CH 3 phonology

Phonology is a study which deals with the sequential and conditioned patterning of sounds in a language. Therefore, phonological knowledge permits a speaker to produce sounds which form meaningful utterances, to recognize a foreign “accent,” to make up new words, to add the appropriate phonetic segments to form plurals and past tenses, to produce “aspirated” and “unaspirated” voiceless stops in the appropriate context, to know what is or is not a sound in one’s language, 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.

The phonological units of language Phonemes: The phonological units of language A. Definition and Examples   Phonemes are the phonological units of language. They are contrastive segmental units composed of distinctive features, which differentiate words. As we know, each word differs from the other words in both form and meaning. The difference between sip and zip “signaled” by the fact that the initial sound of the first word is s [s] and the initial sound 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 for 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 substitution of the glottal stop does not change the meanings; [dont] and [don] do not contrast in meaning, nor do [batl] or[bal]. 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 these words. So we know some sounds may occur in the identical environment without changing the meaning 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] show that [ s ] and [ z] represent two contrasting phonemes in English. We know that the only difference between [ s ] and [ z] is a voicing difference; [ s ] is voiceless and [ z ] is voiced. It is this phonetic feature that distinguishes two words. Voicing thus plays a special role in English (and in any other 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 same phonemic context or environment they are said to be in complementary distribution. When oral vowels occur, nasal vowels do not occur, and vice versa. It is in this sense that the phones are said to complement each other or to be in complementary distribution.

We may then define a phoneme as a set of phonetically similar sounds which are in complementary distribution with each other. Also, the phones must 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 distribution; [] is not found word initially and [ h ] does not occur word finally. But they share very few feature values; [] is a velar nasal voiced stop; [ h ] is a glottal voiceless glide. Therefore, they are not allophones of the same phoneme; /  / and / h /are different phonemes.

E. Predictability of Redundant Features   When a feature is predictable by rule, it a redundant 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 meaning ‘bean” begins with an oral bilabial stop [ b ]. But we do not have to learn that the vowels in bean and mean and comb and sing and so on are nasalized since they occur before nasal consonants and are thus redundantly, predictably nasal.

III. Sequential Constraints   Some words never occur together in a language; actually, they determine what are possible but nonoccuring words in a language, and what phonetic string are “impossible” or “illegal.” For example, after a consonant like /b/, /g/, /k/, or /p/, another stop consonant is not permitted by the rules of the grammar. If a word begins with an /l/ or an /r/ , every speaker “knows” that the next segment must be a vowel. That is why /lbk/ does not sound like an English word. It violates the restrictions on the sequencing of phonemes.

  IV. Nature classes   Phonological rules often refer to entire classes of sounds rather than to individual sounds. There are natural classes, characterized by the phonetic properties or features that pertain to all the members of each class, such as voiceless sounds, voiced sounds, stops, fricatives, consonants, vowels, or, using +’s and -‘s, the class specified as [ - voiced ] or [ + consonantal ] or [ - continuant ] or [ + nasal ]

V. More on Prosodic Phonology   A. Intonation In this chapter we have discussed the use of phonetic features to distinguish meaning. We can see that pitch can be a phonemic feature in languages such as Chinese, or Thai, or Akan. Such relative pitches are referred to phonologically as contrasting tones. We also pointed out that there are languages that are not tone languages, such as English.

In English, syntactic differences may be shown by different intonation contours. A sentence which is ambiguous when it is written may be unambiguous 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 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 low pitch. Thus pitch plays an important role in both tone languages and intonation languages, but in different ways.

pervert (noun) as in “My neighbor is a pervert.” 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 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 metrical structure of the verse, phonological stress patterns relate to the metrical structure of a language. Stress is a property of a syllable rather than a segment, so it is a prosodic or suprasegmental feature. To produce a stressed a syllable, one may change the pitch (usually by raising it), make the syllable 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 adjective followed by a noun when the two words are combined in a compound noun, but we place the stress 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 nonphonological information; that is, the phonology is not independent of the rest of the grammar. The stress differences between the noun and verb pairs discussed in the previous section are also predictable from the word category.

VI. The Rules of Phonology   A. Introduction The relationship between the phonemic representations that are stored and the phonetic representations that reflect the pronunciation of these words is “rule-governed.” The phonemic representation need only include the nonpredictable distinctive features of the string of phonemes that represent the words. The phonetic representation derived by applying these rules includes all the linguistically relevant phonetic aspects of the sounds.

B. Five Rules of Phonology 1. Assimilation Rules   1.   Assimilation Rules It assimilate one segment to another by “copying” or “spreading” a feature of a sequential phoneme on to its neighboring segment, thus making the two phones more similar. Assimilation rules are caused by articulatory or physiological process because we incline to increase the ease of articulation, that is, to make it easier to move the articulators when we speak.

Assimilation rules in language reflect what phoneticians often call coarticulation- the spreading of 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 the assimilatiory nature of the rule.

Vowels may also become devoiced or voiceless in a voiceless environment. In Japaness, high vowels are devoiced when preceded and followed by voiceless obstruent; in words like “sukiyaki” the /u/becomes/u/.

 2.   Dissimilation rules   A segment becomes less similar to another segment rather than more similar. A ”classsic” example of disimilation in Latin and the results of the process show up in modern day English. There were a derivational suffix -alis in Lain that was added to nouns 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 changed 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 nondistinctive feature. The assimilation rules don’t add new features but change phonemic feature values, whereas the aspiration rule add a new feature not 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: /ptit livr/ /pti livr/ “small picture” /ptit ami/ /ptit 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 result in the common contractions changing he is [hi z] to he’s [hiz] or I will [aj wl] to I’ll [ajl]. In ordinary everyday speech most of us also “delete” the unstressed vowels, such as we usually pronounce mystery into mystry, general into genral.

In Spanish, a rule inserts an [ e ] at the beginning of a word that otherwise would begin with an [ s ] followed by another consonant, for example, escuela “school,” estampa “stamp,” and espina “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], but the world asking is pronounced [skst]. In these dialects a metathesis rule “switches” the / s / and / k / in certain context.

D. From One to Many and from Many to One     The same phone may be an allophone of two or more phonemes, as [ m ] was shown to be an allophone of both / b / and / m / in Alan. 2.   Given the phonemic representation and the phonological rules, we can always derive the correct phonetic transcription. / t / and / d / re both phonemes, but they become a flap [D] when they occurs between a stressed and unstressed vowel. From the instance, we can know that two distinct phonemes may be realized phonetically as the same sound.  

E. The Function of Phonological Rules 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 ‘ablauting verb[ while including rules appealing to major.

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 single morphemes, rather than for entire words. For example , English has the constraint C →[+ cor] / au _ for morphemes, but not has wards endowment cowboy.

H. Morphophonemics A branch of linguistics which analyses the phonological on grammatical factors that determine the form of phonemes; also called morphophonology , morphonology, and morphonemics. The basic unit recognized in such and analysis is the morphophoneme ; for example , the notion of ‘plural’ in English nouns includes / s/ ( as in cats) , /z/ (as in dogs) , /z/ (as in horses), 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.

The End