Linguistics: Language Structure & Analysis

# Linguistics: Language Structure & Analysis

## Phonetics & Phonology

### Speech Sounds
Phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds; phonology studies how sounds function within particular languages. The IPA provides a universal notation system for transcribing any human speech sound. Every sound is classified by three parameters for cons: place of artic (where airflow is obstructed), manner of artic (how it's obstructed), and voicing (whether vocal folds vibrate).

Place of artic (front to back): bilabial (both lips: /p/, /b/, /m/), labiodental (lower lip + upper teeth: /f/, /v/), dental (tongue + teeth: /θ/ as in "thin", /ð/ as in "this"), alveolar (tongue + alveolar ridge: /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /n/, /l/), postalveolar (tongue behind ridge: /ʃ/ as in "ship", /ʒ/ as in "measure"), palatal (tongue + hard palate: /j/ as in "yes"), velar (tongue + soft palate: /k/, /g/, /ŋ/ as in "sing"), glottal (vocal folds: /h/, /ʔ/ as in "uh-oh").

Manner of artic: stops (complete airflow blockage then release: /p/, /t/, /k/), fricatives (narrow channel creates turbulence: /f/, /s/, /ʃ/), affricates (stop + fricative: /tʃ/ as in "church"), nasals (air through nose: /m/, /n/, /ŋ/), approximants (narrow but no turbulence: /l/, /r/, /w/, /j/).

vow are classified by tongue height (high/mid/low), tongue backness (front/central/back), and lip rounding. English has ~11-15 vow phon depending on dialect (far more than the 5 vow letters suggest).

### Phonological Processes
A phon is the smallest unit of sound that distinguishes meaning in a language. /p/ and /b/ are separate phon in English because "pat" and "bat" differ only in that sound (minimal pair test). But /p/ has multiple allophones — in "pat" it's aspirated [pʰ], in "spat" it's unaspirated [p]. English speakers don't notice this difference, but in Hindi or Thai, aspiration distinguishes meaning.

Phonological rules describe systematic patterns: assimilation (sounds become more similar to neighbors — "input" often pronounced [ɪmpʊt], /n/ → /m/ before bilabial /p/), deletion (unstressed syl removal — "chocolate" → [tʃɒklət], "family" → [fæmli]), epenthesis (sound insertion — "something" → [sʌmpθɪŋ], /p/ inserted between /m/ and /θ/), metathesis (sound reordering — "ask" → [æks] in some dialects).

### Prosody
Suprasegmental features operating above the phon level: stress (prominent syl — English distinguishes noun "RECord" from verb "reCORD"), intonation (pitch patterns — rising intonation signals questions in English), tone (pitch distinguishes word meaning — Mandarin "ma" with four tones means mother, hemp, horse, or scold), rhythm (stress-timed like English vs. syllable-timed like Spanish vs. mora-timed like Japanese).