LITTI 1 COURSE

2nd
ASSIGNMENT
SUBJ. INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS
PROF. LAURA MUSTO

I declare that this assignment is my own,

original work. Where someone elses work was
used (whether from a printed source or the
internet) due acknowledgement was given and
the sources were properly referenced.

Florencia Gossio

International House - London Institute

LITTI 1 - 2015
Tutor: Laura Musto
Assignment
Due date: 27 April
Answer the following questions and provide an example to illustrate the
concept:
1) What is voicing, place of articulation and manner of articulation?
2) What are minimal pairs?
3) In each exercise (numbered 2, 3 and 4) work on any four of the
examples provided (taken from Yule, p. 35)
1) Voicing is the characteristic of phonemes that represents when a
phoneme produce vibration or not in our throat, therefore we divide
the phonemes, in this category, into voiced and voiceless sounds. We
can prove it by putting our fingers on the Adams apple, for example,
the phoneme z is voiced because produces a vibration on the vocal
chords, the phoneme s is voiceless being that it doesnt produce a
vibratrion in the throat.
Place of articulation is where the phoneme is made, this category
describes where the air is at the moment of producing a sound, the
phoneme can be made in several places, for example: bilabial is the
kind of phoneme that is made when the lips are joined,it is
labiodental when the teeth and the lips are joined, dental is used
when the phoneme is formed when the tongue and the teeth are
touching, is palatal when the tongue touches the palate, alveolar is
used to describe when the phoneme is formed when the tongue
touches the little mountain that is behind the teeth, velar is when the
phoneme is made in the back of the throat, more specifically in the
velum, and finally glotal, we say the phoneme is glotal to describe
when the sound is made lower in the throat, the only phoneme in this
category is the phoneme h.
Manner of articulation this category describes how the air flows at the
moment of producing a sound, for example we say that in stops the
phoneme requires a stop to be made, like the t, the air is interrupted
for a brief moment; we have the fricatives, it is when the air needed
to make the sound, produces a friction for example the v phoneme;
the affricates, it is when the air stops, but produce a friction too,
this phoneme is an example of affricate; the nasals are made when
the vellum is lowered and the air flows through the nose, the
phoneme n is a perfect example of it; the liquids are used to

describe how the air flows through the sides of the tongue when the
last one touches the alveolar bridge, the l is a liquid consonant; the
glides are used to describe the semi-vowels, the tongue is in the
middle of the mouth, w for example, is a glide.
2) Minimal pairs are different kind of words that differ in one phoneme,
this phoneme is a phoneme because makes a word, if we change it
for another sound the word would change its meaning, for example
can and tan, lean and lin, cat and car.
To respond this questions the questions above, these books were
consulted: (Finegan - Language - Its Structure and Use - 6th edition.pdf)
and (Yule -The Study of Language - 5th edition.pdf)

3)

3)

2. (a) V
(b) +V
(c) +V
(d) +V
3. (a) Velar (b) Palatal (c) Labiodental
(d) Velar
4. (a) Affricates
(b) Stops
(c)Stops
(d) Fricatives

4) Answer this question from Yule (p. 47) and justify your answer (explain
why these two vowels are either allophones or phonemes)

4) They are phonemes, because otherwise would be the same word, as

it was said before, a phoneme is a sound that could change the
meaning of the word, if they were allophones these different words
would have the same meaning, they would be one instead of two
different words and they are different, that is why we say o~ and o
are different phonemes.