II. PHONOLOGY

1. II. PHONOLOGY

2. e II. PHONOLOGY 1. The phonic medium of language The linguist is not interested in all sounds, but in speech sounds that convey meaning in human communication. This limited range of sounds is the phonic medium of language. 2. Phonetics 2.1 What is phonetics? Phonetics is the study of the phonic medium of language. Phonetics has three branches — articulatory phonetics: from speaker’s point of view, how speakers articulate sounds acoustic phonetics: form hearer’s point of view, how hearers perceive sounds auditory phonetics: how sounds travel in the air >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hearer sounds are traveling in the air speaker articulatory phonetics acoustic phonetics auditory phonetics

3. 2.2 Organs of speech • Pharyngeal cavity : • lungs <<<< windpipe <<<< glottis < vocal cords (if they are open — voiceless sounds; if they are close ---voiced sounds • Oral cavity : • Lips, tongue, teeth, teeth ridge, hard palate, soft palate,uvular • [ p ] [ v ] [ s ] [ d ] [ l ] [ k ] • Nasal cavity : • Lungs<<<< windpipe<<<<glottis<<<< nostrils • 2.3 Broad transcription and narrow transcription Broad transcription: a set of symbol with each letter representing one sound (used in textbooks, dictionaries,ect) Narrow transcription: letter symbol + diacritics (a set of symbol to show the fine • distinctions between sounds) • (used by phoneticians for the detailed study of sounds)

4. 2.4. Classification of English speech sounds 2.4.1. Vowels and consonants (whether air stream coming from lungs meets with any obstruction. If so, consonants; if not, vowels) 2.4.2. Classification of the English consonants 2.4.2.1. Manner of articulation Stops: Total obstruction, then the obstruction is suddenly and audibly released • [p, b, t d, k, g] Fricatives: partial obstruction, and the air is forced through a narrow passage in the mouth with friction. [f, v, s, z, θ, ∫, h]; Affricates: The obstruction, complete at first is released slowly with friction resulting from partial obstruction as in fricatives.[ d]; Liquids: Air stream will go out of mouth through tongue and roof of mouth [l, r]; Nasals [m, n, ]; Glides (semivowels) [w, j].

5. 2.4.2.2. Place of articulation bilabials [p, b, m, w]; labiodental [f, v] dental [θ, ] alveolar [t, d, n, s, z, l, r] alveolar-palatal [∫,d] palatal [j] velar [k, ,] glottal [h] 2.5.2 Classification of the English vowels 1) according to which part of the tongue is the highest: front vowels: [i, I, e, æ] central vowels: [з] back vowels: [u]. 2)shape of the lips: rounded vowels [u, U, ] all the rest are unrounded vowels. 3) Openness of the mouth:open vowels, close vowels [u], all the rest are either semi-open or semi-close. 4) The number of sound: monophthongs : [з, u,] diphthongs : [eI, aI,]

6. Bilabial Labio-dental Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Stop VL p t k VD b d  Fricatives VL f θ s h VD v z Affricates VL VD Nasals VD m n Liquids VD l, r Glides VD w

7. 3. Phonology 3.1 Phonetics and phonology Phonetics provides the means for describing speech sounds: ( the articulation of sounds; the differences between the sounds; etc) Phonology studies the ways in which speech sounds form systems and patterns in human languages. 3.2 Phone, phoneme and allophone A phone is a phonetic segment or unit. All the sounds we hear and produce in the linguistic communication are phones. Phones do not necessarily distinguish meaning. A phoneme is a phonologic unit; it is a unit that is of distinctive value. Phonemes can be further analyzed into distinctive features. The phones that can represent a phoneme are called its allophones. The same phone may belong to different phonemes in different languages, and two phones that are not allophones of one phoneme may be allophones of one phoneme in another language. The phonemic system is language specific.

8. 3.3 Phonemic contrast, complementary distribution, free variation, and minimal pair If two phonetically similar sounds distinguish meaning, they form a phonemic contrast. If they do not distinguish meaning, they may form complementary distribution. A basic way to determine the phonemes of a language is to see if substituting one sound for another results in a change of meaning. When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the string, the two words are said to have formed a minimal pair. 3.4 Some rules of phonology 3.4.1 Sequential rules There are rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language. These rules are called sequential rules. If three consonants should cluster together at the beginning of a word, the combination should obey the following three rules: 1. The first phoneme must be /s/; 2. The second phoneme must be /p/ or /t/ or /k/; 3. The third phoneme must be /l/ or /r/ or /w/ or /j/. ***Sequential rules are language specific.

9. 3.4.2 Assimilation rule The assimilation rule assimilates one morpheme to another by ‘copying’ a feature of a sequential phoneme thus making the two sounds more similar. For example: incorrect; input, indecent. 3.4.3 Deletion rule The deletion rule tells us when a sound is deleted although it is orthographically represented. For example: design, knife. 3.5 Suprasegmental features—stress, tone, length, and intonation. Distinctive features can also be found running over a sequence of two or more phonemic segments. The phonemic features that occur above the level of the segment are called suprasegmental features. 1) Stress, including both word and sentence stress, distinguishes meaning in English 形容词词义动词词义 ´ abstract 抽象的ab´stract 摘要；提炼 ´ frequent 时常发生的fre´quent 常去（地点） ´ perfect 完美的；完全的per´fect 使完美 ´ present 出席的；现在的pre´sent 给；赠；呈递

10. 复合名词词义名词短语词义 ´heavyweight 重量级拳击手heavy ´weight 特别重的人或物 ´redcap 宪兵red ´cap 红色的帽子 ´small fry 不重要的人或者物small ´fry 小鱼苗 ´tallboy （卧室用的）高衣柜tall ´boy 高个子的男孩 ******** ´ John ´ borrowed some ´ money from ´ Mary. 2) Tones In some languages, the pitches of words can make a difference in their meaning. Such languages are called tone languages, of which Chinese is one. 3) Intonation Intonation plays an important role in almost all languages: rising, falling, rise-fall, fall-rise intonation. Books for further reading: Rosch, P. English phonetics and phonology: A Practical Course Beijing: FLT& RP