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Message 3.5

Dear all,

It sounds like people would really like to know more about doing IPA transcriptions. Your textbook has all the crucial information on pages 39-40 - if you're uncertain about a word, just ask yourself if it has the same sound as those examples. Just note that the CAUGHT vowel changes into the COT vowel in many varieties of American English.

After reading the textbook it will help to work through the IPA chart using points (7-8) on your section handout. Typo alert in (8) - Under Vowel themes I should have said "ALL the tense vowels use normal letters of the alphabet." Sorry!

The section website has several things you may find useful:

1. A highlighted IPA chart (last page of the section slides): crucial symbols for English are highlighted in yellow, less important ones in green.
2. Answers (more detailed than the textbook) for the transcription practice on the section handout, including a find-the-errors exercise that wasn't on the handout.
3. A phonetics page including a fledgling FAQ (one on English r already).
4. Wordprocessing for linguistics dedicated to the kind souls who type their homework.

Take care,

E-Ching

Message 3.5a

Dear hapless people in my sections,

I live five minutes from WLH, so unless Yale locks up the building, I fully expect to have section today. No idea if/how any other classes will be held, though.

Take care,

E-Ching

Message 5.5

Dear all,

A couple of people asked about derivations after class - we haven't done them in lecture but they are required in the homework. Three places to try for enlightenment:

1. Your textbook has an example (page 98)
2. Brief explanation with silent video on the section website
3. Last page of the partial answers for today, attached (I know, I said I wouldn't be uploading answers - well, I still can't believe I bothered to type them out).

As with last week, I will be updating the FAQ of the current topic page for minor issues, but I thought everyone would need to know about this one.

Take care,

E-Ching

P.S.  Just wondering - this is a fairly large class and based on happy memories of Directed Suicide Thursday nights, I wonder whether you would like some way to contact each other without going through one of the instructors. 15 years ago we would do that via a student-administered mailing list. Tell me whether this sounds good to you, or if some other new-fangled technology would serve better - I am a Facebook ignoramus-absentee. Based on the responses I will send out a more concrete email, probably next week. I'll make sure you can opt out in advance.

Message 5.5a

Good afternoon!

I had a question on near minimal pairs.  The book isn't very specific as to what the boundaries are for what can or cannot be defined as near minimal pairs so I'm having problems seeing whether or not two segments are different phonemes based on their environments.  Also, in the problems, do we have to list every near minimal pair that we find or will it suffice to list two or three?

Thank you

-- 

[Student]

Dear [Student],

Good to hear from you. Since two segments are separate phonemes if they appear in the same environments, and for this assignment the environments only involve immediate neighbours, that's what you should really be listing - identical environments (referring to the relevant examples by their number). Minimal pairs and near-minimal pairs are really only relevant in that they provide identical environments.

Let me know whether this answers your question?

E-Ching

Thank you, it does answer my question.  So the segments should be immediately surrounded by the same environments. 

What if the the segment that you are trying to figure out comes at the beginning of a word?  When it's not surrounded?  How many letters after the word-initial segment in order to be identical environment?  If that makes sense...

[Student]

Dear [Student],

For this assignment, immediate neighbours are all that you need to use in the environments. Word boundaries also count as immediate neighbours, so every segment always has two immediate neighbours. For example, in a word like "a", the environment of [a] is [#_#], between word boundaries.

In the next section I will give you a brief list of other kinds of environments (if Dasha doesn't do it in lecture).

E-Ching

Message 5.5b

What does the book mean by "stating the conditioning factors in words" if you think a pair of segments are allophones?  What I did was show where all the places each of the segment occurs in the data set.  Is that okay?

[Student]

Dear [Student],

They mean state the complementary environments, e.g. X only appears in the environment [_a] and Y appears elsewhere. They're not asking you to list the words.

E-Ching

Message 8.5

Dear all,

I've uploaded today's handout, as well as answers (Yale login required). And I have slightly different worries about each section, which I will now unburden to you.

Section 1: Am a bit concerned that we didn't try defining natural classes in terms of IPA categories and features (7). Try it and check the answers.

Section 2: I FORGOT TO DO MORPHOLOGY! I'm so sorry! Try (5) in the handout and read through the answers even if you're sure, because they are tricky cases (a little harder than the ones in your homework). And don't forget that trills aspire to be silly dresses (explained in (1) in handout 5.5).

EVERYONE should practise transcription. Try reading Middlemarch in IPA: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~krussll/phonetics/readings/middlemarch.html.

Next week I don't know if there will be anything new to cover in section. If section is officially off we will meet sub rosa to try a International Linguistics Olympiad problem or two (same time, same place). They're kind of addictive, actually.

I got a new question about the midterm: Do you need to be able to give definitions? The textbook spends a lot of time on them but I would say you should not think of them as an end in themselves - use them to help with memorising the sonority hierarchy. features, etc. We're not big on essay questions, so focus on the kind of thing you need for the homework. The exception might be chapter 1, where you should (for instance) be able to explain the meaning of each numbered section heading.

Good luck!

E-Ching

Dear all,

I can now confirm that Midterm 1 covers Monday Feb 14.

Take care,

E-Ching

Message 11.5

Dear all, 

Three things. First, if you didn't come to section today, please fill in 
the feedback form below by (anonymous) email. It should only take 5 
minutes. 

Second, make sure you're aware of the following: 

    (3a) When in doubt about the part of speech, it's usually an 
    adverb (e.g. ever, instead, therefore, too). Though English 
    has some obscure prepositions too (e.g. except, plus, per). 

    (4) When applying tests for constituency 
    Your section handout lists cases where constituency tests give 
    you the WRONG results. But there are reasons why they fail in 
    these instances, which maybe we'll discuss next time. 

    Our syntax webpage now has more information about drawing trees 
    with phpSyntaxTree. You may also want to make use of the code for 
    today's trees. 

    Homework question 8: There are two sets of (a), (b), (c) items, 
    and both are assigned. 

Third, I am thinking of changing my office hours to half an hour after 
lecture on Wednesday (3.45-4.15), and half an hour after section on 
Thursday (4.30-5pm in the Bass cafe). Let me know if that's bad. 

Take care, E-Ching 

______________________________________________________ 

Midterm feedback - Ling 110b section - E-Ching Ng - 24 Feb 2011 

To reply anonymously, log into Gmail, username feedback.eching, password 
intro2011. This message should already be in the inbox. 

(1) When you were studying for the midterm, which topics did you wish 
    you understood better? 

    a. Please underline the most applicable options. 

       * Phonetics  - transcriptions, terminology 
       * Phonology  - features, analyzing non-English data, 
                      the format of rules/derivations 
       * Morphology - drawing trees, analyzing non-English data, 
                      terminology 
       * Other (please elaborate) ... 

    b. Why were those topics difficult? 



(2) What would you like us to quit/keep/start doing in lecture/section? 
    E.g. homework policy, attendance policy, section/lecture pace, 
    coverage, website ... 

    a. Quit 


    b. Keep 


    c. Start 


(3) What’s the number-one reason you don’t come to office hours? 



(4) Why did you decide to take this class? 

    a. Please underline the most applicable options. 

       * I was curious about ... 
         * the science of language 
         * the languages I speak (please list) 

       * I thought it would be useful ... 
         * for learning new languages. 
         * for teaching languages 

       * Other reasons (please explain) ... 

    b. Are you getting what you hoped for? 

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