Phonology is the study of sound patterns in language. It examines how speech sounds are organized and interact within and across words. Phonology analyzes phonological processes such as assimilation, deletion, and stress assignment. It also considers phonological units like phonemes, allophones, and phonotactic constraints. Phonological knowledge allows speakers to produce and understand the sounds of their language.

1. Phonology
Dr. Nuray Alagözlü

2. Phonology
 Phonology is the study of sound patterns
found in human language. It is concerned
with how sounds are organized in a
language. Phonology examines what occurs
to speech sounds when they are combined
to form a word and how these speech
sounds interact with each other.

3. Phonology
 Itendeavours to explain what these
phonological processes are in terms of
formal rules.It is also the term used to refer
to the kind of knowledge that speakers have
about the sound patterns of their particular
language. Phonology is
 1-The study of sound patterns in language
 2-the sound pattern of a language

4. Phonetics(sesbilgisi) or
Phonology (sesbilim)
 Phonetics deals with how speech sounds are
actually made, transmitted and received.
Phonology, on the other hand, deals
specifically with the ways those sounds are
organized into the individual languages.
Phonology is, in effect, a sub-category of
phonetics.


5. Phonetics or Phonology
 Phonetics is the study of all the sounds that the
human voice is capable of creating whereas
phonology is the study of a subset of those sounds
that constitute language and meaning.
 Of course, most of the principles that apply to the
study of phonetics also apply to the study of
phonology. In many instances, they are
indistinguishable from one another.


6. Phonological Knowledge
 The phonological knowledge is necessary as
it permits a speaker, specifically,
 To produce sounds which form meaningful
utterances
 To recognize a foreign accent
 To add the appropriate phonetic segments to
form plurals and past tenses.


7. Phonological Knowledge
 To produce “aspirated “and “unaspirated”
voiceless stops in the appropriate context.
 To know what is or what is not a sound in
one’s language.
 To know that different phonetic strings may
represent the same meaningful unit.

8. Key Terminology in Phonology
 Phone- the smallest ,discrete and perceptible
segment of speech sound.
 /p/ /t/ /k/ /e/

9. Phonemes
 Phonemes are sounds that actually mean something
in a particular language. While they usually do not
stand for a particular idea, they play meaningful roles
in words. A unit of speech is considered a phoneme
if replacing it in a word result in a change of
meaning.
 For example, while some people may pronounce the
vowel sound in the word "buy" differently, these
different pronunciations do not result in different
words. Thus, the different sounds are not separate
phonemes.

10. Phonemes
Pin Bin
Cot Cut
Bat Rat

11. Allophones
 For example [p] and [pH] are the allophones
of the phoneme /p/ and [t] and [tH] are the
allophones of the phonemes
 PHin spin
 A phoneme is a family of similar sounds
which a language treats as being "the same".
Members of the family are called its
allophones. In English, [p] and [ph] are
allophones of the /p/ phoneme.
 [pH]it spit

12. Allophones
(aspirated-unaspirated)
 An example: Compare pit and spit. The first
consonant of pit has an extra puff of air after
it which is not found after the [p] of spit. This
extra puff of air can be transcribed with the
IPA diacritic for aspiration, a superscript "h":

13. Allophones
 Switching allophones of the same phoneme
won't change the meaning of the word:
[sphIt] still means 'spit'.
 Switching allophones of different phonemes
will change the meaning of the word or result
in a nonsense word: [skIt] and [stIt] do not
mean 'spit'.
 /th/ /D/ /t-/ seen vs seed /i:/ vs /~i/

14. Minimal Pairs
 Phonemic distinctions are tested through minimal
pairs. To determine whether two sounds in a
language are distinctive , it is necessary to identify a
minimal pair- a pair of words that differ by a single
sound in the same position, but are otherwise
identical.
 Bat pat
 Pill bill
 Beed deed
 Pit kit are minimal pairs.

15. Free Variations
 Free variation is the interchangeable
relationship between two phones, in which
the phones may substitute for one another in
the same environment without causing a
change in meaning.
 Free variation may occur between
allophones or phonemes.

16. Examples (English)
 In utterance-final position, there is free variation
between unreleased and aspirated plosives, as
demonstrated below:
– [hQt|] ‘hat’
– [hQtH] ‘hat’
 In the word ‘data’, there is free variation between the
phonemes /ei/ and /a:/, as demonstrated below:
– [deit ] ‘data’
– [da:t] ‘data’

17. Complementary distribution
 Complementary distribution is the mutually
exclusive relationship between two
phonetically similar segments. It exists when
one segment occurs in an environment
where the other segment never occurs

18. Examples (English)
 The phones [p] and [pH] are in
complementary distribution. [pH] occurs
syllable-initially in a stressed syllable as in
spot, spit, spark, but [p] never does, as
demonstrated here: pepper versus spin

19. Phonological Rules
 Assimilations
 Deletions
 Dissimilations
 Insertions

20. Phonological Rules
 Rules make certain predictions about the pronunciation of
a language. For example; in English
 1- Nasalize vowels and diphtongs before nasals (thing)
 2-Aspirate voiceless stops before stressed vowels at the
beginning of a word or syllable.Therefore they specify the
class of sounds, affected by the rules(1), (pot)
 Vowels and diphtongs in 1
 Voiceless stops in 2
 they state what phonetic changes are to occur
 nasalize and aspirate

21. Phonological Rules
 These rules specify the context or the
phonemic environment of the relevant
sounds.
 Before nasals in 1
 Before stressed vowels at the beginning of a
word or syllable.

22. Phonological Rules
  instead of becomes an
arrow is used.
 [-Consonantal] (a glide
or vowel)
 [+nasal] before a
[+nasal]

23. Phonological Rules
A slash / means in the environment of
 A dash - before and after the segment
(s) that determine the change
 [-voiced] [+aspirated] / $ -
 [-consonantal and +stress] (a vowel or glide
nasalized in the environment after a nasal)

24. Assimilation Rules
 The Vowel Nasalization rule (a vowel or glide
is nasalized before and after a nasal) is an
assimilation rule. It assimilates one segment
to another by copying or spreading a feature
of a sequential phoneme making two
phonemes more similar(coarticulation).
bomb

25. Assimilation Rules
 #The phonemes /t/ and /d/ often become bilabial
before bilabial consonants /p/, /b/, /m/
 Ex. He is a rather fat boy
 # /t/ assimilates to /k/ before /k/ and /g/. /d/
assimilates to /t/ before /k/ and /g/.
 Ex.Where has that cat been all night? /t/ assimilates
to /k/
 Ex. It was a very good concert /d/ assimilates to /g/

26. Assimilation
 /n/ can assimilate to / η/ before k and g
 As in I’ve been going too much lately.
 /s/ assimilates to
 As in This shiny bag
 /z/ assimilates to /з/ before

27. Assimilation in Turkish
 Lenis Voiced stops become fortis voiceless
stops. /d/ assimilates to /ç/
 ağaç-dan – ağaç-tan
 ocak-cı-ocak-çı
 seç-gin- seç-kin
 kaç-dı – kaç-tı


28. Dissimilation Rules
 The value of a feature of a segment changes
to become different from that of a
neighbouring segment. For example, An
aspirated sound becomes unaspirated if it
occurs before certain sounds

29. Elision/Deletion (ses düşmesi)
 Itdescribes the disapperance of a sound.
 We arrived next day. /t/ vs/d/ /t/ elided
betw. /ks/ and /d/
 Complex consonant are simplified.
 Ex.She acts /aekts/ becomes /aeks/
 /ә/ schwa disappears in unstressed syllables
 Ex. We should call the police

30. Elision/Deletion (ses düşmesi)
 In Turkish küçüğ-cük- küçücük
 Du bakalım, gelmiyo.,ayşa:nım,kuruğ kuru
 Akılım- aklım; ağızım-ağzım,
 In English, mystery-mystry;
 In French, petite tableaux

31. Insertion
 An additional sound is inserted
 Ex. Tiren (turkish)
 Gurup
 Scutary ( rumca) üsküdar azcık –azıcık
darcık daracık

32. Word Stress
 Word stress (THE SYLLABLE PRONUNCED MORE
STRONGLY, SHOWN ‘ BEFORE THE STRESSED
SYLLABLE.
 QUAlify, baNAna, underSTAND
 One of the syllables will sound louder than other
idenfiable syllables. Ooo, oOo, ooO
 Many everyday nouns and adjs of two syllable length
are stressed on the first syllable.

33. Word Stress
 Loudness
 Pitchchange
 Length of the syllable

34. Rules of word stress
 Core vocabulary: first syllable stress lile MOther,
WAter, PAper etc.
 Prefixes and suffixes : not stressed QUIetly,
oRIGinally, exceptions: BIcycle, DISlocate
 Compound words: first element stressed like
POSTman, NEWSpaper, TEApot
 Words having a dual role: either a noun or a verb
PREsent(n) preSENT (v)
 IMport(n) imPORT(v)

35. Stress timing (Isochronicity) –
Syllable timing
 English, Arabic and Russian are stress timed
languages. Stresses occur at regular intervals in
connected speech. The duration of an utterance is
dependent on the number of the stresses than the
number of the syllables.
 Japanese, French, and Spanish are syllable –timed
languages. There is no strong stress pattern.
Syllables maintain their length and vowels maintain
their quality. (see p.70)

36. Tonic Syllables- Onset syllable
 Tonicsyllable The most important word in a
sentence
 Onset syllable -where the sentence stress
starts
 The use of tonic syllables is closely related to
intonation.

37. Sentence stress
 Some words in a sentence are uttered more
loudly. It is closely related to intonation.
 He LIVES in the HOUSE in the CORner.

38. Sentence- meaning-
L LOVE you ( AND I want you to know this)
 I love YOU (nobody else)
 I love you ( he does not)

39. Intonation
 Itrefers to the way the voice goes up and
down in pitch when we are speaking.
Although all languages have it, there are
tone languages like Chinese in which the
voice is used quite differently, which
determines the meaning. “Ma” in Chinese
may mean mother , hemp (kenevir) or scold
depending on whether voice goes up and
down and stays level.

40. intonation
 Pitch
 Loudness
 Length
INTONATION
 Falling
 Rising
 Flat
 Falling –Rising
 Rising- Falling

41. intonation
 Information questions falling
 Yes/No Questions- rising
 Statements –falling
 Imperatives- falling
 Question tags-
– expecting confirmation- falling
– Showing less certainity- rising
 Lists – rising , rising, and falling.
 (See p. 89)