1. Introduction to Russian phonology and word structure
Ch 11: Phonemes and minimal pairs

2. Q&A
1. What is the difference between a phoneme and a phone?

3. Q&A 1. What is the difference between a phoneme and a phone?
A phone is a sound that can be measured and analyzed by machines. A phoneme is a basic sound in a language – it is an idea.

4. Q&A
2. What information does a phonemic transcription capture? What does it ignore? What does this mean for Russian?

5. Q&A
2. What information does a phonemic transcription capture? What does it ignore? What does this mean for Russian?
The phonemic system:
Captures all essential, meaning-distinguishing information
Ignores all automatic phonological phenomena
For Russian this means many things, like that consonant palatalization is phonemic, but vowel adjustments are not, that [i] and [] are one phoneme /i/, etc.

6. Notes on phonemes
We use minimal pairs to establish whether a sound can distinguish meaning, but we also use other practical judgments
Cf. the issue of [] and [h] in English
Note that phonemes are written between slashes: //

7. Q&A
3. What is an allophone?

8. Q&A 3. What is an allophone? A conditioned variant of a phoneme
E.g., the vowel variants that we learned about in chapters 4 & 6, or the aspirated and unaspirated /k/ in English key and ski

9. Q&A
4. If we have two allophones, how do we know which one is basic (which one is the phoneme)?

10. Q&A
4. If we have two allophones, how do we know which one is basic (which one is the phoneme)?
Choose the one that
Occurs in a neutral environment (isolated or with no influences)
Is most frequent

11. Q&A
5. What are all the allophones of /a/ and /i/?

12. Q&A 5. What are all the allophones of /a/ and /i/?
Allophones of /a/ are: [a], [æ], []
Allophones of /i/ are: [i], []

13. Q&A
6. What are the differences between phonetic and phonemic transcription in Russian? Or: what distinctions does the phonemic transcription lack?

14. Q&A
6. What are the differences between phonetic and phonemic transcription in Russian? Or: what distinctions does the phonemic transcription lack?
It lacks:  and 
Phonemically all a and o reduce to /a/, or to /i/ after a soft consonant and not in an ending
Soft velars are not phonemic, so we have only /k/, /g/, and /x/
There is also no soft mark on /č/ because softness is not phonemic there

15. Q&A
7. Some of the starred consonants in the exercise are on their way to becoming phonemes. Which ones and why?

16. Q&A
7. Some of the starred consonants in the exercise are on their way to becoming phonemes. Which ones and why?
The soft velars. New words are bringing them into opposition with hard velars, making their existence independent of environment. This is what happened earlier to /v/ and /f/.

17. Just checking…
Are there any questions about the minimal pairs on pp ? Maybe we should go over these together…