Phonological rules LING 200 Spring 2006

Foreign accents and borrowed words Borrowed words –often pronounced according to phonological rules of borrowing language Foreign accents –result from application of native language phonology to target language phonology –especially if language learned as adult

Spanish loans into English Spanishin English [p  res] Padres [p h  d  ez] [t  ] taco [t h  ] [burito]burrito [b  i  o] [s  ndje  o] San Diego [s  ndiego] [r] = alveolar trill [  ] = voiced velar fricative [  ] = retroflex approximant; [  ] = alveolar flap

The original shibboleth Judges 12:5-6

Some types of phonological rules Assimilation (cf. phonetic coarticulation) Dissimilation Deletion Epenthesis

Examples of phonological rules Assimilation –Mohawk Voicing –Nasal Assimilation in Italian (and many other languages) –Korean s-palatalization

Witsuwit’en [nt  q] ‘up’[t  z] ‘driftwood’[t  c h o] ‘blue grouse’ [tilt  s] ‘she’s in a rush’ [n  q] ‘uphill’[n  s] ‘ahead’ [  n  ] ‘dark birthmark’ [tin  ] ‘it’s slithering’[p  p  t] ‘its abdomen’ [ip  ] ‘it’s flooding’[we  p  ts] ‘it isn’t rolling’ [t  q’aj] ‘cutthroat trout’ [t  lt  m] ‘it’s pounding’ [n  n  ] ‘it (cloth) is moving’ [p  l  m’] ‘its ice’ [  ] and [  ] after non-lowering consonants [q] = voiceless uvular stop; [q’] = uvular ejective; [c h ] = voiceless aspirated palatal stop; [  ] = voiceless uvular fricative; [  ] = voiceless lateral fricative; [  ] = voiced uvular approximant; [m’] = glottalized nasal

Witsuwit’en consonant chart labialalveolarpalatallabio-velaruvularglottal stops p p’t t h t’c c h c’k w k wh k w ’q q h q’  affricates ts ts h ts’ lateral t th t’t th t’ fricatives s zçxwxw  h lateral  nasals mn approxima nts jw  lateral l

Dissimilation A sound becomes less similar to another sound An example from Sanskrit Phonetic background from Hindi Sanskrit Hindi 5 = retroflex

Laryngeal contrasts in Hindi [  ] = voiced retroflex stop –[  l] ‘branch’ [  ] = voiceless retroflex stop –[  l] ‘postpone’ [  h ] = voiceless aspirated retroflex stop –[  h  l] ‘wood shop’ [   ] = (breathy) voiced aspirated retroflex stop –[    l] ‘shield’

Dissimilation Grassman’s Law (Sanskrit): Voiced aspirated stops/affricates are deaspirated before another voiced aspirated stop/affricate. C   C / ___... C 

Grassman’s Law in Sanskrit [b  ] = voiced aspirated labial stop Rightmost voiced aspirate survives /b  ud  j  te:/[bud  j  te:] ‘is awake’ /b  ub  o:d   /[bubo:d   ] ‘was awake’ /b  o:d  sjati/[b  o:tsjati]‘will be awake’ Rightmost voiced aspirate devoices and deaspirates before [s] (a different phonological rule); leftmost survives

Deletion Cree. An Algonquian language spoken in Canada (B.C. to Ontario) /pi:simw/[pi:sim]‘sun’ cf. /pi:simwak/[pi:simwak]‘suns’ /w/  Ø / C ___ # (# = edge of word)

Epenthesis Witsuwit’en –No word can begin with /  / –[h] epenthesized –/  ts h  / [h  ts h  ] (more narrowly, [h  ts h  ]) ‘he’s crying’ Tsek’ene –No word can begin with /  / –[  ] epenthesized –/  ts h  / [  ts h  ] ‘he’s crying’

Epenthesis English –No word can begin with a vowel –[  ] epenthesized –uh-oh /  o/ [  o] –apple /æp  l/ [  æpl  ] –the apple /ð  / # /æp  l/ [ð  æpl  ]

Phonetics vs. phonology phoneticsphonology transcriptionnarrower as neededtypically broad, streamlined phonetic detailexplicitly represented as needed detail is predicted by rule system contrasthow is a particular contrast realized? what is contrastive? soundswhat are articulatory, acoustic, perceptible properties? how do sounds form patterns, classes? what are the phonological rules?

Final thoughts about spoken language phonetics and phonology A clip from The Human Language, vol. 3