JASMIN D.

PAPATA
ENGLISH 55 – FF

PHONOLOGICAL RULES

One of the main components of phonology is the study and discovery of phonological rules. Rules are the way
phonologists predict how a speech sound will change depending on its position in various speech
environments. For example, the final 's' sounds in 'helps' and 'crabs' follow a simple-to-understand
phonological rule. In these words, the 's' sound changes depending on what speech sound immediately
precedes it.

Let's take a second and speak the following words out loud, paying close attention to the final 's' sound and
the sounds immediately preceding it. (Hint: Put two fingers on your throat as you pronounce the final sound
and the sound immediately before it. See if you can notice what happens.)

Examples:
Helps
Crabs
Sits
Looks
Words
Gloves

Again, recover from whatever embarrassment you might feel about talking to yourself, now with the added
activity of touching your throat as you spoke. Good? Okay. You may have noticed that in the words 'crabs',
'words', and 'gloves', your throat vibrated as you said the final sound and the sound right before it. (This
means those sounds are voiced, but that's a bit too complex for this introduction.) However, in the words
'helps', 'sits', and 'looks', your throat did not vibrate as you said the final two sounds.

Here are the seven major types of phonological rules/processes with examples.

1. ASSIMILATION – phonological process in which a sound changes to resemble a nearby sound and can
occur both forward and backward.

EXAMPLES:

*The prefix in- where sometimes it appears as in– and others as im-. In front of bilabial words, in– becomes
im-. This also happens across word boundaries, like in between pronounced with an im.

There are 4 assimilations that are very important, because the sound changes a lot and the student of English
can notice the difference and feel confused about it.

The sound /j/ is usually found in the letter Y, the letter I and the letter U (when it is or was in the past
pronounced /ju:/)

1. /t/ + /j/ = /tʃ/ (T+Y=CH)

Nice to meet you = meet + you /mi:t ju:/ = /mi:tʃu:/

picture = /pɪktjʊə*/ → 2 /pɪktʃʊə*/ → 3 /pɪktʃə*/
(1= old fashioned pronunciation, 2= transitional pronunciation, 3= present pronunciation, the vowel /ʊ/
weakened and disappears)

2. /d/ + /j/ = /dʒ/ (D+Y=J)

would you like some tea? = would + you /wʊd ju:/ = /wʊdʒu:/
soldier = /səʊldjə*/ = /səʊldʒə*/

3. /s/ + /j/ = /ʃ/ (S+Y=SH)

special = /spesjəl/ = /speʃəl/

it's just you = it's jus' you = /dʒʌs ju:/ = /dʒʌʃu:/
(in conversational English "just" often loses its final T and it sounds "jus", so S + Y = SH)

4. /z/ + /j/ = /ʒ/

treasure = /trezjʊə*/ → 2 /treʒʊə*/ → 3 /treʒə*/

learning centres such as universities = as + universities /əz ju:nɪvɜ:*sɪtɪz/ = /əʒu:nɪvɜ:*sɪtɪz/

FORMS OF ASSIMILATION

Full Assimilation
Full assimilation is also known as complete assimilation. As mentioned previously, a sound may change and
become like another. This conversion might be partial or complete. What is meant by complete assimilation is
that a sound is totally affected by a neighboring sound in which both sounds become one, or become
identical.

For example, the phrase / ðæt pleɪs/ becomes / ðæp pleɪs/ (Ladefoged, 2006). It is clear that the /t/ sound is
totally, or completely, assimilated to the /p/ sound and becomes identical to the one in the next word.

Partial Assimilation
Sometimes,soundspartially assimilate with the surrounding sounds that the influenced sound acquires some
properties from other sounds. In other words, partial assimilation involves just one feature of a segment
(Ofulue et al., 2010, p.50).

It is noticed by A.Ali (2012, pp. 151-152) that “most assimilations are partial assimilations in which the
assimilated sound becomes only more similar, but not identical, to the influencing sound. Partial assimilation
can also refer to another assimilation which is called contact assimilation in which the two sounds involved
are directly adjacent.

For example, the phrase 'ten pikes' is pronounced as /tembaiks/ instead of /ten baiks/ in colloquial speech.
Here, the alveolar sound /n/ changes to /m/ which is a bilabial sound under the influence of/b/ which is also a
bilabialsound.”

TYPES OF ASSIMILATION

 Assimilation of Place: In rapid speech, the native British English speakers would pronounce the phrase
‘ten balls’ as something like /tɛm bɔːlz/ instead of /tɛn bɔːlz/. For British English speakers, the sound
/n/ changes to /m/ in the presence of the following sound /b/ in the next word. The sound /n/ is
alveolar, but when followed by the bilabial sound /b/, it undergoes assimilation to become the bilabial
sound /m/. Note that there is a change in only one feature, i.e. the place of articulation. The sound /n/
does not become plosive like the sound /b/.

 Assimilation of Manner: In Hindi, which is an Indo-Aryan language, there are many instances where
phonemes get nasalised when followed by nasal consonants or vowels. Such a change also happens
during rapid speech. For example, the word for ‘work’ /kɑ:m/ is pronounced as /kɑ̃ :m/. The vowel
preceding the nasal sound /m/ becomes nasalised.

 Assimilation of Voice: The plural morpheme –s (voiceless) in English becomes voiced when preceded
by a voiced phoneme.

/dɒɡ/+ -s--> /dɒɡz/

Note that it remains voiceless when preceded by a voiceless phoneme.

/ kat/ + -s--> / kats/

The above example is also an example of progressive assimilation of voice, as the sound change is affected by
the features of the sound preceding the given sound. The opposite of this is Regressive assimilation, where the
sound acquires one or more features of the following sound. Nasal assimilation of Hindi vowels is an example
of regressive assimilation.
2. DISSIMILATION – phonological process in which two close sounds changes to become less alike.

EXAMPLES:

*Manner dissimilation where a stop becomes a fricative when followed by another stop. The word sixth is
pronounced sikst, /sθ/ becomes /st/.

*For example, the word “pilgrim” (French pèlerin) derives ultimately from the Latin peregrinus; the I sound
results from dissimilation of the first R under the influence of the second R

A special case of dissimilation is haplology, in which the second of the two identical or similar syllables is
dropped.

EXAMPLES:

*Include the standard modern British pronunciations of “Worcester” and “Gloucester” with two syllables
rather than three and the common pronunciation of “library” as if it were written “libry.”

3. INSERTION – phonological process in which a sound is added to a word.

EXAMPLES:

*Voiceless stop insertion where between a nasal consonant and a voiceless fricative, a voiceless stop with the
same place of articulation as the nasal consonant is inserted. In English, many say hampster instead of
hamster, a /p/ is added.

*When the plural morpheme z is added to "bus," "bus-z" would be unpronounceable for most English
speakers, so a short vowel (the schwa, [ə]) is inserted between [s] and the [z].

4. DELETION or ELETION – phonological process in which speech sounds disappear from words.

EXAMPLES:

*English is a fast/common speech language, so vowels can be deleted to make the word one syllable, and
easier to pronounce in a fast manner. Police becomes plice, and friendship is said as frienship.

5. METATHESIS – phonological process in which sounds switch places in the phonemic structure of a word.

EXAMPLES:

*To make words easier to pronounce and understand, letters are switched. Two historical examples include
Old English (brid and aks) becoming Modern English (bird and ask).

* Wasp used to be 'waps'; bird used to be 'brid' and horse used to be 'hros.' Remember this the next time you
hear someone complaining about 'aks' for ask or 'nucular' for nuclear, or even 'perscription.' It's called
metathesis, and it's a very common, perfectly natural process." (David Shariatmadari, "Eight Pronunciation
Errors That Made the English Language What It Is Today" The Guardian, March 2014)

6. STRENGTHENING OR FORTITION – phonological process in which a sound is made stronger.

EXAMPLES:

*Aspiration is where voiceless stops become aspirated when they occur at the beginning of a stressed syllable.
Top is said with as h.

7. WEAKENING OR LENITION – phonological process in which a sound becomes weaker.

EXAMPLES:

*The definition of flapping is before a stressed vowel and before and unstressed vowel where the sound is
pronounced with articulation resembling a flap. The word kitty is an example where the alveolar stop is
realized as /r/.

MONDEGREEN

A mondegreen is a word or phrase that results from mishearing or misinterpreting a statement or song lyric.
Also known as an oronym.

The term mondegreen was coined in 1954 by American writer Sylvia Wright and popularized by San Francisco
Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll. The term was inspired by "Lady Mondegreen," a misinterpretation of the line
"hae laid him on the green" from the Scottish ballad "The Bonny Earl o Moray."

According to J. A. Wines, mondegreens often occur because "the English language is rich in homophones--
words which may not be the same in origin, spelling or meaning, but which sound the same" (Mondegreens: A
Book of Mishearings, 2007).

Examples and Observations

"The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is
that they are better than the original."
(Sylvia Wright, "The Death of Lady Mondegreen." Harper's, November 1954)

 “Every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you" (for " . . . take a piece of me with you,"
from the Paul Young song "Every Time You Go Away")
 "I led the pigeons to the flag" (for "I pledge allegiance to the flag")
 "There's a bathroom on the right" (for "There's a bad moon on the rise" in "Bad Moon Rising" by
Creedence Clearwater Revival)
 "Excuse me while I kiss this guy" (for the Jimi Hendrix lyric "Excuse me while I kiss the sky")
 "The ants are my friends" (for "The answer, my friend" in "Blowing in the Wind" by Bob Dylan)
 I’ll never leave your pizza burning" (for "I’ll never be your beast of burden" by the Rolling Stones)
 "The girl with colitis goes by" (for "the girl with kaleidoscope eyes" in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
by the Beatles)
 "Dr. Laura, you pickled man-thief" (for the Tom Waits lyric "doctor, lawyer, beggar-man, thief")

SPOONERISM

A spoonerism (pronounced SPOON-er-izm) is a transposition of sounds (often the initial consonants) in two or
more words, such as " shoving leopard" in place of "loving shepherd." Also known as slip of the tongue,
exchange, metaphasis, and marrowsky.

A spoonerism is usually accidental and may have a comic effect. In the words of British comedian Tim Vine, "If
I ever find out what a Spoonerism is, I'll heat my cat."

The term spoonerism is derived from the name of William A. Spooner (1844–1930), who had a reputation for
making these slips of the tongue. Spoonerisms are fairly common in everyday speech and were well known, of
course, even before Reverend Spooner lent his name to the phenomenon.
EXAMPLES:
Bad salad (Sad ballad)
Mean as custard (Keen as mustard)
Plaster man (Master plan)
Birthington’s washday (Washington’s Birthday)
Trail snacks (Snail tracks)
Bottle in front of me (Frontal Lobotomy)
Rental Deceptionist (Dental Receptionist)
Chewing the doors (Doing the chores)
 PHONOTACTICS

Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on permissible combination
of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters and vowel sequences by
means of phonotactic constraints.

Aside from that, phonotactics studies what kind of sound patterns (sound combinations) are in in a particular
language and which are not.

EXAMPLES:

For example, certain languages allow only do not allow consonant clusters (CV syllables; this is a universal
feature, but some languages are more strict than others). Interesting thing happens with borrowings from
other languages:

Japanese:
Besuboru - baseball sutoraiku - strike
Gorufurendu – girlfriend. arubaito - job (German Arbeit)

Setswana (Botswana):

kirisimasi – Christmas gelase - glass hafu - half

Shona (Southern Bantu language, Zimbabwe, replacing [l] with [r]): Strictly CV (C even cannot be word _nal)

turoko - truck puruvhu - proof

furusitopi - full stop bhiri - brief
sitirecha - stretcher giramu - gram
hendibhegi - handbag kirimu - cream
kanduro - candle