Phonology is the study of sound systems in languages. It examines phonemes, allophones, phonological rules, and suprasegmental features. Phonemes are abstract units that distinguish meaning, while allophones are context-dependent variants of phonemes. Phonological rules describe sound changes like assimilation. Suprasegmentals include stress, tone, and intonation. Minimal pairs help identify phonemes, and complementary distribution identifies allophones.

1. Fundamentals of Phonology

2. phonology
• What is phonology
• Phone, phoneme, allophone, and distinctive
features
• Minimal pairs, phonemic contrast, and
complementary distribution
• Phonological rules
• Suprasegmental phonology: stress, tone and
intonation

3. From phonetics to phonology
• Speech is one of human activities used for
conveying meaning
• Speech is a continuous process, so the vocal
organs do not move from one sound segment to
the next in a series of separate steps. Rather,
sounds continually show the influence of their
neighbors.
• map, lamb

4. Coarticulation
• When such simultaneous or overlapping
articulations are involved, we call the
process coarticulation.

5. Anticipatory/ Preservative
Coarticulation
• If the sound becomes more like the following
sound, as in the case of lamb, it is known as
anticipatory coarticulation.
• If the sound shows the influence of the
preceding sound, it is preservative
coarticulation, as is the case of map.

6. Anticipatory/ perseverative
coarticulation
• The fact that the vowel [a] in lamb has some
quality of the following nasal is a
phenomenon we call nasalization.
• To indicate that a vowel has been nasalized,
we add a diacritic to the top of the symbol
[a], as [a ].

7. Broad /Narrow Transcription
• When we use a simple set of symbols in our
transcription, it is called a broad transcription.
• The use of more specific symbols to show
more phonetic detail is referred to as a
narrow transcription.
• Both are phonetic transcriptions so we put
both forms in square brackets [ ].

9. Phonetics – Phone
• phone: the smallest perceptible discreet
segment of sound in a stream of speech
• i) phonetic unit
• ii) not distinctive of meaning
• iii) physical as heard or produced
• iv) marked with [ ]

10. Phoneme
• i) phonological unit
• ii) distinctive of meaning
• iii) abstract, not physical
• iv) marked with / /.

11. Allophone
• allophone: phonic variants/realizations of a
phoneme
• A phoneme is realized as
allophone1+allophone2+….
• e.g. /p/=[ ph ] + [ p. ] + [ p¬ ] (unreleased)

12. Allophone
• /p/ → *p h] ∥#___Vs
• /p/ → *p .] ∥___#
• /p/ → *p ] ∥other
¬

13. Phonetic Environment
• Phonetic environment: the sound(s) preceding
and that/those following it
e.g The phonetic environment of [i] in [pit] is
[p_t] and that of [p] is [#_it] (# represents
silence or word boundary).
Question: What is the phonetic environment of
[t] in [pit]?

14. Minimal Pairs
• Purpose for the notion of minimal pair: 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

15. • dip disk
• tap taph
• bit bad
• fat tap

16. {tip : dip}
↓ ↓
[t] [d]
↓ ↓
-VOICE +VOICE

17. Complementary Distribution
• 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).
• When sounds are in complementary distribution, you
can predict where you get each sound.

18. Free Variation
• When two sounds appear in the same environment,
but don’t make a difference in meaning:
[lip] leap [lip|] leap
[sowp] soap [sowp|] soap
Perceived as the same sound: another kind of
allophony. This is called free variation.

19. Question
• What is the distribution of clear [l] dark *ł+
respectively?
•
• live/leave
• slave/split
• film/felt
• people/cattle

20. • Dark *ł+: After vowels and after syllabic
consonants
• Clear [l]: Elsewhere

21. How can I tell if two sounds are
phonemes or allophones? Method 1
• Check for minimal pairs. If there is a pair then the
sounds are separate phonemes
• Check for complementary distribution. Are the
sounds found in the same phonetic environment? If
not, they are allophones of the same phoneme.

22. How can I tell if two sounds are
phonemes or allophones? Method 1
• If two sounds are in complementary distribution
then (a) figure out which one is predictable and
which one is the “elsewhere” variant. The elsewhere
variant is the symbol that we use for the phoneme
/X/ Phoneme (in your mind)
[X] [Y] Allophones (what you say)
elsewhere predictable
same symbol

23. How can I tell if two sounds are
phonemes or allophones? Method 1
• and (b) write a rule that spells out where the
predictable variant is found.
• /X/  [Y] / environment ____ environment
• A fairly rare situation: If the two sounds are in the
same phonetic environment (and there were no
minimal pairs!) Then they are possibly in free
variation.

24. data Method 2
List the No The sounds are in
environments same environment? complementary distribution
of the sounds and are allophones of the
same phoneme
Yes
Yes No
same meaning?
The sounds are
Minimal Pair:
in free variation
The sounds are
and are allophones
different phonemes
of the same phoneme

25. Sample problem: English long vowels
Question: are long and short vowels in English allophones of single
phonemes, or are they separate phonemes?
(a vowel followed by the symbol [:] is a long vowel)
[phæ:d] ‘pad’ [phæt] ‘pat’
[hu:d] ‘who’d’ [hut] ‘hoot’
[mi:d] ‘mead’ [mit] ‘meet’ Are there any minimal pairs?
NO! (There are no examples that differ
[row:m]‘roam’ [rowp] ‘rope’ in ONLY one sound!)
[ti:D] teethe [tiT] ‘teeth’ Do long and short vowels
[flu] ‘flew’ occur in the same
V phonological environment?
V:
NO!
Is there any _ t
_d overlap between Therefore, these are in
the columns? _p
_m complementary distribution
_T and each long/short vowel
_D
pair represent allophones of
_#
same phoneme.

26. Phonological Processes
• Assimilation
A process by which one sound takes on some or
all the characteristics of a neighboring sound

28. Assimilation
• Nasalization,
• dentalization,
• velarization

29. Phonological rule
• Nasalization rule:
[-nasal]  [+nasal] / ____ [+nasal]
• Dentalization rule:
[-dental]  [dental] / ____ [dental]
• Velarization rule:
[-velar]  [+velar] / ____ [+velar]

30. Regressive and Progressiv assimilation
Regressive assimilation A following sound is
influencing a preceding sound
Progressive assimilation: A preceding sound is
influencing a following sound

31. English Fricative Devoicing

32. Phonological rule
• /v/  [f] /z/  [s] etc.
• voiced fricative  voiceless / ____ voiceless
•

33. Epenthesis
• the insertion of a vowel or consonant into a
word to make its pronunciation easier; "the
insertion of a vowel in the plural of the word
`bush' is epenthesis"
• a hotel, a boy, a use, a wagon, a big man, a
yellow rug, a white house
• an apple, an honor, an orange curtain, an old
lady
• Epenthesis (Insertion) Rule:

34. Plurals in English

37. Phonological rule
• a. The [s] appears after voiceless sounds.
• b. The [z] appears after voiced sounds.
• c. The [ ] appears after sibilants.
• /z/  [s] / [–voice, C] _____ (Devoicing)
•   [] / [+sibilant] _____ [z] (Epenthesis)

38. Distinctive features
• Speech sounds are divided into classes
according to a number of properties, these
properties serve to distinguish one phoneme
from another, thus are called distinctive
features, which are binary in nature.
• i.e. for /p/, its distinctive features are [-voice],
[+bilabial], [-nasal]. However, [aspirated] is
not a distinctive feature for /p/.

39. Syllables
• Suprasegmental feature, features that involve
more than single sound segment, such as
syllables, stress, tone, and intonation.
• 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.

40. • σ
O(nset) R(hyme)
N(uleus) Co(da)
k l a s p
the syllabic structure of word clasp
The English syllable pattern: (((C)C)C) V ((((C)C)C)C)
The Chinese syllable pattern: (C) V (C)

41. Sonority scale
• The degree of sonority of different classes of
sound affects their possible positions in the
syllable.

42. Sonority scale
• Sonority scale:
most sonorous 5 Vowels *
4 Approximants *
3 Nasals
2 Fricatives *
Least sonorous 1 Stops * *
k l a s p

43. Stress
• The degree of force used in producing a
syllable.
• Word stress/sentence stress
• Primary stress/secondary stress
•

44. Stress
• Words with different stressed syllables have
different grammatical function, such as conVICT
CONvict inSULT Insult
reBEL Rebel proDUCE Produce
• Stress of compounds: blackbird/black bird;
greenhouse/ green house
• Sentence stress: Depending on the relative
importance of the words; contrastive stress

45. Tones
• ˋNo ( a matter -of-fact statement)
• ˋNo (questioning)
• ˇNo(doubtful but encouraging )
• ˆNo (indignant; emphatic prohibition
• and scolding)