Phoneme and Allophone - Macquarie Universityclas.mq.edu.au/speech/phonetics/phonology/phoneme/PhonemeAllophone...Minimal pairs (2) zMinimal pairs are pairs of words which vary only

Phoneme and Allophone

The nexus between phonetics and phonology

Robert Mannell

Discriminative Elements (1)

Trubetzkoy (1939) wrote:-"It is the task of phonology to study which differences in sound are related to differences in meaning in a given language, in which way the discriminative elements ... are related to each other, and the rules according to which they may be combined into words and sentences."


Linguistic units which cannot be substituted for each other without a change in meaning can be referred to as linguistically contrastive or significant units. Such units may be phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic etc.


Logically, this takes the form:-

IF unit X in context A GIVES meaning 1AND IF unit Y in context A GIVES meaning 2THEN unit X AND unit Y belong to separate linguistic units

e.g.IF sound [k] in context [ _ æt] GIVES meaning “cat”AND IF sound [m] in context [ _ æt] GIVES meaning “mat”THEN sound [k] and sound [m] belong to separate linguistic units

What is a phoneme? (1)

Its not true to say that a phoneme is a sound, or even that it’s a class of soundsPhonemes exist in human brains They are abstract cognitive (linguistic) entitiesThey are conventions shared by a speech community but vary, sometimes very significantly, between speech communities


You might well ask … but surely they have something to do with speech sounds?Well, yes, but indirectly …When we speak we intend our listeners to understand what words we have uttered. A word in the brain is represented as a sequence of phonemes (or graphemes for the written word)


To communicate a sequence of words we must utter a sequence of sounds (or write the words or use sign language …)A spoken word results from the production of a sequence of vocal tract gestures These gestures result in a sequence of sounds.We interpret this sequence of sounds as a sequence of phonemes


When we learn a language we learn to associate sequences of sounds in the physical world with sequences of phonemes (and therefore words) in the mental world.The same sound may belong to a different phoneme in a different speech community or even in a different phonetic context.


OK … doesn’t that mean that a phoneme is realised as a class (or set) of physical sounds?Yes, well almost … as some sounds can, in different contexts, belong to (or represent) different phonemes This means that the phonemes are represented in the physical world by potentially overlapping sets of sounds


The set of sounds (in the external acoustic world) that represent a phoneme can be referred to as a set of allophones.“allo-” indicates “difference, alternation or divergence” (Macquarie Dictionary)


An allophone is a sound that can represent a particular phoneme.A phoneme can be said to have a huge number of slightly different allophones.This is too complex to work with so we break this down into a much smaller set of discrete sounds that we can transcribe phonetically or measure in some other way.


One of the reasons for a phoneme having different allophones is coarticulation. That is, in different contexts the effect of adjacent phonemes can affect a phoneme’s physical realisation.Another reason is convention. A speech community has an implicit (unconscious) agreement that certain allophones be used in certain contexts.


phonemes are contrastive, allophones are notan allophone belongs to a single phonemeallophones of the same phoneme are in complementary distributionallophones are phonetically similar

We will examine the last three points in more detail later, but first we will examine phonemic analysis.

Classical phonology took a simple view of the relationship between phonemes and allophones:-

Phonemic Analysis

Phonemic analysis uses a narrow transcription of the speech of a language to determine what are the phonemes (the their allophones) for that language.The phonemic analysis relies on the assumption that (a) the transcribed words have different meanings and (b) the transcription reliably captures the language’s sound system.

Minimal pairs (1)

Phonemes are the linguistically contrastive or significant sounds (or sets of sounds) of a language. Such a contrast is usually demonstrated by the existence of minimal pairs or contrast in identical environment (CIE).The search for minimal pairs is the most important strategy in phonemic analysis.

Minimal pairs (2)

Minimal pairs are pairs of words which vary only by the identity of the segment1 at a single location in the word (eg. [mæt] and [kæt]). If two segments contrast in identical environment then they must belong to different phonemes. That is, if we change one sound to another and it changes the meaning then the sounds belong to different phonemes.(1) “segment” is another word for “single speech sound”

Minimal pairs (3)

A paradigm of minimal phonological contrasts is a set of words differing only by one speech sound. In most languages it is rare to find a paradigm that contrasts a complete class of phonemes (eg. all vowels OR all consonants OR all stops, etc.).

Minimal pairs (4)

e.g. English oral stopsthe English oral stop consonants could be defined by the following set (paradigm) of minimally contrasting words:-

i) /pIn/ vs /bIn/ vs /tIn/ vs /dIn/ vs /kIn/Only /ɡ/ does not occur in this paradigm and at least one minimal pair must be found with each of the other 5 stops to prove conclusively that it is not a variant form of one of them.

ii) /ɡɐn/ vs /pɐn/ vs /bɐn/ vs /tɐn/ vs /dɐn/Again, only five stops belong to this paradigm. A single minimalpair contrasting /ɡ/ and /k/ is required now to fully demonstrate the set of English stop consonants.

iii) /ɡ{In/ vs /k{In/

Contrast in Analogous Environment (1)

Sometimes it is not possible to find a minimal pair which would support the contrastiveness of two phonemes and it is necessary to resort to examples of contrast in analogous environment (CAE). CAE is almost a minimal pair, however the pair of words differs by more than just the pair of sounds in question.


Preferably, in CAE, the other points of variation in the pair of words are as remote as possible (i.e. not adjacent and preferably not in the same syllable) from the pair of sounds being tested.The further away the other contrast is, the more unlikely it is to have any conditioning effect on the selection of pair phones of interest.


eg. /ʃ/ vs /ʒ/ in English are usually supported by examples of CAE pairs such as "pressure" [preʃə] vs "treasure" [treʒə]. The only true minimal pairs for these two sounds in English involve at least one word (often a proper noun) that has been borrowed from another language (eg. "Confucian" [kənfjʉːʃən] vs "confusion" [kənfjʉːʒən], and "Aleutian" [əlʉːʃən] vs "allusion" [əlʉːʒən]).

Minimal pairs versus CAE

Even one example of a minimal pair might be considered good evidence that two sounds are allophones of different phonemes. Minimal pairs are reliable evidence in phonemic analysis.CAE is poorer evidence in phonemic analysis and ideally requires other supporting evidence (eg. similar patterns for similar pairs of sounds confirmed to contrast by CIE)

Syntagmatic analysis (1)

A syntagmatic analysis of a speech sound identifies all of the locations or contexts within the words of a particular language where the sound can be found.Note that in the following examples (next page), "#" is used to represent a word or syllable boundary, "V" represents any vowel, and "C" represents any other consonant.


For example, English [n] and [ŋ] :-a syntagm of the phone [n] in English could be in the form:-( #CnV..., #nV..., ...Vn#, ...VnC#, ...VnV..., etc.) whilst [ŋ] in English would be:-(...Vŋ#, ...VŋC#, ...VŋV..., etc)but would not include the word initial forms.


For example, sequences of the type "#CnV..." would include "snow" [snəʉ], "snort" [sno:t] and "snooker" [snʉ:kə]. In this case, the only consonant (for English) that can occupy the initial "C" slot is the phoneme /s/, and so the generalised pattern could be rewritten as "#snV...".


A syntagmatic analysis can provide information about different restricted distributions of two allophones of the same phoneme (always found in different locations).A syntagmatic analysis might help to strengthen a case based on a CAE analysis. For example, we might find CAE for [p, b] and we find that all other oral stop pairs (e.g. [t, d] and [k, g]) have minimal pairs in the same syllable location. So this would strengthen the case for [p, b] being separate phonemes.

Complementary Distribution (1)

A phoneme may be realised by more than one speech sound and the selection of each variant is usually conditioned by the phonetic environment of the phoneme.This is known as mutually exclusive or complementary distribution (CD)


The CD of two phonemes means that the two phonemes can never be found in the same environment (ie. the same environment in the senses of position in the word and the identity of adjacent phonemes). If two sounds are phonetically similar and they are in CD then they can be assumed to be allophones of the same phoneme.


eg. in many languages voiced and voiceless stops with the same place of articulation do not contrast linguistically but are rather two phonetic realisations of a single phoneme (ie. /p/=[p,b], /t/=[t,d], and /k/=[k,ɡ]). Whether the voiced or voiceless allophone is chosen depends upon syntagmatic distribution (e.g. where in the word) or phonetic context (e.g. whether the adjacent sounds are voiced or voiceless)


In some Australian Aboriginal languages word medial oral stops are voiced if both adjacent phonemes are voiced (e.g. between two vowels) and are voiceless if at least one of the adjacent sounds is voiceless. For initial stops the patterns varies from language to language and even between dialects within a single language. In some dialects of a language the voiceless allophone is preferred, in others the voiced allophone is preferred, and in others the choice of allophone is a matter of individual choice.

Contrastive Distribution

Contrastive distribution is the opposite of complementary distribution.Sounds in contrastive distribution can occur in the same location and when exchanged change the meaning of the word.Sounds in contrastive distribution belong to different phonemes.

Free Variation

Occasionally speakers of a language are free to choose whether they use one or another of two possible allophones. The choice may be word-specific (often a sign of language change in progress). The choice may be pragmatic (discourse context) or sociolinguistic (e.g. Some French speakers choose to use the alveolar trill [r] when in the village and the more prestigious uvular trill [ʀ] when in Paris.)

Phonetic similarity (1)

Allophones must be phonetically similar to each other. In analysis, this means you can assume that highly dissimilar sounds are separate phonemes (even if they are in complementary distribution). For this reason no attempt is made to find minimal pairs which contrast vowels with consonants. BUT…


Even the distinction between vowel and consonants isn’t totally unproblematic.For example, a sequence in one language which is perceived as a diphthong might in another language be perceived as a semi-vowel (approximant) and a vowel

e.g. /ja/ ~ /ia/ OR /aj/ ~ /aI/What happens when the speakers of one of these languages learns the other language? What is the interlanguage phonology?


Exactly what can be considered phonetically similar may vary somewhat from language to language and so the notion of phonetic similarity can seem to be quite unclear at times. Sounds can be phonetically similar from both articulatory and auditory points of view. One finds pairs of sounds that vary greatly in their place of articulation but are sufficiently similar auditorily to be considered phonetically similar.


According to Hockett (1942), "...if a and b are members of one phoneme, they share one or more features". Phonetic similarity is therefore based on the notion of shared features. Such judgments of similarity will vary from language to language and there are no universal criteria for similarity.


Example 1. Glottal [h] and palatal [ç] are voiceless fricatives which are distant in terms of places of articulation, but they share features and are sufficiently similar auditorily (both weak sounding, voiceless, non-tongue-tip, non-labial, fricatives) to be allophones of a single phoneme in some languages such as Japanese.


Example 2. In English, /h/ and /ŋ/ are in complementary distribution. /h/ only ever occurs at the beginning of a syllable (head, heart, enhance, perhaps) whilst /ŋ/ only ever occurs at the end of a syllable (sing, singer, finger). The differ in place, manner and voicing and in tongue body, velum and laryngeal gestures. They are so different that no one regards them as allophones of the one phoneme.


So, if phonetic similarity is so difficult to pin down, then is it a useful tool in phonemic analysis.Yes, it is. What we need to be aware of are the common patterns of phonetic similarity across languages. What follows are some of the common (but in no case universal) patterns…


i) two sounds differing only in voicing: [pb] [td] [kɡ] [ɸβ] [θð] [sz] [ʃʒ] [xɣ] etc...

ii) two sounds differing in manner of articulation only as oral stop vs fricative. The sibilant or grooved fricatives [s,z,ʃ,ʒ] are excluded from this category as they are quite different auditorily from the other fricatives.

[pɸ] [kx] [bβ] [ɡɣ] etc...


iii) Any pairs of consonants close in place of articulation and differing in no other contrastive feature:

[sʃ] [zʒ] [nɲŋ] [lɭ] [lʎ] [mɱ], etc...iv) Any other pairs of consonants which are close in articulation and differ by one other feature but are nevertheless frequently members of the same phoneme

[lɹ] [cɡ] [tθ] [dð]


In languages where voicing is non-contrastive, two phones differing in voicing and only slightly in place of articulation might be considered similar e.g. [cɡ] etc.Further, for the purposes of this type of analysis, the place of articulation of the apicodental fricatives [θ,ð] is considered to be close enough to that of the alveolar stops [t,d] to be considered phonetically similar.


v) Any two vowels differing in only one feature or articulated with adjacent tongue positions

[æ ɐ] [i I] [ɐ: ɐ] [i y] [ɑ ɑ̃]


Although it is implied above that the notion of "phonetic similarity" is in some way less linguistically abstract (more phonetic?) than the notion of complementary distribution, it is, nevertheless, a quite abstract concept. The are no obvious and consistent acoustic, auditory or articulatory criteria for phonetic similarity.


There are many examples of very similar phones which are perceived by native speakers to belong to separate phonemes. In English, for example, a word terminal voiceless stop may be either released and aspirated or unreleased. The homorganic (same place of articulation) voiced stop may also be released or unreleased. Often the unreleased voiced and voiceless stops may actually be identical in every way except that the preceding vowel is lengthened before the phonologically voiced stop.


In terms of phonetic similarity, the two unreleased stops may actually be identical and yet be perceived by native speakers to belong to different phonemes because of their different effect on the preceding vowel./kɐp/→[kɐpʰ] ... [kɐp ̚ ]/kɐb/→[kɐˑb] ... [kɐˑb ̚ ] ... [kɐˑp ̚ ] (nb. " ̚ " means unreleased stop and " ˑ " means partially lengthened vowel)


Conversely, phones which are very dissimilar (at least from certain perspectives) may be felt by native speakers to belong to a single phoneme.eg. Japanese(1)

/h/ → [ɸ] before /u/ eg.[ɸuku] "luck“/h/ → [ç] before /i/ eg.[çito] "man“/h/ → [h] before /e,a,o/ eg.[hana]

(1) Japanese in the mid 20th century. This pattern has undergone recent change.

Phonemic Pattern

A pair of phones in complementary distribution may sometimes be classified into separate phonemes on the basis of phonemic pattern. In other words, is there a group of phonemes which exhibit a similar pattern of distribution (eg. clustering behaviour, morphology, etc.) to one of the phones being examined? In the case of the pair [h], [ŋ] there are some similarities in patterning between [h] and certain fricatives, and between [ŋ] and the other nasal stops.

Phonological Space (1)

The greater the distance between a phoneme and its nearest neighbours, the greater the scope for allophonic variation. In other words, the larger the number of redundant features (ie. features which when changed will not create another phoneme) the greater the number of allophones which can actually occur.


eg. English /p/ = [-voice] [+bilabial] [+stop] [-nasal] [+/-aspirated]

(nb. + present, - absent, +/- optional)Changing the feature [-voice] to [+voice] will create /b/, changing the feature [bilabial] may create /t,k/, changing the feature [stop] may create /w,f/, changing the feature [nasal] will create /m/. The only feature with complete freedom of movement is aspiration, and variation of this feature does create the main pair of allophones of this phoneme in English.


eg. English/r/ → [ɹ] alveolar approximant/r/ → [R&] voiceless alveolar approximant (e.g. after /t/)/r/ → [ɻ ] retroflex approximant (West England)/r/ → [ɾ] alveolar flap (Scottish) eg. [ɡɾIn]/r/ → [ʁ] uvular fricative (Tyneside, UK)The possible varieties of /r/ seem to include variations of manner, place and voicing. The only restrictions are that its allophones may not overlap with those of /l/ and /w/.

Allophones & Narrow Transcription (1)

It should now be obvious that broad (phonemic) transcription is only possible following phonemic analysis. We can’t transcribe the phonemes until we know what they are.To what extent do narrow transcriptions match the result of the identification of allophones in phonemic analysis?


No narrow transcription captures all allophones of each phoneme. As we have already seen, each phoneme has an extremely large number of slightly varying allophones.In this course we greatly simplify narrow transcription and ignore a lot of significant Australian English allophones.


What might be a maximal narrow transcription of a language (e.g. Australian English)?The maximal set of possible distinctions that we can transcribe is limited by the availability of IPA symbols, including the diacritics and by our ability to hear (or otherwise measure) these differences.


For example we can use, not only the IPA vowel symbols but also the raising, lowering, fronting and backing diacritics to indicate a large variety of vowel qualities.We can also provide diacritics for vowel nasalisation, breathy voice and creaky voice as well as voiceless (for whispered vowels).For Arabic vowels we could add a velarised diacritic (for velarised vowels).


Traditionally, phonemic analysis was limited by the accuracy and degree of detail of a narrow transcription. If a feature was missed in a narrow transcription it wasn’t part of the phonemic analysis.Today we can add detail from acoustic and physiological measurement when judging allophonic variation.

Phoneme and Allophone

This is a complex topic. You will not become sufficiently familiar with it without practice in actual phonemic analysis.You should review the unit web site. The web site has some additional material not covered here (especially “The Premises of Phonemic Analysis”).Read and try all of the phonemic analysis tutorial exercises, including the complex ones. Solutions will be available after the relevant tutorial.

Readings

The unit web site:-http://www.ling.mq.edu.au/speech/phonetics/phonology/phoneme/index.html

Clark, J., Yallop, C., & Fletcher, J. (2007), An introduction to phonetics and phonology, Blackwell (3rd edition).

References

Hockett, C.F. (1942) “A System of Descriptive Phonology”, Language, 18(1), 3-21Pike, K.L. (1947) Phonemics, U.MichiganTrubetzkoy, N.S. (1939) Grundzüge der Phonologie. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 7, Reprinted 1958, Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. Translated into English by C.A.M.Baltaxe 1969 as Principles of Phonology, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Referred to in preparation of these notes, but not required reading

Documents

Phoneme and Allophone - Macquarie Universityclas.mq.edu.au/speech/phonetics/phonology/phoneme/PhonemeAllophone...Minimal pairs (2) zMinimal pairs are pairs of words which vary only