Glossary for the KAEPS system

Many linguistics terms in this site are cited from Ladefoged (1993).

Contents: [affricate] [allophone] [alveolar] [alveolar ridge] [back vowel] [fricative] [front vowel] [glottal] [glottis] [homorganic] [interlanguage] [L1] [L2] [lax] [obstruent] [phoneme] [stop] [tap] [tense]

Affricate

A stop followed by a homorganic fricative.

A variant of a phoneme. The allophones of a phoneme form a set of sounds that (1) do not change the meaning of a word, (2) are all very similar to one another, and (3) occur in phonetic contexts different from one another -- for example, in English, aspirated [] in "top" and unaspirated [p] in "stop" are allophones of the voiceless bilabial stop /p/. The differences among allophones can be stated in terms of phonological rules.

Alveolar

An articulatin involving the tip or blade of the tongue and the alveolar ridge, as in English [d] in "die."

Alveolar ridge

the part of the upper surface of the mouth immediately behind the front teeth.

Back Vowels

Vowels in which the body of the tongue is in the back part of the oral cavity (mouth). The vowels [u, o, , ] form a set of back reference vowels.

Fricative

Narrowing of the distance between two articulators so that the airstream is partially obstructed and a turbulent airflow is produced, as in English [a] in 'zoo'

Vowels in which the body of the tongue is in the front part of the oral cavity (mouth). The vowels [i, e, , a] form a set of front reference vowels.

Glottal

An articulation involving the glottis, as [] in many forms of English 'button' [bn].

Glottis

The space between the vocal cords.

Homorganic

Made with the same place of articulatin. The sound [d] and [n], as in English 'hand,' are homorganic.

Interlanguage

Selinker (1969, 1972) proposed and elaborated the term interlanguage (IL) to explain the unique utterances of L2 learners. It is regarded as a separate linguistic system which results from a learner's attempts to produce a target language (TL) norm. Corder (1971) calls ILs a group of idiosyncratic dialects or even transitional dialects due to the unstable nature of such dialects. The following figure (Beebe, 1980:166) shows that the relation of the IL to the native language (NL) and the target language (TL):

Figure 1: Corder's notion of idiosyncratic dialect or IL in relation to the NL and the TL

In this figure, the NL and TL may not seem to have common features, but they do. There must be something the two languages have in common as human languages. H-K Kim (1997b) suggests the following diagram:


Figure 2: H-K Kim's notion of IL in relation to the NL and the TL

The more similar the two languages are to each other, the greater area the intersection part will occupy.

L1

First language. Native language (NL). Mother tongue.

Second language or Foreign language. Target language (TL).

A term with no specific phonetic correlates, used when dividing vowels into classes on phonological grounds. In English, the lax vowels are those that can occur in monosyllables closed by [] such as 'sing, length, hang, long, hung.'

Obstruent

A fricative, stop, or affricate.

One of a set of abstract units that can be used for writing a language down in a systematic and unambiguous way. See also allophone.

Stop

Complete closure of two articulators. This term usually implies an oral stop - that is, complete closure of two articulators and a velic closure, as in English [b] in 'buy'. But nasals, as in English [m] in 'my,' can also be considered stops.

A rapid movement of the tip of the tongue upwards to contact the roof of the mouth, then returning to the floor of the mouth along the same path.

Tense

A term with no specific phonetic correlates, used when dividing vowels into classes on phonological grounds. In English, the tense vowels are those that can occur in stressed open syllables such as 'bee, bay, bah, saw, low, boo, buy, bough, boy, cue.'