Phonology, part 3 October 31, 2012

Solving Phonology Problems Here’s a step-by-step way to walk through the process. Given two sounds in a language: 1.Determine their distribution. For every word in which you find the sound, write down the sounds that both precede and follow it. 2.Q: Are the two sounds ever found in the same phonetic environment? 3.A: Yes In that environment, do the two sounds form a minimal pair? If yes  they are contrastive phonemes. If no  they are in free variation.

Solving Phonology Problems 4.If No--the sounds are never found in the same phonetic environment--then: The two sounds are in complementary distribution.  The sounds are allophones of the same phoneme. 5. Determine which allophone is basic, and which allophone is restricted. Basic allophone: found in the widest variety of phonetic environments. Restricted allophone: found in only a specific phonetic environment. 6. Write a rule that accounts for when you get one allophone vs. the other.

Solving Phonology Problems 7.Phonological rules look like this: /basic allophone/  [restricted allophone] / Environment Oftentimes, the hardest part of a phonology problem can be figuring out what the phonetic environment is that conditions the phonological change!

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?

A Conundrum Phonological rules look like this: /Phoneme/  [Allophone] / Environment (=Abstract)(=Observable) That means that, as linguists, we only see the allophones, on the (observable) surface. Q: How can we figure out what the phonemes are? (not to mention the rules?) Note: babies learning language have the same problem

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:

Other Evidence Speech errors provide more evidence that things are going on inside the mind that we can’t observe directly, in physical reality. “Slips of the tongue” Examples: “stick in the mud”  “smuck in the tid” “gone to seed”  “god to seen” Both errors exhibit metathesis. = two sounds have switched places with each other.

Example Error “stick in the mud”  “smuck in the tid” error: phonemic and have switched places. Phonetically:  Notice: in the error, the /t/ in “tid” is aspirated. The aspiration rule has to apply after the switch. Speech error process: First, phonemes switch Then, phonological rules apply…

Loanword Phonology Another way to establish the “psychological reality” of phonology is to look at how sounds change in words that are “borrowed” from another language. In these cases, the “underlying” phoneme = the original sound. Ex: English words borrowed into Japanese “sea food”  “cinema”  “Citibank”  “zip code”  “shepherd” 

Pidgins When speakers of different languages encounter each other, they have a variety of communication options: Use one of their native languages Use a “lingua franca” = a common second language Create a new language and use that Languages created in contact situations are known as pidgins. They tend to have a simplified grammar and lexicon. Historically, pidgins have often developed: in centers of trade through slavery

Creoles When pidgins are acquired by children as their native language, they become creoles. Originally a pidgin, Hawaiian Creole emerged in a complex trade setting in the 1800s Hawaii’s economic draw was sugar cane Laborers were imported from China, Portugal, Korea, Japan, Russia, Puerto Rico, the Phillippines... While the English, Americans and Japanese battled for political control. An English-based pidgin developed as a means of communication between the different groups. Listen to a sample Also check out:

The Quick Write Let’s check out the phonology of a small sample of Hawaiian Creole. What’s happening to the consonants here?