Pre-requisite
HUL 234, HUL242 and HUL 350 for UG
Course Objective
This course aims to develop an understanding of the physiological as well as psychological basis for phonological theory. In doing so the course discusses the manner in which the gradient acoustic properties of a speech signal, like frequency, amplitude, harmonic frequency or formants, time-period, pulse etc, map onto phonological categories of perception like sonority, voicing, continuancy, stridency etc, across different languages.
Faculty
Course Content
This course explores the connection between a unit of acoustic speech signal and its environment (sounds preceding or following it). Phonological theory is thus composed on context-free and context-sensitive notions of markedness. While these are supposed to be universal, individual languages might vary significantly in prioritizing between these. The course therefore involves a major practical component where the speech units of individual languages (vowels, consonants and tones) are studied with respect to their phonological contexts.