S5 Phonology1

PROF EL HADRI 2020-2021

 There is a large number of sounds humans can produce and
perceive but no human language exploits all these possibilities
 Because the sounds of all languages are patterned and
organized in such ways that linguists can discover some system
underlying their appearance.
 Linguists generally assume that speakers have some
subconscious knowledge of ths system.
 The study of how the sounds are patterned and
organized in different languages is what we term
phonology
 Phonologists attempt to make explicit and formal
statements about the sound patterns of individual
languages in order to discover (and hopefully
explain)something about the linguistic knowledge that
people must have in order to use (produce and
perceive) these patterns
 Phonetics  Phonology
 Concrete  Abstract
 How sounds are made  Patterns of sounds
 Performance  Competence
 Actual production of sounds:  Knowledge of sounds: patterns
articulation of sounds and functions of sounds
 Transcription: [….]  Transcription: …../
Patterning of sounds

 Consider the following patterns of English

 At the beginning of a word we find:
tip, rip, lip, sip
NOT
mip (this could exist, but it happens not to = accidental gap)
 (this cannot exist = systemetic gap)
Patterning of sounds

 Consider the following patterns of English

 At the beginning of a word we find:
trip, drip, lip, sip
NOT
krip (accidental gap)
*tlip (systematic gap)
*dlip (systematic gap)
 The study of the sudy of possible sound sequences
in a given language is called Phonotactics (we will
come back to this in S6)
 Functioning of sounds

 The amazing discovery is that there is a difference between what

people produce (i.e. articulate) and what they perceive.
eg [tH] [st]
speakers produce two speech sounds: [tH] [t]
but they perceive only one sound. So the difference between these
two sounds is somehow ignored at the perception level (c.f. top and
pop)
 We can say that there are two levels where sounds are represented:
the level where they are produced (surface/physical level)
the level where they are perceived ( underlying/ psychological level)
 Functioning of sounds

 Fundamental issue: does the surface distinction between two sounds

correspond to an underlying distinction?
 Sounds that differ underyingly are sounds that distinguish meaning,
while those that differ at the surface only cannot distinguish meaning
e.g ban VS van; robe Vs rove; top Vs pop (minimal pairs)
 Sounds like [b][v][t][p] are said to be contrastive sounds: they are
able to distinguish meaning. These sounds are the phonemes of the
language.
 Phonemes aren’t sounds that differ only on the surface; they differ
also underlyingly
Functioning of sounds

 The first and most important task of a phonologist then is to identify the
phonemes of the language under study.
b, v, t, p are phonemes in English because they distinguish meaning.
 So, finding minimal pairs is a very good test:
[s], [z] does this make a minimal pair?
if so, then we can say that [s][z] are phonemes
once two sounds are identified as phonemes of the language, then
we put them between slashes (phonemic representation)
 Minimal Pairs - 2 words with distinct meanings that differ by only 1
segment found in the same position in each form
Exercise

 Minimal Pairs Practice

 For each of the following pairs of English consonant
phonemes, find a minimal pair

/p/ /b/
/t/ /d/
/k/ /g/
/p/ /f/
/m/ /n/
Functioning of sounds

Going back to [tH] [st],

 If we replace [tH] by [t] in the first example or [t] by [tH] in the second do
we change the meaning of the words?
 Is [tH] and [t] a minimal pair?
 [tH] and [t] do not contrast meaning, they are different only at the
surface (phonetic level). They can’t make phonemes of the language.
They are phonetic realizations of one sound (phoneme).
 These types of sounds are called Allophones
Functioning of sounds

/?/ Underlying Form  Allophones are non-contrastive

Phoneme units of speech.
 They are phonetic realisations of a
phoneme
 They are physical (concrete) units
 They are put between square
[tH] [t] Phonetic Form brackets
allophones
Functioning of sounds

• Near minimal pairs - like minimal pairs but environments aren’t

entirely identical
• Near minimal pairs used if minimal pairs can’t be found

Minimal Pair Near Minimal Pair

sip and zip show a author and either show a
meaningful difference meaningful difference
between the segments between the segments
[s] and [z] [T]and [D]
[s]and [z] [T] and [D]
Functioning of sounds

 Minimal pairs used to find phonemes

 Phonemes - segments that contrast with each other in a
particular language belong to separate phonemes
 Can’t always find MP for all phonemes in all environments:
[], [Z], and [h] only occur in certain environments in English
 Phonetic similarity
Functioning of sounds

 English consonant phonemes:

 Note that there is no glottal stop or flap on the consonant chart - why?
 Functioning of sounds

 Sounds that are phonemes in one language may not be phonemes in

another language

English Turkish
[bEn] ‘Ben’ [bEn] ‘I’
[bn] ‘ban’ [bn] ‘I’

 Establishing the contrasting segments (phonemes)in a language is the

first step
 Functioning of sounds: recap

 How do we know if two sounds correspond to two different phonemes?

 We must determine if they can distinguish the meanings of words.
 The best way to do this is to find minimal pair
 MPs: pairs of words that differ in one sound only in the same position and
have a difference in meaning
 [bn] Vs [vn] /b-v/
 [bn] Vs [n] /b-p/
 Phonemes are found in the same contexts; they provide a contrast in
meaning.
 Phonemes are in Contrastive Distribution
 Functioning of sounds:

 Everyday speech contains a great deal of variation (change) that speakers pay little
or no attention to. Some instances of this change arise from non-linguistic factors such
as fatigue, excitment, gum-chewing…. This kind of variation is not part of the domain
of phonology.
 But much variation is systematic. It occurs most often among phonetically similar
segments and is conditioned by the phonetic context (environment) in which the
segments are found.
 This variation occurs because segments are affected by the phonetic characteristics
of the neighbouring sounds or the larger phonological context in which they occur.
 The latter type of variation is what phonologists are concerned with.
 Functioning of sounds:

 Consider the following data from English

• In this data we are concerned with the

behaviour (distribution) of [l] and [l]
• Are they phonemes or not? If not what
then?
• The first thing to do is to look for
minimal pairs involving the sounds
concerned.
 Functioning of sounds:

 If there’s a minimal pair, then the two sound are in contrastive distribution, i.e. they
belong to two different phonemes.
/l/ /l/ Underlying Form
Phoneme

[l] [l] Phonetic Form

allophones
 Functioning of sounds:

 A closer look at the data and the environment where the two sounds occur reveals
that:
1. The change of [l] into [l] does not trigger any change of meaning.
2. [l] and [l] are phonetically similar.
3. Where [l] occurs [l] doesn’t. The two sounds don’t overlap
[l] occurs only after voiceless stops
[l] occurs in three environments:
• After voiced stops
• After voiceless fricatives
• Word-initially
 Functioning of sounds:

 On the basis of this which one of the two is predictable:

 [l] is found in one environment only (restricted environment)
 [l] is found in more than one environment (the wider context). We call this: the
Elsewhere environment
 The sound in the restricted context is the predictable one and, conversely, the one in
the wider context is the least predictable.
 Functioning of sounds:

Because of 1, 2, and 3 (slide 22) we can say that:

[l] and [l] are allophnoes of the same phoneme.
/?/ Underlying Form
Phoneme
The question now is: which sound do
the speakes of this language store in
the memory as the phoneme?

[l] [l] Phonetic Form

allophones
 Functioning of sounds:

 The sound that speakers store as the phoneme must be the least predictable. Because
phonemes are not easy to predict (recall that they occur in the same environment). It is the
one in the elsewhere environment:
/l/ Underlying Form (the mind)

[l] [ l ] Phonetic Form (the mouth)

 Functioning of sounds:

 [l] and [l] are then allophones of the same phoneme / l /.

 Because each allophone occurs in its proper environment; that is,
where one occurs the other doesn’t, we say that [l] and [l] are
allophones in complementary distribution.

 To sum up: two types of sounds

 Phonemes (in contrastive distribution)
 Allophones (in complementary distribution)
 Question: When two or more segments are phonetically distinct but
phonologically the same what do we call them?
Exercise1

 Consider the following data from arabic. Do the sounds [] and [h]belong
to one or two phonemes ?

1 Urub wars 5 hUrub flight

2 fahm understanding 6 fam coal

3 habba gust, squail 7 abba grain, seed

4 hal cardamon 8 al condition
Exercise1

 There are minimal pairs. So the two sounds are in contrastive

distribution and hence belong to two different phonemes.

// /h/ Underlying Form

[] [h] Phonetic Form

Exercise2
Exercise3
Exercise4
Exercise5