Phonology

What is Phonology
 Phonology is the study of how sound organized and used in
natural language.
 The study of sound system in a language.
Example:
Can you hand me a pin?
Can you hand me a pan?
The difference between these two sound is called phonology.
Differences between phonetics and phonology

 Phonetics is strictly physical while phonology also pay

attention to the function or meaning of a sound.
 Phonetics only ask (dose this sound goes here or not) and
phonology ask dose the meaning change if I put this sound here
instead of that one.
 Phonetics makes a pretty general description of sound and can
be used to describe a sound in any language. Phonology makes
very detailed description of sound, so each language has its
own sound symbols.
 Phoneme

 Phoneme is the individual unite of a sound.

Example:
Bat: B A T
Pat P A T
 Continuous……

 The phoneme change the meaning of word

Example:
We the of (It) if we put one word in front of it, then it change the
meaning.
It- if we put (m) the meaning change. (Meet) or (neat).
It make two different words (meet) and (neat) that are flowed by
(m) and (n).
Allophones

 The various way that a phoneme is pronounced are called

allophone.
Example:
we have two different pronunciation of (K)
Kh Kite
K sky
Continuous……

 After (s) we just pronounce (K).

Example: sky skirt
 At the beginning of the we pronounce (k h )
Example: Kite Keep
Identifying phoneme and allophone
 We should know that every language have a particular allophones
and phonemes and we should know about distribution of a sound.
 We have two type of distribution
 Contrastive distribution
 Complementary distribution
Contrastive distribution
 Is a cause that two sound are occur in the same phonetic environment,
using one rather than another change the meaning of word.
Example:
Cat Cut
Put Pot
Dog Dig
 When we look about distribution of particular sound in language we can
determine the two sound contrast by identifying minimal pairs.
Minimal pairs

 Two words with different meaning and pounced by differ

exactly one sound.
Example:
Pal Pol
Dog Dig
Complemented distribution
 Two complementary part of something make up a whole.
Example:
We divided a class by a set of people that they tall 5,5 and the people under
5,5.
These two set complementary of each other, these people make a whole
class.
But one person cant be in both group of taller people and shorter people.
 Dean (d‫آ‬n)
 Deed (did)
 Lean (l‫آ‬n)
 Leap (lip)
 Mean (m‫آ‬n)
 Mere (mir)
 We can summarize their deiterbution (i) appear befor sound (d,p,r,t) and at the end of the
word.
 And (‫ )آ‬appear before (m,n) and (i) never appear before (m,n), and (‫ )آ‬never appear before
(d,p,r,t) or at the end of the words.
 Continuous……
 Spool [spul]
 Speak [spik]
 Pool [phul]
 Peek [phik]
 (p) and (ph) occur in the same phonetic environment, we can
summarize that [p] occur after [s] and [ph] is word-initially
never after [s]
 Free variation
 The hallmark of the contrastive distribution is that two sound occur in same
phonetic environment but produce different word.
 The hallmark of complementary distribution that two sound did not occur in
same environment can be predicate to occur in specific phonetic context.
Example:
Leap [lip]
troop [trup]
Happy [haepi]
leap [lip*]
Troop [trup*]
 Continuous……
 These word show the[p] and [p*] both share the same phonetic environment,
both of them appear at the end of the word.
 Overlapping distribution
 The sound that occur in the same environment.
 Contrastive distribution and free variation the have a overlapping distribution,
but complementary distribution do not overlap.
Example: the sound of [d] and [t] they are overlapping because they occur the
same phonetic environment.
Lid and Lit
And both [d] and [t] come after [LI] that the environments are the same.
 The interchanging of [d] and [t] change the meaning of the words.
Phonological rules
 Phonological rules are the rules whether written or spoken that control how sounds
change during vocal communication.
 Phoneme: are the abstract mental entities
 Phone: are the physical events.
 For example, the English plural -s may be pronounced as[s] (in "cats"),[z] (in
"cabs"), or as [ iz] (in "buses"); these forms are all stored mentally as the same -s,
but the surface pronunciations which are derived through a phonological rule are
different
 The differences between phonemic and phonetic we describe it in phonological
rules.
 A speaker who have a phonological rules knowledge and allow them to translate
phonemes to actual speech sound.
 Continuous……
 In English we have seat /set/ and loot /lut/, these word end with
/t/.
 In phonemic form we pronounce [t].
 Now pronounce the [t] when we add a suffix (ed).
Example:
Seat [set]
Loot [lut]
Seated
Looted
 Continuous……
 When the (t) occur between the vowel it pronounced flap.
 When it preceding vowel is stressed syllable and flowing vowel is
unstressed
 In phonology we have three rules:
1: sound: that affect by rule.
2: Environment: where the rule applies.
3: Result of rule.
(t) Is affected by rule, when (t) occur after stressed vowel and before unstressed
vowel, the result of the rule is the (t) pronounces flapped.
 Continuous……
 W write is using of them
 X Y/C_D
 X is the sound that affected on the rule.
 Y is the result of application of the rule.
 C _ D are the environment of the rule.
 C _ D also called condition environment.
 Continuous……
 When ( C ) come before the sound they affected on rule and (D) come after
it, the blank represents where the sound affected by the rule appear.
 X become Y when it come after C and before D.
 If you see CXD you know it become CYD when the rule applies
 Continuous……
 You can see that the rule applies to the phoneme form of (seated) and
(Looted) because the [t] is located in correct context for the rule that they
flapped.
 However, in seat and loot the rule dose not apply since (t) dose not occur
in context for flapping.
Example:
Phonemic form: /sit/ /sit+ed/ /lut/ /lut+ed/
Apply rule: seated luted
Natural classes
 Is a group of sound in a language that share one or more
articulatory or auditory property, to the exclusion of all other
sound in that language.
 In fact the only (t) dose not flapped, but the (d) also flapped
when it occur between stressed vowel and unstressed vowel.
Example:
Seed seeded
 Continuous……
 We see that (t) and (d) are the same phonological rule
 /T/ voiceless alveolar (oral) stop
 /D/ voiced alveolar (oral) stop
 These two words are the only oral alveolar stops in English.
/t , d/ alveolar (oral) stop
In English (T and D) these two sound are the only oral phoneme in
English that are produced by stopping the flow the air at the
alveolar ridge.
 Continuous……
 When we describe the individual sound in English it is natural classes.
Example:
We have monophtang [I, U] and the first part of diphtang [ei, ow].
They are the only four word in English that they are tense vowel.
We have consonant word [k,g,n] that they are the only velar consonant in
English.
 Continuous……

 Natural classes divided in two parts:

1: Obstruent:
2: Sonorants:
Obstruents:
 A natural classes is a sound that produced with an obstruction
of the airflow in the oral cavity while the nasal closed.
 The sound in this category are stop, fricative and affricative.
Example:
Labial obstruent in English: [p,f,v,b]
Sonorant
 Segment produced with a relatively open passage for the
airflow.
 Sonorant include: Nasal, Liquid, Glides and vowel.
Example:
Labial sonorant: [ M, W]
Type of phonological rule
 Every language has many phonological rule.
 We classify the phonological rule according to kind of process that they involve.
 We have seven type of major of process.
1: Assimilation
2: Dissimilation
3: insertion
4: Deletion
5: Metathesis
6: strengthening
7: Weakening
Assimilation
 A process by which a sound become more like nearby sound in the term of some
feature.
 One sound become another sound.
 Rule of assimilation are very common in language.
Example:
The assimilation is the pronunciation of prefix (un or in) in English.
In- Probable
Improbable
In- possible
Impossible
Winter [winner] or we have Center [cenner]
Continuous…..
 The nasal sound /n/ is often pronounced as a bilabial nasal
when it occur before a labial sound.
 Velar nasal: when is occur before vela sound.
 This called nasal place assimilation because the nasal /n/
change it pace of articulation.
dissimilation
 Change is made to a sound that makes it less similar to a sound
in its environment.
 Example:
 /epta/ [efta] seven
 Sixth [sixt]
 When a stop become a fricative when followed by another
stop.
Insertion
 A segment no present at the phonemic level to be added to the
phonetic form of a word.
 Example:
 Dance /dæns/ strength /strεηθ/
Deletion
 Eliminate a sound that was present at the phonemic level.
 Something become nothing in some environment.
Example:
Fifth /fifθ/ [fiθ]
Suppose [spowz]
Probably [prabli]
 Deletion occur in fast speech because it save the time, and drop (r ) when
the British people speak.
Example:
Hard /had/
Continuous…….
 We delete the final /b/ when it occur after /m/
Example:
Bomb /bam/
Crumb /kram/
 Delete a /g/ when it occur /a/ word.
Example:
Sign /sajn/
Paradigm
 Metathesis
 Change the order of sound.
 In many sound the metathesis make a word easier to pronounce or easier
to understand.
 In (Leti) language consonant and vowel switch their place when a word
end with a consonant.
Example: /danat/ + /kviali/ = [dantakviali]
 During speaking in English sometimes we change the word.
Example: ask [ask].
 In kid speech
Pesgati spaghetti
Strengthening
 Also called (fortition) make a sound stronger.
 Example:
 Aspiration in English: voiceless stop become aspirated when
they occur at the beginning of stressed syllable.
 Pat
 Tap
 Aspiration make the unvoiced consonant louder, longer that
voiced consonant.
Weakening
 Also called (lenition) cause sound become weaker.
Example:
Water
Winter
(r ) is quieter and shorter than (t) it is an example of
weakening.
Multiple rule application
 We talk about phonological rule apply.
 There is one process that occur between phonemic form and phonetic
form.
 In English rules that involve stress, such us, flapping, aspiration, /h/
deletion, and vowel reduction.
 We can convince multiple rules applying in the same time without
problem.
 Dose not affect the environment in which vowel reduction take place
 Continues…..
 It is more complex than phonological rules.
 Now we looking at the interaction of flapping in English the
pronunciation of diphthong.
 The diphthong of /ai/ is pronounced /ǝi/ when it occur before voiceless
sound.
Example:
Write
raid
 Obligatory and optional rules
 Obligatory: phonological, morphological or syntactic rules that applies
in the speech of all speaker of a language.
 Optional rules: phonological, morphological or syntactic rule that may
or may not apply in individual speech.
 Obligatory: include aspiration, vowel nasalization, liquid and glide
devoicing.
 Such rule applies in the speech of all the speaker in a language
Implicational law:
Recurring phonological patterns
 In phonetics you studied that human use a language in wide variety of a
sound.
 Some sound are common than other.
 Almost all the human use the stop consonant [p], [t] and vowel [a]
these words are very common in speech sound than other words.
Sound inventories
 Some sound used in English very less common sound, and
some of them are used common.
 We have two part of these statements.
1: language use particular sound or the sound contrastive relative
to other sound in English.
2: one of them more common counterpart.
 Some sound are used very less, and some sound are used very
common, the difference are only the phonetic features
Continuous…
 Some common is vowel voiceless vowel is a voiced vowel the same
tongue high, tongue advancement, and lip rounding.
 We know that some word are used less common and some of them are
used very common they have a relationship each other.
 More common word and less common word are used in relative way.
 [s] is less common than [t], but more common than [x].
 Any language use [ã] will also use [a], some language [å] will also use
[a], any language use [d] will also use [t], this kind of observation is
called implicational law.
Continuous…
 Frequency and distribution
 The second observation concerning more common and less common
sound is related to the degree to which sound will be used in a particular
language, and range of distribution of a word in a language.
 The pharyngeal fricative will have limited usage compared with the velar
fricative.
 More common sound have a wider distribution within s language.
 In English the limited of usage and limited of distribution of less
common sound is in phoneme [ð].
 The sound [ð] is less common sound because it is rare in in language of
the world.
Continuous…

 Anywhere [ð] occur in English, the [z] can also occur.

Example:
 This That Those Them
 The word [ð] is limited usage than [z] words.
 Acquisition of sound
 It is related to more common and less common sound has to do of their
acquisition.
 Children learn a language acquire the use of common sound before they
acquire the use of less common sound.
 The children are not mastered the complete sound inventory of their native
language will replace the more common sound instead of saying less
common sound.
 When some girl says [dis wan] for this one, she replace the less common
sound [ð] with [d].
 The children not able to acquire the use of [ð], the [d] is available for use.
 Continuous…
 All the children acquire the consonant sound around the world, no
problem which language they are learning.
 Implicational law carputer a generalization about language.
 The acquisition of more common sound and less common sound.
 Sound change
 Another observation related to more common sound and
less common sound language change.
 Less common sound want to be stable than more common
sound.
 If any sound become lost, the less common sound become
lost rather than more common sound.
Continuous…

 In old English the pronunciation of knight there was a

voice less velar fricative [x] between vowel and the [t],
now the letter [gh] indicate where consonant come, so the
development of English this velar fricative was lost.
 All instances of velar fricative sound as a (height, sight,
fight, might and so on) were lost.
 Explaining implicational law
 We might say that [x] is more become lost than [k], because [k] is more common than
[x].
 We can say that the children can acquire the [k] than the [x] because the [k] is more
common and [x] is less common sound.
 When the people use a language in their goal (generally speaking) they can transmit the
message from speaker to hearer.
 If a sound is difficult to produce, the hearer will be confusion.
 To avoid from misunderstood, the speaker should avoid from difficult sound.
 If a speaker avoid from difficult sound, the sound become disappear from the language.
 Continuous…
 The sound [x] is more common than sound [y], because the sound
[x] is easily to pronounce that sound, [y].
 and the [k] is more common sound than [x], because the stop are
easier to pronounce that fricative.
 Alveolar fricative are more common sound than pharyngeal
fricative, because the tip of the tongue is more agile than back of
the tongue.
 The alveolar consonant are easier to produce than pharyngeal one.