Fundamentals of Phonology

phonology

• What is phonology • Phone, phoneme, allophone, and distinctive

features • Minimal pairs, phonemic contrast, and

complementary distribution • Phonological rules • Suprasegmental phonology: stress, tone and

intonation

From phonetics to phonology

• Speech is one of human activities used for conveying meaning

• Speech is a continuous process, so the vocal organs do not move from one sound segment to the next in a series of separate steps. Rather, sounds continually show the influence of their neighbors.

• map, lamb

Coarticulation

• When such simultaneous or overlapping articulations are involved, we call the process coarticulation.

Anticipatory/ Preservative Coarticulation

• If the sound becomes more like the following sound, as in the case of lamb, it is known as anticipatory coarticulation.

• If the sound shows the influence of the preceding sound, it is preservative coarticulation, as is the case of map.

Anticipatory/ perseverative coarticulation

• The fact that the vowel [a] in lamb has some quality of the following nasal is a phenomenon we call nasalization.

• To indicate that a vowel has been nasalized, we add a diacritic to the top of the symbol [a], as [a ].

Broad /Narrow Transcription

• When we use a simple set of symbols in our transcription, it is called a broad transcription.

• The use of more specific symbols to show more phonetic detail is referred to as a narrow transcription.

• Both are phonetic transcriptions so we put both forms in square brackets [ ].

Phonetics – Phone

• phone: the smallest perceptible discreet segment of sound in a stream of speech

• i) phonetic unit • ii) not distinctive of meaning • iii) physical as heard or produced • iv) marked with [ ]

Phoneme

• i) phonological unit • ii) distinctive of meaning • iii) abstract, not physical • iv) marked with / /.

Allophone

• allophone: phonic variants/realizations of a phoneme

• A phoneme is realized as allophone1+allophone2+….

• e.g. /p/=[ ph ] + [ p. ] + [ p¬ ] (unreleased)

Allophone

• /p/ → [ph] #___Vs∥• /p/ → [p.] ___#∥• /p/ → [p¬] other∥

Phonetic Environment

• Phonetic environment: the sound(s) preceding and that/those following it

e.g The phonetic environment of [i] in [pit] is [p_t] and that of [p] is [#_it] (# represents silence or word boundary).

Question: What is the phonetic environment of [t] in [pit]?

Minimal Pairs• Purpose for the notion of minimal pair: find out the

distinctive sounds • Contrastive distribution: [bit] vs. [but] [pit] vs. [bit] • Three requirements for identifying minimal pairs: 1) different in meaning; 2) only one phoneme different; 3) the different phonemes occur in the same phonetic

environment. • e.g. pat vs. fat • Minimal set: pat, mat, bat, fat, cat, hat, etc

• dip disk • tap taph • bit bad • fat tap

{tip : dip} ↓ ↓ [t] [d] ↓ ↓ -VOICE +VOICE

Complementary Distribution• When two phones are mutually exclusive, i.e., they

appear in different environments– [spæt] [phæt] *[sphæt] *[pæt]– [spul] [phul] *[sphul] *[pul]

• [ph] and [p] are in complementary distribution (which means they are allophones of the same phoneme).

• When sounds are in complementary distribution, you can predict where you get each sound.

Free Variation

• When two sounds appear in the same environment, but don’t make a difference in meaning:

[lip] leap [lip|] leap[sowp] soap [sowp|] soap

Perceived as the same sound: another kind of allophony. This is called free variation.

Question

• What is the distribution of clear [l] dark [ł] respectively?

• • live/leave • slave/split • film/felt• people/cattle

• Dark [ł]: After vowels and after syllabic consonants

• Clear [l]: Elsewhere

How can I tell if two sounds are phonemes or allophones? Method 1

• Check for minimal pairs. If there is a pair then the sounds are separate phonemes

• Check for complementary distribution. Are the sounds found in the same phonetic environment? If

not, they are allophones of the same phoneme.

How can I tell if two sounds are phonemes or allophones? Method 1

• If two sounds are in complementary distribution then (a) figure out which one is predictable and which one is the “elsewhere” variant. The elsewhere variant is the symbol that we use for the phoneme

/X/ Phoneme (in your mind)

[X] [Y] Allophones (what you say) elsewhere predictable

same symbol

How can I tell if two sounds are phonemes or allophones? Method 1

• and (b) write a rule that spells out where the predictable variant is found.

• /X/ [Y] / environment ____ environment

• A fairly rare situation: If the two sounds are in the same phonetic environment (and there were no minimal pairs!) Then they are possibly in free variation.

same environment?The sounds are in

complementary distributionand are allophones of the

same phoneme

No

same meaning?

Yes

The sounds arein free variation

and are allophonesof the same phoneme

Yes

Minimal Pair:The sounds are

different phonemes

No

data

List the environments of the sounds

Method 2

Sample problem: English long vowelsQuestion: are long and short vowels in English allophones of single phonemes, or are they separate phonemes?(a vowel followed by the symbol [:] is a long vowel)

Are there any minimal pairs? NO! (There are no examples that differ in ONLY one sound!)

Do long and short vowels occur in the same phonological environment? NO!

Therefore, these are in complementary distribution and each long/short vowel pair represent allophones of same phoneme.

[phæ:d] ‘pad’ [phæt] ‘pat’[hu:d] ‘who’d’ [hut] ‘hoot’[mi:d] ‘mead’ [mit] ‘meet’[row:m]‘roam’ [rowp] ‘rope’[ti:D] teethe [tiT] ‘teeth’

[flu] ‘flew’

V:

_ d

_m

_ D

V

_ t

_ p

_ T_ #

Is there any overlap between the columns?

Phonological Processes

• AssimilationA process by which one sound takes on some or

all the characteristics of a neighboring sound

Assimilation

• Nasalization, • dentalization,• velarization

Phonological rule

• Nasalization rule:[-nasal] [+nasal] / ____ [+nasal]

• Dentalization rule:[-dental] [dental] / ____ [dental]

• Velarization rule:[-velar] [+velar] / ____ [+velar]

Regressive and Progressiv assimilation

Regressive assimilation A following sound is influencing a preceding sound

Progressive assimilation: A preceding sound is influencing a following sound

English Fricative Devoicing

Phonological rule

• /v/ [f] /z/ [s] etc.• voiced fricative voiceless / ____ voiceless

•

Epenthesis

• the insertion of a vowel or consonant into a word to make its pronunciation easier; "the insertion of a vowel in the plural of the word `bush' is epenthesis"

• a hotel, a boy, a use, a wagon, a big man, a yellow rug, a white house

• an apple, an honor, an orange curtain, an old lady

• Epenthesis (Insertion) Rule:

Plurals in English

Phonological rule

• a. The [s] appears after voiceless sounds.• b. The [z] appears after voiced sounds. • c. The [ ] appears after sibilants.

• /z/ [s] / [–voice, C] _____ (Devoicing)• [] / [+sibilant] _____ [z] (Epenthesis)

Distinctive features

• Speech sounds are divided into classes according to a number of properties, these properties serve to distinguish one phoneme from another, thus are called distinctive features, which are binary in nature.

• i.e. for /p/, its distinctive features are [-voice], [+bilabial], [-nasal]. However, [aspirated] is

not a distinctive feature for /p/.

Syllables

• Suprasegmental feature, features that involve more than single sound segment, such as syllables, stress, tone, and intonation.

• A syllable can be divided into two parts, the rhyme and the onset. Within the rhyme there are nucleus (the vowel) and the coda (the ending consonant).

• A syllable that has no coda is an open syllable, while a syllable with coda is closed syllable.

• σ O(nset) R(hyme) N(uleus) Co(da)

k l a s p the syllabic structure of word claspThe English syllable pattern: (((C)C)C) V ((((C)C)C)C) The Chinese syllable pattern: (C) V (C)

Sonority scale

• The degree of sonority of different classes of sound affects their possible positions in the syllable.

Sonority scale

• Sonority scale:most sonorous 5 Vowels * 4 Approximants * 3 Nasals 2 Fricatives *Least sonorous 1 Stops * * k l a s p

Stress

• The degree of force used in producing a syllable.

• Word stress/sentence stress • Primary stress/secondary stress •

Stress

• Words with different stressed syllables have different grammatical function, such as conVICT CONvict inSULT Insult

reBEL Rebel proDUCE Produce• Stress of compounds: blackbird/black bird;

greenhouse/ green house • Sentence stress: Depending on the relative

importance of the words; contrastive stress

Tones

• ˋNo ( a matter-of-fact statement) • ˊNo (questioning) • ˇNo(doubtful but encouraging ) • ˆNo (indignant; emphatic prohibition • and scolding)