phones, phonemes, and allophones

1. PHONES, PHONEMES, AND
ALLOPHONES
FARRAH JANE Z. LIZARDO
DISCUSSANT

2. MINIMAL SETS
MINIMAL PAIRS and

3. What is minimal pairs?
 In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs
of words or phrases in a particular
language, which differ in only one
phonological element, such as a phone,
phoneme, and have distinct
meanings.

4. A pair of words that differ by
such one phoneme in the same
position and have different
meaning.

5. PHONEMES
is a basic unit of a language which is
combined with other phonemes to
form meaningful unit such as word.
PHONES
from the view point of segmental
phonology are the physical realization
of phonemes.

6. Examples:
wet vs yet bet vs bit
tip vs dip pat vs pot
might vs sight lock vs luck

7. Two words that differ in meaning
through a contrast of a single
phoneme are called
MINIMAL PAIRS.

8. What is minimal sets?
• A minimal set is used to demonstrate
that the phonological element under
consideration is phonemic—that is,
that it has contrastive function in
determining meaning.

9. PHONOTACTICS
---------------------------------------------------
Study of the sound and
phoneme combinations allowed in a
given language.

10. Phonotactic Constraints
 the rules that characterize permissible
syllable structures in a language.
Define as what sound sequences are possible
and what other sound sequences are not
possible in a given language.

11.  Another important point about
phonotactic constraints is that they vary
from language to language.

12. Syllable
A phonological unit that is
composed of one or
more phonemes.

13. The Syllable Structure
 The structure of English spoken syllable can be
summarized as follows:
 Minimally , a syllable consists of a vowel , or a vowel like
sound which acts as a nucleus ,center or pick of the
syllable.
 Many syllables have one or more consonants preceding
the nucleus. These make up the syllable onset :me ,so,
play. Traditionally they are known as open syllables.
 Many syllables have one or more consonants following
the nucleus. These make up syllables coda :am, ants, eel.
They are traditionally known as closed syllables.
 Man syllables have both an onset and a coda :cat, jump.

14. Syllable structure

15. 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/

16. 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

17. In analyzing syllable structure its important to
look for the
pronunciation behind a word spelling. although
ooze ends
in a written vowel , it ends in a spoken
consonant and its
structure is VC. Similarly all is VC not VCC,
jumped is
CVCCC not CVCCVC and fox is CVCC not CVC.

18. The importance of Phonotactic constraints in
segmenting sound sequence in a syllable is that,
the sequential arrangement is itself a cue to the
number of syllables in a word. And it also limits
on the talker’s ability to pronounce sequences of
sounds as one syllable and the listener
perception of how many syllables he or she
hears from a given sequence of phonemes.

19. Syllable clusters
A syllable has a vowel. It might also have one or
more consonants before the vowel or one more
consonants after it.
In CCV syllables there is a sequence of two
consonant without an intervening vowel.
Sequence such as this are called CLUSTER.
(sometimes known as blends).

20. Consonant clusters
When two or more consonants occur
together, they are called a consonant
cluster. (“Cluster” means “group.”)

21. There are 26 two-consonant cluster in English:
/sm/, /sw/, /st/, /sw/, /sk/, /sl/, /sp/, /sf/,
/ow/, /dw/, /tw/, /or/, /dr/, /tr/, /kw/, /kr/,
/kl/, /pr/, /fr/, /br/, /gr/, /pl/, /fl/, /bl/, /gl/,
/fr/

22. Some example of syllable-initial
combinations in actual words
Cluster word transcription
/sm/ small /smol/
/sp/ spin /spin/
/fr/ free /fri/
/bl/ blue /blu/
/gr/ green /grin/

23. Complimentary Distribution
Complementary distribution is
commonly applied to phonology, where
similar phones in complementary
distribution are usually allophones of the
same phoneme.

24. For instance, in English, [p] and [pʰ] are
allophones of the phoneme /p/ because they
occur in complementary
distribution. [pʰ] always occurs when it is the
syllable onset and followed by a stressed vowel
(as in the word pin). [p] occurs in all other
situations (as in the word spin).

25. COMPLIMENTARY DISTRIBUTION.
When two or more sounds occur in the same
phonemic context or environment, they are
said to be in

26. QUIZ

33. REFERENCES:
•http://seas3.elte.hu/phono/notes/141-phonotactics.html ‘
•http://clas.mq.edu.au/speech/phonetics/phonology/syllable/sy
ll_phonotactic.html
•David Crystal,2003,The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English
Language,2nd ed.
•Cruttenden, Alan, 2008, Gimson's Pronunciation of English, 7th
ed., London.
•Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman,2003,An Introduction
to Language,7th ed.
•https://www.sltinfo.com/syllables-and-clusters/