Introduction to linguistics

2014-04-03

Lecture 3: Phonology

Sources

• Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams.

2003. An introduction to language.

– Chapter 6: Phonetics
– Chapter 7: Phonology

• A free online course on YouTube: „Linguistic

fundamentals”

–

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viAqQl12x8E&list
=PLRIMXVU7SGRJhu62mFhPj5q5CGnvKGYu2

• Listening to the speech sounds, e.g.:

http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/ipa/

What is phonology?

• Each language uses

a different set

of speech

sounds, e.g.:

– Polish has nasalized vowels (ą, ę);
– but English vowels become nasalized only in syllables

with a nasal consonant.

• Sounds form

different patterns

in different

languages, e.g.:

– English /ŋ/ (as in song) can occur only at the end of

the syllable.

– but in Vietnamese /ŋ/ can begin a word.

Phonology

• The study of how speech sounds form

patterns

• It is a description of the speakers’ mental

knowledge

(

linguistic competence

)

about the

sound patterns

of their language.

– Phonology says which sounds belong to your

language and which are foreign.

– Which combinations of sounds can be actual

words.

Phonology

• Segmental phonology

– analyses speech into

discrete segments, e.g. phonemes.

• Suprasegmental p.

– analyses features which

are larger than a segment, e.g. the syllable,
stress or intonation.

Segmental phonology

• To describe the way sounds work in a

language two terms are used:

– phoneme

and

allophone

• Segments combine to form words, e.g.

man

– If we replace [m] by [p], we get a new word,

pan

• Such two words distinguished by a single

sound are termed a

minimal pair

2014-04-03

Phonemes

• Through such substitutions, we can finally

determine those speech sounds that are

phonologically significant

in a given lg.:

– because they distinguish one word from another,
for example,

– p

an ≠

an – because [p] and [m] are

contrastive

sounds

Phonemes

• This contrast tells us that [p] and [m] are two

distinct phonemes in English.

• PHONEMES

– the contrastive units of sound

which can be used to change meaning.

Allophones

• Not every difference that can be heard

between two sounds changes the meaning of
words, e.g.:

• [k] in

kite

and

sky

– [kʰ] with a puff of air (aspiration) in

kite

, or

– [k] without it in

sky

• [t] in

button

can have two pronunciations:

– [b

t̩n] – [t̩] is syllabic, or

– [b

ʔn] – there’s the glottal stop.

Allophones

• The sounds in the examples are different, but

we hear them as

variants of the same sound

• We call them the

allophones

of the same

phoneme:

– Aspirated [kʰ] and non-aspirated [k] are the

allophones of the phoneme [k]

– Syllabic [t̩] and [ʔ] are the allophones of the

phoneme [t].

Distribution of allophones

• Allophones [kʰ] and [k] appear in

different

environment

Allophone

Environment

[kʰ]
(

at,

eep,

ut)

#k-

(at the beginning of a word and
before a vowel we hear [kʰ])

[k]
(

ip,

an)

sk-

(after [s] we hear [k])

Distribution of allophones

• Where we hear [k], we won’t hear [kʰ] and

vice versa.

• This kind of mutually exclusive relationship is

called

complementary distribution

– where one allophone occurs, the other cannot.

2014-04-03

Distribution of allophones

• There are allophones that appear in

the same

environment, e.g. [t] in

button

Allophone

Environment

[t̩]
(bu

on)

V t nasal C

(V = vowel, C = consonant)

in many accents of English [t] followed by
a nasal consonant is syllabic

[ʔ]
(bu

on)

V t nasal C

in other accents, e.g. in Estuary English,
[t] is replaced by a glottal stop

Distribution of allophones

• The allophones that occur in the same

environment are called a

free variation

• Replacing one allophone with another does

not

change the word.

– Allophones in a free variation are

not

contrastive

and they do

not

complement each other.

Phonological rules

• Assimilation

– neighbouring sounds become

similar, e.g.:

– i

ut [ˈɪ

ʊt]  [ˈɪ

ˌpʊt]

• Dissimilation

– neighbouring sounds become

different, e.g.:

– le

o  le

Phonological rules

• Insertion

– an extra sound is added between

two other sounds, e.g.:

– English plural rule:

bus

+ pl

-s

 buses [ˈbʌs

• Deletion (elision)

– when a sound is not

pronounced, e.g.

– the middle consonant in a consonant cluster:

handbag [ˈhæ

dˌ

æɡ]  [ˈhæ

nˌb

æɡ]