PHONETICS VS. PHONOLOGY 2

• Phonetics studies speech in all its

aspects and varieties. It examines
articulatory, acoustic and auditory
properties of speech sounds.

• Phonology is concerned with the way in

which sounds pattern (i.e. function) in a
given language.

• This is why phonology is sometimes called

"functional phonetics" or "linguistic
phonetics".

Some of the traditionally recognized aims of

phonology are:

i/ to establish the phonemic inventories of

particular languages (i.e. set of
phonemes),

ii/ to state the principles concerning their

phonetic realization (i.e. to formulate
allophonic statements);

iii/to describe the groups formed by

phonemes (i.e. natural classes).

• A phonological study leads to the

identification of features which are
distinctive in a given language.

• Aspiration is not distinctive in English, it

but may function as a distinctive feature
and distinguish between phonemes in
other languages, e.g. in Thai (where
unvoiced aspirated consonants contrast
with unvoiced unaspirated consonants).

• Phoneme is the smallest CONTRASTIVE

linguistic unit which may bring about a
change of meaning.

• Phonemes are in contrast, i.e. in

opposition.

• Phonemes of a given language are

identified by means of a process of
COMMUTATION, i.e. substitution. It leads
to the discovery of MINIMAL PAIRS, i.e.
pairs which differ in respect of one sound
segment, e.g. sit

– sat, sit - pit.

• Variants of the same phoneme are called

ALLOPHONES. They can be regarded as
physical (i.e. phonetic) realizations of the
abstract phoneme.

• Very roughly, phonemes are the sounds

which the native speakers would regard as
distinctively different in their speech. A
native speaker of English regards the
vowels of bit and beat as different
phonemes, and the vowels of beat and
bead as the same phoneme.

•

Native speakers who have received no
phonetic training do not normally hear any
difference between allophones of a given
phoneme (e.g. the shortened variant of /

/ in

beat and the full-length vowel /

/ found in bead

or bee) .

•

Native speakers of English may also fail to
distinguish between nasalized and fully oral
vowels, as English oral vowels have nasalized
allophones in front of nasal consonants, e.g. in
camp [

].

• Native speakers of Polish may fail to hear the

difference between the English phonemes /

/ (as

in men) and /

/ (as in man).

• The front mid vowel // in Polish shows

allophonic variation, with a close variant, similar
to English /

/, occurring between two soft

consonants, as in

sień or pień, and a more open

variant occurring in the neighbourhood of hard
consonants, e.g. in sen or ten.

• Speakers of Japanese who learn English

as adults may fail to hear the difference
between th English phonemes /l/ and /r/,
since there is only one liquid phoneme in
Japanese (usually realised as an alveolar
tap [

]) .

• Thus, a phoneme can also be defined as

the mental equivalent of a speech sound,
i.e., the ideal speech sound represented in
the speaker's mind.

• Phonemes can also be defined as the

minimal unit of the sound pattern in a
given language.

• They can be regarded as units which, from

the point of view of a given language
cannot be further analyzed into
successive units.

They can be split into simultaneous units,
i.e. distinctive features (such as presence
of voice, the feature of being a stop etc.).
Consequently, a phoneme can be defined
as a bundle of distinctive features.
•

/t/ [-voice] [+stop] [+oral] [+alveolar]

Phonemes which have some distinctive
features in common belong to the same
natural class.

Thus, the phoneme /t/ in English may be described
as a member of at least the following natural
classes:
• a/voiceless sounds,
• b/alveolar sounds,
• c/ oral sounds,
• d/obstruent sounds
• e/stops (including both nasals and plosives),
•  f/oral stops (i.e. plosives),
• g/oral alveolar stops.

Why do we need natural classes?
• i/In general phonological processes apply

to natural classes of sounds (e.g. English
voiceless oral stops are aspirated).

• ii/ Natural classes of sounds tend to form

contexts (i.e. environments) of
phonological processes. For instance,
English vowels are shortened in the
context of the natural class of voiceless
obstruents (e.g. in piece, seat, cart, kick).

Another example - the class of round back
vowels in English (/

/, //, //, //) form the

context for labialization of consonants, e.g.
cool [

].

iii/ Natural classes of sounds tend to
undergo the same phonotactic constraints.
E.g. English liquids can follow fricatives (e.g.
fry, sly). But for instance: short vowels in
English cannot occur word finally (cf.
Impossible E. words */

/, *//, *//).

• DISTRIBUTION of sounds is the set of

contexts (or environments) in which they
can occur. Allophones may be in
COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION or in
FREE VARIATION.

• POSITIONAL ALLOPHONES are in

complementary distribution. The contexts
in which those sounds can occur do not
overlap and complement each other (e.g.
aspirated [p

] and unaspirated [p]).

• Two sounds are FREE ALLOPHONES if

they can occur in the same position in a
word.

• The choice of one variant instead of

another is conditioned, for instance, by
stylistic factors, educational or social
background, or dialect, or is typical of a
given speaker (e.g. trilled alveolar [r] and
approximant [

]).

• The variant of the phoneme which can

occur in most contexts is referred to as the
MAIN ALLOPHONE of that phoneme.

• E.g. the main allophone of /l/ is alveolar

and voiced. (Other variants of Eng. /l/:
dental voiced /l/, voiceless /l/, velarized
alveolar /l/, velarized dental /l/ etc.)

•

Some phonologists (e.g. W. Jassem)
define the phoneme as a class of
phones (i.e. sounds) which are
contrastive with respect to some other
phones. It includes all allophones
standing in a mutual relation of positional
and free variation.

•

Co-articulation is the influence of
phonetic context on the articulation of
speech sounds.

Examples:
•

the nasalization of the vowel due to the
nasal consonants in man;

•

the lip-rounding (i.e.labialization) of /t/ in
front of a rounded vowel in two.

• Neutralization is the loss of contrast

between phonemes in special contexts.

• In English the opposition between voiced

and voiceless plosives no longer holds
(i.e. is neutralized) in the position following
/s/ and preceding a vowel since lenis
(voiced) plosives cannot occur here (cf.
*sgull, *sdill vs. skull, still).

•

The contrast between long /i:/ and short
/

/ in English is neutralized word finally: a

vowel which occurs word finally in city or
pretty shares the features of /i:/ and /

/.