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Phonetics Vs Phonology 1
Phonetics Vs Phonology 1
These are all examples of variants according to position (contextual variants). There are also variants between speakers and dialects. For example, "toad" may be pronounced [tUd] in high-register RP, [toUd] or [to d] in the North. All of them are different pronunciations of the same sequence of phonemes. But these differences can lead to confusion: [toUd] is "toad" in one dialect, but may be "told" in another. 5. Phonological systems Phonology is not just (or even mainly) concerned with categories or objects (such as consonants, vowels,
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phonemes, allophones, etc.) but is also crucially about relations. For example, the English stops and fricatives can be grouped into related pairs which differ in voicing and (for the stops) aspiration: Voiceless/aspirated Voiced/unaspirated ph b th d kh f v s z h (unpaired)
Patterns lead to expectations: we expect the voiceless fricative [h] to be paired with a voiced [ ], but we do not find this sound as a distinctive phoneme in English. And in fact /h/ functions differently from the other voiceless fricatives (it has a different distribution in words etc.) So even though [h] is phonetically classed as a voiceless fricative, it is phonologically quite different from /f/, /s/, / / and / /. Different patterns are found in other languages. In Classical Greek a three-way distinction was made between stops: Voiceless/aspirated Voiced/unaspirated Voiced (and unaspirated) ph p b th t d kh k
In Hindi-Urdu a four-way pattern is found, at five places of articulation: Voiceless aspirated Voiceless unaspirated Voiced unaspirated Breathy voiced ("voiced aspirates") ph p b b th t d d etc. etc.
h
ch c
kh k
6. Shapes of vowel systems: some common examples: Triangular: 3 vowels Triangular: 5 vowels (e.g. Arabic) (e.g. Japanese) i u i u e o a a Triangular: 6 vowels Triangular: 7 vowels (e.g. Tbatulabal) (e.g. Italian) i u i u e o e o a 6 vowels a Rectangular: 6 vowels (e.g. Montenegrin) u i u o e o a
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How many degrees of vowel height are there in Bulgarian? On the face of things, it appears to be not very different from Tbatulabal, which has three heights: three high vowels, two mid vowels and one low vowel. But if we look more closely into Bulgarian phonology, we see that the fact that schwa is similar in height to /e/ and /o/ is coincidental: the distinction that matters in Bulgarian is /i/ vs. /e/, /u/ vs. /o/ and / / vs. /a/, i.e. relatively high vs. relatively low. As evidence for this statement, note that while all six vowels may occur in stressed syllables, only /i/, /e/, / / and /u/ occur in unstressed syllables. 7. Phonology as interpretation of phonetic patterns: Fang (Bantu: Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea) Fang 1) etf 2)
-
English shoulder
3) ndv ( ) 4) kf -l
5)
kf
salt rope
6) k l Vowels in corpus:
12) os n squirrel
i e
a Further reading Lass, R. (1984) Phonology: an introduction to basic concepts. Cambridge University Press. Jakobson, R. (1962) The phonemic concept of distinctive features. In A. Sovijrvi and P. Aalto, eds. Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Mouton & Co. 440-455. Jakobson, R. and M. Halle (1956) Fundamentals of Language. Mouton. Kelly, J. (1974) Close vowels in Fang. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 37, 119123.
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