The Distribution Types of Speech Sounds and

Morphophonemic alternation

Dr. K. Srikumar
Professor
Department of Linguistics
University of Lucknow
Lucknow

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 For BA Sem II: Linguistics, Paper II (Sounds of Language I)

DISTRIBUTION TYPES OF SOUNDS IN LANGUAGES

Prof. K. Srikumar
University of Lucknow
srikumarkp @ gmail.com

Contrastive Distribution: Phonemes in a language stand in contrast with respect to one

another in minimal pairs for instance. They are said to involve contrastive distribution. Eg. /t/
and /d/ in Wheat/weed, seat/seed etc.

Complementary distribution: The allophones of a phoneme occur in complementary

distribution with respect to one another. For instance, the /n/ phoneme in Hindi is
represented in words by three distinct forms: [ n] before velar stops : as in [kangii], [ankal];
[p.] before palatals as in [panjaa], [ancal],[kupjii]; and [n] elsewhere. In other words each
one of the variants of a phoneme occur in a position where the other variant is excluded from
occurrence. For instance, the allophone [p] of the phoneme /n/ in Hindi is excluded from
occurrence in positions where [n] is found , as in [santaan], and allophone [n] is also excluded
from position where only [p] is found.

Free Variation: Sometime sounds which are known to be independent phonemes ina
language could occur in place of one another, i.e. interchangeably, in certain words without
making them different in meaning. In such cases the given phonemes are said to be in free
variation with respect to one another in those words.

Eg: Hindi : [diiwaar] and [ditiwaal] are both acceptable in Hindi for ‘wall’ but they have []|
or [r] as the word final consonant. However, we know that [I] and [r] are independent
phonemes in Hindi as borne out by minimal pairs like [taar] “wire] and [taal] “beat’, or [par]
‘wing’ and [pal] ‘moment’. Thus we say that the phonemes /I/ and /r/ are in Free Variation
in only the word /Diwaar/ in Hindi.

In English , the word economics is acceptable as [ekanomiks] or /ikanomiks] in some

varieties. But the vowels [¢] and [1] are well known to constitute separate phonemes in
English, given minimal pairs like [bet] and [bit] or [wet] and [wit]. So, then, only words like
economics and either are these phonemes /e/ and /i/ found in free variation.

Neutralization: Just the opposite of Free variation is found in languages, when what are
known to be two separate phonemes, are pronounced with the same sound in a certain
position within a word. For instance, in varieties of English where intervocalic /t/ and /d/ are
flapped, both get pronounced in the same way i.e. somewhat like [d}. Then in words like
writer and rider both get articulated as [raid ar], making them indistinguishable phonetically.
In these words, the distinction between /t/ and /d/ get neutralized as a flapped articulation [1].

In Hindi, the distinction between voiceless stops and its aspirated correspondents in word
final position may get neutralized as a plain voiceless stop phonetically. For instance, both
/saat/ ‘seven’ and /saat'/ ‘with’ may get pronounced as [saat] in fast speech, neutralizing the
distinction between their word final phonemes.
 MORPHOPHONEMIC ALTERNATION

The smallest minimal meaningful elements in language are known are morphemes. For
instance, words like man, cat, bag etc. have a single morpheme each. But words like men,
cats, bags and so on consist of two morphemes each: one, the morpheme available as singular
forms referring to different entities, and two, the morpheme meaning ‘plural’ signified by the
suffix —s. Similarly, the words like play, kill and pick have one morpheme each. But words
like played, killed and picked consists of two morphemes each: one, the verb itself and two,
the morpheme with the meaning “past tense’ in English realized as the suffix —ed.

Sometimes, a morpheme could have different phonological shapes depending on the contexts
they occur in. For instance, the regular plural morpheme in English is formed by adding an
s-ending to the nouns. But this s- ending to the nouns, which is phonetically a voiceless
alveolar fricative [s], is pronounced differently as [s], [z] or [az] in different words as given
below:

caps [keeps]

cabs [kepz]

bush [bufoz]

If we look carefully at these words, we observe that it is the final sound segment of the noun
that determines these phonological shapes of the plural morpheme. If the nouns ends in
voiceless consonants as in cap, bat, sack, booth etc. the plural morpheme will take the shape
[s] and if it ends in voiced consonants as in bag, nib, toad it takes the shape [z]. If the noun
ends in sibilants as in bus, wage, catch, brush etc., the plural occurs in the form [az] because
it is not possible to pronounce two sibilants distinctly in succession. So a vowel is inserted in
between them in this case.

So it is the alternation of the phonological shapes of a morpheme depending on the context it

occurs in which is known as Morphophonemic alternation.

The past tense morpheme in English also patterns the same way as above.

The past morpheme realized as the suffix —ed is pronounced as [t] after voiceless consonant
ending verbs, while after voiced consonant ending verbs it is pronounced as [d].

pick[t], pack[t], memorize[d], play[d], pull[d], cook[t], move[d]

But after verbs ending in either /t/ or /d/, it is articulated as [ad]

wait[ad], nod[ad], [board[ad], court[ad]: it is because you cannot pronounce two stops
involving the same place of articulation distinctly, when placed consecutively without the
intervention of a vowel.

References:

Davenport, M. And S. J. Hannahs. 2005. Introducing Phonetics and Phonology. London:

Hodder Arnold.

Clark, J. and Collins Yallop. 2007. And Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell Publications.