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Unit 5 - Phonology-Some Basic Concepts

The document discusses key concepts in English phonology. It defines phonology as the study of how sounds are organized and used in language. Phonology examines an inventory of sounds and rules for how they interact. It also relates phonology to other linguistic levels like phonetics, morphology, and syntax. The document outlines basic phonological elements like features, segments, phonemes, and allophones. It explains concepts such as minimal pairs, phonemic contrasts, complementary distribution, and the difference between phonemic and phonetic transcription.

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Nguyễn Hữu Nguyên
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297 views

Unit 5 - Phonology-Some Basic Concepts

The document discusses key concepts in English phonology. It defines phonology as the study of how sounds are organized and used in language. Phonology examines an inventory of sounds and rules for how they interact. It also relates phonology to other linguistic levels like phonetics, morphology, and syntax. The document outlines basic phonological elements like features, segments, phonemes, and allophones. It explains concepts such as minimal pairs, phonemic contrasts, complementary distribution, and the difference between phonemic and phonetic transcription.

Uploaded by

Nguyễn Hữu Nguyên
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CHAPTER 2:

ENGLISH PHONOLOGY

Unit 5:
ENGLISH
PHONOLOGY
•English
Phonology
•Some Basic Concepts
ENGLISH PHONOLOGY
 Definition: Phonology is the study of how
sounds are organized and used in natural
language.
 The phonological system of a language includes:
– An inventory of sounds and their features
– Rules which specify how sounds interact with
each other
  Phonology is just one of several aspects
of language. It is related to other aspects
such as phonetics, morphology, etc.
 The place of phonology in an
 interacting hierarchy of levels in linguistics:

Pragmatics
Semantics
Syntax
Morphology
Phonology
Phonetics 3
Comparison: Phonology and Phonetics

Phonetics Phonology
 PHONOLOGY: the study of
how the speech sounds function the basis for further work in
the basis for
and form patterns morphology, syntax, discourse
phonological analysis
according to phonological rules & orthography design
Analyzes the sound patterns
of a particular language by
Analyzes the production of determining which phonetic
all human speech sounds, sounds are significant, and
regardless of language explaining how these sounds
are interpreted by
the native speaker
4
BASIC CONCEPTS
Basic elements used to make up
the phonological patterns

 1. Feature: The smallest phonological unit used to


build up/define the segments.
  Each feature or a group of features defines a specific
property of the segment.
 e.g. /n/
 - vocalic
 + nasal
 - continuant

 2. Segments
  A phonetic alphabet represents speech in the form of
segments, or individual speech sounds.
  The phonological discrete unit used to build up the
syllables.
E.g.
 kin
 /k I n/
BASIC CONCEPTS
 3. Phonemes
 - The phoneme refers to the smallest contrastive or distinctive
unit in the sound system of a language, serves distinguish
between different words with different meanings.
 e.g. / p / & / b / in / p æ t / - / b æ t / “pat” & “bat”
 and / I / & / i: / in ”hit” / h I t / & “heat” / h i: t /
  /p/&/b/
 / I / & / i: / : different phonemes.

 4. The Distinctive feature (Contrastive/phonemic):


 Distinguish/contrast between two different phonemes
 e.g.
 +/- voice in 2 bilabial stops / p / & / b /
 - voice + voice
 + labial + labial
 + stop + stop
BASIC CONCEPTS
 5. The minimal pair test
 (i) The minimal pair: race / reIs /- raise / reIz /
  A pair that consists of two forms/words that are
identical in everywhere except for one segment that
occurs in the same place in the string/phonemic
environment/context
 e.g. hit / hIt / : / t / voiceless
 hid / hId/ : / d / voiced
 (ii) Environment/Context/Background:
  The phonemic context in which a sound or
segment occurs
 e.g.
 / fæn / (fan) is the environment for / f /
 & / væn / (van) the environment for / v /
BASIC CONCEPTS
 6. The allophone:
  Any form of the variants of a phoneme in
pronunciation.
  A predictable phonetic realization of a phoneme in
speech.
 e.g.
In English, the phoneme / p / is aspirated when it is
syllabic-initial, as in [ phi:k ] (peak)
but it is unaspirated after / s /, as in [ spi:k ] (speak)
Both aspirated [ph] & unaspirated [p] are two phonetic
realizations or allophones of the same phoneme / p /.
 /p/ phoneme

[ ph ] [p] allophones
BASIC CONCEPTS
 7. Complementary distribution
 (i) Definition:
 Two or more sounds or segments never occur in the same
phonetic environment
e.g.
 voiced [l] devoiced [ḷ]
 lake [leIk ] please [ pḷi:z ]
 blue [ blu: ] clear [ kḷIə]
 slow [ sləʊ] play [ pḷeI ]

 Complementary distribution of [l] and [ḷ] in English:


 Context [l] [ḷ]
 After voiceless stop no yes
 Elsewhere yes no

Elsewhere: the wider distribution (occurrence in a


greater number of different phonetic environments)
of a phonetic variant of a phoneme.
BASIC CONCEPTS
 7. Complementary distribution
 (ii)Non-distinctive /Phonetic/ redundant/
predictable feature:
  The feature that makes this sound
(allophone) phonetically differs from another
sound (allophone)
 e.g.
 the aspiration h in:
 [ ph i: ] & [ p i: ] (pea)
Phoneme vs. allophone
Phoneme Allophone
 What you interpret  What you hear
e.g.: cup /kʌp/ e.g.: cup [khʌp]
- Name for a class of sounds - actual members of that class
- abstract unit of language - concrete unit of speech
- contrastive/distinctive/ - noncontrastive/ nondistinctive
non-predictable predictable
- phonemic (in dictionary) - phonetic (in pronunciation)
- basic, underlying form - phonetic realization/ variant
- socialized - individual (free variation)
PHONETIC vs. PHONEMIC TRANSCRIPTION
 Phonemic (broad) transcription and the IPA
 - Broad, or phonemic transcription, is the tool that phoneticians use in
the description of speech. This system, the IPA, is to represent each
sound of human speech with a single symbol (so-called the
SEGMENT)  found in dictionaries
 - These symbols are enclosed between slashes (//) and do not
represent the spelling system of a particular language.
 Used to transcribe PHONEMES

 Phonetic (narrow) transcription


 - Narrow, or phonetic transcription is often used to designate a
transcription that uses a simple set of symbols. In this kind of
transcription, all and only the variants between sounds that cause a
difference in meaning are recorded.
 - This type of transcription is used for segmental phonological
representation, the symbols are placed inside the baskets ([])
 - This kind shows more phonetic detail, either just by using more
specific symbols or by also representing some allophonic differences.
 Used to transcribe ALLOPHONES
 Expresses all phonological affects on sound patterns

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