HOW TO USE CAM SCANNER| Asma sheikh Tutor

Linguistics short questions

 Linguistics Terms  (Part 2)

a. What is Linguistics? 

Ans:- Linguistics is the scientific study of language. 

2. How is linguistics a Science?

Lingustics is the scientific study/ systematic study of language. In linguistics the method is applied by making observations, testing hypotheses and deriving theories. So, linguistics is a science but social science not a practical science.

3. What is meant by Sychronic and Diachronic study of language?

Syn-chronic study of language is the study of language at a fix point or present but Diachronic study of language is the study of language change or study of language through history

4. Define syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations with examples.

The syntagmatic is concern the positioning of the words and phrases or lateral positioning. Paradigmatic is concerning the substitution words or vertical relation. For example; syntagmatic: He goes to the school. To the school he goes. Paradigmatic: He goes to the school. He goes to the home.

5. What are the major levels of linguistics? 

Ans:- The major levels of linguistics are Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Pragmatics, Semantics,

i. Phonetics  is the study of individual units of sound in languages.

ii. Phonology means the study of the sound system of one or more languages. Phonology is the organisation of sound into patterns and involves the classification of sounds and a description of the interrelationship of the elements on a systematic level

                Morphology is the study of words and other meaningful units of language. 

               

Semantics is the study of sentence meaning; pragmatics is the study of sentence meaning in context

Syntax is the study of sentences and phrases, and the rules of grammar that 

sentences obey.

lexiconThe sum total of all words in a language)

Graphology is the study of handwriting as a means of analyzing character. Also called handwriting analysis

6. H. Who is Noam Chomsky? 

Ans:- Noam Chomsky is the proponent of Mentalist Theory. 

7. Who is Saussure? 

Ans:- Ferdinand de Saussure is the originator of the 20th century reappearance of structuralism. 

8. what is Linguistic Competence and Performance

Linguistic competence is the system of linguistic knowledge possessed by native speakers of a language. It is distinguished from linguistic performance, which is the way a language system is used in communication

9. what is Linguistic Competence and Performance

The difference between "langue" and "parole" according to Ferdinand de Saussure is that langue refers to the rules behind the way the language is arranged and used, while parole refers to the actual utterances of language, both written and spoken.

10. What is IPA? 

Ans:- IPA refers to International Phonetic Alphabet. 

11. What are different Organs of Speech?

The different Speech Organs are teeth, lips, tongue, nasal cavity, alveolar ridge, hard palate, velum (soft palate), uvula and glottis etc.

12. What is meant by Received Pronunciation (RP)?

Received Pronunciation (RP) means the standard accent of British English Language. It is associated with formal speech

13. List and elaborate parameters for the description of English vowel sounds.

Vowel parameters used in the description of English vowel sounds are tongue height, tongue advancement and lips’ position. That tongue movement is high, mid or low, tongue advancement is towards front, center or at the back and lips’ position is rounded or non rounded.

14. . Name the passive articulators. 

Ans:- The passive articulators are upper lip, upper jaw, teeth ridge, hard and soft palate and uvula. 

15. What is diphthong? 

 Ans:- Diphthong is a vowel sound consisting of two monophthong. 

16. . What is monophthong? 

Ans:- A monophthong is a pure vowel articulated without any obstacle in vocal tract. 

17. Define Alveolar sounds. Give examples.

Alveolar is the ridge behind the teeth and alveolar sound is produced when blade of tongue touch or near to touch the alveolar ridge. For example; the consonant sound of d, t and n.

18.  What is pitch? 

Ans:- Pitch is the degree of highness or lowness of a tone. 

19.  What is Assimilation? 

Ans:- Assimilation is the phonological process which refers to the change of pronunciation. 

20. What is intonation? 

Ans:- Intonation is a pattern of changing pitch, intensity and speed during an utterance to convey linguistic information.  

21. What is stress? 

Ans:- Stress is the degree emphasis on a sound or syllable in speech. 

22. What is elision? 

  Ans:- Ellison refers to the disappearance of a sound. In other words elision is the omission of a sound between two words. 

23.  What does 'morpheme' mean? 

   Ans:- In linguistics, morpheme is the smallest component of word, or other linguistic unit, that has semantic meaning. 

24.  What is coherence? 

Ans:- Coherence is an invisible tie presents in sentences or paragraphs to create a meaningful whole. 

25.  What is diphthong? 

Ans:- Diphthong is a vowel sound consisting of two monophthong. 

26. What is the difference between voiced and voiceless sounds?

 Voiced sounds are those in which vocal chords vibrate and in voiceless sounds vocal chords do not vibrate. For example “v, m, n, b and d” are voiced and “s, h and f” are voiceless.

27. What is a 'minimal pair'? 

Ans:- Minimal Pair is a pair of two words in a language which differ from each other by only one distinctive sound and which also differ in meaning. 

a. seal,   zeal                                                            pin ,  pan

28. What is Acronym? 

Ans:- Acronym is a kind of abbreviation. It is a word format by taking letters from a phrase that is too long to use comfortably. The new form is pronounced as a word not just letters. 

29.  What is Bound Morpheme? 

Ans:- A bound morpheme can not stand alone as an independent word, but must be attached to another morpheme/word

30. What are in-fixes?

  In-fixes are affixes that inserted nor in beginning neither at the end but in the base word. For example: cupsful from cupful.

31. What is Psycholinguistics? 

Ans:- Psycholinguistics is the study of relationship between language and psychology. 

.

32.  What is LAD? 

  Ans:- Chomsky proposed that all humans have a language acquisition devic (LAD), The LAD contains knowledge of grammatical rules common to all. It stands for Language Acquisition Device. 

33.  What is SLA? 

 Ans:- SLA stands for Second Language Acquisition which is a process by which people learn a second language

34. What is language lateralization?

  Language lateralization refers to the functions of the left and right hemispheres in the brain and distinct functions of left and right hemisphere.

35. Language can be described as a cognitive ability. Discuss briefly

Language can be described as cognitive ability because through learning the grammatical rules and vocabulary we can speak language. For example second language learning through grammatical method.

36. Compare behaviorist and cognitive theories of language learning.

 Behaviorist theory base on the stimulus-response that does something and have reward or punishment.

Cognitive theory base on understanding, that you understand the rules of language and can speak or write that language.

37. Define connotative and denotative meaning with examples.

 Denotative meanings are the dictionary meanings or precise, basic and specific meanings, and connotative meanings are the associations with the word like metaphor and symbolic meanings

38. What is Sociolinguistics? 

Ans:- Sociolinguistics is the study of the use of language in society. 

39. What is a dialect? 

 Ans:- A dialect is the form of a language that is spoken in one area with grammar, words and punctuation. 

40. What is Idiolect? 

 Ans:- Idiolect is the language of an individual as opposed to that of a group. 

41. What is sociolect? 

 Ans:- Language may very depending on the speaker's social class. This is sociolect. 

42. What is 'register'? 

 Ans:- A register is a subset of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. 

. 

43.  Define pidgin. 

  Ans:- Pidgin is a combination of more than two languages which arise from the need to communicate between communities. 

44. Differentiate between Pidgin and Creole.

 Pidgin is the mixture of multi languages used by traders as second language and Pidgin when used by the peoples as first language it becomes Creole or Linguafranca.

45. What are Bound and Free Morphemes?

Bound Morphemes are element of a word with prefixes or suffixes cannot stand alone as a word but Free Morphemes stand alone, a single morpheme as a word.

46. What is the difference between derivational morpheme and inflectional morpheme?

 Inflectional morpheme is a morpheme that does not change the category of the word like smaller from small these both are adjectives. For example: great greater, tall taller, old older and short shorter.

Derivational morpheme is a morpheme that change the category of the word like movement from move here movement is a noun and move is a verb. Improve improvement, easy easily and entertain entertainment.

47. What is multilingualism? Give examples.

 Multilingualism means use of two or more languages by an individual or society. for example Punjabi and Urdu or Sindhi, Punjabi and Urdu etc.

48. What is code switching and code mixing?

 Code Switching is using more than one language and changing from one language to another but Code Mixing is using more than one language as mixture, use of multi languages in one sentence.

49. What is Hyponymy?

The semantic relation of words between specific words and its general or broader term is called Hyponymy. For example Rose and flower, gaze and see, Mango and fruit.

50. What is pragmatics? 

Ans:- Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics concerned with the use of language in social contexts and the ways in which people produce and comprehend meanings through languages

51. A Definition of Pragmatics

the study of the practical aspects of human action and thought.

the study of the use of linguistic signs, words and sentences, in actual situations

the study of the form, meaning, and behaviour of words

A Tale of Two Cities as the least Dickensian of Dickens' novels

 Scholars describe A Tale of Two Cities as the least Dickensian of Dickens' novels, yet it remains one of Dickens' most widely read books. It was originally published in weekly installments in All the Year Round, from April 30 to November 29, 1859. From the book's inception, it received mixed critical reviews, but succeeded in capturing the imagination of general readers through its swift, exciting story and memorable rendering of the French Revolution.

The idea for A Tale of Two Cities originated in two main sources. Always interested in the interaction between individuals and society, Dickens was particularly intrigued by Thomas Carlyle's history, The French Revolution. He saw similarities between the forces that led to the Revolution and the oppression and unrest occurring in England in his own time. Although he supported the idea of people rising up against tyranny, the violence that characterized the French Revolution troubled him.

Dickens was also drawn to the themes inherent in The Frozen Deep, a play that Wilkie Collins wrote and in which Dickens acted. In the play, two men compete for the same woman, Clara Burnham. When she chooses Frank Aldersley over Richard Wardour, Wardour (played by Dickens) vows revenge upon his rival, even though he doesn't know who his rival is. While on an arctic expedition together, the two men get stranded. Wardour discovers that Aldersley is his rival, but instead of leaving him to die, Wardour overcomes his anger and saves Aldersley's life by carrying him to safety. Collapsing at Clara's feet, Wardour dies from his efforts while Clara weeps over him. The idea of Wardour's heroism and sacrifice strongly affected Dickens, and during the course of the play, as Dickens notes in the preface to A Tale of Two Cities, he "conceived the main idea of this story."

An examination of Dickens' personal life at the time he decided to write A Tale of Two Cities also reveals what may have motivated him to write this particular story. His marriage to Catherine Hogarth had been deteriorating for years, and in May 1858, they decided to separate. Meanwhile, he had met a young woman named Ellen Ternan while performing in The Frozen Deep, and began a clandestine relationship with her that would continue until his death. Additionally, a disagreement with his publishers at Household Words led to his resignation as editor and the creation of a new magazine, All the Year Round. Dickens used A Tale of Two Cities to launch the new magazine, and the themes of secrecy and upheaval that run throughout the book may be reflections of the experiences Dickens was encountering in his own life.

Dickens took a different approach to writing A Tale of Two Cities than to his previous novels and described the book as an experiment. Rather than relying upon dialogue to develop characters, Dickens instead relied upon the plot. Consequently, the characters are defined by their actions and by their place within the movement of the overall story. Critics have complained that this technique results in a loss of Dickens' strengths in his writing, including his sense of humor and his memorable characters. They agree, however, that Dickens' experiment created his most tightly plotted novel, in which the narrative moves along quickly and smoothly. The book's well-conceived structure neatly blends all of the storylines and characters, so that by the end of the book, no question remains as to how each element of the book impacts all the others.

Dickens' social ideas in this novel are straightforward: the French Revolution was inevitable because the aristocracy exploited and plundered the poor, driving them to revolt. Therefore, oppression on a large scale results in anarchy, and anarchy produces a police state. One of Dickens' strongest convictions was that the English people might erupt at any moment into a mass of bloody revolutionists. It is clear today that he was mistaken, but the idea was firmly planted in his mind, as well as in the minds of his contemporaries. A Tale of Two Cities was partly an attempt to show his readers the dangers of a possible revolution. This idea was not the first time a simple — and incorrect — conviction became the occasion for a serious and powerful work of art.

Violent revolutionary activity caught up almost all of Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century, and middle-class Englishmen naturally feared that widespread rebellion might take place at home. Dickens knew what poverty was like and how common it was. He realized the inadequacy of philanthropic institutions when confronted by the enormous misery of the slums. That Dickens turned to the French Revolution to dramatize the possibility of class uprisings is not surprising; few events in history offer such a concentration of terrors.

the witch hunt and historical scene in the time of the Crucible

Linguistics past paper solved 2013 to 2017

Linguistics
Past Papers Solved 2013 to 2017
MA English Annual System
University of Sargodha
Pakistan 🇵🇰🇵🇰🇵🇰

Acoustic Phonetics

Acoustic phonetics is the study of sound waves made by the human vocal organs for communication.

Prevarication :

The ability to make sentences knowing that they are false and with the purpose of misleading the receiver of the information.

Allophone

In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds, or phones, or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language.

Allomorph

In linguistics, an allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme, that is, when a unit of meaning varies in sound without changing the meaning. The term allomorph explains the comprehension of phonological variations for specific morphemes.

TheoLinguistics

The study of religious language is known as TheoLinguistics.

Approximant Sounds

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.

Neologism

A neologism  is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been fully accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event. In the process of language formation, neologisms are more mature than protologisms.

Phoneme

A phoneme  is one of the units of sound that distinguish one word from another in a particular language.

Diachronic and Synchronic Linguistics

A synchronic approach considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. Synchronic linguistics aims at describing a language at a specific point of time, usually the present. By contrast, a diachronic approach  considers the development and evolution of a language through history. Historical linguistics is typically a diachronic study.

Deep Structure

In transformational-generative grammar the underlying semantic or syntactic representation of a sentence, from which the surface structure may be derived.

Tone Language

A tone language or tonal language is a language in which saying words with different "tones" (which are like pitches in music but with a smaller number) changes the meaning of a word even if the pronunciation of the word is otherwise the same.

Stress

In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word, or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence.

Forensic Linguistics

Forensic linguistics, legal linguistics, or language and the law, is the application of linguistic knowledge, methods and insights to the forensic context of law, language, crime investigation, trial, and judicial procedure. It is a branch of applied linguistics.

Hyponymy

the state or quality of being a hyponym, a term that denotes a subcategory of a more general class

Hyponym

A word of more specific meaning than a general or superordinate term applicable to it. For example, spoon is a hyponym of cutlery.

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning.

Displacement in Language

In linguistics, displacement is the capability of language to communicate about things that are not immediately present (spatially or temporally); i.e., things that are either not here or are not here now.

Form and Function

‘Form’ refers to the category labels we use for the building blocks of grammar, i.e. word classes, phrases, and clauses.

when we use the word ‘function’ when talking about language and grammar. It’s important to make clear whether we are talking about general functions, such as ‘disapproving’, ‘commenting’, ‘intensifying’, and the like, or about grammatical functions, such as Subject, Object and Adverbial.

Infix and adfix

An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word, or the core of a family of words). It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem.

Difference between Connotation and Denomination

Connotation is very different because it pertains to the more loose associations to a particular word. It can also include the emotional input that is connected to a certain term or word. The connotative definition or description coexists with its denotative meaning.

Denotation is actually the word’s literal meaning. As such, it is regarded as a “dictionary definition.”

Generative Grammar

a type of grammar which describes a language in terms of a set of logical rules formulated so as to be capable of generating the infinite number of possible sentences of that language and providing them with the correct structural description.

Minimal Pairs

In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate that two phones are two separate phonemes in the language.

Language lateralization

Language Lateralization is referred to as the localization of functions in the brain, commonly attributed to its left hemisphere and right hemisphere.

Derivational Morpheme

In morphology, a derivational morpheme is an affix that's added to a word to create a new word or a new form of a word.
Derivational morphemes can change the grammatical category (or part of speech) of a word.

Inflectional Morpheme

In English morphology, an inflectional morpheme is a suffix that's added to a word (a noun, verb, adjective or an adverb) to assign a particular grammatical property to that word, such as its tense, number, possession, or comparison. Inflectional morphemes in English include the bound morphemes -s (or -es); 's (or s'); -ed; -en; -er; -est; and -ing. These suffixes may even do double- or triple-duty.

Voice sounds or Voicing

Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal folds vibrate, its primary use in phonetics to describe phones, which are particular speech sounds.
It can also refer to a classification of speech sounds that tend to be associated with vocal cord vibration but may not actually be voiced at the articulatory level. That is the term's primary use in phonology: to describe phonemes; while in phonetics its primary use is to describe phones.

Voiceless Sounds

In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies voicing and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation.

Difference between Code Mixing and Code Switching

Code Mixing is mixing of mostly words, but also phrases, clauses or even complete sentences of two languages or varieties. Code Switching is nothing but switching from one language to another to create a special effect. Note the addition of the phrase “special effect” in the definition of the latter. The key Difference between Code Mixing and Code Switching is indeed that Code Switching has a special, social pragmatic consequence while Code Mixing does not.

Auditory Phonetics

Auditory phonetics is a branch of phonetics concerned with the hearing of speech sounds and with speech perception.

Articulatory Phonetics

The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics. In studying articulation, phoneticians explain how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of different physiological structures.

Language Universals

A linguistic universal is a pattern that occurs systematically across natural languages, potentially true for all of them. For example, All languages have nouns and verbs, or If a language is spoken, it has consonants and vowels.

Pidgin language
Pidgin Language is nobody's native language; may arise when two speakers of different languages with no common language try to have a makeshift conversation. Lexicon usually comes from one language, structure often from the other. Because of colonialism, slavery etc. the prestige of Pidgin languages is very low. Many pidgins are `contact vernaculars', may only exist for one speech event.

Creole 
Creole is a language that was originally a pidgin but has become nativized, i.e. a community of speakers claims it as their first language. Next used to designate the language(s) of people of Caribbean and African descent in colonial and ex-colonial countries

Relexification

The process of substituting new vocabulary for old. Pidgins may get relexified with new English vocabulary to replace the previous Portuguese vocabulary, etc.

Segmental Phonology

In phonology, there is a subfield of segmental phonology that deals with the analysis of speech into phonemes (or segmental phonemes), which correspond fairly well to phonetic segments of the analysed speech.

Suprasegmental  Phonology

Suprasegmental Phonology in which we study  a vocal effect that extends over more than one sound segment in an utterance, such as pitch, stress, or juncture pattern.

Arbitrariness of Language

In linguistics, arbitrariness is the absence of any natural or necessary connection between a word's meaning and its sound or form. An antithesis to sound symbolism, which does exhibit an apparent connection between sound and sense, arbitrariness is one of the characteristics shared between all languages.

Feminist Stylistics

Feminist stylistics can be defined as the sub-branch of stylistics which aims to account for the way in which gender concerns are linguistically encoded in texts, and which attempts to do so by employing some of the frameworks and models pertaining in the stylistics tool-kit.

Bound and Free Morpheme

In morphology, a bound morpheme is a morpheme (the most basic unit of meaning) that can appear only as part of a larger word; a free morpheme or unbound morpheme is one that can stand alone or can appear with other morphemes in a lexeme. A bound morpheme is also known as a bound form, and similarly a free morpheme is a free form.

Semi Vowel

In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel or glide, also known as a non-syllabic vocoid, is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.

Polysemy

Polysemy is the association of one word with two or more distinct meanings. A polyseme is a word or phrase with multiple meanings. The word "polysemy" comes from the Greek for "many signs."

Synonymy

Synonymy is the study of words with the same or similar meaning, or the quality of being similar.

Behaviouristic Theory of Language Learning

Behaviouristic Theory of Language Learning states that language is behavior and consiquently is learned like any other behavior via positive and negative reinforcement.

Experimental Phonetics

Experimental phonetics is the branch of general phonetics that deals with the study of the sounds and other human speech units by applying the experimental method. This scientific field covers basic areas of phonetics - articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics and auditory phonetics.

Language Typology

Linguistic typology is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural and functional features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages.

Duality of Language

Duality of patterning refers to the ability of human language, both signed and spoken, to form discrete meaningful units.

Compounding

Compounding is the process of combining two words (free morphemes) to create a new word (commonly a noun, verb, or adjective). Also called composition it is from the Latin for "put together".

Inflections

Inflection refers to a process of word formation in which items are added to the base form of a word to express grammatical meanings. The word "inflection" comes from the Latin inflectere, meaning "to bend."

Some extra Definitions related to Phonetics

Initiation: Setting air in motion through the vocal tract.

Phonation: The modification of airflow as it passes through the larynx (related to voicing).

Articulation: The shaping of airflow to generate particular sound types (related to manner)

Voice

In English we have both voiced and voiceless sounds. A sound fits into one of these categories according to how the vocal folds behave when a speech sound is produced.

Voiced: Voiced sounds are sounds that involve vocal fold vibrations when they are produced. Examples of voiced sounds are /b,d,v,m/.

If you place two fingers on either side of the front of your neck, just below your jawbone, and produce a sound, you should be able to feel a vibrating sensation. This tells you that a sound is voiced.

Voiceless: Voiceless sounds are sounds that are produced with no vocal fold vibration. Examples of voiceless sounds in English are /s,t,p,f/.
2) Place

The vocal tract is made up of different sections, which play a pivotal role in the production of speech. These sections are called articulators and are what make speech sounds possible. They can be divided into two types.

The active articulator is the articulator that moves towards another articulator in the production of a speech sound. This articulator moves towards another articulator to form a closure of some type in the vocal tract (i.e open approximation, close, etc – define)

The passive articulator is the articulator that remains stationary in the production of a speech sound. Often, this is the destination that the active articulator moves towards (i.e the hard palate).

I will now talk about the different places of articulation in the vocal tract

Bilabial: Bilabial sounds involve the upper and lower lips. In the production of a bilabial sound, the lips come into contact with each other to form an effective constriction. In English, /p,b,m/ are bilabial sounds.


Labiodental: Labiodental sounds involve the lower lip (labial) and upper teeth (dental) coming into contact with each other to form an effective constriction in the vocal tract. Examples of labiodental sounds in English are /f,v/. Labiodental sounds can be divided into two types.
a) Endolabial: sounds produced where the upper teeth are pressed against the inside of the lower lip.

b) Exolabial: sounds produced where the upper teeth are pressed against the outer side of the lower lip.



Dental: Dental sounds involve the tongue tip (active articulator) making contact with the upper teeth to form a constriction. Examples of Dental sounds in English are / θ, ð/.   If a sound is produced where the tongue is between the upper and lower teeth, it is attributed the term ‘interdental’.


Alveolar: First of all, before I explain what an alveolar sound is, it’s useful to locate the alveolar ridge itself. If you place your tongue just behind your teeth and move it around, you’ll feel a bony sort of ridge. This is known as the alveolar ridge. Alveolar sounds involve the front portion of the tongue making contact with the alveolar ridge to form an effective constriction in the vocal tract. Examples of alveolar sounds in English are /t,d,n,l,s/.


Postalveolar: Postalveolar sounds are made a little further back (‘post’) from the alveolar ridge. A postalveolar sound is produced when the blade of the tongue comes into contact with the post-alveolar region of your mouth. Examples of post-alveolar sounds in English are /  ʃ, ʒ    /.


Palatal: Palatal sounds are made with the tongue body (the big, fleshy part of your tongue). The tongue body raises up towards the hard-palate in your mouth (the dome shaped roof of your mouth) to form an effective constriction. An example of a palatal sounds in English is /j/, usually spelt as <y>.


Velar: Velar sounds are made when the back of the tongue (tongue dorsum) raises towards the soft palate, which is located at the back of the roof of the mouth. This soft palate is known as the velum. An effective constriction is then formed when these two articulators come into contact with each other. Examples of velar sounds in English are /k,g ŋ  /.


3) Manner

In simple terms, the manner of articulation refers to the way a sound is made, as opposed to where it’s made. Sounds differ in the way they are produced. When the articulators are brought towards each other, the flow of air differs according to the specific sound type. For instance, the airflow can be completely blocked off or made turbulent.



1) Stop articulations:

Stop articulations are sounds that involve a complete closure in the vocal tract. The closure is formed when two articulators come together to prevent air escaping between them. Stop articulations can be categorized according to the kind of airflow involved. The type of airflow can be oral (plosives) or nasal (nasals). I will now talk about both plosives and nasals separately.

1a) Plosives: are sounds that are made with a complete closure in the oral (vocal) tract.  The velum is raised during a plosive sound, which prevents air from escaping via the nasal cavity. English plosives are the sounds /p,b,t,d,k,g/. Plosives can be held for quite a long time and are thus also called ‘maintainable stops’.



1b) Nasals are similar to plosives in regards to being sounds that are made with a complete closure in the oral (vocal) tract. However, the velum is lowered during nasal sounds, which allows airflow to escape through the nasal cavity. There are 3 nasal sounds that occur in English /m,n, ŋ/



2) Fricatives:

Fricative sounds are produced by narrowing the distance between the active and passive articulators causing them to be in close approximation. This causes the airflow to become turbulent when it passes between the two articulators involved in producing a fricative sound. English fricatives are sounds such as / f,v, θ,ð, s,z, ʃ,ʒ     /



3) Approximants:

Approximant sounds are created by narrowing the distance between the two articulators. Although, unlike fricatives, the distance isn’t wide enough to create turbulent airflow.  English has 4 approximant sounds which are /w,j,r,l/.



Vowels

When it comes to vowels, we use a different specification to describe them. We look at the vertical position of the tongue, the horizontal position of the tongue and lip position.

Vowels are made with a free passage of airflow down the mid-line of the vocal tract. They are usually voiced and are produced without friction.



1) Vertical tongue position (close-open): vertical tongue position refers to how close the tongue is to the roof of the mouth in the production of a vowel. If the tongue is close, it is given the label close. However, if the tongue is low in the mouth when a vowel is produced, it’s given the label open.  + close-mid/open mid (see below).



Some examples of open vowels: ɪ, ʊ

Some examples of close vowels: æ, ɒ,



2) Horizontal tongue position (front, mid, back): Horizontal tongue refers to where the tongue is positioned in the vocal tract in terms of ‘at the front’ or ‘at the back’ when a vowel is produced. If the tongue is at the front of the mouth it’s given the label front, if the tongue is in the middle of the mouth it’s given the label mid and if the tongue is at the back of the mouth it’s given the label back.

Some examples of front vowels: ɪ , e, æ

Some examples of mid vowels: ə

Some examples of back vowels:  ʌ,ɒ



3) Lip position: As is inferred, lip position concerns the position of the lips when a vowel is produced. The lips can either be round, spread or neutral.

Examples of round vowels: u, o

Examples of spread vowels: ɪ, ɛ



There are also different categories of vowels, for example: monophthongs and diphthongs.



Monophthongs: Monophthongs are vowels that are produced by a relatively stable tongue position.

Monophthongs can be divided into two categories according to their duration. These are long and short vowels and their duration is mirrored in their names.

Examples of short vowels: e, æ, ɪ, ʊ

Examples of long vowels: ɔ: ɜ:, i:, u:



Diphthongs: Diphthongs are vowels where the tongue moves from one part of the mouth to another. They can be seen as starting of as one vowel and ending as a different vowel.

Here are some examples: /aʊ, ɪə, ɔɪ, əʊ/

themes in mourning becomes Electra and moral lesson shayateen say kaisay...