Phonemic inventories Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Phonemic inventories - Assignment Example or instance, you have to begin with closed lips, build up some air pressure behind that closure, and then release it in a small burst (Bischoff and Fountain 2011:4). According to Bischoff and Fountain (2011), a vowel is a sound in an oral language made by opening the vocal tract such that, no air build up occurs above the glottis. For this reason, ‘vowel sounds are typically much darker (louder) than the consonant sounds’ (Bischoff and Fountain 2011: 6). Bischoff and Fountain (2011:42) defines phonetic inventory as the set of phones that are distinctive in a given language. Phonetic inventory is not simply a collection of sounds; rather it is more of a set of phonemic distinctions (Bischoff and Fountain 2011:11). Understanding of phonemic inventory of a language helps learners of the language make complex combinations of features with ease (Bischoff and Fountain 2011:11). According to Bischoff and Fountain (2011:41), a minimal pair is a pair of words that have distinct meanings, but that differ only with respect to a single phone. (Bischoff and Fountain 2011:41) further says that the existence of a minimal pair is proof that the phonetic distinction between the differing phones is phonemic in the relevant language. Minimal pairs help us to discover which phonetic properties are distinctive, or phonemic, in a language (Bischoff and Fountain 2011:6). My illustration of the IPA article is about Bardi, a language spoken in Western Kimberly Region in Northwestern Australia (Claire et al. 2012: 334). Bardi consists of 17 consonant phonemes, twelve (12) of which are sonorant, and has no fricatives (Claire et al. 2012: 337). Bardi is important as I investigate my field language, because, itself also being in the Austronesia family, it helps me understand the corresponding use of speech sounds in Mocinese. Noticeable similarities and differences between Mocinese and Bardi exist, with regards to their consonantal arrangement. A major similarity is that, all Bardi