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CH 3
Phonology is a study which deals with the sequen
tial and conditioned patterning of sounds in a langua
ge. Therefore, phonological knowledge permits a spe
aker to produce sounds which form meaningful utter
ances, to recognize a foreign “accent,” to make up ne
w words, to add the appropriate phonetic segments t
o form plurals and past tenses, to produce “aspirated
” and “unaspirated” voiceless stops in the appropriat
e context, to know what is or is not a sound in one’s l
anguage, and to know different phonetic strings may
represent the same “meaning unit.”
Since the grammar of the language represents the totality of one’s linguistic knowledge, knowledge of the sound patterns—the phonological component—must be part of this grammar.
I. Phonemes:
The phonological units of language
A. Definition and Examples
Phonemes are the phonological units of languag
e. They are contrastive segmental units composed
of distinctive features, which differentiate words.
As we know, each word differs from the other wor
ds in both form and meaning. The difference betw
een sip and zip “signaled” by the fact that the initia
l sound of the first word is s [s] and the initial soun
d of the second word is z [z] .
The forms of the two words--that is , their
sounds--are identical except for the initial
consonant. [s] and [z] can therefore distinguish or
contrast words. They are distinctive sounds in
English. Such distinctive sounds are called
phonemes.
B. Minimal pair
To see whether substituting one sound for another results in a different word is the first rule to determine the phonemes. If it does, the two sounds represent different phonemes. If it does, the two sounds represent different phonemes. When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment that occurs in the same place in the string the two words are called a minimal pair. Sink and zink are a minimal pair, as are fine and vine, and chunk and junk.
C. Free variation
Some speakers of English substitute a glottal stop fo
r the [ t ] at the end of words such as don’t or can’t or
in the middle of words like bottle or button. The subs
titution of the glottal stop does not change the meani
ngs; [dont] and [don] do not contrast in meaning, no
r do [batl] or[bal]. A glottal stop is therefore not a
phoneme in English since it is not a distinctive sound.
These sounds [ t ] and [ ] are in free variation in th
ese words. So we know some sounds may occur in th
e identical environment without changing the meanin
g of the word, then we say they are in free variation.
II. Distinctive Features
A. Definition and Examples
When a feature distinguishes one phoneme
from another it is a distinctive feature ( or a
phonemic feature). When two words are exactly
alike phonetically except for one feature, the
phonetic difference is distinctive, since this difference
alone accounts for the contrast or difference in
meaning. In order for two phonetic forms to differ
and to contrast meanings, there must be some
phonetic difference between the substituted sounds.
The minimal pairs seal [sil] and zeal[zil] sho
w that [ s ] and [ z] represent two contrasting pho
nemes in English. We know that the only differe
nce between [ s ] and [ z] is a voicing difference; [
s ] is voiceless and [ z ] is voiced. It is this phoneti
c feature that distinguishes two words. Voicing t
hus plays a special role in English (and in any oth
er languages). It also distinguishes feel and veal [
f ] / [ v ] and cap and cab [ p ]/ [ b ].
B. Binary valued Features
A feature can be thought of as having two
values, + which signifies its presence and - which
signifies its absence. [ b ] is therefore [+ voiced ]
and [ p ] is [ - voiced ]. Similarly, the presence or
absence of nasality can be designated as [ - nasal ]
or [ + nasal ], with [ m ] being [ + nasal ] and [ b ]
or [ p ] being [- nasal ]. Ass the phonetic features
can be specified in this manner.
C. Phones and Allophones
Phone a phonetic unit or segment. While
allophones are predictable phonetic variants that
are phonetically similar and in complementary
distribution.
D. Complementary Distribution
When two or more sounds never occur in the s
ame phonemic context or environment they are sai
d to be in complementary distribution. When oral v
owels occur, nasal vowels do not occur, and vice ve
rsa. It is in this sense that the phones are said to co
mplement each other or to be in complementary dis
tribution.
We may then define a phoneme as a set of pho
netically similar sounds which are in complementar
y distribution with each other. Also, the phones m
ust be phonetically similar, that is, share most of the
same feature values. In English, the velar nasal [ ] and the glottal glide [ h ] are in complementary dist
ribution; [] is not found word initially and [ h ] doe
s not occur word finally. But they share very few fe
ature values; [] is a velar nasal voiced stop; [ h ] is
a glottal voiceless glide. Therefore, they are not allo
phones of the same phoneme; / / and / h /are differ
ent phonemes.
E. Predictability of Redundant Features
When a feature is predictable by rule, it a re
dundant feature.Nasality is a redundant feature in
English vowels, but is a nonredundant ( distinctive
or phonemic ) feature for English consonants. We
have to learn that the word meaning “mean begins
with a nasal bilabial stop [ m ] and that the word m
eaning ‘bean” begins with an oral bilabial stop [ b ].
But we do not have to learn that the vowels in bea
n and mean and comb and sing and so on are nasali
zed since they occur before nasal consonants and ar
e thus redundantly, predictably nasal.
III. Sequential Constraints
Some words never occur together in a lang
uage; actually, they determine what are possible
but nonoccuring words in a language, and what p
honetic string are “impossible” or “illegal.” For e
xample, after a consonant like /b/, /g/, /k/, or /p/, a
nother stop consonant is not permitted by the rul
es of the grammar. If a word begins with an /l/ or
an /r/ , every speaker “knows” that the next segm
ent must be a vowel. That is why /lbk/ does not s
ound like an English word. It violates the restrict
ions on the sequencing of phonemes.
IV. Nature classes
Phonological rules often refer to entire clas
ses of sounds rather than to individual sounds. Th
ere are natural classes, characterized by the phon
etic properties or features that pertain to all the m
embers of each class, such as voiceless sounds, voi
ced sounds, stops, fricatives, consonants, vowels, o
r, using +’s and -‘s, the class specified as [ - voice
d ] or [ + consonantal ] or [ - continuant ] or [ + na
sal ]
V. More on Prosodic Phonology
A. Intonation
In this chapter we have discussed the use of pho
netic features to distinguish meaning. We can see t
hat pitch can be a phonemic feature in languages s
uch as Chinese, or Thai, or Akan. Such relative pit
ches are referred to phonologically as contrasting t
ones. We also pointed out that there are languages
that are not tone languages, such as English.
In English, syntactic differences may be show
n by different intonation contours. A sentence wh
ich is ambiguous when it is written may be unam
biguous when spoken. For example:
If Tristram wanted Isolde to follow him,.....
(a) Tristram left directions for Isolde to follow.
Tristram left a set of directions he wanted
Isolde to use.
(b) Tristram left directions for Isolde to follow.
The way we have indecated petch is of course
highly oversimplified. Before the big rise in pitch
the voice does not remain on the same monotone l
ow pitch. Thus pitch plays an important role in b
oth tone languages and intonation languages, but
in different ways.
B. Word stress
In English and many other languages, one or more
of the syllables in each content word are stressed.
The stressed syllable is marked by in the following
examples:
pervert (noun) as in “My neighbor is a
pervert.”
pervert (verb) as in “Don‘t pervert the idea.”
The stress pattern of a word may differ from
dialect to dialect. For example, in most varieties of
American English the word laboratory has two
stressed syllables; in one dialect of British English
it receives only one stress. In fact, in the British
version one vowel “drops out” completely because
it is not stressed.
Just as stressed syllables in poetry reveal the m
etrical structure of the verse, phonological stress p
atterns relate to the metrical structure of a langua
ge.
Stress is a property of a syllable rather than a s
egment, so it is a prosodic or suprasegmental featu
re.
To produce a stressed a syllable, one may chan
ge the pitch (usually by raising it), make the syllabl
e louder, or make it longer.
C. Sentence and Phrase Stress
When words are combined into phrases and sentences,
one of the syllables receives greater stress than all others.
That is, just as there is only one primary stress in a word
spoken in isolation, only one of the vowels in a phrase (or
sentence) receives primary stress or accent; all the other
stressed vowels are “reduced” to secondary stress.
1 1 1 2
tight + rope → tightrope (“a rope for acrobatics”)
1 1 2 1
tight + rope → tightrope (“a rope drawn taut”)
In English we place primary stress on an adjec
tive followed by a noun when the two words are c
ombined in a compound noun, but we place the st
ress on the noun when the words are not joined in
this way.
Compound Noun Adjective + Noun
White House white house
These minimal pairs show that stress may be
predictable if phonological rules include nonphon
ological information; that is, the phonology is not i
ndependent of the rest of the grammar. The stress
differences between the noun and verb pairs discu
ssed in the previous section are also predictable fr
om the word category.
VI. The Rules of Phonology
A. Introduction
The relationship between the phonemic represent
ations that are stored and the phonetic representatio
ns that reflect the pronunciation of these words is “r
ule-governed.”
The phonemic representation need only include
the nonpredictable distinctive features of the string o
f phonemes that represent the words. The phonetic r
epresentation derived by applying these rules includ
es all the linguistically relevant phonetic aspects of t
he sounds.
B. Five Rules of Phonology
1. Assimilation Rules
It assimilate one segment to another by “copying
” or “spreading” a feature of a sequential phoneme o
n to its neighboring segment, thus making the two ph
ones more similar.
Assimilation rules are caused by articulatory or p
hysiological process because we incline to increase th
e ease of articulation, that is, to make it easier to mo
ve the articulators when we speak.
Assimilation rules in language reflect what pho
neticians often call coarticulation- the spreading o
f phonetic features either in anticipation of sounds
or the perservation of articulatory process.
The English vowel nazalization rule applies to
the phonemicrepresentation of words and shows t
he assimilatiory nature of the rule.
Vowels may also become devoiced or voiceless i
n a voiceless environment. In Japaness, high vowe
ls are devoiced when preceded and followed by voi
celess obstruent; in words like “sukiyaki” the /u/be
comes/u/.
2. Dissimilation rules
A segment becomes less similar to another segm
ent rather than more similar. A ”classsic” example
of disimilation in Latin and the results of the proce
ss show up in modern day English. There were a d
erivational suffix -alis in Lain that was added to no
uns to form adjectives. When the suffix was added
to a noun which contained the liquid / l / the suffix
was changed to -aris, that is, the liquid / l / was cha
nged to the liquid / r /.
These words came into English as a adjectives
ending in -al or in its disimilated form -ar as shown
in the following examples.
-al -ar
anecdot -al angul -ar
annu -al annul -ar
ment -al simil -ar
3. Feature Addition Rules
The aspiration rule in English, which aspirates
voiceless stops in certain contexts, simply adds a no
ndistinctive feature. The assimilation rules don’t a
dd new features but change phonemic feature value
s, whereas the aspiration rule add a new feature no
t present in phonemic matrices
The aspiration rule can apply only to the
voiceless stops / p /, / t /, / k /, because the
specification of the class of sounds on the left of the
arrow is unique to this class, but only when one of
the segments occurs in the environment specified
after the slash, at the beginning of a syllable (/$)
before a stressed vowel.
4. Segment Deletion rules and addition Rules
Phonological rules can delete or add entire phonemic segment. In French, word-final consonants are deleted when the following word begins with a consonant ( oral or nasal) or a liquid, but are retained when the following word begins with vowel or a glide.
Eg: /ptit livr/ /pti livr/ “small picture”
/ptit ami/ /ptit ami/ “small friend”
We can state the French rule simply as:
[ +consonantal ] Ø / # # [ +consonantal]
“Deletion rules “ also show up as “optional rules”
in fast speech or casual speech in English. They r
esult in the common contractions changing he is
[hi z] to he’s [hiz] or I will [aj wl] to I’ll [ajl]. I
n ordinary everyday speech most of us also “delet
e” the unstressed vowels, such as we usually prono
unce mystery into mystry, general into genral.
In Spanish, a rule inserts an [ e ] at the begi
nning of a word that otherwise would begin with
an [ s ] followed by another consonant, for exam
ple, escuela “school,” estampa “stamp,” and espi
na “spine”.
5. Movement (Metathesis) Rules
Phonological rules may also move phonemes from
one place in the string to another. In some dialects
of English, the word “ask” is pronounced [ks], bu
t the world asking is pronounced [skst]. In these d
ialects a metathesis rule “switches” the / s / and / k /
in certain context.
D. From One to Many and from Many to One
1. The same phone may be an allophone of two or
more phonemes, as [ m ] was shown to be an allop
hone of both / b / and / m / in Alan.
2. Given the phonemic representation and the phonol
ogical rules, we can always derive the correct pho
netic transcription. / t / and / d / re both phonem
es, but they become a flap [D] when they occurs b
etween a stressed and unstressed vowel. From th
e instance, we can know that two distinct phonem
es may be realized phonetically as the same soun
d.
3. There is none to one relation between phonemes
and phones in the all languages.
E. The Function of Phonological Rules
In the broadest sense , any rule which , in some
analysis , is posited as involved in deriving a
pronunciation from an underlying phonological
from an underlying phonological representation.
In this conception, both rules appealing to
phonological and lexical information and purely
phonetic rules are included.
However , this lable has been restricted to some
proper subset of would exclude rules appealing to
morpholexical information like ‘preterite’ or ‘abla
uting verb[ while including rules appealing to majo
r.
Word classes like ‘noun’ or ‘Latinate
vocabulary’ ; others would exclude all such rules;
both groups might include as exclude purely
phonetic (allophonic) rules independently. Some
would exclude purely morphophonemic rules,
while others would apply the term ‘ phonological
rules’ only to such rules, excluding all others
types . In Natural generative phonology , the term
is applied only to phonetic (allophonic) rules , all
other typed being excluded.
F. Slips of the Tongue
Any speech error in which a segment or a
feature occurs in an unintended position : ‘bread
and breakfast’ for bed and breakfast,‘ piss and
stretch” for pitch and stress , ‘ pig and vat’ for big
and fat.
G. The Pronunciation of Morphemes
A phonotactic constraint which is stated for s
ingle morphemes, rather than for entire words. For
example , English has the constraint C →[+ cor] / a
u _ for morphemes, but not has wards endowment c
owboy.
H. Morphophonemics
A branch of linguistics which analyses the phono
logical on grammatical factors that determine the fo
rm of phonemes; also called morphophonology , mor
phonology, and morphonemics. The basic unit recog
nized in such and analysis is the morphophoneme ; f
or example , the notion of ‘plural’ in English nouns i
ncludes / s/ ( as in cats) , /z/ (as in dogs) , /z/ (as in ho
rses), zero( as in sheep), and several other forms.
I. More Sequential Constraints
Any statement , in some particular framework
or description , which prohibits some derivation ,
process , structure or combination of elements
which world otherwise be allowed.
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