Chapter 6

The Sound patterns of language

Every individual has a physically different vocal track. Consequently, in purely

physical terms, every individual will pronounce sounds differently. They are, then,
potentially thousands of physically different ways of saying the simple word me. Me as
phonetic form [mi], and not [ni], or [si], or [ma], or [mo] or something else entirely? The
answer to that question is provided to a large extent by study of phonology.
Opaque change to [s] when suffix –ity is added to form of the word opacity.
The goal of phonology is to study the propertiy of sound system which speaker
must learn of internalize in order to use their language for purpose of communication.

Phonology
Phonology is essentially the description of the system and pattern s of speech
sounds in a language. It is, in effect, based on a theory what every speaker of language
unconsciously knows about the sound patterns of that language. Phonology is concerned
with abstract or mental aspect of the sound in language rather than with actual physical
articulation of speech sounds.

Phonetic
Accoustic phonetic, the study of the physical properties of the sounds that are
produced.
Sapir (1925: 16-18) : two language can have the same inventory of phonetic
segments but have very different phonologies. Example : salz (zalt) ‘salt’ in german word
and salts (s lts) in English.

Phonemes
Each one o these meaning distinguishing sound in a language is described as
phoneme. Phoneme /t/ is described as a sound type, of which all the different spoken
versions of [t] are tokens. Slash marks are conventionally used to indicate phoneme. An
essential property of a phoneme is that it function contrasitively. We substitute one
sound for another in a word and there is a change of meaning, then the two sound
represent different phonemes.

Minimal pairs and sets

When two words such as pet and bat are identical in form except for a contrast in
one phoneme, occurung in the same position, the two words are described as a minimal
pair. Example: fan-van, bet-bat, site-side.
When a group of words are differentiated, each one from others by changing one
phoneme (always in the same position) then we have minimal set . Example: feat, fit, fat,
fate [feit], fought, foot (vowel) big, pig, rig, fig, dig, wig (consonants)

Phones and allophones

While phoneme is an abstract unit of sound, there can be different phonetic
realization of any phoneme. These phonetic units are technically described as phones. [I]
and [i], used in English to realize a single phoneme. These phonetic variants are
technically known as allophones. The crucial distinction between phonemes and
allophones is that substituting one phoneme for another will result in a word with
different meaning (as well as a different pronunciation) in French, however, the
pronunciation [mε] is used for one word mets , meaning ‘dish’. And [mέ] for different
word main ,meaning ‘hand’. And [so] for seau meaning ‘pail’ contrast with [sō] for son ,
meaning ‘sound’. Clearly, in these cases, the distinction is phonemic.

Assimilation
When two phonemes occur in sequence and some aspect of one phoneme is taken
or ‘copied’ by other, this prosses is known as assimilation. Example, you may pronounce
and as [ænd] in isolation, but in the causal use of the phrase you and me, you almost
certainly say [en], as in [yuenmi].

Elision
 The [d] sound of and has simply disappeared. This ‘omission’ sound segment
which would be present in the deliberate pronunciation of a word in isolation is
technically described as elision.
Redudancy and Distinctiveness
English has 2 kind of voiceless stop phonetically aspirated [ p h, t h, k h } and
unaspirated [p,t,k]
• Aspirated stop are found at beginning of words. Example : pin is pronounced
[p h in]
• On other hand, unaspirated stops are found after word initial ‘s’. example : spin is
pronounced [spin], not [sp h in]

Bibliography

Hyman,Larry M.Phonology:Theory and Analysis.Halt,Rinehart and Winston.

Yule,George.Study of Language.1990.New York:University of Cambridge Press.