Phonology

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Phonology
October 25, 2010
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Todays Plan

• To begin with...
• Phonetics homeworks to hand in!
• Then
• Another Simpsons-based Quick Write
• Today Phonology
• Wednesday review for mid-term.
• Friday mid-term!
• Note we will be splitting up into three
  separate rooms for the mid-term. (more details to
  come on Wednesday)

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Phonology

• The study of how the pronunciation of sounds
  changes according to context is called phonology.
  
• We have already seen some phonological changes
  with respect to the phoneme /t/.

• English /t/
• Word Broad Narrow Description
• top aspirated

stop unaspirated
batter flapped
kitten glottalized
nitrate /najtrejt/ palatalized
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Phonemes and Allophones

• Recall the basic idea behind the IPA is to have
  one symbol for each sound.
• Principle of Contrast
• There should be a separate letter for each
  distinctive sound that is, for each sound which,
  being used instead of another, in the same
  language, can change the meaning of the word.
• Phonemes contrast with each other they are
  distinctive sounds
• Allophones do not contrast with each other
• They cannot distinguish between words.

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Phonemes and Allophones

• For example--t and d are two different sounds
  (phonemes) in English
• they can change the meaning of a word--
• tip vs. dip t vs. d pat vs. pad
• Remember two words that differ in only one sound
  are called a minimal pair.
• However, there is no minimal pair in English
  distinguished by a flap vs. a voiceless stop.
• Canadian English bottom

• British English bottom

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Wait a second

• Sounds that are distinctive, or contrast, in one
  language, are not necessarily distinctive in
  another.
• Ex s and are distinctive in English.

• sheep vs. seep
• shack vs. sack
• shoot vs. suit
• mash vs. mass
• etc.
• But they are not distinctive in Japanese

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Some Japanese Words
this year outside
a little to know
world to do
sugar to force/cause

• Q Whats the pattern?
• A appears before i ____ i

• s appears elsewhere

• There are no minimal pairs for and s in
  Japanese.

? In Japanese, they are not contrastive sounds.
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Biblical Parallels
And the Gileadites took the fords of the Jordan
against the Ephraimites. And when any of the
fugitives of Ephraim said, Let me go over, the
men of Gilead said to him, Are you an
Ephraimite? When he said, No, they said to
him, Then say Shibboleth, and he said,
Sibboleth, for he could not pronounce it right
then they seized him and slew him at the fords of
the Jordan. --Judges 125-6
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Modern-day Shibboleths
(Canadian) Jon (American) Steve
house howl bike bile

• Also note (Canadian) Amber

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Modern-day Shibboleths

• Canadian English is distinctive in that it
  raises the first part of the diphthongs aj
  and aw.
• In both cases, a ?

aj ? aw ?

• This is raising because a low vowel becomes a
  mid vowel.
• Technical term Canadian Raising.

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Canadian Raising

• Canadian Raising only occurs in certain sound
  environments
• house loud

• write ride

• pipe bribe

• like

• Q When does Canadian Raising occur?
• (what is the relevant sound environment?)
• A aj and aw raise whenever they appear
  before a voiceless consonant.

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Another Pattern

• Heres one that weve seen before
• phæt pat spæt spat
• thap top stap stop
• khar car skar scar
• Voiceless stops are aspirated when they appear
  at the start of a stressed syllable.
• Unless they appear immediately after s s___
• Because aspirated and unaspirated stops dont
  appear in the same phonetic environment in
  English.
• They are not contrastive sounds.

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However

• In languages like Quechua, there are meaningful
  contrasts between aspirated and unaspirated stops
  and affricates.
• Some minimal pairs

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Different Levels

• In all languages, there are sounds which
  contrast.
• They make meaningful differences between words.
• phonemes
• Phonemes also have variants which do not
  contrast.
• but reliably appear in particular phonetic
  environments.
• allophones
• Phonemes represent abstract, psychological
  reality
• broad transcriptions
• allophones represent concrete, physical reality.
• narrow transcriptions

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Big Picture Flashback

• Knowing how the broad level of transcription
  relates to the narrow level of transcription is
  part of what you know as a competent speaker of a
  language.
• knowing which allophone to use for a
  particular phoneme, in some particular
  circumstance.
• Another word for this knowledge is phonology.
• This is subconscious knowledge
• This knowledge takes the form of rules
• For that reason, it can apply to new, creative
  forms.
• Try, for example, nonsense words like mowch or
  skype.

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Example Rule

• In Japanese, s and are allophones of the
  same phoneme.

Phoneme /s/ Allophones s

• Observations
• appears only in front of /i/
• s appears everywhere else

• Rule /s/ surfaces as in front of /i/
• Speakers of Japanese know this rule

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Phonological Rules, formalized

• Phonological rules can be written in the
  following form
• /Phoneme/ ? Allophone / Environment
• The environment is where we see the phonological
  transformation taking place.
• Usually, the phonetic environment consists of
  the sounds surrounding the phoneme in question.
• Example rule (Japanese)
• /s/ ? / __ i
• (__ i before an i)

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Distributions

• Question
• How do we know that the /s/ changes to an in
  Japanese, and not the other way around?

• We have to take into consideration the
  distribution of the two sounds.
• The distribution is the set of phonetic
  environments in which a sound appears.
• Two kinds of distributions
• contrastive
• complementary

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Contrastive Distribution

• Two sounds are in contrastive distribution when
  they can both appear in the same phonetic
  environment.
• Sounds that change the meaning of words in a
  minimal pair are in contrastive distribution.
• (Because they contrast with each other)
• Example
• bit vs. pit bIt vs. phIt
• ? b and ph belong to different phonemes
• Note the distribution
• the sounds surrounding b and ph in this
  example are exactly the same.

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Complementary Distribution

• When sounds are in complementary distribution,
  they never appear in the same phonetic
  environment.

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Complementary Distribution

• When sounds are in complementary distribution,
  they never appear in the same phonetic
  environment.

all possible phonetic environments
sound 1 appears in these environments
sound 2 appears in these environments
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Complementary Distribution

• When sounds are in complementary distribution,
  they never appear in the same phonetic
  environment.

all possible phonetic environments
there is no overlap in where the two sounds appear
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Examples

• s and are in complementary distribution
  in Japanese
• appears before the vowel i
• s never appears before i, but it appears
  most everywhere else

• th and t are in complementary distribution
  in English
• t appears after the consonant s, and at the
  end of syllables
• th appears at the beginning of stressed
  syllables, but never after s
• Sounds that are in complementary distribution
  are generally allophones of the same phoneme

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Types of Allophones

• A restricted allophone is one that appears in
  only a limited set of phonetic environments.
• in Japanese (only before i)
• t in English (only after s)

• A basic allophone is one that appears in a less
  restricted set of environments.
• The basic allophone is also supposed to
  represent the phoneme in speakers heads.
• s in Japanese (phoneme /s/)

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More Japanese Words

• What is the distribution of h, ç and f in
  the following Japanese words?
• (ç is a voiceless palatal fricative)
• çito person haha mother
• çifu skin asaçi morning sun
• heta awkward fune ship
• hon book ha?i chopsticks
• fuhenfuto neutrality
• Q Are they in complementary or contrastive
  distribution?

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Some Rules

• In Japanese,
• h appears before a, o, and e
• f appears before u
• ç appears before i
• Q Which is the basic allophone, and which are
  restricted?
• h is the basic allophone f and ç are the
  derived allophones.
• Two phonological rules account for the
  distribution
• /h/ ? f / ___ u
• /h/ ? ç / ___ i

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(No Transcript)
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English Consonant Chart
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Complete IPA Chart
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(No Transcript)
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Patterns

• Sometimes, the rules for one phonemes
  distribution are identical to the rules for
  another phonemes distribution.
• /t/ ? t / after s
• /t/ ? th / at the beginning of stressed
  syllables
• thap top stap stop
• /p/ ? p / after s
• /p/ ? ph / at the beginning of stressed
  syllables
• phæt pat spæt spat
• /k/ ? k / after s
• /k/ ? kh / at the beginning of stressed
  syllables
• kh?r care sk?r scare

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Natural Classes

• The same rules apply to /p/, /t/ and /k/. Why?
• /p/, /t/ and /k/ form a natural class of sounds
  in English.
• They are all voiceless stops
• No other sound in English is a voiceless stop
• A natural class is set of sounds in a language
  that
• share one or more phonetic features
• to the exclusion of all other sounds in that
  language.
• The phonetic features that characterize
  natural classes are generally the phonetic labels
  weve already learned.
• (velar, voiceless, high, tense, round, fricative,
  etc.)

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Natural Class Examples

• Examples of natural classes
• k and g form the natural class of oral,
  velar stops
• u and o form the natural class of rounded,
  tense vowels
• What natural classes are formed by the following
  groups of sounds?
• v, ð, z, ?
• t, d
• i, ?, u, ?

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Features

• There are two phonetic features we need to add to
  our list
• Obstruent
• includes stops, fricatives and affricates
• these sounds obstruct the flow of air in the
  mouth
• Sonorant
• includes vowels, glides, liquids, nasals
• these sounds resonate when theyre produced

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More Patterns

• Recall that the prefix /in-/ exhibited
  allomorphy.
• The shape of this morpheme changed, depending on
  what it attached to.
• Examples
• /in-/ accurate ? inaccurate
• /in-/ tolerant ? intolerant
• /in-/ possible ? impossible
• /in-/ mobile ? immobile
• /in-/ coherent ? i?coherent

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More Unnecessary Rules

• In order to account for the allomorphy of /in-/,
  we might propose the following rules
• /n/ ? m / ___ p
• /n/ ? m / ___ m
• /n/ ? ? / ___ k
• What do all of these rules have in common?
• What change is made?
• What relationship does it have to the phonetic
  environment?

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Place Assimilation

• A new rule
• the place of articulation of /n/ becomes
  identical to the place of articulation of a
  following stop.
• If the following stop is bilabial, the /n/
  becomes a bilabial m
• If the following stop is velar, the /n/ becomes
  a velar ?
• Assimilation a type of phonological change in
  which one sound becomes more like another
• Place Assimilation the place of articulation of
  one sound becomes identical to that of another
  sound
• Moral make phonological rules as general as
  possible.

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(No Transcript)
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Mid-term rooms

• ENC 033 and ENC 123.

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Modern-day Shibboleths

• Can I get a volunteer from the audience?

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English Non-Contrasts

• English voiceless stops are often aspirated.
• Voiceless stops include p, t, k
• Aspiration puff of air escapes from the mouth,
  after each stop
• A timing issue with closing the glottis
• Aspiration is symbolized with a superscript h
• For instance
• thap top
• phæt pat
• kh?r care

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Broad - Narrow Examples

• English /t/
• Word Broad Narrow Description
• top /tap/ thap aspirated
• stop /stap/ stap unaspirated
• batter /bætr/ bæ?r? flapped
• kitten /k?tn/ kh??n? glottalized
• nitrate /na?tre?t/ na?t?re?t palatalized

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Broad vs. Narrow

• Remember the IPA is an alphabet for all
  languages
• It therefore includes symbols for sounds which
  are contrastive in any given language.
• Alternatives broad vs. narrow transcriptions
• Broad transcriptions
• Only represent sounds which are contrastive in
  the language
• Enclosed in slashes / /
• Narrow transcriptions
• Represent all sounds, whether or not they are
  contrastive
• Enclosed in brackets

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Different Levels
phoneme /t/ allophones th t ? ? t?
A phoneme is a set of meaningfully equivalent
speech sounds in a language. Different phonemes
make distinctions in meaning. Allophones (Gk
different sounds) are physically different
manifestations of a phoneme. Phonemes represent
abstract, psychological reality allophones
represent concrete, physical reality.
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Grammar Schematic

• Phonemic Form
• phonological rules
• Phonetic form

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Further Examples

• Different /t/ allophones and their
  distributions
• t appears after the consonant s and at the
  end of syllables
• ? appears at the end of stressed syllables,
  before l, r and m
• ? appears at the end of stressed syllables,
  before n
• t? appears at the beginning of syllables,
  before r
• th appears at the beginning of syllables