Phonology

1. Phonology • The idea of feature systems that we have been talking about in relation to phonetics also lends itself quite handily to the description of natural classes of sounds. • Phonetic natural classes are groups of sounds in a language which share some articulatory or auditory feature.

2. Phonology • In order for a group of sounds to be a natural class, it must include all of the sounds that share a particular feature or group of features, and not include sounds that don’t.

3. Phonology • We have already talked about several natural classes of sounds, such as stops, fricatives, nasals, affricates, etc. • To talk fully about phonetic natural classes, however, we need to clarify a few other features.

4. Phonology • Some sound classes are based on articulation or production: • For example, both labio-dental and bilabial involve the lips. • Therefore, we can group them together under the term labial.

5. Phonology • In English, these sounds are [m, b, p, f, v, w] • In English, the sound [w] doesn’t occur after any of these sounds. • We can use the term labial to simplify the description: [w] doesn’t occur after labial sounds.

6. Phonology • Other natural classes are based on sound quality, or auditory properties. • One example of a natural class based on auditory properties is Sibilants. • Take a look at the pronunciation of the plural suffix in English, which we will label -s • This suffix is pronounced in three different ways, depending on the last sound in the noun to which it is added.

7. Phonology • If the noun ends with a voiced sound the phonetic form is [z]. • If the noun ends in a voiceless sound the phonetic form is [s]. • However, after such words as rich, bush, kiss, garages, rouge, and maze, (in other words, [s, z, , , t, d,]) the form is [z].

8. Phonology • This group of sounds all differ in respect to voicing, place, and manner of articulation. • However, they do have an auditory property in common: a high pitched hissing sound. • These sounds, therefore, form a natural class called sibilants.

9. Phonology • So using this natural class, we can state a generalization: • + plural  [z] / after a sibilant • This rule states that the sound occurs in a general context, rather than having to specify for each individual context. 

10. Phonology • Other classes include: • Obstruents, which are sounds produced with an ‘obstruction’ of air flow, namely stops, fricatives, affricates. • Sonorants, which are consonants produced with a relatively open passage for the air flow, including nasals, approximants and others (or nasals, liquids, glides, and others).

11. Distinctive Features • In every language, certain sounds are considered to be the “same” sound, even though they may be phonetically distinct. • For example, native speakers consider the [l] in lay to be the same sound as that in play, even though the former is voiced and the latter voiceless.

12. Distinctive Features • Liquids and glides in English are ordinarily voiced, but when they follow a voiceless obstruent in speech, they are pronounced as voiceless consonants. • proof [pruf] sleep  • quick [kwk] 

13. Distinctive Features • Native speakers overlook the fact that the [p] in pat and spat are phonetically different and just consider them both to be /p/. • Hindi speakers, however, can’t ignore the difference.

14. Distinctive Features • Take the following data, for example: • [kl] ‘wicked person’ [kl] ‘yesterday’ • [kapi] ‘copy’ [kapi] ‘ample’ • [pl] ‘fruit’ [pl] ‘moment’ [bl] ‘strength’

15. Distinctive Features • In general, speakers will attend to phonetic differences between two (or more) sounds only when the choice between the sounds can change the meaning of a word, - that is, can cause a distinction in meaning. • Such sounds are said to be distinctive with respect to one another.

16. Distinctive Features • So, how do we determine when two sounds are distinctive? • One way to determine whether two sounds are distinctive is to identify a minimal pair - a pair of words that differ only by a single sound in the same position - and which have different meanings - but which are otherwise identical.

17. Distinctive Features • Some examples from English are: • tot vs. hot • tap vs. top • tap vs. tab • Let’s take a second to go back and look again at the examples from Hindi.

18. Distinctive Features • [kl] ‘wicked person’ [kl] ‘yesterday’ • [kapi] ‘copy’ [kapi] ‘ample’ • [pl] ‘fruit’ [pl] ‘moment’ [bl] ‘strength’

19. Distinctive Features • What must be considered minimal pairs in Hindi? • What sounds do Hindi speakers consider distinctive?

20. Distinctive Features • Before we proceed any further, we need to discuss some definitions: • The first definition we need to consider is that of a Phone, which is simply an individual speech sound. • The second definition to consider is that of a Phoneme, which is a class of speech sounds which are identified by a speaker as the same sound.

21. Distinctive Features • The members of these classes are called Allophones. • Thus, an allophone is a phone that has been classified as belonging to some class (phoneme).

22. Distinctive Features • In English, p in pat and spat are allophones of the same phoneme in English. • In Hindi, these sounds are allophones of different phonemes.

23. Distinctive Features • Symbols representing phonemes are written with slash marks instead of brackets. • So, in English, we would have one phoneme labeled /p/, with allophones labeled [p] and [p] • But in Hindi, we would have two separate phonemes, labeled either /p/ or /p/

24. Distinctive Features • By giving a description like this, linguists are attempting to show that the phonological system of a language has two levels. • The more concrete level involves the physical reality of phonetic segments (which is what phonetics looks at). • Phonemes are more on the psychological level; they are more abstract.

25. Distinctive Features • Allophones are physical units of linguistic structure. • Phonemes are psychological units of linguistic structure. • Phonemes are not directly observable; allophones are.

26. Distinctive Features • Writing systems also reflect this reality. In English, we don’t make the orthographic distinction between [p] and [p]. In Hindi, they do. • In general, alphabetic writing systems tend to be phonemic rather than phonetic.

27. Distinctive Features • To find out which sounds are thought of by a native speaker as the same sound, and which sounds are distinctive to one another, it is important to look at where these sounds occur in a language. • In other words, linguists try to discover what the phonemes of a language are by examining the distribution of that language’s phones.

28. Distinctive Features • The Distribution of a phone is ‘the set of phonetic environments in which it occurs.’ • Two speech sounds in a language will either be in overlapping distributionor complementary distribution with respect to one another.

29. Distinctive Features • Overlapping distribution occurs when the sets of phonetic environments in which the sounds occur are partially or completely identical. • For example, consider [p] and [b]: • ‘bait’ [bet] ‘date’ [det] • ‘lobe’ [lob] ‘load’ [lod] • ‘knobs’ [nabz] ‘nods’ [nadz]

30. Distinctive Features • Since the sets of possible phonetic environments overlap, we say that [b] and [d] are in overlapping distribution in English.

31. Distinctive Features • Most sounds that are in overlapping distribution are contrastive with respect to one another, which is another way of saying they are distinctive sounds. • Consider [b] and [d] above: they form minimal pairs. • Since the difference between [b] and [d] can result in contrastive meaning, we say that [b] and [d] are in contrastive distribution.

32. Distinctive Features • These two distinctive phones are classified as being allophones of two separate phonemes. • Thus, [b] is an allophone of /b/ and [d] is an allophone of /d/.

33. Distinctive Features • Some other phones that are in overlapping distribution are in free variation. As an example: • Leap [lip] leap [lip ] • Soap [sop] soap [sop ] • Troop [trup] troop [trup ] • Happy [haepi] *[haep i]

34. Distinctive Features • These sounds are in overlapping distribution, because they share some of the same environments: they both appear at the end of words. • Unlike [b] and [p], however, there are no minimal pairs. • In other words, although they contain the same sounds but one, these words do not contrast in meaning.

35. Distinctive Features • These sounds are interchangeable in word-final position. • So we say that they are allophones of the same phoneme. • For example, [p] and [p ] are allophones of /p/

36. Distinctive Features • Complementary Distribution is just the opposite of overlapping distribution. • To understand this, think of the term ‘complementary.’ Two complementary parts make up a whole. • People in this class, for example, may be divided up into those who wear glasses and those who don’t.

37. Distinctive Features • These two sets of people complement each other. • They are mutually exclusive. That is, they are non-overlapping, but together they make up the whole class.

38. Distinctive Features • As an example, consider the sounds [p] and [p] • Spat [spt] pat [pt] • Spool [spul] pool [pul] • Speak [spik] peek [pik]

39. Distinctive Features • As you can see, [p] and [p] are not in overlapping distribution. • In other words, they do not occur in the same phonetic environment. • In fact, they are in complementary distribution.

40. Distinctive Features • First: There are no minimal pairs involving the [p] vs. [p. • Second: [p] occurs after [s] but not word initially. [p] occurs word initially, but not after [s]. • Since these sounds appear in different phonetic environments there can be no pair of words composed of identical strings of sounds except for [p] in one and [p] in the other.

41. Distinctive Features • Phones that are in complementary distribution are allophones of a single phoneme. • In this case, [p] and [p] are allophones of the phoneme /p/. • The appearance of one allophone or the other is predictable when those allophones are in complementary distribution.

42. Distinctive Features • Recall that phonemes and allophones belong to different levels of structure in language. • Phonemes are mental entities. • Allophones/phones are physical events. • So what is the connection between the two levels? • The mapping between phonemic and phonetic elements is accomplished using phonological rules.

43. Phonological Rules • A speaker’s knowledge of phonological rules allows him or her to “translate” phonemes into actual sounds. • Knowledge of these rules forms part of a speaker’s linguistic competence.

44. Phonological Rules • The following is a representation of the process: Phonemic form  rules  phonetic form

45. Phonological Rules • In other words, phonological rules apply to the phonemic form to produce the phonetic form. • To accept this is to accept the notion that there is something called an underlying form. • In the linguistic literature, this underlying form is called the Underlying Representation or UR.

46. Phonological Rules • There are several different ways that we can classify phonological rules. • One of the most common types of phonological rules is called Assimilation. • Rules involving assimilation cause a sound to become more like a neighboring sound with respect to some feature.

47. Phonological Rules • In other words, the segment affected by the rule assimilates or takes on a feature from a nearby (usually adjacent) sound. •  For example:. •  I can ask [ay kæn æsk] • I can bake [ay kæm bek] • I can go [ay kæŋ go]

48. Phonological Rules • Another type of assimilation is dental assimilation, as in the following examples: • width [wdθ] • health [hεlθ] • unthinkable [nθŋkbl] • in this [ns]

49. Phonological Rules • Another example is vowel nasalization: • pit [pt] pin [pn]

50. Phonological Rules • Other phonological rules involve dissimilation. Rules involving dissimilation cause two neighboring sounds to become less alike with respect to some feature. • Dissimilation rules are less common than assimilation rules, at least in English.