The document discusses phonology, the sound patterns of language, including phonemes, allophones, minimal pairs, phonotactics, syllables and clusters, and phonological processes. It provides examples of how sounds are organized differently across languages and how phonologists determine what sounds are phonemes versus allophones in a given language by looking for minimal pairs. The goal is to understand the system of sounds in a language and which sounds can distinguish words.

1. Phonology: The sound patterns of language LCD 101: Introduction to Language 2011 Fall Ryan 1

2. Objectives Phonemes, phone and allophones Minimal Pairs Phonotactics Syllables and clusters Phonological processes To observe how the same phones are organized differently among languages Solve Phonology problems/data sets 2

3. What do phonologists ask? What is the organization of sounds in a given language? Of all the sounds in a language, which are predictable and which are unpredictable in particular contexts or environments? Which sounds affect the identities of words? 3

4. Introduction Phonetics – investigation of the physical production of speech sounds. We looked at the articulatory mechanisms of the human vocal tract In physical terms, there are an infinite number of ways a word like “me” will be produced Individuals pronounce a particular word differently on every occasion 4

5. Introduction Differences in pronouncing a word? bad cold, tired, angry, regional/dialectal differences, size of person, etc. Phonology helps us consistently recognize the different versions of a word, e.g. “me” as the form [mi], and not [ni], [si], [ma], [mo] 5

6. What is Phonology? Phonetics and Phonology - both can be generally described as the study of speech sounds Phonetics – specifically the study of how speech sounds are produced, what their physical properties are, and how they’re produced Phonology – the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds; based on a theory of what every speaker of a language unconsciously knows about the sound patterns of that language 6

8. The psychological (abstract) representations or units of actual physical realizations of phonetic segments.

9. A set of speech sounds that are identified by a native speaker as the same sound e.g. tar star eightwriter the [t] sounds in these examples make up a class of speech sounds that English speakers know as /t/

11. However, in the phonology of English, they would be represented in the same way  /t/- These articulation differences are important, but the distinction between [t] and, for example [c], [b], and [f] are more important because they distinguish meanings of words such as tar, car, bar, far.

13. e.g. In English /r/ and /m/ are phonemes because they are the only basis for contrast in words such as ‘rowing’ and ‘mowing’.

18. Either [p] or [ph ] gives the same meaning. In English they are considered to be the ‘same’ sound though they may be phonetically different.

19. Thus, [p] or [ph ] are NOT contrastive in English. They don’t affect the meaning of words.

21. Therefore, they are different phonemes.

23. Writing Conventions: 16 Allophone or Phoneme? /p/ 4. [i] /æ/ 5. /z/ [p] 6. [th]

24. Detour: Aspiration in English 17 PHONETIC FACT: There is a burst or puff of air after the /p/ in pill, till, and kill, that is absent in spill, still, and skill. ASPIRATION: The period between the release of the closure of a consonant and the start of the vocal cord activity for the vowel that comes after it. This period is usually felt as a puff of air. pill [phɪl] spill [spɪl] till [thɪl] still [stɪl] kill [khɪl] skill [skɪl]

27. Non-language Examples 20 Allophones – different versions of the same underlying representation The human mind also ignores other physical/perceptible differences which are not relevant for particular purposes phoneme

31. [tim] vs. [dim] "team" vs. "deem“

33. Minimal Pairs 24 Are [r] and [l] contrastive in other languages? Let’s look at Korean, a language spoken in Korea (some linguists classify it as a language isolate, others consider it an Altaic language). Minimal pairs?? [param] "wind“ [pal] "foot“ [ irim] "name“ [mal] "horse“

36. Minimal Pair Practice 27 Use the following group of words to build five minimal pairs. jeep, yes, tack, chips, they, mice, day, wading, bill, cheap, pill, tick, than, weight, waiting, do, tail, chess (a) ______________&_______________ (b) ______________&_______________ (c) ______________&_______________ (d) ______________&_______________ (e) ______________&_______________

37. Dataset: Standard Spanish 28 Standard Spanish is an Indo-European language of the Romance family. Examine the phones [d] and [ð]. 1) Are these allophones of one phoneme, or separate phonemes? 2) Identify the type of distribution. 3) If they are separate phonemes, give minimal pairs that prove this.

38. Dataset: Standard Spanish 29 Are these allophones of one phoneme, or separate phonemes? No minimal pairs found so the phones [d] and [ð] are NOT contrastive. They are found in different environments, and are thus said to be in complementary distribution. [d] occurs everywhere, while [ð] occurs intervocalically (V___V, in between vowels) They are allophones of one phoneme so no minimal pairs were found.

39. Dataset: Sindhi Sindhi is an Indo-European language of the Indo-Aryan family, spoken in Pakistan and India. 30 Examine the distribution of the phones [p], [ph], and [b]. 1) Determine if the three are allophones of separate phonemes, or allophones of the same phoneme. 2) What is your evidence? 3) Is the relationship between the sounds the same as in English? Why or why not? In Sandhi and English, /p/ and /b/ are separate phonemes. In English, [p ph] are allophones of the same phoneme, but in Sindi they’re phonemes.

40. Review: a comparison 31

41. Phonotactics the permitted arrangement of sounds 32 big, rig, fig, dig, wig, lig, vig How do we know that ‘lig’ and ‘vig’ could be viewed as possible words in English? Our phonological knowledge of the pattern of sounds in English words What about [tsɪg] or [tnɪg]? These words have been formed without obeying some PHONOTACTIC constraints on the sequence or position of English phonemes.

44. Syllables and Clusters 35 syllable CV.CVC onset rhyme‘Ja.nice’ nucleus coda consonant(s) vowel consonant(s) opendʒæ closed n ɪ s

45. Syllables and Clusters 36 syllable(open) onset rhyme nucleus coda consonant(s) vowel consonant(s) V ‘I’ aΙ V ‘a’ eΙ CV ‘be’ b i CV ‘though’ ð oʊ

46. Syllables and Clusters 37 syllable(closed) onset rhyme nucleus coda consonant(s) vowel consonant(s) ‘of’ Ʊ v ‘mug’ m Ʌ g

47. Syllables and Clusters 38 σ(closed) Onset Rhyme Nucleus Coda C C V C Consonant Cluster CCVC ‘step’ s t ɛ p

48. Syllables and Clusters 39 σ(closed) Onset Rhyme Nucleus Coda C V C C Consonant Cluster CVCC ‘tans’ tæ n s

49. Syllables and Clusters 40 σ(closed) Onset Rhyme Nucleus Coda C C V C C Consonant Cluster Consonant Cluster CCVCC ‘plots’ p l at s CCVCC ‘smooths’s m u ð z

50. 41 Syllables Additional Detail to Yule syllable (open) CVV ‘I’,‘eye’ onset rhyme nucleus coda consonant(s) V V consonant(s) aI

51. 42 Syllables Additional Detail to Yule syllable (open) CVV ‘go’ onset rhyme nucleus coda consonant(s) V V consonant(s) g o Ʊ

52. 43 Syllables: when vowel length is contrastive A. Tagalog galing /ga: . liŋ/ from /ga . liŋ/ excellence pito /pi: . toh/ whistle /pi . toh/ seven Japanese ojisan /ozisan/ uncle ojiisan/oziisan/ grandfather tsuki /tuki/ moon tsūki/tuuki/ airflow The diacritic : means vowel lengthening = a  aa

53. Syllables and Clusters 44 Determine the syllable structure of the words below. The first three are done for you. Remember that a single consonant or vowel can be spelled with more than one letter, some letters are not pronounced, etc., so focus on sound and not spelling. up (VC) 7. map _____ hat (CVC) 8. spring _____ judge (CVC) 9. slick _____ eggs _____ 10. stress _____ and ______ 11. can.dy _____ beat ______ 12. brea.thy _______

54. Syllables and Clusters 45 In English, there are a wide variety of syllable types, as shown in the table below (from Language Files): Languages generally prefer CV syllables, but some languages, like English, allow up to 3 consonants to start a word, as long as the first is /s/, the second /p/, /t/, or /k/, and the third /l/, /ɹ/, /j/, /w/

55. Syllables and Clusters 46 Other languages don’t have as many syllable structures as English, as shown in the table below (from LanguageFiles): Single vowel can be a syllable; No consonant clusters consonant clusters at beginning and end

57. Assimilation – becoming more like a neighboring sound

60. The diacritic for nasalization in the IPA is a tilde [ ̃].

61. This is another example of narrow transcription.

63. Elision 51 Elision (deletion): the process of not pronouncing a sound segment (consonant, vowel, or whole syllable) that might be present in careful pronunciation ‘You and me’ [juændmi] [juənmi] ‘above his hat’ [əbʌvhɪzhæt] [əbʌvɪzhæt]