Module 1 :Phonology and Morphology

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
Phonology is the study of the way sounds function in languages, including phonemes,
syllable structure, stress, accent, intonation, and which sounds are distinctive units within a
language; The way sounds function within a given language.
Branches of phonology There are four branches : -
1. Segmental phonology : - It analyses speech into discrete segments, such as phonemes.
2. Supra - segmental phonology : - It analyses those features which extend over more than
one segment such as intonation , stress.
3. Diachonic phonology : - It studies the patterns of sound system through the history of
language.
4. Synchronic phonology : - It studies the patterns of sound regardless of the process of
historical change.
Difine phone , phoneme , allophone Phone : -
1. Phone is the smallest , perceptible , discrete segment of sound in the steam of speech. OR
Phone is the minimal unit of speech.
2. Phones are the physical realization of phonemes.
3. The speech is segmented and each of the segment is called phone.
4. Phone are grouped into phonemes through phonemic analysis.
5. Phone is enclosed within square bracket i.e [ p ] Phoneme : - 1. Phoneme is the smallest ,
distinctive and segmental unit of sound. OR Phoneme is the minimal distinctive unit in the
sound system of a language .
2. Phoneme is enclosed within slants i.e / p /
3. Phonemes are useful to analyse language at the phonological level.
4. Phonemes /p/ and /b/ are similar in place of articulation and manner of articulation but
differ in voicing. So they are two phonemes.
Allophone : - Allophone is a variant of a phoneme. The allophone are very similar to each
other ; they do not change the mining of a word and they don’t occur in the same phonetic
environment. for example : - Syllable initial as opposed to syllable final.
All allophones are phones but all phones are not allophones.
Features of speech
 Stress
 Intonation
 Rhythm
 Tone
 Pitch
 Syllable structure

What is Stress?

Stress is the emphasis given to a specific syllable or word in speech, usually through a
combination of relatively greater loudness, higher pitch, and longer duration. Syllable is a part
of a word that is pronounced with one uninterrupted sound. It is also important to remember
that we stress the vowel sound of the word, not the consonant sound.

The stress placed on syllables in a word is called lexical stress or word stress. Stress placed on
some words within a sentence is called sentence stress or prosodic stress.

Word Stress

Take the word Garden for example. It has two syllables: ‘Gar’ and ‘den’. The stress is placed
on ‘Gar’. Similarly, given below are some examples. The stressed syllables are written in
capital letters.

 Water: WAter
 Station : STAtion
 People: PEOple

Sentence Stress

Sentence stress is the way of highlighting the important words in a sentence. Unlike in word
stress, you can choose where you can place the stress. Selecting which words to stress depends
on the meaning and context. However, if the stress is not used correctly, the sentence might be
misinterpreted.

Examples:

 CLOSE the DOOR.

 WHAT did HE SAY to you in the GARDEN?
 Have you SEEN the NEW FILM of TOM CRUISE?

What is Intonation?
Intonation is the variation of our pitch, in the spoken language. Intonation indicates our
emotions and attitudes, determine the difference between statements and questions and
sometimes highlight the importance of the verbal message we’re giving out. In English, there
are 3 basic intonation patterns: Falling Intonation, Rising Intonation, and Partial/Fall-rise
Intonation.

Falling intonation

Falling intonation describes how the voice falls on the final stressed syllable of a phrase or a
group of words. It is used in expressing a complete, definite thought, and asking wh-questions.

 “Where is the nearest Police Station?”

 “She got a new dog”

Rising intonation

Rising intonation describes how the voice rises at the end of a sentence. This is common in
yes-no questions or in expressing surprise.

 “Your dog can speak?”

 “Are you hungry?”

Partial Intonation

Partial Intonation describes how voice rises then falls. People use this intonation when they are
not sure, or they have more to add to a sentence. We also use this intonation pattern to ask
questions, as it sounds more polite.

 “Would you like some coffee?”

 “I want to go to France, but…”

Difference between Stress and Intonation

Definition

Intonation is the variation of our pitch, in the spoken language.

Stress is the emphasis given to a specific syllable or word in speech

Focus

Stress pays particular attention to syllables and words.

Intonation pays attention to pitch.

Emotions/Attitudes

Intonation helps you to detect the emotions and attitudes of the speaker.

Stress does not enable us to understand the attitudes of the speaker.

Syllable:

A syllable may be defined as a unit of sound with one vowel sound and with or without
consonant sounds.

A syllable is the sound of a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) that is created when pronouncing a word. A
syllable is a part of a word that is pronounced with one uninterrupted sound.

A syllable is a unit of sound which can be pronounced with a single effort of the voice. For
example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter as we have to make two
efforts to pronounce this word.

Syllables are ways to split words into speech sounds. We naturally say words using syllables,
but we don’t usually think about it until we need to separate the syllables for reading or
spelling purposes. So, why do we need syllables? When we learn to read, and as we
encounter more difficult words, we may need to decode a word. You’ll often hear someone
telling a reader to “sound it out” or “break the word into parts.” When we do this, breaking
the word into syllables can help us read the word. Here are a few examples:

i) word- one syllable, word

ii) spelling- two syllables, spe + lling
iii) computer- three syllables, com + pu + ter

Accent: (way of pronunciation)

Accent is the way of pronouncing the words of a language that shows the person belongs to
which country, area or social class.

Accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.

The region to which you belong affects your accent. Not only the locality but the economic
status, ethnicity, caste etc. all make an impact on the accent. Accent mainly includes
pronunciation, which also has correlation with stress.

It is an important factor whether English is your first language or second language. To learn
the right pronunciation, like that of the native speaker, you must watch the native speakers in
action. It should not look like affected accent. Many times you do not give importance to
pronunciation and that makes your speech seem below par.

Children are able to take on accents relatively quickly. Children of immigrant families, for
example, generally have a more native-like pronunciation than their parents, though both
children and parents may have a noticeable non-native accent – however these generally
differ: the parents' accent tends to be influenced by the sound system of their native language
whilst the child is more inclined to apply hyper- pronunciation resulting from their need to
correct their parents' shortcomings in fluency. Accents seem to remain relatively flexible until
a person's early twenties, after which a person's accent seems to become more fixed.

Pitch: (Loudness)

Pitch is a property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale. Pitches are
compared as "higher" and "lower". The rise and fall of the voice conveys various emotions.
‘Thank you’ is such a phrase. You can find out the difference when you utter it indifferently
and when you say it with sincerity. Lowness of pitch can indicate sadness, shock, dullness,
guilt etc. if you are excited, joyous, ecstatic, triumphant and even angry then your pitch
automatically becomes high. A well balanced pitch results in a clear and effective tone. It
helps you avoid being monotonous. A variety of pitches should be used to hold listener’s
attention. Avoid raising the pitch of the voice at the end of a sentence.

Rhythm: (Sound pattern achieved by using stress in words)

Rhythm refers to a pattern of sounds. Maintaining a rhythm in a speech makes the speech
sound natural and fluent. Rhythm is produced by stressed and unstressed words in a sentence.
Using only the stressed words in a sentence may make a speech sound dull and artificial. The
listener may also not understand the intended emphasis or meaning in the speech.

Just as stress, speed is another very important factor in the fluency of English. When we
speak, we do not speak words in isolation but group them and speak without any pauses
between them. To achieve good rhythm in speaking we should know which words to be
stressed and which are not to be stressed in a sentence.

This leads to one or more of the following conclusions:

 Rhythm is not primarily expressed by patterns of duration.

 The person-to-person and paragraph-to-paragraph variation within a language may be much

larger than expected. Perhaps linguists may have idealized the form of each language,
neglecting the variation.

Syllable structure
 Morphology

 Morphology is the study of forms.

 Morphology is the branch of linguistics(and one of the major components of
grammar) that studies word structure, especially in terms of morphemes
 Morphology is the study and description of word formation (as inflection, derivation
and compounding) in language
 Morphology is the study of word formation of the structure of words

EXAMPLES

- Care -less
- Un -happy
- Teach-er

Morpheme:

Morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function

It is a meaningful linguistic unit consisting of a word such as man Or a word element

such as ed in walked that cannot be divided in to smaller meaningful parts.

It is a smallest morphological unit that cannot be divided in to smaller parts.

Free morphemes

Free morphemes can stand alone and don't need to be attached to any other morphemes to get
their meaning. Most words are free morphemes, such as the above-mentioned words house,
book, bed, light, world, people, and so on.

Bound morphemes

Bound morphemes, however, cannot stand alone. The most common example of bound
morphemes are suffixes, such as -s, -er, -ing, and -est.

Let's look at some examples of free and bound morphemes:

 Tall
 Tree
 -er
 -s
'Tall' and 'Tree' are free morphemes.

We understand what 'tall' and 'tree' mean; they don't require extra add-ons. We can use them
to create a simple sentence like 'That tree is tall.'

On the other hand, '-er' and '-s' are bound morphemes. You won't see them on their own
because they are suffixes that add meaning to the words they are attached to.

So if we add '-er' to 'tall' we get the comparative form 'taller', while 'tree' plus '-s' becomes
plural: 'trees'.

Morpheme structure

Morphemes are made up of two separate classes;

 Bases (or roots)

 Affixes
A morpheme's base is the main root that gives the word its meaning.

On the other hand, an affix is a morpheme we can add that changes or modifies
the meaning of the base.
'Kind' is the free base morpheme in the word 'kindly'. (kind + -ly)
'-less' is a bound morpheme in the word 'careless'. (Care + -less)
Affixes

Affixes are bound morphemes that occur before or after a base word. They are made up
of suffixes and prefixes.

Suffixes are attached to the end of the base or root word. Some of the most common suffixes
include -er, -or, -ly, -ism, and -less.
Taller
Thinner
Comfortably
Absurdism
Ageism
Aimless
Fearless

Prefixes come before the base word. Typical prefixes include ante-, pre-, un-, and dis-.

Antedate
Prehistoric
Unkind
Disappear

Derivational affixes

Derivational affixes are used to change the meaning of a word by building on its base For
instance, by adding the prefix 'un-' to the word 'kind', we got a new word with a whole new
meaning. In fact, 'unkind' has the exact opposite meaning of 'kind'!

Another example is adding the suffix '-or' to the word 'act' to create 'actor'. The word 'act' is
a verb, whereas 'actor' is a noun.

Inflectional affixes

Inflectional affixes only modify the meaning of words instead of changing them. This means
they modify the words by making them plural, comparative or superlative, or by changing
the verb tense.

books - books
short - shorter
quick - quickest
walk - walked
climb - climbing

There are many derivational affixes in English, but only eight inflectional affixes and these
are all suffixes.

Word class Modification reason Suffixes

-s (or -es), -'s (or

To modify nouns Plural & possessive forms
s')

To modify
Comparative & superlative forms -er, -est
adjectives

3rd person singular, past tense, present & past

To modify verbs -s, -ed, -ing, -en
participles

All prefixes in English are derivational. However, suffixes may be either derivational or
inflectional.

Morphemes Categories

The free morphemes we looked at earlier (such as tree, book, and tall) fall into two
categories:

 Lexical morphemes
 Functional morphemes
Reminder: Most words are free morphemes because they have meaning on their own, such
as house, book, bed, light, world, people etc.

Lexical morphemes

Lexical morphemes are words that give us the main meaning of a sentence, text or
conversation. These words can be nouns, adjectives and verbs. Examples include house,
book, tree, panther, loud, quiet, big, orange, blue, open, run, and talk.

Because we can add new lexical morphemes to a language (new words get added to the
dictionary each year!), they are considered an 'open' class of words.
Functional morphemes

Functional (or grammatical) morphemes are mostly words that have a functional purpose,
such as linking or referencing lexical words. Functional morphemes include prepositions,
conjunctions, articles and pronouns. Examples include, and, but, when, because, on, near,
above, in, the, that, it, and them.

We can rarely add new functional morphemes to the language, so we call this a 'closed' class
of words.

Allomorphs

Allomorphs are a variant of morphemes. An allomorph is a unit of meaning that can change
its sound and spelling but doesn't change its meaning and function.

In English, the indefinite article morpheme has two allomorphs. Its two forms
are 'a' and 'an'. If the indefinite article precedes a word beginning with a constant sound it
is 'a', and if it precedes a word beginning with a vowel sound, it is 'an'.

Past Tense allomorphs

In English, regular verbs use the past tense morpheme -ed; this shows us that
the verb happened in the past. The pronunciation of this morpheme changes its sound
according to the last consonant of the verb but always keeps its past tense function. This is an
example of an allomorph.

Consider regular verbs ending in t or d, like 'rent' or 'add'.

Now look at their past forms: 'rented' and 'added'. Try pronouncing them. Notice how the -
ed at the end changes to an /id/ sound (e.g. rent /ɪd/, add /ɪd/).
Now consider the past simple forms of want, rest, print, and plant. When we pronounce
them, we get: wanted (want /ɪd/), rested (rest /ɪd/), printed (print /ɪd/), planted (plant /ɪd/).
Now look at other regular verbs ending in the following 'voiceless' phonemes: /p/, /k/, /s/, /h/,
/ch/, /sh/, /f/, /x/. Try pronouncing the past form and notice how the allomorph '-ed' at the end
changes to a /t/ sound. For example, dropped, pressed, laughed, and washed.

Plural allomorphs
Typically we add 's' or 'es' to most nouns in English when we want to create the plural form.
The plural forms 's' or 'es' remain the same and have the same function, but their sound
changes depending on the form of the noun. The plural morpheme has three allomorphs: [s],
[z], and [ɨz]

When a noun ends in a voiceless consonant (i.e. ch, f, k, p, s, sh, t, th), the
plural allomorph is /s/.
Book becomes books (pronounced book/s/)
When a noun ends in a voiced phoneme (i.e. b, l, r, j, d, v, m, n, g, w, z, a, e, i, o, u) the plural
form remains 's' or 'es' but the allomorph sound changes to /z/.

Key becomes keys (pronounced key/z/)

Bee becomes bees (pronounced bee/z/)
When a noun ends in a sibilant (i.e. s, ss, z), the sound of the allomorph sound becomes /iz/.

Bus becomes buses (bus/iz/)

house becomes houses (hous/iz/)

Zero (bound) morphemes

The zero bound morpheme has no phonetic form and is also referred to as an invisible affix,
null morpheme, or ghost morpheme.

A zero morpheme is when a word changes its meaning but does not change its form.

In English, certain nouns and verbs do not change their appearance even when they change
number or tense.

Sheep, deer, and fish, keep the same form whether they are used as singular or plural.
Some verbs like hit, cut, and cost remain the same in their present and past forms.