01:615:201

Introduction to Linguistic Theory

Adam Szczegielniak

Phonology: The Sound

Patterns of Language

Copyright in part: Cengage learning

 Phonology: The Sound Patterns of
Language
· There are only a dozen or so features needed to
describe every speech sound in every human language

– All the languages in the world sound so different because the

way the languages use speech sounds to form patterns differs
from language to language

· The study of how speech sounds form patterns is

phonology

· Phonology tells us what sounds are in a language, how

they do and can combine into words, and explains why
certain phonetic features are important to identifying a
word
The Pronunciation of Morphemes: Plurals
· Sometimes certain morphemes are pronounced
differently depending on their context

· For example, the English plural morpheme has three

different pronunciations depending on what noun
you attach it to:

– It gets pronounced as a [z] for words like cab, bag, and bar
– It gets pronounced as [s] for words like cap, back, and faith
– It gets pronounced as [əz] for words like bus, garage, and
match
The Pronunciation of Morphemes:
Plurals
• To determine a rule for when each variant of the
plural morpheme, or allomorph, is used, it is
useful to create a chart to examine the
phonological environments in which each
allomorph occurs:
The Pronunciation of Morphemes: Plurals
· To help us figure out what is different between the
phonological environments of the words that take the [-‐s],
· [-‐z], and [-‐əz] allomorphs, we can look for minimal pairs

– A minimal pair is two words with different meanings that are identical
except for one sound that occurs in the same place in each word

– Minimal pairs whose members take different forms of the plural

allomorph are particularly helpful for our purposes

· For example, cab [kæb] and cap [kæp] differ only by their final sound, so
since each word takes a different allomorph, we can assume that the
allomorph is selected based on the final sound of the noun
 The Pronunciation of Morphemes: Plurals
· Now we can make our chart a little more succinct since we
know we are looking only at the final sound of each noun:

· Then we can make generalizations about the environment in

which each allomorph occurs based on knowledge of natural
classes

– [z] occurs after voiced nonsibiliant segments

– [s] occurs after voiceless nonsibilant segments
– [əz] occurs after sibilant segments
The Pronunciation of Morphemes: Plurals

· We can simplify this even more by creating a rule

that assumes /z/ is the basic or underlying form of
the plural, then we have two rules to explain why the
other allomorphs occur:

– 1. Insert a [ə] before the plural morpheme /z/ when a

regular noun ends in a sibilant, giving [əz]

– 2. Change the plural morpheme /z/ to a voiceless [s] when

preceded by a voiceless sound
· We can write this in rule format
· /z/ -‐> [s] / [-‐voice] _
The Pronunciation of Morphemes:
Plurals
• This chart illustrates how the plurals of bus, butt,
and bug are formed by applying these two rules:
The Pronunciation of Morphemes:
Plurals
· These rules must be
ordered so that rule
applies before rule 2
otherwise we would
derive an incorrect
phonetic form

· The particular phonological rules that determine the

phonetic form of morphemes are morphophonemic
rules
 Additional Examples of Allomorphs
• The English possessive morpheme and the third person
singular morpheme have allomorphs that take on the same
phonetic form as the plural morpheme and are governed by
the same rules:

Possessive:

Add [z] to woman to get woman ’s

Add [s] to ship to get ship ’s
Add [əz] to judge to get judge ’s
Third person singular:
Add [z] to need to get needs
Add [s] to eat to get eats
Add [əz] to rush to get rushes
Additional Examples of Allomorphs
· The English past tense morpheme also has different pronunciations
depending on the last sound of the verb
– If the verb ends in any voiced sound except [d], then you add a [d] to
make it
past tense
– If the verb ends in any voiceless segment other than [t], then you add
[t] to
make it past tense
– If the verb ends in [t] or [d] then you add [əd] to make it past tense

· M
os t

languages have allomorphemic variation. For example, Akan has

three allomorphs for a negative marker:
· The rule that changes the pronunciation of the nasal consonants is
called
the homorganic nasal rule
 Phonemes: The Phonological Units
of Language
· Phonemes are the basic unit of sound
and are sensed in your mind rather than
spoken or heard

· Each phoneme has one or more sounds

called allophones associated with it,
which represent the actual sound being
produced in various environments
Vowel phonemes in English
· When you do these substitutions you are creating minimal
pairs, such as in this list:

· This list demonstrates that this dialect of English has fourteen

different vowel phonemes: /i i e c 3/4 u u o o a A/ and /ai/, /au/
and /ɔɪ/
– And all of these phonemes has at least two allophones;
· The nasal version, which occurs before nasal consonants
· The oral version, which occurs elsewhere
Illustration of nasal Allophones
• English contains an allophonic rule that determines
contexts in which vowels are nasalized:
– Vowels are nasalized before a nasal consonant within the same
syllable structure

– You could change the nasalization when you pronounce these

words (if you were aware that you did this) and although it would
sound strange, it would not change the meaning of the words
– Because nasalized vowels are not used to make a meaning
contrast we tend to not even notice them
Allophones of/t/
· Consonants also have allophones:

tick [t h ɪk] stick [stɪk] hits [hɪts] bitter [bɪɾər]

· /t/ is pronounced [th] before a stressed vowel

· /t/ is pronounced [t] directly before or after [s]
· /t/ is pronounced [ɾ] between a stressed and unstressed vowel

· If we pronounce tick as [tɪk] or [ɾɪk] instead of [t h ɪk], we are still

speaking the same word, even if it sounds strange because these
allophones of /t/ do not contrast

· However, if we tried to pronounce tick as [sɪk], we would be saying sick,

which has a different meaning
· The meaning changes because /t/ and /s/ are separate phonemes and do
contrast
Complementary Distribution
• Allophones of a phoneme are in
complementary distribution = they
never occur in the same environment
– Like Superman and Clark Kent
Complementary Distribution
• Examples from the writing system can help illustrate the
idea of complementary distribution
Ð 1. Each letter of English can appear in upper case or lower case
form, but upper case only occurs in certain contexts, like the
beginning
of a word, and everywhere
else we get the lower case

Ð 2. In cursive handwriting,
letters may get written differ-
ently depending on what ©
comes before and after, and Ce
nga
ge
each variant (allograph) is Lea
rnin
g

dependent on context
Complementary Distribution
· When sounds are in complementary distribution,
they do not contrast with each other

– The replacement of one sound for the other will not

change the meaning of the word

· If two sounds are allophones of a single

phoneme, they must be in complementary
distribution and be phonetically similar
Distinctive Features of Phonemes
· For two phones, or sounds, to contrast meaning
there must be some difference between them

– For example, the phonetic feature of voicing

distinguishes [s] from [z]

· When a feature distinguishes one phoneme from

another, it is a distinctive feature or a
phonemic feature
 Feature Values
· Features have two values: [+ feature] and
[-feature] to indicate the presence or
absence of that particular feature
– For example, [b] is [+voiced] and [p] is [-
voiced]

· At least one feature

difference must distinguish
each phoneme of a language
Nondistinctive Features
· When a feature is predictable by a rule for a certain
class of sounds, that feature is a nondistinctive (or
redundant or predictable) feature for that class

– For example, nasalization is a redundant feature for

English vowels but is distinctive for English consonants

· But in Akan and French nasalization is a distinctive feature for

vowels

– Also, aspiration is a nondistinctive feature for voiceless

stops in English
 Phonemic Patterns May Vary
Across Languages
· The same phones may occur in two languages
but pattern differently because the phonologies
of the languages are different

· While aspiration is not distinctive in English, it is

distinctive in Thai:
Natural Classes of Speech Sounds
• Phonological rules often apply to natural
classes of sounds

– A natural class is a group of sounds described by a

small number of distinctive features
– Natural classes can be defined by + and – feature
values
Feature Specifications for American
English Consonants and Vowels
Feature Specifications for American English Consonants
and Vowels
Assimilation Rules
• An assimilation rule is a rule that makes
neighboring segments more similar by
duplicating a phonetic property
– For example, the English vowel nasalization
rule states that vowels become nasalized
before a nasal consonant within the same
syllable
 Assimilation Rules
· Assimilation rules reflect coarticulation

– Coarticulation is the spreading of phonetic features either in

anticipation or in the preservation of articulatory processes

· For example, it is easier to lower the velum while a vowel is being

produced before a nasal stop than to wait for the completion of the
vowel to then lower the velum even more quickly

· There are many assimilation rules in English and other

languages
– English plural and past tense morphemes
– Akan negative morphemes
Dissimilation Rules
· Languages also have dissimilation rules, in
which a segment becomes less like another
segment
– It is sometimes easier to articulate dissimilar sounds

· Latin suffix –alis to form

adjectives dissimilates to
–aris when an l is in the
noun and the dissimilation
can be seen in the words
borrowed into English
Segment Insertion and Deletion Rules
· Phonological rules may also add or delete
entire segments
– Adding a segment is known as epenthesis
· The rules for forming plurals, possessives, and third
person singular verb agreement in English all involve an
epenthesis rule:

Insert a [ə] before the plural morpheme /z/ when a

regular noun ends in a sibilant, giving [əz]
 Segment Insertion and Deletion Rules

• Segment deletion is more common than

insertion
– The word memory is often pronounced as if it
were spelled memry
– The deletion of [g]:
 From One to Many and
from Many to One
· In English unstressed vowels are reduced to [ə]
·

German has both voiced and voiceless obstruents

as
phonemes, but when they occur at the end of
words, they
become voiceless
The Function of Phonological Rules
• Phonological rules provide the phonetic
information necessary for the pronunciation of
utterances
– Derivation: the way the phonological rules apply to
the underlying phonemic representation to create the
phonetic representation:
 Slips of the Tongue: Evidence for
Phonological Rules
· Speech errors show phonological rules in ac-
on:
– Intended utterance: gone to seed
[gãn tə sid]
– Actual utterance: god to seen

· Here the reversal of the consonants also changed

the
· The vowel [ã] in the intended utterance is replaced by [a]
because
the vowel is no longer followed by a nasal (since the /n/ and /d/
switched) and the vowel [i] in the intended utterance is nasalized
since it was followed by a nasal consonant after the switch
Syllable Structure
• Words are composed of one
or more syllables, which
are phonological units
composed of one or more
phonemes

– Every syllable has a

nucleus, and the nucleu
may be preceded and/o
followed by one or more
phonemes called the
onset and the coda

– The rime is the

nucleus + the coda
Word Stress
• In English and
many other
languages one or
more syllables in
every word has
stress
– In English stress
can be contrastive
and helps to
distinguish nouns
from verbs:
– British English and
American English
have different
stress patterns
which also leads to
reduction of
different vowels,
both of which cause
differences in
pronunciation
Sentence and Phrase Stress
·When words are combined into
phrases
and sentences, one syllable receives
more
stress than others
·Phrasal stress can distinguish a
compound noun from an adjective +
noun
combination
Intonation
· Pitch is a phonemic feature in some languages,
and for these languages the pitches are known
as contrastive tones

· In intonation languages pitch is important for the

pitch contour or intonation

– In intonation languages like English, intonation can be

used to distinguish questions from statements can
also disambiguate sentences in some cases
Sequential Constraints of Phonemes

· Knowledge of phonology includes information

about what sequences of phonemes are
possible and which are not in a particular
language
– The limitations on sequences of segments are
called phonotactic constraints
· Phonotactic constraints are based on syllables and
vary from language to language
– In English two stops cannot begin a syllable
– In Twi a word can only end in a vowel or a nasal consonant
 Lexical Gaps
· Lexical gaps, or accidental gaps, are words that
don t exist in a language but could exist because
’

they conform to the phonotactic constraints of the

language

– For example,
h
the words cruke [khruk], cruck [khrʌk], and
crike [k raɪk] are not currently words in English, but they
could be

– Advertisers make use of their knowledge of phonotactic

constraints to create new product names
· While Bic, Xerox, and Kodak are OK, we re unlikely to see a new
’

brand or product called Zhleet [ʒlit]

Why Do Phonological Rules Exist?
· Many linguists believe that phonological rules
exist to ensure that the phonetic forms of words
do not violate the phonotactic constraints of the
language

– For example, English has a phonotactic constraint

that prevents words from ending with two obstruents
whose voicing features don t match (walked
’

pronounced as [wakd] is not possible)

· A phonological rule such as the one that devoices the past

tense marker in English changes the pronunciation so that it
conforms to this constraint (the pronunciation of walked
becomes [wakt])
Why Do Phonological Rules Exist?
• Optimality Theory: It has been proposed
that a universal set of phonological
constraints exists and that this set is ordered
with some constraints being more highly
ranked

– The rankings differ from language to language

– The order of the rankings determines the different

sound patterns shown across languages
Phonological Analysis
• In order to determine the phonemes and
allophones in a language other than English, you
should answer the following questions while you
examine data:
– 1. Are there any minimal pairs in the data in which
these sounds contrast?
– 2. Are any noncontrastive sounds in complementary
distribution?
– 3. If noncontrasting phones are found, what are the
underlying phonemes and their allophones?
– 4. What are the phonological rules by which the
allophones can be derived?
 Phonological Analysis
• In the Greek data below, our task is to determine whether the
following sounds are allophones of separate phonemes or
allophones of the same phoneme:
– [x] voiceless velar fricative
– [k] voiceless velar stop
– [c] voiceless palatal stop
– [ҫ] voiceless palatal fricative

– 1. [kano] do “ ” 9. [ҫeri] hand “ ”

– 0. [xano] lose
“ ” 10. [kori] daughter “ ”

– 1. [ҫino] pour “ ” 11. [xori] dances “ ”

– 2. [cino] move
“ ” 12. [xrima] money
“ ”

– 3. [kali] charms“ ” 13. [krima] shame

“ ”

– 4. [xali] plight“ ” 14. [xufta] handful

“ ”

– 5. [ҫeli] eel “ ” 15. [kufeta] bonbons“ ”

– 6. [ceri] candle“ ” 16. [oҫi] no “ ”

 Phonological Analysis
• 1. Are there any minimal pairs in which the sounds [x],
[k], [c], and [ҫ] contrast?

– 1. [kano] “do ” 9. [ҫeri] “ hand ”

– 0. [xano] “lose ” 10. [kori] daughter

“ ”

– 1. [ҫino] “pour ” 11. [xori] dances

“ ”

– 2. [cino] “move ” 12. [xrima] money

“ ”

– 3. [kali] “charms ” 13. [krima] shame “ ”

– 4. [xali] “plight ” 14. [xufta] handful“ ”

– 5. [ҫeli] “eel ” 15. [kufeta] bonbons

“ ”

– 6. [ceri] “candle ” 16. [oҫi] no “ ”

Phonological Analysis
· 1. Are there any minimal pairs in which the sounds [x], [k], [c], and [ҫ]
contrast?

– 1. [kano] “do ” 9. [çeri] hand“ ”

– 2. [xano] “lose ” 10. [kori] daughter

“ ”

– 0. [çino] “pour ” 11. [xori] dances

“ ”

– 1. [cino] “move ” 12. [xrima] money

“ ”

– 3. [kali] “charms ” 13. [krima] shame

“ ”

– 4. [xali] “plight ” 14. [xufta] handful

“ ”

– 0. [çeli] “eel ” 15. [kufeta] bonbons

“ ”

– 2. [ceri] “candle ” 16. [oçi] no “

· From these minimal pairs, we can tell that [k] and [x] contrast and
that [c] and [ç] also contrast, but we have no evidence that [k] and
[c] contrast, and we also don t yet know about [x] and [ç]
’
Phonological Analysis
· 2. Are any noncontrastive sounds in
complementary distribution?
– One way to determine this is to list each phone with
the environment in which it occurs:

· [k]: before [a], [o], [u], [r]

· [x]: before [a], [o], [u], [r]
· [c]: before [i], [e]
· [ҫ] before [i], [e]

– We can conclude that the stops [k] and [c] are

allophones of one phoneme, and the fricatives [x] and
[ҫ] are allophones of one phoneme
Phonological Analysis
· 3. Which of the phone pairs is more basic, and
therefore the underlying phoneme?

– In many languages of the world, velar sounds become

palatal before front vowels

· This is an assimilation rule since palatals are pronounced

further forward in the mouth as are front vowels

– Therefore we select /k/ to be a phoneme with

allophones [k] and [c], and /x/ as a phoneme with
allophones [x] and [ҫ]
 Phonological Analysis
• 4. We can now state the rule by which the palatals can
be derived from the velars:

Palatalize velar consonants before front vowels

– Using feature notation we can state the rule as:

[+velar] -* [+palatal] / ___ [--back]

– Since only consonants can be velar and only vowels have the
feature [-back], we don t have to include information about the
’

features [consonantal] or [syllabic] in order to make our rule as

simple as possible