Linguistics week 9

1. Linguistics week 9 Phonology 2

3. This is a stylized representation of the inside of the mouth It shows the cardinal vowels marked by black dots and the approximate position of vowels common in many languages The next slide shows the position of English vowels on the same kind of chart The IPA vowel chart

4. Aspiration in Mandarin is phonemic • pʰand p are two different phones; two different sounds • but in Mandarin they are different phonemes • /pʰa/ (ㄆㄚ) and /pa/ (ㄅㄚ) represent different meanings • in English pʰand p do not help to distinguish meaning • There are no minimal pairs like pʰa and pa • Slant brackets are used for phonemic transcriptions // • Square brackets are used for phonetic transcriptions [] • This is an important point • We will return to it later

5. So what is a phoneme? • A phoneme is a member of the set of sounds of a particular language • A phoneme can be spoken in different ways, depending on • the other sounds near it, in the utterance (context) • the local accent or dialect • the person speaking • These different realizations (different ways) are the allophones of the phoneme • A phoneme can be distinguished from every other phoneme • You do this by checking that a minimal pair exists

6. Economy of effort: allophonic differences within one syllable • The vowels in ㄢ and ㄤ are different (front and back) because the speaker is preparing for the following consonant • The consonants /k/ in kit and cat differ slightly because the speaker is preparing for the following vowel. Tongue position for the first is further forward • Why do these allophonic differences exist? • In language, as in life, people are lazy! • It is logical that tongue movement should be minimized • As long as people can understand what we are saying!

7. Economy of effort: assimilation • Another syllable or word influences pronunciation, in rapid speech • How do you pronounce 根本? • This is an example of progressive assimilation • What about 多少錢 • This is an example of elision

8. Assimilation in English and French • Usually it’s regressive • A phoneme is changed to accommodate (match) the next phoneme. • Voicing • Newspaper, of course, have to • News has /z/; newspaper has [s] to accommodate the following /p/ • French avec /avek/ in avec vous /aveg vu/ “with you”

9. Assimilation of place of articulation • /tem/ in ten minutes • /iƷ/ in is she? • http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/assimilation.html • For more examples • Read about assimilation at http://www.personal.rdg.ac.uk/~llsroach/phon2/asscoareli-into.htm