Phonology, part 2

March 9, 2009

• While you work on another Quick Write, here’s a funny painting of Superman based on a kid’s drawing:

Weekday Update• Grading of the mid-term exams continues apace.

• Final Exam has been scheduled:

• Tuesday, April 21st, 8-10 AM

• Kinesiology RED

• Today, we’ll look at distributions again from a slightly different angle.

• Then we’ll discuss some reasons why linguists believe that phonology is part of what you “know” as a speaker of a language

• ...even though it is subconscious knowledge

• But before we get into that, let’s take a look at the last Quick Write…

A Noble Spirit

Where Were We?• In phonology, there are both phonemes and allophones.

• Phonemes are contrastive sounds.

• Change meaning in minimal pairs, etc.

• Represent mental abstractions.

• Allophones are variants of phonemes.

• They appear in particular phonetic environments.

• Represent observable, concrete reality.

• There are formal rules that determine when a phoneme becomes an allophone in some environment.

• /Phoneme/ [Allophone] / Environment

Where Were We?• Example rules:

• In English, [t] and [th] are allophones of the phoneme /t/.

• /t/ [th] / at the beginning of stressed syllables

• (unless it’s preceded by /s/)

• In Japanese, [s] and are allophones of the same phoneme.

• Japanese rule: /s/ / ___ [i]

• How do we know that /s/ changes to , and not the other way around?

A Conundrum• Since phonological rules look like this:

/Phoneme/ [Allophone] / Environment

• That means that, as linguists, we only see the allophones, on the surface.

• Q: How can we figure out what the phonemes are?

• (not to mention the rules?)

• Note: babies learning language have the same problem

Questions• Q1: How do we know that [s] and are actually

allophones of the same phoneme?

• A: because they are phonetically similar, and are in complementary distribution.

• (not contrastive distribution)

• Q2: How do we know that /s/ changes to , and not the other way around?

• A1: It’s the simplest way to describe the pattern.

• A2: Japanese speakers think of the two sounds as “the same”, at some level.

• Remember: we’re trying to describe the phonological rules (grammar) that speakers of a language “know”.

Distributions• A “distribution” is simply the collection of phonetic

environments in which a sound may appear.

• Phonetic environment = the sounds surrounding the phoneme or allophone in question.

1. Contrastive distribution:

• Two sounds can both appear in the same phonetic environment.

• And they can change the meaning of a word (as in a minimal pair).

• The two sounds are allophones of different phonemes.

Complementary Distribution• When sounds are in complementary distribution, they never appear in the same phonetic environment.

• (They appear in non-overlapping environments.)

• [s] and are in complementary distribution in Japanese

• appears before the vowel [i]

• [s] never appears before [i], but it can appear before any other vowel.

• Sounds that are in complementary distribution are generally allophones of the same phoneme.

• The phoneme just changes shape, depending on the context….

Enter…the Batman

An Analogy• Consider Commissioner Gordon. He knows a couple of guys:

• Batman

• Bruce Wayne

• He’s noticed that he never sees them together, in the same place, at the same time.

• In fact, one of them (Batman) really only shows up in certain situations…

The Distribution of Batman and Bruce Wayne

• Batman appears when:

• The Joker is on a crime spree.

• The Penguin has kidnapped the mayor’s daughter.

• Catwoman just broke out of jail, etc.

• Bruce Wayne appears when:

• They’re at a philanthrophy convention.

• The auto show is in town.

• He’s jogging in Central Park, etc.

Conditioning Environments• Do these environments have anything in common?

• The Joker is on a crime spree.

• The Penguin has kidnapped the mayor’s daughter.

• Catwoman just broke out of jail, etc.

• They’re all crimefighting situations

• Do these environments have anything in common?

• They’re at a philanthrophy convention.

• The auto show is in town.

• He’s jogging in Central Park, etc.

• They’re just non-crimefighting situations…

Complementary Distribution• Bruce Wayne and Batman are in complementary distribution

• They never appear together in the same place, at the same time

Bruce Wayne appears here

Batman appears here

crimefighting situations

other situations

Analyzing Distributions

1. Given two sounds in a language, treat them like Batman and Bruce Wayne.

• Ask yourself: is it possible to show that they’re meaningfully different sounds (or people)?

1. Try to force them into the same situation together

• In the case of Batman and Bruce Wayne, invite them both to the same party

• In the case of sounds, see if they ever appear in the same phonetic environment

Strategy, continued2. Describe what kind of phonetic environment each sound

appears in.

• Figure out if there is anything in common among the various phonetic environments in which each sound appears.

• If two different sounds never appear in the same phonetic environment, they’re in complementary distribution.

• You can then assume that they’re allophones of the same phoneme.

Restricted and Basic• A sound that only appears in a limited set of environments is the restricted allophone.

• Ex: Batman only appears in crimefighting situations, so…

• Batman is the restricted “allo-person”

• A sound that appears more generally is the basic allophone.

• Bruce Wayne is the basic “allo-person”.

• In Japanese:

• only appears before [i] restricted allophone

• [s] appears everywhere else basic allophone

Phonological Rules• In general, you can assume:

• The basic allophone is the representation of the underlying phoneme.

• The appearance of the restricted phoneme is conditioned by its environment.

4. You can write a rule for the conditioned allophone:

/Bruce Wayne/ [Batman] / crimefighting situations

/s/ / ___ [i]

Non-Complementary• What happens if you find two sounds in the same

environment?

• There are two possibilities:

1. They are in contrastive distribution

• …if they contrast between the meanings of different words

2. They are in “free variation”

• …if they do not change the meaning of the words

Free Variation• = Two different sounds appear in the same environment, but they don’t change the meaning of the word.

• Ex: vs . “kit”

• and are allophones of the same phoneme.

• They are in free variation.

• = you can freely substitute one for the other.

• Another example (some dialects of English):

• “thought”

• “thought”

More Japanese Words• What is the distribution of [h], [ç] and [f] in the following Japanese words?

([ç] is a voiceless palatal fricative)

[çito] ‘person’ [haha] ‘mother’

[çifu] ‘skin’ [asaçi] ‘morning sun’

[heta] ‘awkward’ [fune] ‘ship’

[hon] ‘book’ [hai] ‘chopsticks’

[fuhenfuto:] ‘neutrality’

• Q: Are they in complementary or contrastive distribution?

Some Rules• In Japanese,

[h] appears before [a], [o], and [e]

[f] appears before [u]

[ç] appears before [i]

• Q: Which is the basic allophone, and which are restricted?

• [h] is the basic allophone; [f] and [ç] are the derived allophones.

• Two phonological rules account for the distribution:

/h/ [f] / ___ [u]

/h/ [ç] / ___ [i]

Some More Data• There is an interesting rule regarding the production of /r/ in some English dialects.

• Compare Canadian English with English English

CE EE

“care”

“park”

“read”

“other”

“ride”

“carrot”

“cart”

• Do you see any patterns?

The Rules• In English English:

• /r/ appears as [r] when it precedes vowels

• Examples: read, carrot

• /r/ appears as when it appears at the end of a syllable or word

• Examples: care, other

• /r/ makes a preceding vowel long when it appears before a consonant in the same syllable

• Examples: park, cart

Rhotic vs. Non-Rhotic• Note: English is divided up between “rhotic” dialects and “non-rhotic” dialects

• rhotic: /r/ appears everywhere

• non-rhotic: /r/ disappears, sometimes

• Rhotic dialects:

• Canadian English, General American, Irish English, Scots English…

• Non-Rhotic dialects:

• English English, Australian English, some areas of the American South and East Coast…

Really, it does• Phonologists are not just making this stuff up for fun

• Interesting phenomenon:

• in non-rhotic dialects, /r/ sometimes appears in places where it doesn’t appear in rhotic dialects

• Ex: “I was thinking about an idear I had...”

• Q: Why on earth does that happen?

Idears, Explained• In non-rhotic dialects,

words ending in /Vr/ surface as .

• Phonology notation note:

• V = “vowel”

• C = “consonant”

• Examples:

• “care”

• “fear”

• “wire”

Idears, Explained• But remember: in these dialects,

• /r/ appears as [r] whenever it precedes a vowel.

• So an /r/ appears as [r] at the end of words like “care”, “fear” and “wire”…

• when they appear before other words which start with vowels.

• Examples:

“care a lot”

“fear I had”

“wire a house”

Psychological Reality• When a child is learning to speak a non-rhotic dialect, “idea” looks no different from “care”, “fear” or “wire”

• It normally ends with

• it gets interpreted as /ajdir/ “idear”

• The /r/ will surface whenever it appears before a word that begins with a vowel: “an idear I had”.

• Psychological (phonemic) representations of the same word are different between dialects:

• non-rhotic: /ajdir/

• rhotic: