89

Basics: Sounds

❖ Phonetically, every sound (i.e., phone) differs from every other

phone, based on the phonetic context, the individual speaker,
the occasion, etc
❖ For instance, the [p] in pin is followed by an audible puff of air
(= aspiration), while the [p] in spin is not
.

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Basics: Sounds

❖ Presence of aspiration after some [p]s but not after others is a

phonetic fact, but of no major interest to English phonology
❖ Phonology looks at which sounds make a difference in meaning;
that is, which sounds can single-handedly distinguish word
❖ There are no two words in English that only differ in whether
their [p] is aspirated or not
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Basics: Sounds

❖ In technical terms: [p] (without aspiration) and [pʰ] (with

aspiration) do not create minimal pair
❖ Minimal pair = two words of equal length that only differ in a
single sound in the same positio
❖ Examples of minimal pairs: pin vs. pen; cat vs. mat; heart vs. harp
 92

Basics: Sounds

❖ Sounds that make a difference by way of minimal pairs are

called “phonemes” and are the relevant unit in phonolog
❖ number of phones in a language: in nite
❖ number of phonemes in a language: highly restricted (average
of around 30)
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Basics: Sounds

❖ Articulation: abstract mental category (phoneme) activated →

concrete physical instance (phone) produce
❖ Perception: concrete physical instance (phone) perceived →
abstract mental category (phoneme) activate
❖ Phonemes: convenient abstraction for linguists, but actually
drawn on by language users in communication
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Basics: Sounds

❖ Claims about speech sounds not based on the analysis of actual

recordings → phonolog
❖ Phonological typology investigates which sounds (phonemes)
occur in the world’s languages, how many of them individual
languages have, how they combine, etc
❖ → Focus in this class: phonology, not phonetics

 95

Basics: Sounds

❖ Study of phonemes = “segmental” phonology → study of

strings of sounds = “suprasegmental” phonolog
❖ Main suprasegmental unit: syllabl
❖ Syllable = vowel (or vowel-like element) plus possibly
consonants on either side of it
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Basics: Sounds

❖ Syllable structure
❖ consonant(s) before the vowel = onset (fit
❖ vowel(-like element) = nucleus (bad
❖ consonant(s) after the vowel = coda (bin
❖ Onsets/codas with more than one consonant = complex
:

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Basics: Sounds
❖ Complex syllables in English
❖ complex onset: blue, print, stripe
❖ complex coda: dump, hand, build
❖ But also: at (no onset), fee (no coda), I (no onset, no coda)
❖ Syllable structure abbreviated as “C” and “V”: blue is CCV, etc
❖ IPA marks syllable boundary by a . — seldom is /sɛl.dәm/

 98

Basics: Sounds

❖ Occasionally, syllables in English (and other languages) may

have a segment other than a vowel as the nucleus
❖ bottom, bottle, button
❖ Vowel in the spelling does not correspond to anything in the
pronunciation; nucleus is a “syllabic” consonan
❖ IPA marks syllabic consonants by a ̩ below — button is /bʌtn̩/
 99

Basics: Sounds

❖ Syllable: usually the domain of word stress (if there is any

❖ Word stress: one syllable per word is louder and/or longer and/
or higher than other syllables in the wor
❖ Very salient in English, but less so or entirely non-existent in
many other languages
 100

Basics: Sounds

❖ Word stress in English is free; i.e., it cannot generally be

predicted which syllable of a word is stressed
❖ initial (elegant) vs. penultimate (selection) vs. nal (escapee
❖ Many languages have xed stress (same syllable in every word):
Finnish (initial), Polish (penultimate), Persian ( nal), etc.
❖ IPA marks stress with a preceding ˈ — selection is /sәˈlɛkʃ(ә)n/

fi
 101

Basics: Words

❖ Words can either be divided into their constituent phonemes or

into their meaning-bearing part
❖ First approach: sound; second approach: function (and sound
❖ → Word level is where meaning becomes a relevant part of the
analysis, unlike with phonology

 102

Basics: Words
❖ General term for the conventionalized pairing of meaning and
sound (sequence) = “sign” → the study of words (morphology)
deals with a subset of linguistic signs
 103

Basics: Words

❖ Within morphology, signs are called “morphemes

❖ Fundamental question in morphology: do words consist of one
morpheme (simple[x]) or of multiple morphemes (complex)
❖ one morpheme: lion, warm, eat
❖ multiple morphemes: play-er, un-kind, be-head-ed, table-cloth-s
 104

Basics: Words

❖ Different types of morphemes in complex words

❖ roots (often also called “stems”): able to act as simplex words
themselves (play, kind, head, table, cloth
❖ af xes: unable to act as simplex words themselves (-er, un-, be-,
-ed, -s)
fi
 105

Basics: Words

❖ Every word consists of at least one root, but words do not

generally need af xe
❖ Words combining multiple roots (tablecloths) = compound
❖ Af xes appearing before the root (un-, be-) = pre xes; af xes
appearing after the root (-er, -ed, -s) = suf xes
fi
fi
s

 106

Basics: Words
❖ Some of the major parameters of morphological typology:
❖ how many af xes do languages have?
❖ what kind of functions do af xes express
❖ how many (and what kinds of) morphemes can be combined
in languages
❖ what kinds of compounds exist, if any?
?

fi
fi
 107

Basics: Words

❖ Af xes traditionally divided into two major categories:

in ectional and derivationa
❖ These categories are not rigid, and many af xes do not t into
either categor
❖ In English, be- is considered a derivational pre x, while -s is
considered an in ectional suf x
fl
fi
y

fl
l

fi
 108

Basics: Words

❖ One salient difference between derivation and in ection

❖ in ectional af xes apply to virtually all words of a single
word class, such as the plural suf x -s with respect to English
nouns: lion-s, bottle-s, airplane-s, sister-s, fork-s, banana-s, etc
❖ derivational af xes apply to an often arbitrary subset of items
in a word class: *be-sing, *be-eat, *be-laugh, *be-give, etc.
fl
fi
fi
 109

Basics: Words

❖ Another major difference between derivation and in ection

❖ meaning contributed by in ectional af xes is predictable: e.g.,
-s always adds the meaning ‘plural’ to noun
❖ meaning contributed by derivational af xes is variable and/or
dif cult to pinpoint: what is the common meaning of the
pre x be- in behead, befall, bedevil?
fi
fi
fl
 110

Basics: Words

❖ Function of derivation and compounding: creating new words

to be listed in the dictionary → sub-types of word formatio
❖ In ection does not create new words and is not part of word
formation; e.g., the form lions would not be listed in a dictionary
(because it could be predicted from the existence of lion)
fl
 111

Basics: Words

❖ Traditional distinctions within morphological typology

❖ degree of synthesis: how many af xes can a word (usually: the
verb) take at once? (many: synthetic; few: analytic
❖ degree of fusion: are there (unpredictable) phonological
changes across morphemes? (yes: fusional; no: agglutinating
❖ Warning: even less straightforward than in ection vs. derivation
 112

Basics: Words

❖ English has words of all types

❖ dis-em-power-ed has three af xes, which is rather many and
thus synthetic, but most words that actually occur in English
have at most one af x and are thus largely analyti
❖ do-es shows fusion because the vowel /ʌ/cannot be predicted
from the /u/ of the root do; but undeniable shows no fusion

fi
fi
:

 113

Basics: Words

❖ In sum:
❖ degree of synthesis is a somewhat reliable indicator of
morphological structure because there are usually limits in
every language (which are dif cult to classify, though
❖ degree of fusion is largely unhelpful because most languages
have many agglutinating and fusional word forms

fi
 114

Basics: Sentences

❖ Syntax ~ combination of words (e.g., sentences

❖ But: how many words are there in Mary’s dog?
❖ Word distinctions are not always clear-cut → morphology and
syntax are closely linked; what one language does syntactically,
the next one does morphologicall
❖ Morphology + syntax = “morphosyntax” (or “grammar”)
 115

Basics: Sentences

❖ Most important foundation for syntax: word classe

❖ Nouns and verbs are found in every language (though some
would say they form a single class in a few languages), and
adjectives may be as wel
❖ None of the other classes known from European languages (e.g.,
conjunctions, prepositions, adverbs) are universal

 116

Basics: Sentences

❖ Word classes often de ned in terms of meaning

❖ nouns denote objects, places, things, etc
❖ verbs denote processes and activities, etc
❖ Not entirely wrong, but misleading and imprecise (e.g., tennis is
an activity, but the word tennis is a noun)

fi
 117

Basics: Sentences

❖ A better method for identifying nouns and verbs: their formal

(i.e., morphological and syntactic) behavio
❖ nouns often in ect for number (dog vs. dog-s) and case (der
Hund vs. des Hund-es
❖ verbs often in ect for tense (play vs. play-ed) and person (play
vs. play-s)
fl
fl
)