Postgraduate Course: MSc Foundation: Phonology & Phonetics (LASC11115)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 10 |
| Home subject area | Language Sciences |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course cover two general areas:
1) Morphophonology: ways in which phonological processes (final devoicing, vowel harmony, assimilation, and so on) affect the shapes of morphemes in particular languages, and
2) Laboratory Phonology: how phonetic evidence can be used to answer theoretical phonological questions |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
Knowledge of 1) kinds of phonological processes found in the languages of the world, and 2) experimental techniques for answering theoretical phonological questions.
Practical Skills for 1) analysis and description of morphophonological data, 2) interpreting instrumental records of speech, and 3) eliciting, measuring and analysing experimental data |
Assessment Information
Morphophonology assessment of 2000-2500 words (50%)
Laboratory project and assigned exercises of 2500-3000 words (50%) |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
General goals of the course:
Morphophonology: to familiarise you with the ways in which phonological processes (final devoicing, vowel harmony, assimilation, and so on) affect the shapes of morphemes in particular languages. The emphasis is on practical analytical and descriptive skills in dealing with morphophonological data.
Instrumental Phonetics: to give you practical experience with various instrumental techniques for the analysis of speech, and an understanding of the kinds of phenomena which can be measured using different instruments.
Laboratory Phonology: to show you ways in which the instrumental analysis and description of speech data is relevant to our understanding of phonological representations and processes - in effect, to explore the connection between "phonology" and "phonetics".
The instrumental phonetics component will build on skills and knowledge learned in previous courses you may have taken. In particular, you will learn to make your own recordings, and learn the phonetician¿s art of making formant measurements. Most of the skills you learn in class will be used in the lab project, due at the end of Week 11. We will also give you practice with other types of instrumental records, e.g. EPG and EMA, types of data often used in Laboratory Phonology studies.
For analysing morphophonemics, we¿ll assume the approach that ultimately goes back to the Sanskrit grammarians 2500 years ago and that has been virtually standard since the time of Bloomfield¿positing a single uniform ¿underlying representation¿, with rules to derive the surface variants from that single form. This approach was formalized in the theory of generative phonology set forth in Chomsky and Halle¿s monumental The Sound Pattern of English or ¿SPE¿ (1968), which still represents the starting point for the way most people think about phonology.
As for the link between ¿phonology¿ and ¿phonetics¿, in the last few weeks of the course we¿ll look at some of the theoretical issues that arise from the SPE version of phonology, in particular the status of underlying representations and of traditional phonemes and allophones. We¿ll consider several case studies that seem to show that a description of phonology in which one symbol is turned into another (say, /n/ assimilating to /m/ before /b/) doesn¿t really reflect the actual facts of speech very well. We¿ll discuss the implications of such cases, both for phonological theory and for speech pathology. The lab assignment will give you the opportunity to test so-called assimilation processes in your own speech.
Practicals: The course has a strong practical emphasis, and we encourage you to become competent and confident both with lab procedures and the analysis of morphophonemic data. |
| Transferable skills |
Critical thinking, data analysis, synthesis of ideas from the literature; presenting ideas in graphical form and in writing; sound recording |
| Reading list |
Browman, C. P., & Goldstein, L. (1992a). Articulatory phonology: an overview. Phonetica, 49, 155¿180.
Browman, C. P., & Goldstein, L. (1992b). ¿Targetless¿ schwa: an articulatory analysis. In G. J. Docherty& D. R. Ladd (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology II: Gesture, Segment, Prosody. Cambridge University Press.
Carr, P. (1993). Phonology. Macmillan. Ellis, L., & Hardcastle,W. J. (2002). Categorical and gradient properties of assimilation in alveolar to velar sequences: evidence from EPG and EMA data. Journal of Phonetics, 30, 373¿396.
Folkins, J. W., & Abbs, J. H. (1975). Lip and jaw motor control during speech: responses to resistive loading of the jaw. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 18, 207¿220.
Gibbon, F. (1990). Lingual activity in two speech-disordered children¿s attempts to produce velar and alveolar stop consonants: evidence from electropalatographic (EPG) data. British Journal of Disorders of Communication, 25, 329¿340.
Gussenhoven, C., & Jacobs, H. (1997). Understanding phonology (2nd ed.). Arnold.
Harrington, J. & Cassidy, S. (1999). Techniques in Speech Acoustics. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Chapter 5.
Jun, J. (1996). Place assimilation is not the result of gestural overlap: evidence from Korean and English. Phonology, 13, 377¿407.
Katamba, F. (1989). An introduction to phonology. Longman.
Kenstowicz, M. (1994). Phonology in generative grammar. Blackwell.
Ladd, D. R., & Scobbie, J. (2003). External sandhi as gestural overlap? counter-evidence from Sardinian. In J. Local, R. Ogden, & R. Temple (Eds.), Phonetic Interpretation: Papers in Laboratory Phonology VI (pp. 162¿180). Cambridge University Press.
Ladd, D.R. (2009). Phonetics in phonology. In J. Goldsmith, J. Riggle & A. Yu (Eds.). Handbook of Phonological Theory. Blackwell.
Ladefoged, P. (1996). Elements of acoustic phonetics (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.
Ladefoged, P. (2003). Phonetic data analysis: an introduction to fieldwork and instrumental techniques. Blackwell.
Lass, R. (1984). Phonology: An introduction to basic concepts. Cambridge University Press.
Nisbett, A. (1985). The use of microphones. Hastings House.
Nolan, F. (1992). The descriptive role of segments: evidence from assimilation. In G. J. Docherty & D. R.Ladd, (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology II: Gesture, Segment, Prosody. Cambridge University Press.
Odden, D. (2005). Introducing phonology. Cambridge University Press. Schane, S. (1973). Generative phonology. Prentice-Hall.
Scobbie, J., Gibbon, F., Hardcastle, W. J., & Fletcher, P. (2000). Covert contrast as a stage in the acquisition of phonetics and phonology. In M. Broe & J. B. Pierrehumbert (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology V: Language Acquisition. Cambridge University Press.
Son, Minjung, Alexei Kochetov, and Marianne Pouplier (2007). The role of gestural overlap in perceptual place assimilation: Evidence from Korean. In J. Cole, & J.I. Hualde (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology IX. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Zsiga, E. C. (1995). An acoustic and electopalatographic study of lexical and postlexical palatalisation in American English. In B. Connell & A. Arvaniti (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology IV: Phonology and Phonetic Evidence (pp. 282¿302). Cambridge University Press |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Alice Turk
Tel: (0131 6)50 3483
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Toni Noble
Tel: (0131 6)51 3188
Email: |
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