Ant/Lin 322/522 Introduction to Phonology
Problem Set 4 Part 2

Find a [fõwn]
... or "One thin phone for monsieur?"

(Do you get the "classical" reference? If so, what is it?)
  • Your task is to find one, yes, just one sound, or phone, that is not found in English.
  • The sound can be from any language of your choosing other than English, but I want it to be as strange as possible...from an American English point of view, of course.
  • For the sound that you find you are to provide the following:
    1. an acceptable phonetic symbol;
    2. a formal articulatory definition;
    3. a prose description of how it is produced;
    4. two or three examples of words in which it occurs;
    5. a list of any and all sources consulted.
  • For example, to take a sound from English that you're all familiar with:
    1. [m]
    2. bilabial nasal
    3. Produced by closing the oral cavity completely at the lips and lowering the velum to open the passage to the nasal cavity, while the vocal cords are vibrating.
    4. mom, maim
    5. E. Scatton's Ant/Lin 220 web site at www.albany.edu/faculty/scattone/alin220
  • You can find the phone anyway you chose. Here are some suggestions and guidelines:
    1. If you speak a language other than English, go through its sounds, looking for one that is not found in English. Then, if necessary, find a reference grammar of the language and get the additional information you need from it.
    2. Alternatively, pick any language of your choice, find a reference grammar that includes information on its sound system, read the information, and look for something that's really un-English, etc., etc.
    3. Go out on the WWW to any of the sites I've recommended to you (or to any other that you find) and look for strange sounds, etc., etc.
    4. You may use whatever sources you wish...including simply going to someone (a language teacher, a speaker of another language, any campus linguists, anyone at all) for suggestions, help, information, whatever. Just include him/her/them in your list of references.
    5. You can, as always, work together in groups, if you'd like, but make that clear in your write-up.
    6. I'd prefer that you don't use examples of individual sounds that I've used in the course, but you can use other sounds that belong to the same general classes the examples have belonged to.