A phonological process question...

[jaya_the_cat]

Hi everyone, I'm Jake, 1st year SLP student. Not sure if this is in the correct forum, but it seemed the most appropriate. Anyways...

 

I have an assignment where we classify phonological processes. I've been able to do this  without too much trouble, but there's one that keeps recurring that I can't place. Here's some examples:

 

"this" --> "dith" (/s/ becomes voiceless "th"; I have stopping for "th" becoming /d/)

"nose" --> "nothe" (/s/ becomes voiceless "th")

"whistle" --> "withel" (/s/ becomes voiceless "th")

 

and a similar one:

 

"zipper" --> (voiced "th") "thipper" (/z/ becomes voiced "th")

 

Apologies, not sure how to get IPA in here.

 

I might be having a brain fart after doing these for a few hours, but I just can't place the error into a specific process. I've been using the phonological process chart from "mommy speech therapy", as it seems to have a more comprehensive list than the one my professor used. Still, no luck. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

[jaya_the_cat]

Crap, yeah, definitely wrong forum...could I get this moved to the Speech-Therapy forum? My bad :/

[fuzzylogician]

Moved!

[fuzzylogician]

I'm not an SLP but: 

/s/ and /θ/ are both voiceless, 

/z/ and /ð/ are both voiced. 

 

The process seems to be alveolar (fricative) --> dental (fricative).

I don't know if you have learned a name for that in your class, but on a phonological level, that's the process.

 

(And generally -- welcome! We are not a forum designed for help with homework problems, so please stay around and participate in our discussions!)

[SandS2009]

Hey, I think your problem is that you are substituting the which is a fricative with another fricative, maybe you should change your examples to using [t] instead of [th], if you do that, it would be stopping 

Hi everyone, I'm Jake, 1st year SLP student. Not sure if this is in the correct forum, but it seemed the most appropriate. Anyways...

 

I have an assignment where we classify phonological processes. I've been able to do this  without too much trouble, but there's one that keeps recurring that I can't place. Here's some examples:

 

"this" --> "dith" (/s/ becomes voiceless "th"; I have stopping for "th" becoming /d/)

"nose" --> "nothe" (/s/ becomes voiceless "th")

"whistle" --> "withel" (/s/ becomes voiceless "th")

 

and a similar one:

 

"zipper" --> (voiced "th") "thipper" (/z/ becomes voiced "th")

 

Apologies, not sure how to get IPA in here.

 

I might be having a brain fart after doing these for a few hours, but I just can't place the error into a specific process. I've been using the phonological process chart from "mommy speech therapy", as it seems to have a more comprehensive list than the one my professor used. Still, no luck. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

[sayjo]

Also a first year grad student, so I'm definitely no expert, but from what I understand, the /θ/ for /s/ is NOT a phonological process.  Rather, it is a distortion of /s/ (dentalization).  Similarly, I would guess that /ð/ for /z/ is a distortion of /z/.  (/s/ also has another distortion - it can be lateralized, just fyi).

Edited October 27, 2014 by sayjo

[GandalfTheGrey]

fronting? In general though, as Sayjo pointed out, dentalized s and z are not usually describe using phonological pattern terminology. However, some schools of thought really like to apply phono terms to everything, in which case "fronting" would be an appropriate term.

[jaya_the_cat]

Thanks everyone!

[jaya_the_cat]

Finally got around to talking to my professor about it...turns out it's stridency deletion. Replacing a strident consonant with a non-strident consonant. She said it's less common and typically isn't taught. Hope this helps someone else out there!

 

On a side note...it's November, woot! Another month and a half or so and we can all take a breather.