Phonemic Inventories

Important Resources:
1.   Your phonemic inventories draft.
2.   Your assigned readings from Bischoff and Fountain.
3.   The ‘Consonant Inventories’ article in the World Atlas of Language Structures Online
(http://wals.info/chapter/1)
4.   Your ‘Illustrations of the IPA’ article
5.   The Referencing and Citation Guide from D2L.
6.   The PDF Conversion Guide in D2L.
7.   Any good Interactive IPA Chart (a link to one good one is given in D2L)
8.   A good IPA Font Picker (a link to a useful one is given in D2L)

Grading Criteria for this assignment:

This assignment is worth a total of 50 points, broken down as follows:
• Technical Competencies (30%)
o Phonetic Transcription (15%)
o Referencing and Citation (15%)
• Required Content (50%)
o Mastery of relevant course concepts (25%)
o Development of required elements (2 5%)
• Formatting and Presentation (20%)
o Writing mechanics and proofreading (10%)
o Document formatting and presentation (10%)

In addition to this, there are a number of required grade deductions that will be taken if
you make any of the following errors in your submission.

Required Grade Deductions:

Your assignment will be awarded a score of 0/50 if:
• it is NOT submitted in .pdf format .
• it does NOT include a reference page containing the required reference citations.
o problems in referencing and citation that rise to the level of Academic
Integrity violations will be handled according to our policies on that topic;
typical violations of Academic Integrity result in a failing grade in our
course .
• it does any of the following:
o describes a field language that is not functionally equivalent with any
other naturally occurring human language.
o describes a field community that is inferior or superior to any other human
community.
o dem eans, degrades or demonstrates disrespect for any human languages or
communities you discuss in your work (including your imaginary ones).

You will lose one letter grade (5 points) from your rubric -generated score if:
• Your assignment is not double -spaced .
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• Your assignment does not have separate title page containing at least your name
and the name of your field language.
• Your assignment does not have a running header or footer containing at least your
last name and a page number.
• Your assignment does not include the section headings provided here, in the order
provided here.
o The ‘section headings’ are underlined in the assignment outline.
• Your assignment does not use properly formatted in -text citations, based on our
referencing and citation guide.
• Your assi gnment does not use properly formatted reference citations, based on our
referencing and citation guide.
• Your assignment exceeds five (5) pages of text (exclusive of title page and
references).
o There is no minimum page requirement for this assignment – you should
develop each required section fully, just being careful not to exceed five
pages of text.

Assignment Outline and Required Content:

Use the underlined section headings in your own assignment, and present your sections in
the order in which they’re presented here.

(Don’t forget to begin your assignment by creating a title page! Section 1 should appear
at the top of page 2 of your assignment).

Section 1: Introduction

In a paragraph or two:
• Remind the reader of the name and location of yo ur field language;
• Define and discuss the concepts ‘consonant’ and ‘vowel’, using and correctly
citing Bischoff and Fountain’s chapter on Phonetics.
• Define and discuss the concepts ‘phonemic inventory’ and ‘minimal pair’, using
and correctly citing Bischoff and Fountain’s chapter on Phonology .

Section 2: Phonemic Inventories

To begin this section:
• Briefly introduce the language about which your Illustrations of the IPA article
comes from, correctly citing that article, and describe why that language is
relevant to you as you investigate your field language.
• Introduce your consonant inventory in a sentence or two of prose.

Then present your consonant inventory and minimal pairs, as developed from the draft.
• Refer to the draft assignment sheet for grading criteria for this section .

Next, compare and contrast your consonant inventory to the one in your IPA article, and
to inventories found in languages of the world .
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• Identify at least one way in which the inventory in your field language and that in
your Illustrations of the IPA article (which you should correctly cite) are similar,
and at least one way in which they differ.
• Using, and correctly citing, the World Atlas of Language Structures Online article
about consonant inventories ( http://wals.info/chapter/1), discuss whether the
consonant inventory of your field language is larger than average, smaller than
average, or about average for languages of the world.

Next, present your vowel inventory and minimal pairs, as developed from the draft.
• Refer to the draft assignment sheet for grading criteria for this section.

To close this section:

• Create a transitional paragraph in which you identify some interesting facts about
the inventories you have presented, and alert the reader to the fact that you will
next describe the phonotactic patterns you have found in your field language

Section 3: Phonotactics

Review your First Words, and use them (you may also choose to modify them, and/or to
invent some new words) to identify and discuss the apparent restrictions on
syllabification in your field language. Be sure that your discussion answers all of the
following questions , and that you give examples from your field language that show that
your conclusions are correct:
• What kinds of syllable peaks do you find in your field language? We know that
all vowels will be syllable peaks, but does your f ield language allow any
consonant types to function as peaks?
• What are the rules regarding syllable onsets in your field language? Are onsets
required? Are complex onsets allowed?
• What are the rules regarding syllable codas in your field language? Are codas
allowed? Are complex codas allowed?

Conclude your notebook with a brief discussion:
• reviewing your key findings about the phonemic inventories and phonotactics of
your field language; and
• identifying any questions you still have about these.

(Don’ t forget to include a complete, properly formatted reference page! The header
‘References’ should appear at the top of the page, and you should include complete
citations for all of the resources you cited: Bischoff and Fountain’s chapters about
Phonetics and Phonology, your Illustrations of the IPA article, and the Consonant
Inventories chapter from the World Atlas of Language Structures Online).

Grading Rubric and Score Generation

Your assignment will be graded using a D2L rubric, which you can view w hen you
access the correct dropbox.
LING150A1 – Fall 2014 Field Notebook 2
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The rubric generates ‘stock’ comments for each grading criterion; and these, along with
your section instructor’s individual comments, will appear in the ‘feedback’ area.

The feedback you receive will tell you what you need to improve in future assignments,
and specifically what you will need to revise for the Field Report assignment at the end of
the term. To earn a grade of ‘C’ or better on the Field Report, you MUST address ALL
of the comments you have received on your Field Notebook in the process of revision.

The score generated by the rubric will be edited in order to apply any required grade
deductions, and/or if your section instructor believes that the auto-generated score is
unfair to you, given the totality of your assignment and the specific instructions provided
to your section.

If you do not understand your feedback and/or your grade, PLEASE follow up with your
section instructor as soon as is reasonably possible to ensure your success on future
assignments!

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