Phonology exam answers about: Trubetzkoy’s phonological oppositions, distinctive features, assimilation process, vowel nasalization, umlauting and phonological rules.
Exercise 1
Trubetzkoy established 3 types of oppositions: privative, gradual and equipollent. In a binary privative opposition one member is characterized by the presence of a certain differential feature, while the other member is characterized by the absence of this very feature. The member in which the differential feature is present is called “the marked” (strong, positive) member of the opposition.
The other member of the opposition is called unmarked (weak, negative). Let’s take the opposition /d/: /t/. Both of them are plosive and alveolar consonants. But, the differential feature is the presence of voice in articulation. So /d/ is treated as the marked member of the opposition as it is voiced, while /t/ is unmarked because it is voiceless.
A gradual opposition is formed by a contrastive group of members which are distinguished not by the presence or absence of some feature but by the degree of the same feature.
Taking into consideration the degree of openness of the phoneme, we can speak of a gradual opposition when comparing vowels: /i:, i, e, эe/.
An equipollent opposition is formed by a contrastive pair or group of members which are differentiated by different positive features.
e.g. the phonemes <p> and <k> form an equipollent opposition in which the voiceless consonant <k> is velar while the voiceless consonant <t> is alveolar.
| /ṇ/ | /x/ | /ky/ | /ü/ | /ɨ/ | /d/ | /bw/ | /β/ | /h/ | /o/ | |
| Consonantal |
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| Syllabic |
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| Sonorant |
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| Continuant |
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| Del R |
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| Nasal |
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| Lateral |
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| Anterior |
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| Coronal |
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| Back |
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| Round |
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| High |
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| Low |
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| Tense |
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Exercise 3
The process shown in this data is the processes of dissimilation, exactly the lateral dissimilation. Considering the data (A), to form the plural of words in this language we infix -ar- after the initial consonant of the words as in
kusut k-ar-usut
but in the data (B) the infix has changed from -ar- to -al- as in
nugar n-al-ugar
botʃor b-al-otʃor
hormat h-al-ormat
botʃor b-al-otʃor
hormat h-al-ormat
; to explain this, when the infix -ar- is followed within the stem by another /r/, the first /r/ dissimilates to the lateral /l/ bringing about the changes seen in the data (B).
Exercise 4
A-The process is vowel nasalization
B- The process is vowel assimilates vowel features known as Umlauting
Exercise 5
a- The morpheme undergoing changes is at-
b- Here the consonant assimilates consonant features. The consonant (t) in the prefix agrees in voicing with the following voiced obstruent consonants (b, g).
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