Phonological rules

LING 200

Spring 2006

Foreign accents and borrowed words

• Borrowed words– often pronounced according to phonological

rules of borrowing language

• Foreign accents– result from application of native language

phonology to target language phonology– especially if language learned as adult

Spanish loans into English

Spanish in English

[pres] Padres [phdez]

[t] taco [th]

[burito] burrito [bio]

[sndyeo] San Diego [sndiego]

[r] = alveolar trill

[] = voiced velar fricative

[] = retroflex approximant; [] = alveolar tap

The original shibboleth

Writing phonological rules

• A common format /A/ B / C ___ D

A = phoneme(s) which undergo the ruleB = aspect of pronunciation changed (allophone

created)/ = in the context of___ = location of phoneme in contextC, D = conditioning elements of the context

• = ‘A becomes or adds B when preceded by C and followed by D’

Examples of phonological rules

• Mohawk Voicing– /p t k/ [b d g] / ___ V (V = vowel)

• English Aspiration– /p t k/ [ph th kh] / syllable[___

(syllable[ = when syllable initial)

• Beware: sounds transcribed with diacritic symbols are not always the predictable allophones

More on allophones

• Allophones of a phoneme must be phonetically similar; e.g. [p], [ph] as allophones of /p/ in English

English [], [h]

• [] = velar nasal• English [], [h] are in

complementary distribution – [h] / ___ V

– [] / V ___

[hd] [d]

[hs] [s]

*[dh] *[d]

* = unattested, ungrammatical, does not occur

English [], [h]

• Why not /h/ [] / ___ #

or // [h] / # ___ ?

• Phonological rules typically add or change single aspects of pronunciation

• Either rule would be too complex

Some types of phonological rules

• Assimilation: sound becomes more similar to the context– e.g. Mohawk Voicing

/p t k/ [b d g] / ___ V

• Dissimilation

• Deletion

• Epenthesis

Dissmilation• A sound becomes less similar to another sound• Laryngeal contrasts in Hindi.

– [] = voiced retroflex stop– [] = voiceless retroflex stop

• [l] ‘branch’• [l] ‘postpone’• [hl] ‘wood shop’• [l] ‘shield’ 5 = retroflex

Dissimilation

• Sanskrit. [b] = voiced aspirated labial stop

/budyte:/ [budyte:] 'is awake'

/bubo:d/ [bubo:d] 'was awake'

/bo:dsyati/ [bo:tsyati] 'will be awake'

Dissimilation

Grassman's Law (Sanskrit, Indo-European):

• Voiced aspirated stops/affricates are deaspirated before another voiced aspirated stop/affricate.

• C C / ___ ... C

Deletion

• Cree. Algonquian (BC-Ontario, Canada)

/pi:simw/ [pi:sim] ‘sun’

cf. /pi:simwak/ [pi:simwak] ‘suns’

• /w/ Ø / C ___ #

Epenthesis

• = insertion

• Sahaptin [] epenthesis

• Sahaptin vowel inventory

front central back

high i i: u u:

low :

Sahaptin consonant inventorylabial alveolar palatal velar labio-

velaruvular labio-

uvularglottal

stops p p’ t t’ k k’ kw kw’ q q’ qw qw’

affricates sibilant ts ts’ c c’

lateral t t’

fricatives central s š x xw w h

lateral

nasals m n

lateral l

glides w y

[]

= voiceless (alveolar) lateral fricative

[yy] 'rash, pimples'

[p’u] 'teardrop'

[p] 'leaf'

Articulation of an ejective stop0. Vocal folds close, producing []

0. Back of tongue raises to velum, producing [k]

[k] vs. [k’]

[kúpi] 'coffee'

[k’úsi] 'horse'

[k:s] 'train'

[k’sk’s] 'small'

[k’] = velar ejective (stop)

[q] vs. [q’]

[qyí] 'shoe'

[q’í]‘single layer tule mat’

[q] = voiceless uvular stop

[q’] = uvular ejective uvular

velar

Consonant classes

obstruents p p’ t t’ k k’ kw kw’ q q’ qw qw’

ts ts’ c c’

t t’

s š x xw w h

sonorants m n

l

w y

Sahaptin [] epenthesis in clusters

• obstruent + obstruent– /pti:t/ [pti:t] ‘damp’

• obstruent + sonorant– /tmš/ [tmš] ‘chokecherry’

• sonorant + obstruent– /mti:t/ [mtí:t] ‘humid’

• sonorant + sonorant– /mli:š/ [mlí:š] ‘tongue’

Sahaptin [] epenthesis

/ # C __ C sonorant

Application of rule: /mti:t/

[] epenthesis

[mtí:t]