1. An Introduction To Linguistics
Lecturer: Nguyen Van Nhan
School of Foreign Languages

2. Textbook: The Study of Language (p.42)
Phonology
Textbook: The Study of Language
(p.42)

3. Outcomes After this chapter students can:
Interpret some linguistic terms in this chapter such as phonemes, phones and allophones, minimal pairs;
Identify some distinctive features of phonemes;
Identify some phonological rules.

4. Phonology Definition:
Phonology is “the study of the abstract side of the sounds of language” (Peter Roach, 1991), whereas phonetics studies “the actual realizations”. Speech is a complex human phenomenon which involves mental and physical components and both phonetics and phonology aim at accounting for this complexity.

5. Phonology Definition:
Phonology is “the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language” (Yule, 2010, p.42).
It is concerned with the abstract or mental aspect of the sounds in language rather than the actual physical articulation of speech sounds.

6. Phonology
Examine the [t] sound in the words “tar,” “star”, and “writer”.
They would be presented in the same way /ta:/, sta:/, and /’raitə/
These [t] sounds are all very different in real speech.
"The aim of phonology is to discover the principles that govern the way sounds are organized in languages and to explain the variations that occur.

7. From phonetics to phonology
Phones and phonemes
Phonemes and allophones
Phonological processes and phonological rules

8. Segments
The study of speech sounds can involve either segments or suprasegmentals.
Segment is any discrete unit that can be identified, either physically or auditorily, in the stream of speech.
- In phonetics, the smallest perceptible segment is a phone.
In phonology, the smallest segment is a phoneme.
We use slashes / / for phonemes
We use brackets [ ] for phones.
The vowel “phoneme” in the words bead and bean is represented as /i/
The “phone” is represented as [i]

9. Suprasegmentals
Other units, such as tone, stress, and sometimes secondary articulations such as nasalization, may coexist with multiple segments and cannot be discretely ordered with them. These elements are termed supra-segmentals.
The study of suprasegmentals extends the focus of inquiry to units that are larger than individual segments such as syllables, words, phrases, and clauses and to the features of sound that describe these units, specifically stress and intonation.

10. PHONETICS PHONOLOGY phone phoneme Sign language: visuals
Sign writing: grapheme

11. Phonemes
Phonemes:
- are the minimum phonemic unit that is not further analyzable into smaller units
- are not physical sounds
- are abstract mental representations of phonological units of a language.
The process of substitution one sound for another in a word to see if it makes a difference is a good way to identify the phonemes of a language. The following are twelve words differing only in their vowel:
beat bit boot but
bait bet boat bought
bat bite bout bot

12. Phonemes or allophones
As the previous example, the sound [p] in the words “pit” and “spit” are represented in the same way but these two phones [p] are both variants of the same underlying sound, the sound /p/. (Stabler, 2011, p.19). These basic, underlying sounds are called phonemes.
“pit” is pronounced [phIt] while “spit” is pronounced [spIt]
[ph] or [p] are called allophones of the phoneme /p/

13. Phonemes or allophones
are the minimum phonemic units that are not further analyzable into smaller units;
are distinctive speech sounds; that is, they create meaningful differences in words.
are contrastive
are predictable variations in pronunciation of a phoneme;
are the actual phonetic segments produced by a native speaker;
do not lead to a different word if substituting one allophone for another allophone of the same phoneme, just a different pronunciation of the same word.
- are noncontrastive
are marked as [ph], [po]

14. Different Types of Phonological Variation
Overlapping Distribution – different sound in same environment (ex. /thap/ vs. /phat/).
Contrastive distribution – changing sound changes meaning (ex. /mæn/ vs./mɪn/).
Complementary distribution – sounds in a language never found in the same phonetic environment (ex. /thap/ vs. /path/*).
When two phones are mutually exclusive, i.e., they appear in different environments
[spæt] [phæt] *[sphæt] *[pæt]
[spul] [phul] *[sphul] *[pul]
[ph] and [p] are in complementary distribution (which means they are allophones of the same phoneme).
*Italics indicates sound variant that cannot occur in the English language

15. Different Types of Phonological Variation
Free variation – two sounds that occur in overlapping environments but doesn’t change meaning. In other words, when two sounds appear in the same environment, but don’t make a difference in meaning (ex. /ɪnpʊt/ vs. / ɪmpʊt /).
[lip] leap [lip|] leap
[sowp] soap [sowp|] soap
Perceived as the same sound: another kind of allophony. This is called free variation.

16. Practice exercises Listen and choose the correct answer.
Ex: "Why doesn't he like the desert?" or "Why doesn't he like the dessert?“
It's too dry.  
It's too sweet.
1. Did you ______ last night?
 slip
sleep
2.     Is John going to ______ here? 
a.  live
b.  Leave
7.     

17. Practice exercises Listen and choose the correct answer. b. lock
3. Was your ______ good? 
a.  luck
b. lock
4. How did you like the ______? 
 test
 taste
5.    The ______ is coming soon. 
a. bus
b. boss
      

18. Practice exercises Listen and choose the correct answer.
6. Did you see those ______ ?   
a. caps
b. cops
7. Where's the ______ ?    
a. paper
b. pepper
8. The boy ______ his shirt in.    
a. tuck
b. took
      

19. Practice exercises Listen and choose the correct answer.
9. Did Sam get the ______?    
a. code
b. cod
10. Mary ______ all night.    
a. worked
b. walked
      

20. Minimal Pairs
When two words are identical in form except for a contrast in one phoneme, occurring in the same position, the two words are described as a minimal pair.
Purpose for the notion of minimal pairs: find out the distinctive sounds.
Contrastive distribution: [bit] vs. [but]
[pit] vs. [bit]
Three requirements for identifying minimal pairs:
1) different in meaning;
2) only one phoneme different;
3) the different phonemes occur in the same phonetic environment.
e.g. pat vs. fat
Minimal set: pat, mat, bat, fat, cat, hat, etc

21. Phonotactics
The study of the sound and phoneme combinations allowed in a given language.
Phonotactic Constraints: the rules that characterize permissible syllable structures in a language.

22. Examples of Phonotactic Constraints
1) After Consonants like /b/, /g/, /k/, or /p/
another stop is not permitted
2) If a word begins with /l/ or /r/
Every speaker knows the next letter will be a vowel
3) No more than three consonants ALLOWED
Even this restricted to the following sequence:
/s/ + /p, t, k/ + /r, l, w, y/

23. Phonotactic Constraints in English
VC : on, at, out
VCC : ant, oust
CV : to, shoe
CCV : spy, snow
CVC : tin, chap
CVCC : part, tenth
CCVC : spin, cloud, pride
CCCVC : splash, spread, split
CCCVCCC : scripts, sprints

24. What is a syllable?
A phonological unit that is composed of one or more phonemes.
A syllable must contain a vowel or vowel-like sound, including diphthongs

25. Syllables
A syllable consists of three parts: an onset, a nucleus, and a coda. The nucleus typically consists of a vowel that is preceded by the onset and followed by the coda.
A syllable can be divided into two parts, the rhyme and the onset. Within the rhyme there are nucleus (the vowel) and the coda (the ending consonant).
A syllable that has no coda is an open syllable, while a syllable with coda is closed syllable.

26. Syllable Structure

27. Syllable Structure

28. Syllable Structure of “book”

29. Syllable Structure of “pumpkin”

30. Syllable Structure of “splints”

31. the syllabic structure of word claspσ
O(nset) R(hyme)
N(uleus) Co(da)
k l a s p
the syllabic structure of word clasp

32. The structure of English Syllable
When two or more consonants go together, this is called consonant cluster.
There are two types of Initial two-consonant clusters. The first is composed of [s] followed by one of a small set of consonants.
Ex1: speak, sting, sway, and smoke
(The [s] in these clusters is called the pre-initial consonant, and [p], [t], [w], and [m] are the initial consonant.)

33. The structure of English Syllable
The second begins with one of a set of about fifteen consonants followed by one of the set [l], [r], [w] and [ j].
Ex: click, play, try, quick, few, twin

34. Stress There are three stress phonemes in English. A primary stress
A secondary stress
A weak stress (unmarked)

35. Stress
All English words will contain one syllable that has primary stress.
Stress: a syllable that is more prominent than the other syllables in the word.
When a word has many syllables, one of them is always pronounced more strongly. This is called word stress.

36. Stress
For example, in the word become, the stressed syllable is come. If the stressed syllable was be, become would be pronounced like this.
Dictionaries tell us which syllable is stressed. The most popular system is to put a vertical line (ˈ) before the stressed syllable in the phonetic transcription of the word. For example, the transcription for become is /bɪˈkʌm/.

37. Stress
When words are combined into phrases and sentences, one syllable receives greater stress than all others. That means there is only one primary stress in a word spoken in isolation, only one of the vowels in a phrase receives primary stress or accent.
tight + rope ‘tightrope
tight + rope tight’rope
white + house ‘White House
white + house white ‘house
These pairs show that stress may be predictable from the morphology and syntax.

38. Stress
If a word has only one syllable (for example: pen, house), the syllable is always stressed. Dictionaries usually do not put the ˈ stress mark before the only syllable. So they don’t write /ˈpen/ — they simply write /pen/.

39. Stress placement cannot change the stress
have a definite place for the stress
English words
cannot change the stress
Stressing the wrong syllable
spoils the shape of the word for an English hearer.
Stress placement in English words is very complicated but we still can find some rules to observe:
this may have difficulty in recognizing the word.

40. General stress rules for simple English words
Words of two syllables
the stress usually falls on the first syllable.
Ex: common, nation, open, study , sorry
Words of three or more syllables
the stress usually falls on the third syllable from the end
Ex: beautiful, society, international, article, universe, relative, democracy, economy
Compounds
bear primary stress on the first element.
Ex: sports-ground, bathroom; language teacher

41. 2) Some compounds have double stress:
paper tiger, leather shoes, cotton cloth, boiling water;
3) A very few compounds bear primary stress on the second element:
with-out, mankind, whatever, myself, forever.

42. Sentence Stress in English
Sentence stress is the music of spoken English. Like word stress, sentence stress can help you to understand spoken English, especially when spoken fast.
Sentence stress is what gives English its rhythm or "beat".
Word stress is accent on one syllable within a word.
Sentence stress is accent on certain words within a sentence. These words are called content words.

43. Most sentences have two types of word:
content words
structure words
Content words are the key words of a sentence. They are the important words that carry the meaning or sense.
Structure words are not very important words. They are small, simple words that make the sentence correct grammatically.
If you remove the structure words from a sentence, you will probably still understand the sentence.