English Phonology

(NGL 422)

1st Semester 2021

Dr. Eman Alhusaiyan

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Sound Example
ɪ big, busy , England, been, myth
e egg, head , any, friend, said
æ apple
ɒ dog, watch, because, cough
ʊ full, look, woman
ʌ sun, money, does, touch, flood

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The phoneme
• Another question has to do with how many
different sounds (or segment types) there are in
English.

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The phoneme
• Let us think about English alphabets:
• We have 26 letters in English, some of them are
vowels, others are consonants.
• These letters help us differentiate between words.
• For example, in the alphabet we have five letters
that are called vowels: a, e, i, o, u.
• substituting one letter for another we get the five
words spelt ‘pat’, ‘pet’, ‘pit’, ‘pot’, ‘put’, each of
which has a different meaning.

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The phoneme
• We can do the same with sounds. If we look at the
short vowels ɪ, e, æ, ʌ, ɒ, ʊ for example, we can see
how substituting one for another in between the plosives
p and t gives us six different words as follows:
• ‘pit’ pɪt
• ‘put’ pʊt
• ‘pet’ pet
• ‘pot’ pɒt
• ‘pat’ pæt
• ‘putt’ pʌt

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The phoneme
• Let us return to the example of letters of the alphabet.
• If someone who knew nothing about the alphabet saw
these four characters: ‘A’ ‘a’ ‘a’ ‘u’
they would not know that to users of the alphabet three
of these characters all represent the same letter, while
the fourth is a different letter.
• It is known that, for example, ‘A’ occurs in names, not
‘a’
• It is also known that ‘a’ occurs most often in printed and
typed writing while ‘a’ is more common in handwriting.
• It is also known that substituting ‘A’ for ‘a’ or ‘a’ does
not change the meaning of the word.

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The phoneme
• We find similar situations in speech sounds.
• We can divide speech up into segments, and we
can find great variety in the way these segments
are made.
• These units are called phonemes, and the
complete set of these units is called the phonemic
system of the language.
• The Phoneme is the smallest (basic) sound unit in
phonology which can distinguish between two
meaning words.
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The phoneme
• Segmentation: is the process of cutting speech
into smaller segment. e.g. man ( /m/ is a segment,
/æ/ is a segment, /n/ is a segment )

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The phoneme
• We also find cases in speech similar to the writing
example of capital ‘A’ and little ‘a’ (one can only
occur where the other cannot).
• For example, we find that /t/ in the word ‘tea’ is
aspirated. In the word ‘eat’, /t/ is unaspirated
• The aspirated and unaspirated realizations are
both recognized as /t/ by English speakers despite
their differences.
• When we talk about different realizations of
phonemes, we sometimes call these realizations
allophones.
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Symbols and transcription
• There are two ways in which we can transcribe
speech.
• Phonemic transcription, also sometimes
known as ‘broad’ transcription, involves
representing speech using just a unique symbol
for each phoneme of the language.
• Example:
• ‘tenth’/tenθ/‘clean’/kliːn/

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 Symbols and transcription
• The other way we can transcribe speech is using
phonetic transcription, also sometimes
known as ‘narrow’ transcription.
• This involves representing additional details
about the contextual variations in pronunciation
that occur in normal speech.
• W might transcribe the same three words
phonetically like this:
‘strewn’[stru:n]
‘tenth’[tʰɛñ ̪θ ]
‘clean’[kl̥i:n]

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English Affricates and Fricatives:
/ʧ ʤ, f v, θ ð, s z, ʃ ʒ, h/
THE AFFRICATE SOUNDS
• Affricate sounds are produced at two points of the
organs of speech namely the alveolar and palatal
regions.
• These are produced by placing the tip of the tongue at
the alveolar; at the same time stuck the blade to the
palatal region.
• This results in their double-phonemic phonetic
representations.
Palato-alveolar Affricates: /ʧ, ʤ/
• The first of this pair (/ ʧ / )is voiceless ,while the other (/ ʤ/)
is voiced .
• They are the two main affricate consonant sounds of
English.
• /ʧ/, is a combination of the voiceless alveolar /t/ and its
voiceless but palato-alveolar, /ʃ/.
• The second pair, /ʤ/, combines the voiced alveolar, /d/, with
the voiced palato-alveolar, /ʒ/.
• This is the reason they are described as palato-alveolar
consonants.
• Like the plosive sounds, they completely obstruct or stop the
airflow in the oral tract; but unlike the plosive sounds, do not
abruptly release the pent up air with an explosion, but by
gentle release.
• This is why they are called affricate consonant sounds.
Palato-alveolar Affricates: /ʧ, ʤ/
• /ʧ/ Can occur as: ch, tch, tu as in e.g.: choice,
catch, feature.
• When initial: choice, chess;
• medial: orchard, wretched;
• final: catch, batch
Palato-alveolar Affricates: /ʧ, ʤ/
• /ʤ/ Can occur as: j, g, dg, gg, dj, de, di, ch as
in: Jos, gem, bridge, suggest, adjective, soldier.
• initial: joy, jam;
• medial: budget, urgent;
• final: large, judge.
THE FRICATIVE SOUNDS
• The plosive and the affricate sounds are produced
with some degrees of stoppage.
• Fricative sounds do not experience such stoppage
as the articulators involved in producing them do
not often make a complete closure against the air
which travels to the mouth.
• So, within the little opening between the
articulators, air is allowed to come out with a little
(sss) sound.
Labio-dental Fricatives /f, v/
• The first of this pair (/f/) is voiceless , while the other (/v/) is
voiced.
• The main articulators employed to produce these sounds are
the lower lip and the upper teeth; this is where they have
earned the name “labio-dental”.
• They are fricatives because there is left a little gap between the
lower lip and the upper teeth; it’s through this little gap that the
air which produces the two sounds passes
Labio-dental Fricatives /f, v/
• /f/ occurs as: f, ff, ph, gh
as: in file, office, philosophy
and cough.
• initial: fill, phoneme;
• medial: affair, orphan;
• final: staff puff.
• /v/ occurs as: v, f, as in:
Victor, of,
• initial: vain, Valentine;
• medial: avoid reveal;
• final: starve, pave.
Dental Fricatives /θ ð/
• The first of this pair (/ θ/) is voiceless, while the other of the pair
(/ð/) is voiced.
• They are dental sounds because the main organ in their
production (apart from the tongue) is the upper teeth.
• The tongue and the upper teeth path ways very slightly allowing
the passage of the air-stream with just little friction, in order to
produce the fricative sounds.
 Dental Fricatives /θ ð/
• /θ/ occurs as: th as in:
thin, think
• initial: thorough;
• medial: healthy;
• final: blacksmith.
• /ð/ occurs as: th, as in:
then, them.
• initial: then, them;
• medial: father, within;
• final: with.
Alveolar Fricatives /s z/
• The first of this pair (/s/) is voiceless, while the other (/z/) is
voiced.
• They are produced with blade of the tongue stuck to the
alveolar region living a partial space for the air-stream to force
out.
• This is the reason the pair is described as “alveolar fricative”.
Alveolar Fricatives /s z/
• /s/ occurs as: s, ss, c, sc,
as in: site, miss, cite,
science, lax;
• initial: sink, sing;
• medial: respond, decide;
• final: loose, lights;
• /z/ occurs as: s, ss, z, zz,
as in: rise, scissors zinc,
frizzle, example;
• initial: zinc, zing;
• medial: lazy, excite;
• final: lose, lies
Palato-alveolar Fricatives /ʃ ʒ/
• The first of this pair (/ʃ/) is voiceless, while the
other (/ʒ/) is voiced.
• Also, the sounds are palato-alveolar because
there is an articulatory glide from the palatal to
the alveolar region made by the tongue.
• While the tongue sweeps through these regions,
it leaves a tiny space for the air to escape
causing a little friction that gives rise to the
sounds.
End of Lecture

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