Phonology

Phonology
• Phonology: is the description of the systems and
patterns of speech sounds in a language.
• It is concerned with the abstract or mental aspect of
the sounds in language rather than with the actual
physical articulation of speech sounds.
 Phonology
• These sounds must be distinct meaningful sounds,
because they are what make the words tar, car, far
and bar meaningfully distinct.

• Phonology is concerned with the abstract set of

sounds in a language that allows us to distinguish
meanings.
 Phoneme
• Phoneme: is a meaningful distinguishing sound in a
language.
• Phoneme is the single stable sound type which is
represented by a single written symbol.

• The phoneme /t/ is described as a sound type that

makes the word /tæn/ different from the word /kæn/.
 Phonemicity test
• We can prove that a sound is a phoneme in a
certain language by using the phonemicity
test.
• Take the word: tip if we put /l/ instead of /t/
we get a new word with a different meaning
(lip).
• This proves the phonemicity of both /t/ and
/l/. Thus, the sounds /t/ and /l/ contrast
phonemically in English.
 Phonemicity test
• The best test for phonemicity is a minimal pair:
• Two words having same phonemes except for
one position and having different meanings. For
example:
• /bit/ and /fit/ contrast initially and prove
that /b/ & /f/ are phonemes.
• /bæt/ and /bɅt/ contrast medially and prove
that /æ/ & /Ʌ/ are phonemes.
• /kit/ and /kid/ contrast finally and prove
that /t/ & /d/ are phonemes.
 Phonemicity test
• Not only pairs but also sets
• When a group of words can be differentiated,
each one from the others, by changing one
phoneme (always in the same position in the
word), then we have a minimal set.
• E.g. 1 feat, fit, fat, fate, fought, foot, - based
on vowel phonemes (in E)
• E.g. 2 big, pig, rig, fig, dig, wig - based on
consonant phonemes ( in E)
 Phonemicity test
• A sound which is a phoneme in one language
may not be so in another language.

Let’s see the following examples!

 Phonemicity test
• Let us do the phonemicity test for /p/ and /b/.
Do they contrast in English?
• Put vs. but
• What about /p/ and /b/ in Arabic. Do they
contrast.
• What about /f/ and /v/ in English and Arabic.
 Phonemicity test
• /p/ is a phoneme in English while it is an
allophone in Arabic.
• /v/ is a phoneme in English while it is an
allophone in Arabic.
?what is the allophone
 Phoneme vs. allophones
• The crucial distinction between phonemes and
allophones is that substituting one phoneme
for another will result in a word with a
different meaning (as well as a different
pronunciation), but substituting allophones
only results in a different (and perhaps
unusual) pronunciation of the same word.
• /t/ and /d/ are phonemes in English.

• But what about:

• The [t] sound in star.- [tʰ] is aspirated.
• The [t] sound in eighth /etθ/ is represented as
[t]̪ .
• These variations are all part of one phoneme.
they are referred to as allophones of the
phoneme /t/.
Note:
• use slashes / / to mark phonemes.
• Use sequare brackets [ ] to mark allophones.
 Distribution of phonemes
Phonemes occur in different positions in the
word:
• initially, medially, and finally.
They also occur in different environments:
• Intervocally: between two vowels.
• Interconsonantly: between two consonants.
• Pre-vocal, pre-consonantal
• Post-vocal, post-consonontal
• Such positions and environments may have a
variety of phonetic influences such as:

1. /ŋ/ does not occur initially.

2. /h/ does not occur finally in English.
3. a voiceless stop occurs initially, it is aspirated,
e.g., ten, pan, kin. If it occurs finally, it is un-
aspirated or unreleased, e.g., lip, sit, click.
4. If a voiceless phoneme occurs intervocally it
becomes voiced, e.g., t in letter.
5. If a vowel precedes a nasal, it becomes
nasalized, e.g., ban, fin.
6. If /b/ is final after /m/ it becomes silent, e.g.,
lamb, comb, bomb
7. The English vowels /i, e, æ, a, u/ do not come
at the end of a word or morpheme.
 Syllable
• A syllable: is a phonetic unit normally larger than the
phoneme and smaller than the morpheme.
• Dictation consists of three syllables:
dic + ta + tion
• Impossibility consists of six syllables:
im + po + ssi + bi + li + ty
• A syllable must contain a vowel or a vowel-like sound,
including diphthongs. The most common type of
syllable in language also has a consonant (C) before
the vowel (V) and is typically represented as CV.
• Technically, the basic elements of the syllable
are the onset (one or more Cs) followed by the
rhyme “rime”, i.e. a vowel = nucleus, + any
following C(s), = the coda.
 Syllable
• Syllables
– Open: onset + nucleus (no coda)
• E.g. me- to -no
– Closed: (onset) + nucleus + coda
• E.g. up- cup- at – hat
• The basic structure of the kind of syllable found in
English words :
• green (CCVC), eggs (VCC), and (VCC), ham (CVC), I
(V), do (CV), not (CVC), like (CVC), them (CVC), Sam
(CVC), I (V), am (VC)
 Phonemic cluster
• Cluster: is a group of consecutive vowels or
consecutive consonants. Languages differ as to
their clustering rules:
• Arabic allows only two consonants to cluster
finally. E.g., /misr/
• English allows a maximum of three consonants
to make a consonant cluster, e.g., /stri:t/. A four
consonant cluster is not allowed except finally
as in /teksts/ = texts
 Consonant clusters
• Onset & Coda can consist of more than one
consonant = consonant cluster
• The combination /st/ is a consonant cluster (CC)
used as onset in the word stop, and as coda in
the word post.
• There are many CC onset combinations
permitted in English, as in black, bread, trick,
twin, flat and throw.
• Liquids (/l/, /r/) and a glide (/w/) are used in
second position
 Consonant clusters
• In English, we can have larger onset clusters
three initial consonants (CCC),
• The first consonant must always be /s/,
followed by one of the voiceless stops (/p/,
/t/, /k/) and a liquid or glide (/l/, /r/, /w/).
• E.g. stress, splat, splash, spring, strong, scream
and square.
Segmental vs. Suprasegmental
 Segmental vs. Suprasegmental
• Segmental phonology: the small segments of speech
which are vowels and consonants.
• Suprasegmental phonology: in speech,
suprasegmental features are not limited to single sounds
but often extend over syllables, words, or phrases.
• The term suprasegmental refers to functions that are
"over" vowels and consonants.
• They are often regarded as the "musical" aspects of
speech.
Importance of suprasegmental features

• Supra-segmental features are often used in

the context of speech to make it more
meaningful and effective.
• Without supra-segmental features
superimposed on the segmental features, a
continuous speech can also convey meaning
but often loses the effectiveness of the
message being conveyed.
 Suprasegmentals
• Common supra-segmental features are:
• Stress
• Tone
• Intonation
 Stress
• Stress, is the intensity given to
a syllable of speech by special effort in utterance,
resulting in relative loudness.
• This emphasis in pronunciation may be
merely noticeable to the listener, but not
meaningful as it is in French.
• or it may serve to distinguish meanings, as in
English, in which, for example stress differentiates
the noun from the verb:
• Ex., permit – refuse – comment
 Tone
• Tone, in linguistics, a variation in the pitch of
the voice at the word level. The term tone is
usually applied to those languages (called tone
languages) in which pitch serves to help distinguish
words and grammatical categories—i.e., in which
pitch characteristics are used to differentiate one
word from another word that is otherwise identical
in its sequence of consonants and vowels.
• For example, man in Mandarin Chinese may mean
either “deceive” or “slow,” depending on its pitch.
 Intonation

• Intonation is the melodic pattern of an

utterance. Intonation is primarily a matter of
variation in the pitch level of the voice at
utterance level (phrase or sentence).
Importance of intonation
1. It indicates the attitudes and emotions of the speaker
and conveys differences of expressive meaning
(e.g., surprise, anger, wariness).
2. In many languages, including English, intonation
serves a grammatical function, distinguishing one
type of phrase or sentence from another:
• “Your name is John,” beginning with a medium pitch
and ending with a lower one (falling intonation), is a
simple assertion

• “Your name is John?”, with a rising intonation (high

final pitch), indicates a question.
3. focuses attention on important elements of
the spoken message.

4. helps to regulate conversational interaction

Functional loads of phonemes
• In linguistics: especially phonology, functional
load, or phonemic load, refers to the
importance of certain features in making
distinctions in a language.
• For example in English :
• Vowels
• Voicing
 Vowels

•  vowels: have a very high functional load. There

are innumerable sets of words 
distinguished just by their vowels, such as pin,
pen, pan, pun, pain, pine.

• Voicing: is similar, as can be seen in pat - bad,

sue - zoo. Speakers who do not control these
differences make it very difficult for others to
understand them.