Phonemic Statement Paper (15% of grade)
Grading
10 pts free
I. Acknowledgement and Background Information 5 pts
II. Phonetic chart of Phones 15 pts
Statement of Suspicious Pairs
III. Presentation of Evidence of Phonemic Analysis 25 pts
IV. Statement of the Phonemes 10 pts
V. Charts of the Phonemes 10 pts
VI. *OPTIONAL Suprasegmentals
VII. * OPTIONAL Canonical Form ( 5 pts )
VIII. Comments 10 pts
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I. Acknowledgement and Background Information:
Description of native’s speakers background/language
Thank you – Credit to consultant
Conditions and procedures of data collection
II. Phonetic Segments
List all the segments that you recorded in writing; give me 2 IPA-style charts, as in:
Consonants
(you may need more or fewer columns/rows than this chart)
labial / Labiodental / Dental / Alveolar / Alv-palatal / Palatal / Velar / uvularStops
Nasal (Stops)
Fricatives
Affricates
Flaps/Trills
Approximants
Lateral Approximants
Vowels and Diphthongs
Front Central Back
Unround Round Unround Round Unround Round
Close
Close-Mid
Open-Mid
Open
(list diphthongs/glides in the chart according to the first element in the cluster)
Statement of Suspicious Pairs
List all of the pairs/sets of sounds that are phonetically similar and must be
examined to determine whether they belong to the same or to different
phonemes
e.g. voiceless/voiced pairs of stops p/b t/d k/g
close/close-mid vowels i/e u/o
Choose 15 of your suspicious pairs to examine in Part III.
III. Presentation of Evidence of Phonemic Structure
You will want to consider free variation, complementary distribution, contrast in minimal pairs and contrast in analogous environments.
Look first for minimal pairs: if you find them, list them and say what you can conclude about the suspicious pair involved.
Then examine the other suspicious pairs you have left from Section II. For each, see if you can provide words showing contrast in analogous environments. If not, then examine the data for the distribution of the sounds and determine whether they are in complementary distribution or free variation.
IV. Statement of the Phonemes
Here you should list, for each phoneme you have discovered, the details of its allophones in different environments.
V. Charts of the Phonemes
As in Section II, give the phonemes in two charts (one consonantal and one vocalic). They should look like subsets of the segments in the charts in Section II. Give me only the phonemes, not the phones.
(VI. Suprasegmentals and VII. Canonical Form – OPTIONAL)
If you have any generalizations you would like to make about the stress, syllable structure (consonant and vowel clusters), or word structure of the language, record them here.
VII. Comments
IF there is a morphophonemic alteration in the data we have gathered, you should discuss it here.
Also discuss any unresolved problems in your phonemic analyses, and what you would investigate if you had more time (e.g. suspicious pairs that you don’t have enough evidence to prove anything about).
You will be graded on how detailed and thorough you are in data collection, description, and analysis.
CLASS ATTENDANCE FOR ALL CLASS SESSIONS INVOLVING OUR CONSULTANT IS CRUCIAL.