The sound patterns of

language

Phonology
Chapter 4
What is the difference between
phonetics and phonology?
 Phonetics deals with the physical properties
of the elements of the sound system, e.g.
how the sound is physically produced.

 Phonology deals with the sound systems of

languages
 How speech sounds are organized into systems in
different languages
 How sounds are combined
 The relation between sounds and how they affect
each other.
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Definition of Phonology
 Phonology is concerned with abstract or
mental aspects of speech sounds; whereas
phonetics is concerned with the actual or
physical articulation of speech sounds.

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 Allophones of /t/
words transcription context
top [thɑp] Syllable initial
stop [stɑp] After [s]

kitten [kɪʔn] Between vowels

little [ lɪɾl ] American accent

eighth [eıtθ] Before dental [θ]

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Phonemes and allophones

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Allophones of voiceless stops
•Here’s another example:
[phæt] ‘pat’ [spæt] ‘spat’
[thɑp] ‘top’ [stɑp] ‘stop’
[khar] ‘car’ [skar] ‘scar’
 voiceless stops are aspirated when they appear at
the beginning of a syllable.
 They are unaspirated when they appear immediately
after /s/.
 Aspiration = a puff of air
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Real-life analogy of allophones

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Two people or one person?

 Do you ever see Superman and Clark

Kent in the same environment?

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An emergency

Superman is always found in the

environment of an emergency.

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No emergency

Clark Kent is seen in the

environment when there is no
emergency.

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We can conclude:

Clark Kent and Superman are different identities of

the same person
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The phoneme
 The smallest unit of sound that serves to distinguish
meaning between words.

teem vs deem
mate vs. made

 Each phoneme may have different pronunciations

depending on the context in which it is found.

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 The allophone
 Allophones are different pronunciations of the
same phoneme.

 Phonology includes variation in the way

particular sounds are pronounced, or
“phonetically realized”.

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Notational Conventions
 Note that slash marks are conventionally
used to indicate a phoneme, /t/, an abstract
segment, as opposed to the square brackets,
as in [t], used for each phonetic or physically
produced segment.

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What is the difference between a
phoneme and an allophone?

 The substitution of one phoneme for another

changes both meaning and pronunciation. For
example, if seen is produced with a /bl, instead of a
/s/, the meaning of the word changes.

 The substitution of one allophone for another does

not change meaning (only pronunciation). For
example, if seen is produced with lip rounding, the
word, while perhaps sounding a bit strange, is still
the same.

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Finding Phonemes
 A minimal pair is a pair of words that (1) have exactly the same
sounds (2) except for one sound (3) in the same position and
(4) that have different meanings.
 A minimal set is a set of minimal pairs.

 m/n: [sʌm] ‘sum’ vs. [sʌn] ‘sun’

 k/g: [kɪl] ‘kill’ vs. [gɪl] ‘gill’
 s/ʃ: [si] ‘see’ vs. [ʃi] ‘she’
 f/v : [seɪf] ‘safe’ vs. [seɪv] ‘save’
 p/b : [pɪl] ‘pill’ vs. [bɪl] ‘bill’

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Phonotactics
 Constraints on the sequence or position of
phonemes.
 Permitted arrangements of sounds.

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Syllables and clusters
Syllable

onset rime

Consonant(s) nucleus coda

vowel consonant

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 Syllables and clusters
 Syllable: a phonological unit that contains more than
one phoneme

 Syllables must contain a vowel or a vowel like

consonants (w, j).

 Open syllables do not have a coda (me, no)

 Closed syllables do have a coda (Sam, dip).

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Syllables and clusters
 As noted, the onset and the coda can consist of a
consonant or more. When there are more than one
consonant, these are called consonant clusters (i.e.
sequences of consonants).

 In English: CCVCC flats CCCVCC stress

 Consonant clusters Differ from one language to

another.

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2-consonant cluster
CC = /st/
 /st/ as in stop, steep, store
CC = /C+ [/w/, /l/, /r/]/
 /bl/ as in black, bleed, blow
 /fl/ as in flat, fly, flee
 /br/ as in bread, break, brown
 /tr/ as in trick, trouble, true
 /tw/ as in twin, twin, twig
 /ɵr/ as in throw, three, through

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3-consonant cluster
CCC = /s/+[/p/, /t/, /k/]+ [/w/, /r/]

 /spr/ as in spring
 /str/ as in strong
 /skr/ as in scream
 /skw/ as in square

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Co-articulation
 Our talk is often fast and spontaneous; articulators
move from one sound to another without stopping.

 The process of making one sound almost at the

same time as the next sound is called co-articulation.

 There are two well-known co-articulation effects,

described as assimilation and elision.

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Assimilation
 Assimilation is when two sound segments occur in sequence
and some aspect of one segment is taken or “copied” by the
other (simply, for ease of articulation).

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Assimilation
 Assimilation of manner of articulation:
e.g. nasalized vowels occur before nasal sounds man vs. map / bob
vs. bomb
 Assimilation of place of articulation:
I can go [aɪkəŋgo]
e.g. the velar sound [g] will almost make the preceding nasal
sound come out as [ŋ] (velar nasal) rather than the alveolar nasal
[n].
 Assimilation of voicing:
I have to [aɪhæftə]
e.g. the – voice [t] will make the preceding + voice [v] come out
as – voice.

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Elision
 Elision (deletion) is the process of not pronouncing a
sound segment that might be present in the
deliberately careful pronunciation of a word in
isolation.

 The [d] is usually omitted in spoken English, e.g. in

“you and me” or in “friendship”

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Key terms
 Phonology
 Phonemes & allophones
 Minimal pairs and sets
 Phonotactics
 Syllables
 Co-articulation effects

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