Unit 2. Phonology  

Phonology The Sound Patterns of Language: --the function and patterning of sounds. (Page 24) Phonetics provides the means for describing individual speech sound segments and indicating their physical or phonetic properties. Phonology studies the ways in which these sound segments form sequences and patterns and how they work in the system of language. 1. Coarticulation & Phonetic Transcription -- a method of writing down speech sounds in a systematic and consistent way. (1) Coarticulation Eg.1 Nasalized vowels – only before nasal consonants Eg.2 Aspirated Vs. unaspirated sounds After the release of some voiceless stops in English / p / / t / / k /, you can hear a lag or brief delay before voicing of the following vowel. Since the lag is accompanied by the release of air (extra puff of air is produced), the term for this phenomenon is called aspiration. As in ‘Pat’ /p t/ When producing the / p / in ‘Spat’, the vocal cords start vibrating as soon as the lips are opened, so called unaspirated. Aspirated Unaspirated pat /p t/, spat /sp t/, tub /t b/, stub /st b/, cope /k owp/ scope /skowp/ Aspirated only occurs at the initial position or stressed syllables. 2) Narrow and Broad transcriptions Henry Sweet in his “Handbook of Phonetics” made a distinction between narrow and broad transcriptions between narrow and broad transcriptions which he called Narrow Romic and Broad Romic. Broad Transcriptions: --transcribe only the sounds that contrast words in meaning without providing any details whici are not significant. Eg. / t p / / k n / used in most dictionaries Narrow Transcriptions: --provide minute differences in producing sounds. Eg. / t p /  / k n / 2. Phonemes When you know a word, you know both its form and its meaning. We have seen that the relationship between the form and the meaning of a word is arbitrary. Consider the following: sip -- zip, fine -- vine, hit -- hot The forms of the two words – their sounds – are identical except for the initial consonants. / s / and / z / are therefore able to distinguish or contrast words. These are said to be distinctive sounds in English. Such distinctive sounds are called phonemes. Phonemes --refer to any speech sound segments that can distinguish or contrast words in meaning. Phoneme is the minimal or smallest distinctive linguistic unit in a language. Phonetics provides the means to describe the sounds, to show how they differ; Phonology tells us that they function as phonemes, are able to contrast meanings of words. Minimal Pairs and Sets A minimal pair consists of two forms with distinct meanings that differ by only one segment found in the same position in each form. Eg. Sip, Zip; hot, hit; *’seed’ – ‘soup’ When two different words are identical in every way except for one phoneme which occurs in the same place, they are said to be a minimal pair. Eg. Bill – dill – gill; rib – rid – rig ---/-b / /d / and / g / are all phonemes in English and constitute a minimal set. Eg. Tip, dip, sip, zip, ship, chip, lip, nip; Beet, bit, bet, bat, bait, bite 3. Allophones phone --- a phonetic unit or segment phoneme – a more abstract unit A single phoneme may be phonetically realized or pronounced as two or more phones/variants in different environments, where it may be influenced by its preceding or following sounds. The different phones which derive from one phoneme are called its allophones. The different phones that are derived from one phoneme are called allophones of that phoneme. Eg. Voiced and voiceless / l / in English. A B Blue / blu; / plow / plau / Leaf / gli:m / clap / kl p / slip / slip / play / plei / The voicelessness of the l’s in column B is an automatic consequence of their phonetic environment. Voiceless / l / occurs after the class of voiceless stops. Since no voiced / l / ever occurs in the same phonetic environment. The two variants of L are in complementary distribution. Two or more allophones of one phoneme never occur in the same linguistic environment, they are said to be in….. The English spelling uses only one letter for both / l / and / l / since there is only one phoneme. Generally speaking, spelling system ignore phonetic variation that is nondistinctive. We can state the phonological rules in words and feature notation. Arrow ‘is or become’ Slash ‘in the environment of’ Dash ‘placed before or after the segment(s) that determine the change’ Doublecross # ‘a word boundary (at the beginning or at the end of a word) Free Variation Above said: the substitution of one sound segment for another results in a difference in meaning. But note that Two different forms may be identical in meaning, � eg. Economics / ik n miks/, / e k n miks/ --not manimal pairs, because the meaning is not changed. / I / / e / don’t represent phonemes. The different pronunciations of ‘economics’ are free variation; One meaning is represented by two different phonemic forms. Free variations of pronunciation of the same word usually occur in different dialects, quite common in most of the languages in the world. 4. The Rules of Phonology 1) Phonological processes There is tremendous variability in human speech. In fact, no two pronunciations of a word are exactly same. The changes are the result of phonological processes which delete, add and modify the sounds present in a careful pronunciation of a word. The effect of the phonological processes is to make the words easier to pronounce and to eliminate phonetic difficulties arising from the listener’s perspective. (1) Assimilation Rules --- a phonological process by which one segment changes with features of its neighbor. It assimilates one segment to another by copying the feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones more similar. Ex. 2-1 A vowel becomes nasalized in the environment before a nasal consonant. +vocalic +consonantal -consonantal +nasal +nasal We can state the phonological rules in words and feature notation. Arrow signify ‘is or become’ Slash ‘in the environment of’ Dash ‘placed before or after the segment(s) that determine the change’ Doublecross # ‘a word boundary (at the beginning or at the end of a word) a. Voicing assimilation --occurs when adjacent sounds come to agree with one another in voicing. Lay, ray, you, win; play, pray, cue, twin Eg. / l / / r / -- liquid; / y / / w / --glide are usually voiced in English, but when they follow a voiceless stop or fricative, they are not voiced. And we call it ‘devoiced’. The symbol ‘ ’ marks devoiced sound in narrow phonetic transcription. b. Place assimilation --occurs when adjacent sounds are made to agree in point of articulation. Eg. (A) impiety /m/ / p / --bilabial imbalance / b / (B) intolerable /n/ / t / --alvelar indefinite / d / The point of articulation of the nasal depends on the point of articulation of the consonant immediately following it. Thus ‘piety’ begins with bilabial sound, and the nasal of the prefix is also bilabial / m /. (C) Incompetent inconsiderate /k/ The prefix is pronounced / i /, but there is no spelling change to reflect the application of place assimilation to the words, so used as alveolar. (2) Segment Deletion and Addition Rules --add new features and segments; or delete segment Eg. bomb bombard crumb crumble lamb lambic Delete final / b / when it occurs after nasal / m /. The word final / b / is deleted when it occurs after nasal / m /. In every speech, we often delete the unstressed vowels (schew). · ~Z / + consonantal __ # + sibilant / z / -- -s / + consonantal __ # _ voiced _ sibilant · Z / +vocalic __ # +consonantal __# +voiced -sibilant (3) Distinctive Features If two phonetic forms contrast meanings, there must be some phonetic difference between the substituted sounds. Eg. sip, zip -- / s/ + / z / two contrasting phonemes. The only difference: (voicing difference). Lip, nip / l / (-nasal); / n / (+nasal), / +nasal / is a ---distijctive feature of English consonants The phonetic feature that distinguishes one phoneme from another is called a distinctive feature (phonemic feature). Features that do not contrast: Oral vowels – in final position, before nonnasal consonants Nasalized vowels – only before nasal consonants Eg. Cat / k t /; can / k n / Thus, the oral vowels and their nasalized counterparts never contrast. Nasaliration of vowels in English is predictable by a rule. “Nasalize a vowel or diphthong when it occurs before a nasal.” If a feature is predictable by a general rule or principle, it is said to be nondistinctive or non-phonemic. *** 1) Sibilants – The fricatives and affricates can be subdivided into two types, some of which are distinctively louder than others as they are articulated. 2) Obstruents – the air-stream can’t escape through the nose, it is totally obstructed in its passage through the vocal tract. nonnasal stops, the fricatives, the affricates All other sounds are called sonorants: glides, liquids, nasals and vowels. 3) (Place) Bilable, labiodentals // L interdental, alveolar // postalveolar, palatal // C velar // D glottal R 4) Continuants – the stream of air continues without interruption through the mouth opening, --fricatives, affricates, liquids, glides 5) Strident – The fricative + affricate can be subdivided into two types: the distinctively louder (noisier) ones are stridents. /f, v; s, z; ../ The quieter ones are nonstridents. *** 6) Aspirated Vs. unaspirated sounds In English, aspiration is predictable, redundant, nondistinctive, nonphonemic. The voiceless aspirated stops / p t k / and the voiceless unaspirated stops are in complementary distribution. Aspirated p t -- at the beginning of a vowel before stressed vowels Unaspirated sp t -- after an initial / s / Unreleased t p- -- at the end of a word A phoneme is an abstract unit. We don’t utter phonemes. we talk in allophones. · The Formalization of Phonological Rules Aspiration rule A voiceless stop becomes aspirated in the environment after a word boundary before a stressed vowel. (at the beginning of a word) +consonantal + aspirated / # - + vocalic + stop + stressed - voiced The regular past tense forms in English ** /d/ / id / / + consonantal +alveolar +stop / t / / +consonantal --voiced --alveolar stop / d / / +vocalic +consonantal +voiced --alveolar stop 5. Suprasegmental Phonology ---the study of phonological properties of units larger than the segment --- phoneme, such as the syllable, word and sentence. 1) Syllable Structure Syllables may be defined both phonetically and phonologically. Phonetically, syllables are usually described as consisting of: --a center (a vowel: comparatively loud) and --before or after this center, greater obstruction to airflow and less loud sound. The syllable is made up of a syllabic nucleus, which is usually a vowel, and its associated nonsyllabic segment. Eg. 1) minimum syllable – a single vowel in isolation are / a: /,   or / : /, err / : / 2) Some syllables have an onset bar / ba: /, key / ki: /, more / m : / 3) Syllables may have a termination (coda) am / m /, ease / i:z /, ought / t / 4) have onset and termination run / r n /, sat / s t / Consonant clusters Initial consonant can be any except / /, / / is rare. Any consonant can be final except h, r, w, j. No word ends with more than four consonants. Eg. prompts / pr mpts /, texts /teksts/ English; ((( c ) c ) c) v (((( c ) c ) c ) c ); Chinese: ( c ) v ( c ) The possible combination of phonemes (the study of syllable structure) is known as Phonotactics or Syntagmatic phonology. 2) Stress --the degree of force used in producing a syllable. All stressed syllables have one characteristic in common, and that is called prominence; stressed syllables are recognized as stresses because they are more prominent than unstressed syllables. At least, four factors make a syllable prominent: a. loudness b. length c. pitch d. quality (1) Word-class pairs --several dozen pairs of two-syllable words with identical spelling which differ from each other in stress placement. N. V conduct, conduct contract, contract (2) Compound words and phrases Compound Noun Noun-phrase blackbird, blackbird, hot dog, hotdog, (3) Complex words a. a basic stem + affix b. two independent English words --three possible effects on word stress: 1)) The affix itself receives the primary stress. Eg. semi- + circle --- semicircle 2)) The word is stressed just as if the affix is not there. Eg. pleasant ---unpleasant, 3)) The stress remains on the stem, not the affix, but is shifted to a different syllable. Eg. Magnet, magnetic ( 4) Sentence Stress a. Sentence stress depends on the relative importance of the word. In English, the important words are usually N, Adj. Adv. Main V. and demonstrative Pron. b. Rhythmic considerations influence the placement of stress. Eg. Mary’s younger brother wanted fifty chocolate peanuts. c. The syntactic structure of a sentence has a bearing on its stress pattern. Eg. How do you do, Mr, Smith? “Yes”, he said. 3) Tone and Intonation Speakers of all languages vary the pitch of their voices when they talk, and that the pitch produced depends on how fast the vocal cords vibrate, the faster they vibrate, the higher the pitch. Languages that use the pitch of individual syllables to contrast meanings are called tone languages. Eg. mai, mai, mai, mai Languages that use pitch syntactically (eg, to change a sentence from a statement to a question) are called intonation languages. Eg. John is going. Is John going? Most of the languages in the world are tone languages: Chinese, Thai, Burmese, American Indian, African in South and West Eg. Chinese: level rising fall-rise falling The grammatical functions a. –indicate different sentence types by pitch direction. Eg. falling intonation —statement; rising intonation --- question b. –may indicate connotative meanings. Eg. I can’t eat anything. I can eat nothing. I can only eat some particular things. c. –may impose different structures on the sentence by diving it into different intonation units. Eg. 1. Those who sold quickly made a profit. Those who sold quickly made a profit. d. -may bring part of a sentence into prominence by placing the major pitch change on the syllable concerned. Eg. I have plans to leave. ( I am planning to leave.) ( I have some plans, diagrams … ) The attitudinal functions Intonation enables us to express emotions and attitudes as we speak, and this adds a special kind of “meaning” to spoken language. Eg. The same sentence can be said in different ways, which might be labeled ‘angry’, ‘happy’, ‘grateful’, ‘bored’, and so on. “I want to buy a new car.” You use different performances, voice qualities and variation in loudness and speed. Different facial expressions and body movements. PAGE 1