Davao Oriental State University

Institute of Education & Teacher Training

Guang-guang, Dahican, City of Mati
8200, Davao Oriental, Philippines

Language Structure {EL 102}

CHAPTER 4 | Sound Systems of Language:
Phonology

Prepared by:

ANDAN, DIANNA ROSE

BLAS, JIRAH MAE L.
EDE-2A| 2nd YEAR|1st SEMESTER

Submitted to:

DR. NELSON PASTOLERO

INSTRUCTOR
Andan, Dianna Rose H.
Chapter 4 | Sound Systems of Language: Phonology

Phonology

Phonology is a branch of linguistics that studies the sound patterns that occur within
languages. It focuses on the systematic organization of speech sounds and how they
are used to convey meaning. Phonology is often studied alongside phonetics, which is
concerned with the production and description of speech sounds.

In phonology, linguists examine the distribution and patterning of speech sounds.

They analyze how sounds interact with each other, how they change over time, and
how they contribute to the overall structure of a language. By studying phonology,
linguists gain insights into the underlying rules and constraints that govern the sound
systems of different languages.

Phonemes and Allophones

Phoneme is a structural element in the sound system of a language. A phoneme is a

perceptually distinct unit of sound in a specified language that distinguishes one word
from another.

Allophones are realizations of a single structural element in the sound system of a

language. Allophone is one of two or more variations of the sound of the same
phoneme. In a language, a phoneme might be the sound of the letter /d/ as it is
pronounced in the word “dog.” Thus, an allophone is a variation on the pronunciation
of /d/ in various instances, such as at the end of the word “concluded.” The allophone
used in a given speech situation is usually predictable from the phonetic context but
may occur in free variation.

Example:
 Another example of a phoneme is /p/ as in the word “spin” or as in the word
“pin;” the allophone in pin is aspirated (causing it to sound almost like a “phi”),
whereas the allophone in “spin” is not, and sounds like “pih.”

Aspiration is a strong explosion of breath with an allophone. Example: the “p” sound
at the beginning of the word “pin.”

Complementary allophones are instances where a specific allophone must be

selected to avoid confusion or make the speaker sound native. In this case, each
allophone must be used in a specific phonetic context.

Free variation allophones can be freely selected based on personal preference.

Distribution of Allophones

Distribution of allophones may be helpful to view a phoneme as an abstract element

in the sound system of a language—a skeleton unit of sound that lacks a fully
specified pronunciation but will be pronounced in a specific way depending on where
it occurs in a word.

Table 4.1: Allophones of /p/ in English words.

A B C D
[ph] [ph] [ph]
[p] pédigree petúnia emporium
rápid pérsonal patérnal compúter
émpathy pérsecute península rapídograph
competítion pílgrimage pecúliar compétitive
computátiona

All the words have /p/ in syllable-initial position. The words in column A have
primary stress on the first syllable, with [ph] as the initial sound. Those in column B
also have aspirated [ph] word initially, though primary stress occurs on the second
syllable. The words in columns A and B demonstrate that /p/ is aspirated word
initially whether it appears in a stressed or unstressed syllable. In column C, aspirated
[ph] introduces the second syllable, which carries primary stress in each case. Thus
aspirated [ph] occurs not only word initially but also word internally when it
introduces a stressed syllable. The words in column D demonstrate that unaspirated
[p] occurs word internally when introducing unstressed syllables. In summary, the
phoneme /p/ is aspirated word initially in stressed and unstressed syllables, but it is
aspirated word internally only when it initiates a stressed syllable.

Table 4.2:

PHONEME ALLOPHONES DISTRIBUTION

[ph] In syllable-initial position in a stressed

syllable and in word-initial position

/p/ Elsewhere (as in a consonant cluster

following /s/ and in word-final position
[p]

Phonological Rules and Their Structure

Phonological rules

- A phonological rule is a method for describing the way in which individual

sounds are produced in spoken languages. These rules are written out in a
specialized notation that codifies the way in which a sound or group of
sounds is altered by appearing in a specific linguistic context.
Phonological rules vary between languages and dialects, and they reflect
the common pronunciation habits of various linguistic groups. By studying
the way that a particular phonological rule operates in a spoken language,
linguists are able to determine the physiological and neurological
mechanisms that translate mental language into spoken language.
- A → B / C___D
 You can read a rule like that as “A becomes B in the environment
following C and preceding D” or, more simply, “A becomes B following C
and preceding D.” A, B, C, and D are generally specified in terms of
phonological features, although in this book rules are presented more
informally. In cases where it is unnecessary to specify both C and D, one
of them will be missing. For example, the phonological process of
nasalization in English can be represented by the following statement:

Nasalization rule

- vowel → nasal / ___ nasal

- (Vowels are nasalized when they precede nasal sounds.)
- Nasalization is a phonological process that affects vowel sounds. When a
vowel is nasalized, it means that air flows through the nose as well as the
mouth when the vowel is pronounced. Nasalization can occur in several
different ways in different languages. In some languages, like French,
nasalization is a feature of the language, which means that all vowels can
be nasalized. In other languages, like English, nasalization is not a feature
of the language, but it can still happen in certain contexts. For example,
English speakers often nasalize vowels when they speak quickly or when
they are saying words that end in certain consonants, like “n” or “m.”

Generalizing Phonological Rules

1. For /p/: voiceless bilabial → aspirated / word initially and initially in stressed
syllables stop This rule says that a voiceless bilabial stop is aspirated in
specific environments.
2. For /t/: voiceless alveolar → aspirated / word initially and initially in stressed
syllables stop.
3. For /k/: voiceless velar → aspirated / word initially and initially in stressed
syllables stop Because these three rules exhaust the list of voiceless stops in
English, they can be captured in a single rule of greater generality covering
/p/, /t/, and /k/, as follows:
 4. For /p t k/: voiceless stop → aspirated / word initially and initially in stressed
syllables

Natural Classes of Sounds

Natural class is a set of phonemes in a language that share certain distinctive features.
A natural class is determined by participation in shared phonological processes,
described using the minimum number of features necessary for descriptive adequacy.

A set of phonemes such as /p t k/ that can be described using fewer features than
would be necessary to describe any of its member sounds individually is called a
natural class of sounds. A natural class contains all (and only) the sounds that share a
particular set of features.

Underlying Forms

Underlying forms or underlying representations refers to the speakers’ abstract

concepts of their phones (language sounds) and we represent them between slanted
lines, using the same notation we have used for phonemes.

Surface form or surface representation is the sound we actually pronounce, which

characterizes a word’s pronunciation, results from the application of phonological
rules to the underlying forms.

Underlying Surface Written

Form Rule Form Form

/k^lər/ aspiration [khlər] color

/bυk/ none [bυk]
book /bit/ none [bit]
beat /^p/ none [^p]
up /spIn/ nasalization [sp)n]
spin /pIn/ aspiration/nasalization [ph)n]
pin
Rule Ordering

 Lengthening Rule

- V → V / ___ C voiced
- (Vowels are lengthened preceding voiced consonants.)

As a result of this rule, the following processes take place in English:

ε → ε/ ___ /d/ (as in bed versus bet)

o → o / ___ /g/ (as in brogue versus broke)

aj → aj / ___ /d/ (as in slide versus slight)

- English vowel length is predictable and can be specified by rule; vowel

length need not be learned for each word individually. In some other
languages, vowel length is not predictable and must be learned word by
word.

 Flapping Rule

- alveolar flap V___V

- stop unstressed
- (/t/, /d/ are realized as [ɾ] between two vowels, the second of which is
unstressed.)
- Flapping is a phonological process of weakening whereby the voiceless
alveolar stop consonant phoneme /t/ is pronounced as a voiced alveolar
flap [ɾ], like in the word kitty. This usually happens before a stressed
vowel and before and unstressed vowel where the sound is pronounced
with articulation resembling a flap.
- It involves the pronunciation of the voiceless alveolar stop consonant `/t/`
as a voiced alveolar flap `[ɾ]` when it is placed between vowels. This
 sound is produced by briefly tapping the alveolar ridge with the tongue.
The voiced counterpart of `/t/`, the voiced alveolar stop consonant `/d/`,
may also be pronounced as a flap in similar positions. This phonological
process is also known as alveolar flapping, intervocalic flapping, or t-
voicing.
- Flapping is sometimes perceived as the replacement of `/t/` with `/d/`. For
instance, the word "butter" pronounced with flapping may be heard as
"budder"¹.

Syllables and Syllables Structure

“Syllable” is not a tough notion to grasp intuitively, and there is considerable

agreement in counting syllables. But technical definitions have proven challenging.
Still, there is agreement that a syllable is a phonological unit consisting of one or
more sounds and that syllables can be divided into two parts—a rhyme and an onset.

 The rhyme consists of a nucleus and any consonants following it.

 The nucleus is usually a vowel, although certain consonants called sonorants
can also function as a nucleus.
 Consonants that precede the rhyme in a syllable constitute the onset.
 Any consonants following the nucleus as part of the rhyme are called the coda.

Structure of Syllable:

Syllable

Onset Rhyme

Nucleus Coda

Example:

Syllable

Onset Rhyme
 Nucleus Coda

/k ae t/

Blas, Jirah Mae L.

SEQUENCE CONSTRAINTS

The possible sequences of sounds in a syllable differ from language and are limited
within each language.

Examples:

*queen
/kwin/- CCVC

*mass
/mas/- CVC

SNIGLETS

Sniglet has been defined by American comedian Rich Hall as ‘a word that doesn’t
appear in the dictionary but should’. Here are a few of those sniglets and their
proposed definitions.
Examples:
charp ‘the green mutant potato chip in every bag’
glarpo ‘the juncture of the ear and skull where pencils are stored’
hozone ‘the place where one sock in every laundry disappears to’

STRESS
Stress is the intensity given to a syllable of speech by special effort in utterance,
resulting in relative loudness.

Examples:
 A B
a black board a blackboard

a jet plane a jetstream

SYLLABLES AND STRESS IN PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES

We saw above that certain phonological rules depend for their formulation on the
syllable, on stress, or on both stress and syllable. Aspiration of English voiceless stops
/p t k/ occurs ‘word initially in stressed syllables’. Such a formulation assumes that
words are organized into syllables. In turn, that means that children must have some
grasp of how words are organized into syllables.

THE INTERACTION OF MORPHOLOGY AND PHONOLOGY

Morphological and phonological processes are tightly interrelated in spoken

production. During processing, morphological processes must be combine the
phonological content of individual morphemes to produce a phonological
representation that is suitable for driving phonological processing.

English Plural, Possessive, and Third- Person Singular Morphemes

Regular nouns have several pronunciations of the plural morpheme, as in lips [ lip +
s ], seeds [ sid + z ], and fuses [ fjuz + az ]. The surface forms for these different
pronunciations of a morpheme are called allomorphs. As the following lists
demonstrate, the allomorphs of the plural morpheme are determined by the character
of the final sound of the singular form.
Allomorphs of the English ‘plural’ morpheme
[az] [s] [z]
bushes cats pens
judges tips seeds

Schwa Insertion Rule A

/z/- [az]/ sibilant + _ #

( Schwa is inserted before a word-final /z/ that follows a morpheme ending in a

sibilant.)
In order to derive the allomorph [s] from the underlying morpheme /z/ following
voiceless sounds, a rule that partially assimilates the voiced /z/ to the unvoiced sound
of the stem morpheme would be needed.

Assimilation Rule A
/z/ - voiceless/ voiceless + _ #
(Word final /z/ is devoiced following a morpheme that ends in a voiceless sound.
In order to derive the correct forms of all regular plural nouns, these two rules must
have considerable generality. Table 4-9 illustrates this for the noun’s coops, judges,
and weeds. (DNA means rule does not apply because some necessary condition is
missing; slanted lines / / represent underlying forms; square brackets [ ] represent
forms derived by application of a phonological rule.

COOPS PIECES
WEEDS
Underlying forms /kup + z/ /pis + z/ /wid +
z/
Schwa insertion DNA applies
DNA
Derived form [ kup + z ] [ pis + az ]
[ wid + z]
Assimilation applies DNA
DNA
Surface form [ kup + s ] [ pis + az ]
[ wid + z ]

Possessive Morpheme on Nouns

[s] for: ship, cat, Jack …
[z] for: John, arm, dog …
[az] for: church, judge, fish …
Third- Person Singular Morpheme on Verbs
[s] for: leap, eat, kick, laugh …
[z] for: hurry, seem, lean, crave, see …
[az] for: preach, tease, judge, buzz, rush …

English Past-Tense Morpheme

The inflectional morpheme that marks the past tense of regular verbs in English has
three allomorphs:
[t] for: wish, kiss, talk, strip, preach …
[d] for: wave, bathe, play, lie, stir, tease, roam, ruin …
[ad] for: want, wade, wait, hoot, plant, seed
If we posit /d/ as the underlying phonological form of the past-tense morpheme, we
need only two simple rules to derive the past-tense forms on all regular verbs.

Schwa Insertion Rule B

/d/ - [ad]/ alveolar stop + _ #

(schwa is inserted preceding a word-final /d/ that follows a morpheme ending in an
alveolar stop)

Assimilation Rule B

/d/ - voiceless/ voiceless + _ #

(word- final /d/ is realized as [t] following a morpheme that end in a voiceless sound.)

UNDERLYING PHONOLOGICAL FORM OF MORPHEMES IN THE

LEXICON

This section explores the phonological form of words as they are thought to exist in
speakers’ mental lexicons. The form of a word in the lexicon is called its underlying
form, and the form in the lexicon may not be the same as the pronounced form.
Consonants: The same kins of phonological processes that operates between a stem
and an inflectional suffix also operate between a stem and a derivational morpheme.
Vowels: Consider a youngster who knows the words photograph and photographer.
At some point the youngster posits the single-entry photograph in the lexicon to
represent the core of these two words.