Lecture Two Phonology

Introduction Speech and writing are two media for language. Speech is prior to writing, so speech is more basic than writing. Speech sounds: the limited range of sounds which are produced by humans, meaningful in human communication and which linguists are only concerned with.

Phonetics Phonetics and its branches Phonetics: Phonetics is defined as the study of the phonic medium of language; it is concerned with all the sounds that occur in the world’s languages. Articulatory phonetics: how a speaker uses his speech organs to articulate the sounds Auditory phonetics: how the sounds are perceived by the hearer. Acoustic phonetics: studies the way sounds travel by looking at the sound waves, the physical means by which sounds are transmitted through the air from one person to another. Phonetic similarity, but not phonetics identity (by acoustic phonetics)

Organs of speech

(http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/~jcoleman/phonation.htm)

(http://www. essex. ac. uk/speech/teaching-01/tutorial/vocal-tract (http://www.essex.ac.uk/speech/teaching-01/tutorial/vocal-tract.html) Cords closed Cords open (http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/~jcoleman/phonation.htm)

(http://www.pep.com.cn/200410/ca624778.htm)

Broad and narrow transcriptions International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), (one letter from major European languages to represent a sound, IPA together with diacritics (变音符, 如façade上所加的变音符号或 résumé上表示发高音的记号) Broad transcription: letter-symbols only, used in dictionaries and textbooks for general purposes Narrow transcription: letter-symbols with diacritics, used by phoneticians. e.g. the sound [l] in the words “leaf”, “feel” and “health”

Classification of English consonants In terms of manner of articulation stops (塞音) : air stream first obstructed and then released, [p] [b], [t] [d], and [k] [g] Fricatives(擦音): partial obstruction and local friction, [f] [v] [s] [z] [] [] [] [] [h] affricates(塞擦音): first complete obstruction, then frication with partial obstruction, [] [] liquids(流音): airflow first obstructed then allowed to escape between the tongue and the roof of the mouth, [l] [r] nasals(鼻音): air allowed to pass the nose, [m] [n] [] glides(滑音): very narrow passage between the lips and causing slight noise from the local obstruction, [w] [j]

In terms of place of articulation bilabial: lips brought together to cause obstruction, [p] [b] [m] [w] labiodental: the lower lip is brought into contact with the upper teeth, [f] [v] dental: between the tip of the tongue and the upper teeth, [] [] alveolar(齿龈音): the tip of the tongue is brought into contact with the upper teeth-ridge, [t] [d] [s] [z] [n] [l] [r] palatal: obstruction between the back of the tongue and the hard palate, [] [] [] [] [j] Velar(软腭音): back of tongue brought into contact with the soft palate, [k] [g] [] glottal(喉音): vocal cords are brought together, [h]

Classification of English vowels Classified according to the position of tongue (which part of tongue maintained the highest) Front vowels: [i:] [i] [e] [] [] Central vowels: [:] [] [] Back vowels: [u:] [u] [:] [] []

Classified with the criteria of openness of mouth Close vowels: [i:] [i] [u:] [u] Semi-close vowels: [e] [:] Semi-open vowels: [] [:] Open vowels: [] [] [] []

Diphthongs: [ei] [ai] [au] [u] [i] [i] [e] [u]

Phonology Phonology and phonetics Phonetics: of a general nature, all speech sounds in all human languages Phonology: how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning. e.g. clear [l] and dark [ł] , same entity, but phoneticians only interested in the difference, phonology functions as distinguishing between words and meanings

Phone(音素), phoneme(音位), and allophone (音位变体) Phone: phonetic unit or segment, e.g. [p] in “spit” [pʰ] in “pit” Phoneme: a phonological unit, it is an abstract unit, put in slashes, /p/ Allophone: different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the allophones of the phoneme, e.g. clear [l] and dark [ł] are the allophones of the phoneme /l/

Phonemic contrast(音位对立), complementary distribution(互补分布), and minimal pair(最小对立体) Phonemic contrast: as two distinctive phonemes, /p/ and /b/ in [pit] and [bit] Complementary distribution: allophones of the same phoneme occurring in different phonetic environments, e.g. clear [l] and dark [ł] Minimal pair: Two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, pill and bill, till and kill, kill and dill

Some rules in phonology Sequential rules: rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language, blik but not lbki; there are rules governing the combination of three consonants clustering together (see p. 26); phonological patterning is language specific, e.g. [] not as initial in English and standard Chinese, but can occur in Vietnamese, Shanghai dialect and Cantonese Assimilation rules: when a sound is pronounced, the feature of the consonant which follows it is copied, vowels may be nasalized in bean, green, and team; and in incorrect [n] becomes []; assimilation reflected in spelling: impossible for inpossible Deletion rules: the sound is deleted when it occurs before a final nasal consonant, e.g. sign, design, and paradigm

Suprasegmental features — stress, tone, intonation word stress: Word stress can distinguish meaning: `import and im`port,` increase and in`crease; in compound words: “`blackbird” and “black `bird”; “`dining-room” and “sleeping baby” sentence stress: relative force given to the components of a sentence. In a sentence, stressed parts of speech: nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, numerals and demonstrative pronouns; unstressed categories: articles, personal pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions and conjunctions. For emphatic purpose, unstressed words can also be stressed.

Tone Pitch variations which can distinguish meanings like phonemes. English is not a tone language but Chinese is a typical tone language. Change of tone can certainly change the meaning. Intonation Pitch, stress and sound length tied to sentence rather than an individual word. Four basic types of intonation: falling tone, rising tone, fall-rise tone, and rise-fall tone. Intonation can distinguish meaning.

References Dai, W. D & He, Z. X. (2002). A new concise course on linguistics for students of English. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/~jcoleman/phonation.htm http://www.essex.ac.uk/speech/teaching-01/tutorial/vocal-tract.html http://www.pep.com.cn/200410/ca624778.htm

Task Discuss the following questions in groups of four or five: What is voicing and how is it caused? Explain with examples how broad transcription and narrow transcription differ? How are English consonants classified? What criteria are used to classify the English vowels? How do phonetics and phonology differ in their focus of study? Who do you think will be more interested in the difference between, say, [l] and [ł] , [p] and [pʰ], a phonetician or a phonologist? Why? What is a phone? How is it different from a phoneme? How are allophones related to phoneme? What are Suprasegmental features how do the major Suprasegmental features of English function in conveying meaning?