Phonetics is the study of speech sounds and includes three branches: articulatory phonetics examines sound production, acoustic phonetics studies sound transmission, and auditory phonetics looks at sound perception. Phonology analyzes the system of phonemes, or abstract units of sound, that make meaningful distinctions in a language. Phonemes have allophones as different phonetic realizations. Allophones are in complementary distribution if they occur in different environments or show free variation if they occur in the same environment without meaning differences. Suprasegmental phonology examines stress, rhythm, and intonation across segments.

2. PHONETICS
 Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή,
phone = sound/voice)
 It is the study of speech sounds
(phones ) about its :
 production
 audition
 perception

3. • Articulatory phonetics: the study of the production of
speech sounds by the articulatory and vocal tract by
the speaker.
• Acoustic phonetics: the study of the physical
transmission of speech sounds from the speaker to
the listener.
• Auditory phonetics: the study of the reception and
perception of speech sounds by the listener.
BRANCHES OF LINGUSTICS

5. PHONOLOGY
 Phonology studies the systems of
phonemes, abstract cognitive units
of speech sound or sign which
distinguish the words of a
language.

7. Phonetics
• Phone
Phonology
• Phoneme

8. / / phonemes (broad transcription)
[ ] phones (narrow transcription)
PEN / pen / seven /sev n - /
[ phen] [sev n]
pencil

9. Phoneme Mental unit Meaningful Not realized
Phone
Physical/environm
ental unit
Meaningless Realized
Allophone Phonetic unit
Variation of
phoneme
variations

10. PHONE – PHONEME - ALLOPHONE
PHONEME
PHONE
ALLOPHONES

12. The study of sound patterns in language
Phonemes and allophones

13.  The study of the mental organization of a language’s
sound system.
 Units of organization:
Biggest: syllables, words
Middle: segments (phonemes and allophones)
Smallest: features

14.  There are hundreds of possible speech sounds
 Each language only uses a few of these.
 What is of interest to phonologists is which sounds
contrast.
 Sounds contrast when their presence alone
distinguishes forms with different meanings

15.  Two sounds contrast (or are distinctive) if you can find
a pair of words that differ in only that sound, that
mean different things.
[pæd] [bæd] minimal pair
Mean different things: /p/ and /b/ contrast
[pæt] [pæth] not minimal pair
Mean the same thing: [t] and [th] do not contrast

16.  Contrastive distribution is the situation in which
two sounds occur in the same environment and
result in semantic (meaning) contrast.
Lap [l{p] Rap [r{p]
Minimal Pairs

17.  When two sounds contrast they are part of different
phonemes.
/p/ and /b/ are different phonemes
 Phonemes are abstract mental units that represent
sounds.
 Be careful! Phonemes are not sounds themselves, they
are mental units representing sounds!!!

18.  Phonetic forms that don’t contrast (make a difference
in meaning) are called allophones
[t] and [th] are allophones of the phoneme /t/
 Allophones are the various pronunciations of a
phoneme.

19.  Phonemes are written between / / slashes
Phonemic Transcription (broad)
tap  / t { p /
 Allophones are written between [ ] brackets
Phonetic Transcription (narrow)
tap  [ th { p ]

20. / t / phonemic (abstract/mental)
category
[t] [th] allophonic (phonetic)
realizations
in your mind
what you actually say

21.  The pronunciation of a phoneme is often determined
by the other sounds around it.
 The nearby sounds around a phoneme are called the
environment of that phoneme.
E.g. in the word [pæt], [p__t] is the environment for
the [æ].

22.  When two phones are mutually exclusive, i.e., they
appear in different environments
[phO:t] > [ta:p]
 [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.

23.  When two sounds appear in the same environment, but
don’t make a difference in meaning.
Perceived as the same sound: another kind of allophony.
This is called free variation.
[p{stE] [pA:stE]
British American

24.  Phonemes, abstract mental unit of sound
Distinctive/contrastive: minimal pairs
 Allophones: variant forms of a phoneme
Complementary distribution: different environments
Free variation: same environment but no diff in
meaning
 Forms in complementary distribution are predictable by
rules.

26. Suprasegmental phonology studies intonation and other
aspects of speech that extend over more than one segment:
 stress is associated with syllables
 rhythm, tempo and intonation are associated with
phrases and sentences
 They are sometimes called referred to collectively as
prosody.
The teacher of English is tall.

27. Intonation refers to the contrastive use of pitch or
melody in speech.
Different levels of pitch (tones) express a wide range of
meanings.
For example:
- They’re waiting. (information)
- They’re waiting? (question)
- They’re waiting??! (surprise)

28. Speech is a continuous stream of sounds without a definite
borderline between each word.
When we communicate we change to the ‘shape’ of words.
As a result, certain words are lost, and some phonemes are linked
together while speaking.
These changes are described as features of connected speech.

29. phonological processes that affect connected speech are:
• Assimilation: This process alters sounds so that they become similar (partial
assimilation) or identical (total assimilation) to a
neighboring or nearby sound.
• regressive/ anticipatory: articulation of the following sound will be
anticipated. In most cases assimilation is regressive
one beer [wVn bIEr]  [wVm bIEr]
• progressive: articulation of a sound continues in the next sound, which
means it will be maintained.
reads [ri:dz]
• reciprocal: two sounds that produces a third one.
don’t you /dA:nt ju:/
/dA:ntSu:/

31. • Intrusion and Linking  adding or joining sounds between words
CONSONANT + VOWEL : A lot of times we drag final consonants to initial
vowels or vice versa, therefore consonants and vowels can be linked also.
Examples: - Get on. (geton ) Not at all. (notatall ) Come on. (comon)
CONSONANT + CONSONANT : When the same consonant sound is found at the end of
the first word and the beginning of the next word: pronounce them as one long sound.
This is also called gemination.
Examples: team mate= teamate that time= thatime

32. VOWEL + VOWEL : We often put an extra sound ( / j / , / w / , / r / ) between two
vowel sounds, because it marks the transition sound between the two vowels. This
is regarded as intrusion.
Examples:
/aI/ / j / /EI/ / w /
- I / j / agree, They / j /are here! - I want to/ w/eat, Do/ w/it!
/ r /
- The media / r /are to blame. Law(r)and order.
four /fO:/ four eggs /fO:regz/

33. Examples of words which have weak forms are:
- AND: fish and chips. (fish´n chips)
/fIS {nd tSIps/ /fiS n tSIps/
- CAN: She can dance better than I can. ( “can”= /E / weak “can” = /{ /
full)
- HAVE: Have you eaten? (weak)/ Yes, I have. (full)
/E/ /{/
- SHOULD: Well, you should have told me.
• Weak Forms  Some English words can occur in a full and a
weak form. Conjunctions, pronouns and articles (i.e. function
words) are often reduced or even lost.

34. Elision: Sounds disappear completely in this process. Usually the
vowels from unstressed syllables are elided first.
Examples:
Common sound deletions
- int(e)rest, sim(i)lar, libr(a)ry, diff(e)rent, t(o)night.
/ t / and / d / = consonants often elided
- chris(t)mas, san(d)wich
/ h /= this sound is often left out
- you shouldn´t (h)ave

35. Stress is a means of emphasizing syllables (or, in
some cases, words) in spoken language.
English does not have a fixed word stress, as these
examples show:
'asymmetrical ab'duction emplo'yee

36. Stress also serves an important grammatical
function in English, as it is capable of indicating
word class.
For example, the word survey can be either a verb
or a noun:
(1) We want to surVEY all viewers of Channel 5 in
order to learn more about their tastes.
(2) This SURvey indicates that the students are
extremely bored.

37. Have a look at the following sentence and think about how
shifting word stress affects the meaning.
(3) JOHN doesn't like pie. = John doesn't like pie, Mary does
(4) John DOESN'T like pie. = Someone assumed that he likes pie,
but he actually doesn’t
(5) John doesn't LIKE pie. = He doesn't just like it, he loves it!
(6) John doesn't like PIE. = He doesn't like pie, but he's crazy
about donuts.

38. Syllable: group of speech sounds (group
of segments)
A syllable composed:
a central peak of sonority (usually a vowel)
the consonants that cluster around this central
peak

39. PARTS DESCRIPTION OPTIONALITY
Onset Initial segment of a
syllable
Optional
Rhyme Core of a syllable,
consisting of a nucleus
and coda
Obligatory
Nucleus Central segment of a
syllable
Obligatory
Coda Closing segment of a
syllable
Optional

40. /l/, /m/, /n/, and /r/ can become the nucleus
when there’s no nucleus in some word such as
bottle, bottom, & butter.
For example: bottle, it has 2 syllables
BOTTLE / b A: t l /
/ l /  nucleus

41. Phonotactic Constraint
Phonotactic:the sequential arrangement of phonological
units that are possible in a language.
Consonant Cluster: it is a term applied to a blend or a gr
oup of consonants with no intervening vowel.
The maximun number of consonants at the beginning is 3 and
at the end is 4.
English may have the pattern of CCC onset with C1 always /s/.
Eg.
Scream / s k r iː m /
C C C V C

42. Here are a few more examples for better illustration:
• Splice CCCVC monosyllabic (one syllable), closed
• Easy VCV disyllabic (two syllables), open
• Axe VCC monosyllabic (one syllable), closed
• ex-pla-na-tion VCC CCV CV CVC polysyllabic (four syllables)
syllables are closed-open-open-closed