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Phonological processes are the cognitive "shortcuts" your brain uses to make speech production and perception more efficient. When you're tested on language cognition, you're not just being asked to name these processes—you're being asked to demonstrate that you understand why our speech systems evolved these patterns and how they reveal the relationship between articulatory constraints and mental processing. These processes show up everywhere: in child language acquisition, in historical language change, in speech errors, and in cross-linguistic patterns.
The key concepts you'll need to master include articulatory ease, perceptual distinctiveness, prosodic structure, and cognitive efficiency. Each phonological process represents a solution to a specific problem in speech production or perception. Don't just memorize definitions—know what problem each process solves and be ready to identify examples in novel contexts. If an FRQ asks you to explain why certain sound changes occur, your answer should connect the process to its underlying cognitive or articulatory motivation.
These processes make speech physically easier to produce by reducing the articulatory "work" required. The underlying principle is motor efficiency—your speech organs prefer smooth, continuous movements over abrupt changes in position or manner.
Compare: Assimilation vs. Lenition—both simplify articulation, but assimilation changes sounds to match neighbors while lenition weakens sounds regardless of context. On exams, assimilation questions often focus on local phonetic environments, while lenition questions address gradual historical change.
While some processes simplify production, others prioritize keeping sounds perceptually distinct. These processes prevent confusion by ensuring that similar sounds don't blur together in the speech stream.
Compare: Dissimilation vs. Fortition—both enhance distinctiveness, but dissimilation targets sequences of similar sounds while fortition strengthens sounds in prosodically prominent positions. If an FRQ asks about maintaining perceptual contrast, these are your go-to examples.
Some phonological processes exist to fix "illegal" sound combinations or maintain preferred syllable shapes. Languages have templates for acceptable syllable structures, and these processes enforce those templates.
Compare: Epenthesis vs. Deletion—both repair syllable structure, but they work in opposite directions. Epenthesis adds segments to break up clusters; deletion removes segments to simplify them. The choice depends on the language's preferred syllable template.
These processes spread features across multiple segments, creating phonological consistency within words or phrases. The underlying principle is that certain features "want" to be uniform across a domain.
Compare: Vowel Harmony vs. Palatalization—both involve feature spreading, but vowel harmony spreads features among vowels while palatalization spreads vowel features onto consonants. Both demonstrate how segments influence each other across syllable boundaries.
Some phonological processes aren't just about sound—they carry grammatical or semantic information. These processes show the interface between phonology and morphology.
Compare: Reduplication vs. Affixation—both add morphological content, but reduplication copies existing material while affixation adds new material. Reduplication is particularly interesting because the "affix" is phonologically dependent on the base.
| Concept | Best Examples |
|---|---|
| Articulatory simplification | Assimilation, Lenition, Deletion |
| Perceptual distinctiveness | Dissimilation, Fortition |
| Syllable structure repair | Epenthesis, Metathesis |
| Feature spreading | Vowel Harmony, Palatalization |
| Morphological marking | Reduplication |
| Historical sound change | Lenition, Palatalization, Metathesis |
| Child language patterns | Assimilation, Deletion, Reduplication |
| Cross-linguistic universals | Vowel Harmony, Epenthesis, Assimilation |
Both assimilation and vowel harmony involve sounds becoming more similar—what distinguishes the domain and triggers of each process?
If a language prohibits consonant clusters but borrows a word like "sport" from English, which phonological process would most likely apply, and why?
Compare lenition and fortition: under what prosodic or positional conditions would you expect each to occur?
A child says "guck" instead of "duck" and "goggy" instead of "doggy"—which phonological process is operating, and what does it reveal about early speech production?
An FRQ asks you to explain how phonological processes can drive historical language change. Which three processes would provide the strongest examples, and what evidence would you cite for each?