishing hubs, and offices in more than 40 countries, it published over 50,000 titles by authors from over 100 countries. Its publications include more than 420 academic journals, monographs, reference works, school and university textbooks, and English language teaching and learning publications. It also published Bibles, runs a bookshop in Cambridge, sells through Amazon, and has a conference venues business in Cambridge at the Pitt Building and the Sir Geoffrey Cass Sports and Social Centre. It also served as the King's Printer. Cambridge University Press, as part of the University of Cambridge, was a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sphragistics
Sigillography, also known by its Greek-derived name, sphragistics, is the scholarly discipline that studies the wax, lead, clay, and other seals used to authenticate archival documents. It investigates not only aspects of the artistic design and production of seals (both matrices and impressions), but also considers the legal, administrative and social contexts in which they were used. It has links to diplomatics, heraldry, social history, and the history of art, and is regarded as one of the auxiliary sciences of history. A student of seals is known as a ''sigillographer''. Etymology The word ''sigillography'' derives from the Latin word , meaning 'seal', and the Greek suffix , meaning 'description'. It was effectively coined in Italian (as ) by Anton Stefano Cartari in 1682. It entered English at a much later date: the earliest instances recorded by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' date from 1879 (''sigillography'') and 1882 (''sigillographer''). The alternative term, ''sph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alveolar Lateral Approximant
The voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants are a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is l. As a sonorant, lateral approximants are nearly always voiced. Voiceless lateral approximants, are common in Sino-Tibetan languages, but uncommon elsewhere. In such cases, voicing typically starts about halfway through the hold of the consonant. No language is known to contrast such a sound with a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative . In a number of languages, including most varieties of English, the phoneme becomes velarized (" dark ''l''") in certain contexts. By contrast, the non-velarized form is the "clear ''l''" (also known as: "light ''l''"), which occurs before and between vowels in certain English standards. Some languages have only clear ''l''. Others may not have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voiceless Alveolar Fricative
The voiceless alveolar fricatives are a type of fricative consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are at least six types with significant perceptual differences: *The voiceless alveolar sibilant (the standard symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA) has a strong hissing sound, as the ''s'' in English ''sink''. It is one of the most common sounds in the world. *The voiceless denti-alveolar sibilant (an ''ad hoc'' notation using IPA conventions), also called apico-dental, has a weaker lisping sound like English ''th'' in ''thin''. It occurs in Spanish dialects in southern Spain (eastern Andalusia). *The voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant ">Voiceless alveolar fricative#Voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant"> and the subform apico-alveolar , or called grave, has a weak hushing sound reminiscent of fricatives. It is used in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonority Hierarchy
A sonority hierarchy or sonority scale is a hierarchical ranking of speech sounds (or phones). Sonority is loosely defined as the loudness of speech sounds relative to other sounds of the same pitch, length and stress, therefore sonority is often related to rankings for phones to their amplitude. For example, pronouncing the fricative [v] will produce a louder sound than the stop [b], so would rank higher in the hierarchy. However, grounding sonority in amplitude is not universally accepted. Instead, many researchers refer to sonority as the resonance of speech sounds. This relates to the degree to which production of phones results in vibrations of air particles. Thus, sounds that are described as more sonorous are less subject to masking by ambient noises. Sonority hierarchies are especially important when analyzing syllable structure; rules about what segments may appear in onsets or codas together, such as SSP, are formulated in terms of the difference ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
