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Neurological development of higher brain structures coincides with certain developments in infants’ vocalizations. For example, the onset of cooing at 6 to 8 weeks happens as some areas of the limbic system begin to function. The limbic system is known to be involved in the expression of emotion, and cooing in infants is associated with a ...
However, each vowel has split into a number of different pronunciations in Modern English, depending on the phonological context. The short /a/, for example, has split into seven different vowels, all still spelled a but pronounced differently: /æ/ when not in any of the contexts indicated below, as in man, sack, wax, etc.
For example, cniht ('boy') /knixt/, may have been phonetically realized as [kniçt]. The use of the sound [ç] in this position is supported by developments in English pronunciation seen from the thirteenth century onward: original /x/ sometimes became /f/ after a back vowel (e.g. rough, tough, trough), but this change is never seen after a ...
The phonological system of the Old English language underwent many changes during the period of its existence. These included a number of vowel shifts, and the palatalisation of velar consonants in many positions. For historical developments prior to the Old English period, see Proto-Germanic language.
For example, in English, the "p" sound in pot is aspirated (pronounced [pʰ]) while that in spot is not aspirated (pronounced [p]). However, English speakers intuitively treat both sounds as variations (allophones, which cannot give origin to minimal pairs) of the same phonological category, that is of the phoneme /p/.
Tense–lax neutralization refers to a neutralization, in a particular phonological context in a particular language, of the normal distinction between tense and lax vowels. In some varieties of English, this occurs in particular before /ŋ/ and (in rhotic dialects ) before coda /r/ (that is, /r/ followed by a consonant or at the end of a word ...
A simple example is the rise of the contrast between nasal and oral vowels in French. A full account of this history is complicated by the subsequent changes in the phonetics of the nasal vowels, but the development can be compendiously illustrated via the present-day French phonemes /a/ and /ã/:
For example, the English word through consists of three phonemes: the initial "th" sound, the "r" sound, and a vowel sound. The phonemes in that and many other English words do not always correspond directly to the letters used to spell them (English orthography is not as strongly phonemic as that of many other languages).