2. +
1. Phonology :
The description of the systems and
patterns of speech sounds in a
language.
( unconscious knowledge )
• Phonology is concerned with the
abstract or mental aspect of the
sounds in language rather than
with the actual physical articulation
of speech sounds.
3. +
Blue print each sound
type
e.g. tar, star, writer, eighth
(actual speech: different,
Phonology: the same)
Tar, car, far, bar
4. +
Phonology is concerned with
the abstract set of sounds in a
language that allows us to
distinguish meaning in the
actual physical sounds we say
and hear.
5. +
2. Phonemes:
The meaning-distinguishing sound in a
language.
[t] /t/
• It functions contrastively.
• E.g. Fan – van, fine – vine, fat – vat
• ( a test to determine the phonemes that
exist in a language )
• ( substation >> a change of meaning >>
different phonemes )
6. +
The natural class of sounds:
The sounds which have features in
common and would behave phonologically
in some similar ways.
e.g.
/p/ -voice, +bilabial, +stop
/k/ -voice, +velar, +stop
/v/ +voice, +labiodental, +fricative
(It could lead us to know the permissible
sound sequences in the language, /kl-/,
/pl-/
/vl-/
7. +
3. Phones and Allophones:
Phones: different versions of the sound
type regularly produced in actual speech
(‘in the mouth’), they are phonetic units and
appear in square brackets.
Allophones: a group of several phones. All
of which are versions of one phoneme.
e.g. the phoneme /t/ has different
allophones
Star , tar, writer, eighth
*aspiration (the puff of the air)
8. +
The crucial distinction between phonemes
and allophones is that substituting one
phoneme for another will result in a word
with a different meaning (as well as a
different pronunciation), but substituting
allophones only results in a different (and
perhaps unusual pronunciation of the same
words.
