Phonology

1. Phonology March 4, 2009

2. Today’s Plan • To begin with... • Phonetics homeworks to hand back • With a few things to point out… • Any questions about the mid-term? • Then: • Another Simpsons-based Quick Write

3. English Consonant Chart

4. Complete IPA Chart

5. 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/. • For example: “top” vs. “stop” • Or “night rate” vs. “nitrate” • Allophones of /t/: • aspirated stop glottal stop • unaspirated stop affricate • flap etc.

6. 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.

7. 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”

8. 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…

9. Some Japanese Words ‘this year’ ‘outside’ ‘a little’ ‘to know’ ‘world’ ‘to do’ ‘sugar’ ‘to force/cause’ • Q: What’s 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.

10. 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 12:5-6

11. Modern-day Shibboleths • Can I get a volunteer from the audience?

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. Another Pattern • Here’s one that we’ve 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 don’t appear in the same phonetic environment in English…. • They are not contrastive sounds.

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

16. 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

17. 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”.

18. 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

19. 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])

20. 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

21. 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.

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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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