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English Phonology: The Sound System of American English

The document discusses key terms and concepts related to English phonology including phonemes, graphemes, allophones, and phonetic transcription. It covers the vocal tract, English consonants and vowels, and phonological processes like plural and past tense formation, vowel deletion, and assimilation.

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Syed Adnan Raza
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57 views14 pages

English Phonology: The Sound System of American English

The document discusses key terms and concepts related to English phonology including phonemes, graphemes, allophones, and phonetic transcription. It covers the vocal tract, English consonants and vowels, and phonological processes like plural and past tense formation, vowel deletion, and assimilation.

Uploaded by

Syed Adnan Raza
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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English Phonology

The Sound System of American English


Key Terms
• Phoneme - a unit of sound significant in a
specific language (E.g., /s/ is a phoneme in
English while the German ch sound /x/ is not)
• Grapheme - The symbols (letters) used in a
writing system such as our alphabet
• Digraph - A single sound represented by two
letters (e.g., th, sh, ea)
• Phonetic Alphabet - a collection of symbols used
for writing words phonetically
More Terms
• Allophone - a variant of a phoneme; often not
noticed by native speakers (e.g, spin, pin)
• Minimal Pair - Two words that are pronounced the
same except for one sound (e.g., Sue, zoo)
• Voiced Sound - A sound produced with the vocal
folds (cords) vibrating (e.g. voiced /z/ as opposed
to voiceless /s/)
• Diphthong - “a double vowel sound” - two vowels
appearing together as the nucleus of a syllable
The Vocal
Tract
The Vocal Folds (or Cords)

QuickTime™ and a
YUV4 20 code c d eco mpres sor
are nee ded to s ee this picture.
The Consonants of English
The Vowels of English
Phonetic Transcription
Horseshoes [hors‡uz]
Matches [mæc‡\z]
Bookend [b¨k´nd]
Is [ˆz]
Pain medicine [pen m´d\sˆn]
Thorns [†ornz]
Breathe [bri∂]
Allomorphs Based on Phonology
• The plural morpheme –
– [s] after a voiceless consonant
– [z] after a voiced consonant
– [\z] after a sibilant (s, z, sh [s‡], [z‡], ch [c‡], or j
[j]) ‡
• The past tense morpheme
– [d] after a voiced sound,
– [t] after a voiceless sound
– [\d] after a [t] or [d]
Allomorphs Based on Phonology
• The negative prefix /in-/n
– [m] before a labial (e.g., impossible, immovable, imbalance)
– [˜] before a velar (e.g., incorrect, ingratitude)
– [r] before /r/ (e.g., irreversible)
– [l] before /l/ (e.g., illogical)
• Other examples of assimilation
– Conduct, compel, colleague, corrode
– Synergy, symmetry, syllogism
– Admit, abbreviate, account, annul, appeal, arrive, assign,
attend, alleviate
– Submit, succeed, sufficient, suggest, support, surreptitious
Vowel Deletion
Delete the last vowel of a morpheme if the
following morpheme begins with a vowel
Anti- ‘against, opposite’ Anti + pathy Ant + agonize
Apo- ‘away, from, off’ Apo + logy Ap + androus
Cata- ‘back, down, away’ Cata + log Cat + egory
Dia- ‘through, between’ Dia + meter Di + uretic
Meta- ‘beyond, after’ Meta + morphic Met + onymy

Works with some roots and suffixes:


auto- ‘self auto + graph aut + ism
miso- ‘hate’ miso + gyny mis + anthrope
-ate adjective suffix cre + ate cre + at + ion

Not if prefix is only one syllable: re + act; bi + ennial


E/O Deletion
Delete the e or o of a morpheme ending in er or or of a
morpheme if the following morpheme begins with a vowel

Mater ‘mother’ Mater + nal Matr + ilineal


Member Dis + member Membr + ane
Meter Dia + meter Metr + ic
Act Act + or Actr + ess
Enter Entr + ance
S Deletion
Delete an s after the prefix ex-
Spir In + spire Ex + pire
Ser In + sert Ex + ert
Secu Con + secu + tive Ex + ecu tive
Sist Re + sist Ex + ist

N Deletion
Delete the n of the prefix an- before a consonant:

Examples: a + theist, a + pathy, a + symmetry, a + trophy


But not: an + emic, an + archy, an + orexic, an + hydrous
Vowel Alternations

• /a/ changes to /e/ in other than first syllable


– E.,g, ann-ual/bi-enn-ial; apt/in-ept;
damn-ation/con-demn
• /e/ changes to /i/ in other than first syllable
– E.g., reg-ular; incor-rig-ible; spec-
ulate/con-spic-uous

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