Aspects of linguistic competence 3 Sept 06, 2013 – DAY 5

1. Aspects of linguistic competence 3Sept 06, 2013 – DAY 5 Brain & Language LING 4110-4890-5110-7960 NSCI 4110-4891-6110 Harry Howard Tulane University

2. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Course organization • The syllabus, these slides and my recordings are available at http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/LING4110/ • If you want to learn more about EEG and neurolinguistics, you are welcome to participate in my lab. This is also a good way to get started on an honor's thesis.

3. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University ReviewArticulatory phonetics

4. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University How do you pronounce these words? [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] - voiceless aspirated [p, t, k] - voiceless [p˺, t˺, k˺] - voiceless unreleased [b, d, g] - voiced [*b, *d, *g] - ungrammatical voiced [b, d, g] - voiced How many voiceless stops does English have? Can words be distinguished by aspiration or lack of release? (see next slide)

5. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University The answer is … these are phonemes; realm of phonology and distinctive features /p, t, k/ [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] at the beginning of a syllable these are phones or allophones; realm of phonetics and non-distinctive features [p˺, t˺, k˺] at the end of a word [p, t, k] everywhere else

6. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University ReviewPhonology English /p/ Khmer /p/ /pʰ/ [p] [pʰ] [p] [pʰ]

7. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Aspects of linguistic competence Ingram §2: Prosody

8. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Segmental vs. suprasegmental • So far, we have been talking about discrete units of speech, e.g. [k, i, m]. • These are called segments, because they act like isolatable bits of speech. • But there is another group of speech ‘sounds’ that are much more difficult to isolate into free-standing, repeating units. • These are called suprasegmentals, because they are either larger than segments or dependent on segments in some sense. • They make up the study of prosody.

9. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Intro to prosody • What is a syllable? • Smallest unit that can be pronounced. • Usually contains a vowel: • a > ra > tra > tran > trank > strank • English is strange: • ladder [læ.dɹ̩], ladle [le.dl̩], laden [le.dn̩]; bottle [ba.ʔɹl̩] • What are the building blocks of prosody? • stress • prominence relations among syllables • rhythm • patterns of stress in time • intonation • linguistic use of voice pitch • And maybe volume, though there is not much to say about it.

10. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University (Word) stress • What did you learn about (word) stress? • Is it contrastive in English? • address ~ address • compress ~ compress • export ~ export • insult ~ insult • convert ~ convert • Compare to Spanish • termino ~ termino ~ termino

11. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Changes in stress ‘frankfurter’ ‘dog which is hot’ ‘exhaustion’ ‘burn until all gone’ ‘glass building’ ‘house which is green’ After eating fourteen cakes, he threw up. English stress tends to fall at the end of a unit, but it can be ‘retracted’ onto the previous syllable.

12. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Intonation • What did you learn about intonation?

13. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Aspects of linguistic competence Morphology

14. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University A quick intro • Divide the following words into morphemes. • Be sure you can tell which morphemes are free, bound, prefixes, suffixes, roots and stems. • blueberry • cranberry • vision • antidisestablishmentarianism • anti – dis – [establish] - ment - ari – an - ism

15. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University NEXT TIME Q1 – 10 items (multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank) Finish §2: syntax & summary