1. Phonology, part 2
While you work on another Quick Write, here’s a funny painting of Superman based on a kid’s drawing:
March 9, 2009

2. Weekday Update Grading of the mid-term exams continues apace.
Final Exam has been scheduled:
Tuesday, April 21st, 8-10 AM
Kinesiology RED
Today, we’ll look at distributions again from a slightly different angle.
Then we’ll discuss some reasons why linguists believe that phonology is part of what you “know” as a speaker of a language
...even though it is subconscious knowledge
But before we get into that, let’s take a look at the last Quick Write…

3. A Noble Spirit

4. Where Were We? In phonology, there are both phonemes and allophones.
Phonemes are contrastive sounds.
Change meaning in minimal pairs, etc.
Represent mental abstractions.
Allophones are variants of phonemes.
They appear in particular phonetic environments.
Represent observable, concrete reality.
There are formal rules that determine when a phoneme becomes an allophone in some environment.
/Phoneme/  [Allophone] / Environment

5. Where Were We? Example rules:
In English, [t] and [th] are allophones of the phoneme /t/.
/t/  [th] / at the beginning of stressed syllables
(unless it’s preceded by /s/)
In Japanese, [s] and are allophones of the same phoneme.
Japanese rule: /s/  / ___ [i]
How do we know that /s/ changes to , and not the other way around?

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

7. Questions
Q1: How do we know that [s] and are actually allophones of the same phoneme?
A: because they are phonetically similar, and are in complementary distribution.
(not contrastive distribution)
Q2: How do we know that /s/ changes to , and not the other way around?
A1: It’s the simplest way to describe the pattern.
A2: Japanese speakers think of the two sounds as “the same”, at some level.
Remember: we’re trying to describe the phonological rules (grammar) that speakers of a language “know”.

8. Distributions
A “distribution” is simply the collection of phonetic environments in which a sound may appear.
Phonetic environment = the sounds surrounding the phoneme or allophone in question.
Contrastive distribution:
Two sounds can both appear in the same phonetic environment.
And they can change the meaning of a word (as in a minimal pair).
 The two sounds are allophones of different phonemes.

9. Complementary Distribution
When sounds are in complementary distribution, they never appear in the same phonetic environment.
(They appear in non-overlapping environments.)
[s] and are in complementary distribution in Japanese
appears before the vowel [i]
[s] never appears before [i], but it can appear before any other vowel.
Sounds that are in complementary distribution are generally allophones of the same phoneme.
The phoneme just changes shape, depending on the context….

10. Enter… the Batman

11. An Analogy Consider Commissioner Gordon. He knows a couple of guys:
Batman
Bruce Wayne
He’s noticed that he never sees them together, in the same place, at the same time.
In fact, one of them (Batman) really only shows up in certain situations…

12. The Distribution of Batman and Bruce Wayne
Batman appears when:
The Joker is on a crime spree.
The Penguin has kidnapped the mayor’s daughter.
Catwoman just broke out of jail, etc.
Bruce Wayne appears when:
They’re at a philanthrophy convention.
The auto show is in town.
He’s jogging in Central Park, etc.

13. Conditioning Environments
Do these environments have anything in common?
The Joker is on a crime spree.
The Penguin has kidnapped the mayor’s daughter.
Catwoman just broke out of jail, etc.
They’re all crimefighting situations
They’re at a philanthrophy convention.
The auto show is in town.
He’s jogging in Central Park, etc.
They’re just non-crimefighting situations…

14. Complementary Distribution
Bruce Wayne and Batman are in complementary distribution
They never appear together in the same place, at the same time
Batman appears here
Bruce Wayne appears here
other situations
crimefighting situations

15. Analyzing Distributions
Given two sounds in a language, treat them like Batman and Bruce Wayne.
Ask yourself: is it possible to show that they’re meaningfully different sounds (or people)?
Try to force them into the same situation together
In the case of Batman and Bruce Wayne, invite them both to the same party
In the case of sounds, see if they ever appear in the same phonetic environment

16. Strategy, continued
2. Describe what kind of phonetic environment each sound appears in.
Figure out if there is anything in common among the various phonetic environments in which each sound appears.
If two different sounds never appear in the same phonetic environment, they’re in complementary distribution.
You can then assume that they’re allophones of the same phoneme.

17. Restricted and Basic
A sound that only appears in a limited set of environments is the restricted allophone.
Ex: Batman only appears in crimefighting situations, so…
Batman is the restricted “allo-person”
A sound that appears more generally is the basic allophone.
Bruce Wayne is the basic “allo-person”.
In Japanese:
only appears before [i]  restricted allophone
[s] appears everywhere else  basic allophone

18. Phonological Rules In general, you can assume:
The basic allophone is the representation of the underlying phoneme.
The appearance of the restricted phoneme is conditioned by its environment.
4. You can write a rule for the conditioned allophone:
/Bruce Wayne/  [Batman] / crimefighting situations
/s/  / ___ [i]

19. Non-Complementary
What happens if you find two sounds in the same environment?
There are two possibilities:
They are in contrastive distribution
…if they contrast between the meanings of different words
They are in “free variation”
…if they do not change the meaning of the words

20. Free Variation
= Two different sounds appear in the same environment, but they don’t change the meaning of the word.
Ex: vs . “kit”
 and are allophones of the same phoneme.
They are in free variation.
= you can freely substitute one for the other.
Another example (some dialects of English):
“thought”

21. More Japanese Words
What is the distribution of [h], [ç] and [f] in the following Japanese words?
([ç] is a voiceless palatal fricative)
[çito] ‘person’ [haha] ‘mother’
[çifu] ‘skin’ [asaçi] ‘morning sun’
[heta] ‘awkward’ [fune] ‘ship’
[hon] ‘book’ [hai] ‘chopsticks’
[fuhenfuto:] ‘neutrality’
Q: Are they in complementary or contrastive distribution?

22. Some Rules In Japanese, [h] appears before [a], [o], and [e]
[f] appears before [u]
[ç] appears before [i]
Q: Which is the basic allophone, and which are restricted?
[h] is the basic allophone; [f] and [ç] are the derived allophones.
Two phonological rules account for the distribution:
/h/  [f] / ___ [u]
/h/  [ç] / ___ [i]

23. 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?

24. 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

25. 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…

26. 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?

27. Idears, Explained In non-rhotic dialects,
words ending in /Vr/ surface as
Phonology notation note:
V = “vowel”
C = “consonant”
Examples:
“care”
“fear”
“wire”

28. 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”

29. 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: