Phonology

Phonology is… The study of sound systems within a language The study of how speech sounds pattern The study of how speech sounds vary The study of how speech sounds contrast

Definitions Phone: speech sound Phoneme / / Contrastive units in a langauge Never pronounced Realized by one or more allophones Allophone [ ] Pronounced (every sound you produce) Variation of a phoneme

Possibilities Allophones of separate phonemes /t//t h /  [t][t h ] Allophones of the same phoneme /t/ [t][t h ]

Questions to ask when comparing phones What is the environment? Is there a difference in meaning Are they allophones of the same phoneme or do they belong to different phonemes?

Types of Distribution Contrastive distribution: difference in meaning, form a minimal pair, belong to separate phonemes Example: ‘cat’ [k h Qt] and ‘hat’ [hQt]

Types of Distribution Cont. Free Variation: phones appear in exactly the same environments; no difference in meaning; are allophones of the same phoneme. Example: ‘economics’ [i] or [E] initially

Types of Distribution Cont. Complementary: phones appear in differing environments; are allophones of the same phoneme Example: ‘top’ [t h ap] and ‘stop’ [stap]

Variation in sounds: The case of “t” in American English Say the following words: top, stop, metal, and right What is the difference between the four “t”s? top [t h ap] the “t” is aspirated [t h ] stop [stap] the “t” is unaspirated [t] metal [mERl] the “t” is a flap [R] right [rayt’] the “t” is unreleased [t’]

The case of “t” in American English The sound we perceive as “t” actually has four phonetic realizations Since in our mind, the abstract sound is still a “t” we call “t” a PHONEME. Phones go in brackets [t], phonemes go in slashes /t/ Every language has phonemes and variants of that phoneme, which we call ALLOPHONES Appearance of allophones depends on rules

Phonemes and Allophones What are the rules for the different allophones of /t/? /t/ [t h ] [t] [t’] [R]

Allophonic rules for /t/: /t/  [t h ] word-initally and in front of stressed syllables table, treat, attend, until, attack /t/  [R] intervocalically, when second vowel is unstressed better, Betty, butter, cutie, buttocks /t/  [t’] word-finally set, right, caught, pit /t/  [t] elsewhere stop, street, antics, Baltic

Phonemes are CONTRASTIVE We’ve established phonemes are abstract ideals of our language’s sounds in our mind which are realized in different allophones Phonemes are also what produce a change in MEANING between words. This why we say that phonemes are contrastive

Minimal Pairs Take the following pronunciations: [brajt h ] [brajt] [brajt’] = “bright” Violating “allophone rules” results in funny pronunciation, not confusion in meaning When a switch in only one phone produces a change in meaning of a word, the two sounds CONTRAST so they must belong to different phonemes [brajt’] vs [brajd] vs [brajb] “bright/bride/bribe” So, we can say that in English, [t’], [d] and [b] all belong to DIFFERENT phonemes /t/, /d/, and /b/

Minimal Pairs Pairs (or trios, etc) of words that only differ in one sound, while the other sounds remain the same are called Minimal Pairs Ex: cane/gain; decree/degree; back/bag What are some examples of minimal pairs to contrast the following sounds? [p] v [b] [s] v [S] [l] v [®]

Phonemes and Allophones So, in a pair of words like flea [fli] and free [f®i] we can determine that the phones [l] and [®] are allophones of DIFFERENT phonemes In a pair of words like [p h it] and [spit] we can determine that [p h ] and [p] are allophones of the SAME phoneme. (since we can say [sp h it] and it’s still understandable)