İDB 362 (01)

Contrastive Grammar
Contrastive phonology
Week 4
2 March 2022
Part 1
 Week 4

Topics of this week

• Contrastive phonology: Basics and definition of the fields

• Specifics of contrastive phonology

• Examples of contrastive analysis on phonology

• Exemplary research questions

 Contrastive phonology

• Another major level of description in

contrastive analysis is contrastive phonology.
• Before dealing with the specifics of this level
of description it would be useful to give you
some basics of the related subfield of
linguistics, namely phonology.
 Phonology

• Phonology is a linguistic subdiscipline which is

concerned with semantically relevant speech

sounds and their pertinent characteristics, relations,

and systems viewed synchronically and

diachronically (Bussmann 1996).

 Phonology

• Phonology identifies the set of speech sounds for each

language, investigates how these sounds are arranged to

form meaningful units (i.e. words, phrases and sentences)

and what function each sound performs in the sound system

of that language (Ke 2019).

 Phonology

• Specifically, the phonological system of a language includes:

(a) a set of sounds the language selects to use and their

features

(b) rules which specify how sounds interact with each other
 Phonology

• Therefore, the major focus of phonology is on speech sounds.

• In this regard, it seems to be similar to phonetics, but there

are some differences between these two interrelated but

distinct subfields of linguistics. In other words, each of them

is autonomous (Ohala 1990).

 Phonetics vs. Phonology

• In traditional approach it is stated that phonetics

deals with the perception and production of speech
sounds whereas phonology deals with the logical
and functional features of speech sounds (Ohala,
1990).
 Phonetics vs. Phonology

•Another difference between these two

fields of linguistics is about their scope
in regard to the segmental and
suprasegmental features.
 Phonetics vs. Phonology

• Segmental features refer to the segments that are the

individual speech sounds, each of which gets transcribed
with an individual symbol in the IPA.

• Suprasegmental features, also known as prosodic features,

refer to juncture, stress, pitch, accent, prosody, intonation,
syllable breaks (Bussmann 1996:1151).
 Phonetics vs. Phonology

• During the 1970s and early 1980s studies were

mainly limited to the segmental level. Although
interest in segmentals has continued, since the
1980s the focus of much research has changed to
units larger than the segment (Ladegofed 2006).
 Phonetics vs. Phonology

• This change in focus has been influenced by the introduction

of new theories in mainstream linguistics, which have
expanded on segmental or linear models to nonlinear
models, so termed because they involve hierarchical levels
of representation.

• Any speech sound may be divided into two: segmental and

suprasegmental (Ladefoged 2006).
 Segmental vs. Suprasegmental

• Segments consist of vowels and consonants

while suprasegmental features are speech features
referring to consonants and vowels but which are
not limited to single sounds and often extend over
syllables, words, or phrases.
 Phonetics vs. Phonology

In other words,

• an utterance consists of sound segments such as

vowels, consonants and glides which are studied in
phonetics.
 Phonetics vs. Phonology

• In addition, an utterance also contain other speech

characteristics that have a function in conveying a
message. The variations in loudness or melody
superimposed on the sequence of sounds play a
prominent function in human languages in general.
 Phonetics vs. Phonology

• Such characteristics are studied under the

umbrella term suprasegmentals or prosodic

features which are part of phonology.

 Phonetics vs. Phonology

• The word supra means above or beyond the

segmental value. It refers to properties of an

utterance that apply to groups of segments, rather

than to individual segments (Ladefoged 2006).

 Phonetics vs. Phonology

• Suprasegmental features cannot be described in

absolute terms. Therefore, their description must
be in relative terms.

• The alternative terms of suprasegmentals are

‘plurisegmental’, ‘non-segmental’, ‘prosody’ and
‘superfix’ (Crystal 2008; Ladefoged 2006).
 Phonetics vs. Phonology

•In other words, each phoneme is usually

assumed to be one segment of speech
and as we stated earlier phonemes are
the subject matter of phonetics.
 Phonetics vs. Phonology

• Once we move on to look at larger chunks of

speech that span a number of segments, such
as whole words or phrases, etc., we are
dealing with features on the suprasegmental
level which is the subject matter of phonology.
 Phonetics vs. Phonology

Contrastive phonetics

comparision of segmental features

Contrastive phonology

comparision of suprasegmental features

 Phonetics vs. Phonology

• Another difference between phonetics and phonology is

related to the terms type and token (Ke, 2019).

• In linguistics type is a class of linguistic items, e.g. phonemes

, words, utterances and token is an example or a physical

manifestation of a class.
 Phonetics vs. Phonology

(1) Good morning

• Example in (1) is an English text or discourse type, namely “greeting” in phatic

communication or phatic communion.

• There are nine letter-tokens in the word phonology (i.e. there are nine physical

manifestations of each of the different letters of the English alphabet that

appear in the word phonology), but there are only seven letter-types (different

letters) in the word phonology.

 Phonetics vs. Phonology

• Phonetics studies human speech sounds in general,

that is, the type of speech sounds; while phonology

studies the specific speech sounds as employed in

different languages, i.e. the tokens of human

speech sounds.
 Phonetics vs. Phonology

Contrastive phonetics comparision of segmental features

and the types of speech sounds

Contrastive phonology comparision of suprasegmental

features and the tokens of speech
sounds
 Phonology

• Major suprasegmental features are as follows:

• Word stress

• Sentence stress

• Intonation

• Pitch
 Word stress

•Word stress: In polysyllabic words, one

or more syllables tend to have a higher
emphasis on them than others. This
phenomenon is known as word stress.
 Word stress

• Word stress refers to a phonological process in

which the articulatory energy put on a syllable.
In other word stress can be perceived as the
extra prominence of a particular syllable as a
result of more breath force to produce a
louder sound.
 Word stress

• In regard to word stress we should add some points

which are universal characteristics of word stress.
These are as follows:

(a) In each word there is only one stress which is

called primary stress

(b) Only vowels are stressed, but consonants are not.

 Word stress

•Word stress can sometimes be used distinctively, e.g. in

distinguishing between homograph nouns and verbs like
permit. For instance, /ˈpɜ:mɪt/ (noun) and /pəˈmɪt/ (verb).

•As you may see in English the initial syllable is stressed in

nouns, but it is not the same for the verb form of the word
permit.
 Word stress

• The following examples also shows you how word

stress differs between nouns and verbs in English.
 Word stress

• Languages differ in terms of word stress. For

instance, in Czech, stress always falls on the first
syllable, whereas in Polish, stress falls on the
penultimate or second from end syllable.

• In Dutch, stress placement is sometimes distinctive:

vóórkomen ’to occur’ and voorkómen ’to prevent’.
 Sentence stress

• Sentence stress: Focusing on particular

words within a larger unit, such as a
clause or a sentence, is usually referred
to as sentence stress or rhythm.
 Sentence stress

• Most systems usually at least distinguish between

three levels of stress, primary (indicated by high
vertical line ˈ), secondary (indicated by low vertical
line ˌ) and unstressed, but a few also include
a tertiary level.
 Intonation

• Intonation: A technical definition of

intonation is as follows: the variations which
take place in the pitch of the voice in
connected speech, for instance, the
variations in the pitch of the musical note
produced by vibration of the vocal cords.
 Intonation

• These effects may be attitudinal, in that e.g. a

relatively level intonation may convey boredom, or

serve to distinguish between syntactic units of

declarative/imperative vs. interrogative nature.

 Intonation

• In the latter case, the ‘declarative’ types are

often assumed to be signalled by a falling
intonation contour (), whereas a rising
contour () is said to convey an interrogative
character, although this is certainly not true for
all accents of English.
 Intonation

•A further function of intonation is to

convey incompleteness (rising or level
tone), e.g. in lists, as opposed to finality
(falling tone), which can be used as
structuring devices.
 Intonation

• When speaking, people generally raise and lower

the pitch of their voices and form pitch patterns.

They also give some syllables a greater degree of

loudness and change their speech rhythm. These

phenomena are called intonation.

 Intonation

• Intonation does not happen at random but has

definite patterns which can be analyzed according
to their structure and functions. Intonation patterns
often differ between languages or even between
varieties of the same language, for instance,
between Australian English and American English.
 
 Intonation

• Examples of intonation for English is given as

follows, please note that the arrows indicate

either rising or falling intonation:

 Intonation

• yes/no questions:

(2) Would you like some  coffee?

• Alternative questions:

(3) Would you like  tea or  coffee? (list!)

• ‘false alternative’: 

(4) Would you like some  tea or coffee?

 Intonation

• wh question (starting in wh-words such as

who, what, where, when, how, etc.):
• default:

(5) What time is  it?  

• insinuation/hint:

(6) When are you  leaving?

meaning Why aren’t you ↗ leaving?
 Pitch

• Pitch is another suprasegmental feature that can be defined

as the frequency of vibration of the vocal cords which varies

according to their tension and the force of the air stream,

and determines the pitch of the voice which is in constant

fluctuation as one speaks.

 Pitch

• Pitch as part of language includes both intonation

and tone.

• It operates over phrases and sentences and does

not distinguish individual words.

• It plays a role in determining utterance meaning.

 Pitch

• Pitch accent refers to give prominence to or focus on a word.

(7) a. Who called Peter?

b. MARY called Peter.

(8) a. Who did Mary call?

b. Mary called PETER.

 Pitch

•In (7b) and (8b) pitch accents are

attached to Mary and Peter. Therefore,
these words are the prominent or
focused items in the sentences.
 REFERENCES

Bussmann, Hadumod. (1996). Routledge

dictonary of language and linguistics. Routledge.
Crystal, David. (2008). A dictionary of linguistics and
phonetics. 6th edition. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kabak, Barış and Irene Vogel. (2001). The
phonological word and stress assignment in
Turkish. Phonology 18(3), 315-360.
Ke, Ping. (2019). Contrastive linguistics. Springer.
 REFERENCES
Krzeszowski, Tomas P., (1990). Contrasting
languages. The scope of contrastive linguistics. De
Gruyter Mouton.
Ladefoged, Peter. (2006). A course in phonetics.
Thomson, Wadsworth.
Lewis, Geoffrey L. (1967). Turkish Grammar. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Ohala, J. (1990). There is no interface between
phonology and phonetics: a personal view. Journal
of phonetics 18, 153-171.