Scribbles

Chapter four of the Finegan book: what are the different sounds that define each language?

• Phonemes are the structural elements of the sounds of a language.

• Allophones are basically different forms of the phoneme that represent the same thing in that language.

  • Example - regular [p] versus the aspirated [p].
    • pot - aspirated [p]
    • spot - non-aspirated [p]

These both represent the same phoneme in English. However, they are not the same phoneme in Korean.

My essay for this week’s topic:

On the question of whether or not it is a good thing that some languages die out, I believe that there is only one correct answer: of course it is not a good thing that any language dies out. I doubt that you can find anyone able to make a decent argument to the contrary. Having answered that question, I have to say that it misses the point of the matter. The point is: if a language is to be saved, who is going to do it?

I missed 3 out of the 22 questions, which gave me a not so stellar 86% on the quiz. After wondering for a brief period if somehow the site didn’t save my correct answers properly, I determined that the mistakes were mine.

Anyway, now I’m pretty sure I know even better the difference between derivations and inflections. I’m still having issues with agglutinating versus inflectional languages though. The third question I missed was due to lazy reading. I should have caught that one because I caught another one that was similar. I was just too lazy to go proofread the quiz another time.

As part of this week’s assignment, we are supposed to respond to at least two other people’s essays about their language expreriences growing up. I posted the following response to someone who noted how she has trouble doing the trilled ‘R’ in Spanish:

Hi Katie, One of the first things I ever noticed about people not being able to make certain sounds was the trilled “R’ sound. I’ve always been able to make it, but then started noticing others’ troubles as I grew up, probably around high school. Now, I am even more cognizant of it. I have a friend who is from India. They make no distinction between the ‘V’ sound and the ‘W’ sound in their language. He tells me stories of how his Australian school principal would always try to have the kids in the school practice the difference. He still has trouble though. I’m in the market for a new car right now, and because of him, I’m trying to find reasons to buy a Volvo. Or maybe a Volkswagen.

Phonetics is the study of the sounds made in the production of human languages. (This is different from the study of how sounds are represented in writing, which is called phonology. That’s chapter four.) This chapter goes over the details of how the mouth, tongue and other parts of the anatomy function to create the sounds that make up speech. This was pretty interesting to read, but difficult to do while out in public. (I took the book with me when I went for breakfast.) Mouthing the differences in the way ‘f’ and ‘v’ or ’s’ and ‘z’ are pronounced, over and over again, makes you look a little weird. To assist with this study, phoneticians have developed a phonetic alphabet that represents the actual sounds of human language. I had to download the font for this alphabet onto my computer, but had a little trouble getting it to work completely. I am amazed at all the little details that go into the formulation of the spoken word. I’m glad that all of this comes naturally to most people, because I think that very few people could actually learn all of it, if they had to learn it in a classroom. No wonder “foreigners” have accents.

Inventory of Sounds Lots of different sounds exist for making speech, much more than are represented by the typical alphabet (or at least the English alphabet).

• Voicing - vibrating vocal cords or not (s/z, th/th, f/v, etc.)
• Place of Articulation - back/middle/front (of mouth)
• Manner of Articulation - stops (p, b, etc.) / fricatives (s, z, etc.)

Consonants

• Stops
• Fricatives
• Affricates
• Obstruents
• Approximants
• Nasals
• Clicks / Flaps / Trills

Vowel Sounds

• Height and Frontness
• Diphthongs
• Other Features: Tenseness, Rounding, Length, Nasalization, Tone