Glossary

This sound involves a non-nasal oral closure that develops into a fricative. In phonological terms affricates may be considered a single phoneme or a series of two phonemes.

Example: /tS/

For a given phoneme, the actual sounds that are produced may vary. This depends on phoneme context, a speaker’s character, accent, class, and so on. The phones that together form a certain phoneme are called allophones of this phoneme.

Example: The phoneme /l/ represents two allophones: the clear l /l/, which occurs before a vowel sound or /j/ (for example, like /laIk/), and the dark l /:/, which occurs elsewhere (for example, milk /mI:k/).

A sound produced with a central obstruction in the vocal tract, with the form of obstruction distinguished by different categories of consonants such as fricatives, laterals, and nasals.

Examples: /l/, /m/, /f/, /s/

A vowel with a single noticeable change in quality during a syllable.

Diphthongs are usually subdivided into descending (falling) and ascending (rising) diphthongs depending on which of the two elements is stressed. In descending diphthongs the first element is more sonorous (as in all English diphthongs), whereas in ascending diphthongs the second element is more sonorous.

Example: /aI/ as in ‘time’ (descending diphthong)

A speech process that involves the hardening of the final sound.

Examples: Hund /hUnt/, as opposed to Hunde /hUnd@/

Final devoicing (auslautverhärtung) occurs in German and Dutch.

A sound that involves a turbulent air stream within the vocal tract and at least one obstruction such as the teeth or lips.

Examples: /s/, /S/, /Z/, /f/

A doubled consonant sound.

Examples: unknown /Vnn@Un/

A sound produced by a supraglottal closure and following opening.

Note: Nuance does not generally transcribe glottal stops.

A set of letters or letter combinations that represent a phoneme in a writing system.

Example: the phoneme /f/ may, for example, be represented by the graphemes <f> as in full /fUl/, <gh> as in enough /InVf/, <ff> as in offer /Qf@r/, and <ph> as in phone /f@Un/.

Two adjacent vowels in different syllables coming together with or without a slight pause.

Examples: radius /reIdI@s/; the hiatus is in the sequence /I@/

A lateral is articulated by allowing air to escape freely over one or both sides of the tongue.

Example: /l/

A single vowel where there is no detectable change in quality during a syllable.

Example: /V/ as in cut

The smallest unity of letters that carries meaning.

Examples: ‘book’, ‘it’, ‘he’; in disagreement the morphemes are ‘dis’, ‘agree’ and ‘ment’.

Note that morphemes are not necessarily identical to syllables. For example, in ‘dogs’ the morphemes are ‘dog’ and ‘s’ (‘s’ being the plural morpheme in this case).

The production of nasals involves a part or the whole of the respiratory stream escaping through the nose.

Examples: /m/, /n/, /N/

Sometimes sounds are distinguished according to their noise component. If the obstruction in the vocal tract is sufficient to cause noise, the respective sound is called an obstruent.

Examples are all plosives, fricatives, and affricates.

Sounds without such a noise component are called sonorants.

Note: Nuance does not use this distinction in the description of sounds.

A perceptually distinct sound unit that does not yet represent a particular phoneme.

A unit of speech or sound that represents the distinctive part of a spoken word.

Examples: /f/, /S/, /m/, /@/, /I/

A process that breaks a word down into its phonemes.

Examples: full /fUl/, bin /bIn/, yes /jes/

A sound that may or may not be voiced and involves an oral closure that is non-nasal.

Examples: /p/, /d/, /t/, /d/, /k/

A morphological element placed before the root of a word.

Examples: un- as in ‘unseen’ or dis- as in ‘disagree’

A sound functioning phonologically as a consonant, but sharing the phonetic qualities of a vowel.

Example: /j/ as in yet /jet/

Sometimes sounds are distinguished according to their noise component. If the production of a sound does not involve a noise component the sound is a sonorant. Sonorants can form the nucleus of a syllable.

Examples: All vowels and /m/, /n/, /N/, /j/, /w/

Sounds in which there is a noise component are called obstruents.

Note: Nuance does not use this distinction in the description of sounds.

A morphological element that is attached to the word root and may cause the change of a word class.

Examples: -ship as in ‘fellowship’ or -ment as in ‘improvement’ (with change of word class).

Trills are pronounced with a very fast movement of the tongue tip or the uvula.

They occur especially in romance languages; for example, in the Italian pronunciation of /r/.

Example: rosso /rOsso/

A quality of a sound that involves vibration of the vocal folds.

Example: /v/ as in wives /waIvZ/

A quality of a sound that does not involve the vibration of the vocal folds.

Example: /f/ as in wife /waIf/

A voiced sound produced without any central obstruction in the oral tract.

Examples: /i:/, /e/, /A:/, /U/, /Q/