Phonetics --> 7th Lecture (Phonology is the study of the sound patterns in a language)

Phonetics --> 7th Lecture (Phonology is the study of  the sound patterns in a language)

Phonology:

 It is the study of  the sound patterns in a language.

*Phonetics:

It provides us with the means by which we can describe sounds.

or It gives us the general linguistic knowledge to describe any sound in a language.

*Phoneme:

It is the smallest linguistic unit in a language. That is , the phoneme is the distinctive sound unit in language .Phoneme is capable of changing the sound and meaning.

: *Free variation

The sound changes but the meaning is the same or does not change .

Ex: economic

*Homophone:

It is the  same sound  but the meaning is different.

ex: sole :    1-only.        2- a kind of fish .         3- the bottom of a shoe.

*Nasalization:

It is producing the vowel through the nose.

      The vowel is nasalized if it occurs before a nasal consonant.

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ex.:

 bean [b i: n]                            the sign of nasalization.

                                                The |n| is +nasal.

*Aspiration:

It is the sound of air blowing out when some voiceless consonants are produced before a vowel.

The voiceless stops (p, t, k) are aspirated when one of them occurs word initially before a stressed vowel.

ex.:

car [k^h a: r]       the sign of aspiration.

pill [p^h I| ]

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Notice:

The phonemic transcription which belongs to phonetics is marked by slashes /  / to show that the symbols represent phonemes  like /b i: n/ , /k I| / . But the phonetic transcription, involving the non-distinctive features, is marked by square brackets [] which enclose phonetic segments or phones and gives more details in articulation like [b i: n] , [k^h I|].

*Assimilation

It is when two phonemes occur in sequence and some aspect of one phoneme is akin or 'copied' by the other for the sake of ease of articulation in everyday speech.

Examples

1-In isolation you would pronounce /i/ and /æ/ without any nasal quality at all. However in words like 'pin' and 'pan', the anticipation of forming the final nasal consonant will make it easier to go into the nasalized articulation in advance and consequently the vowel sounds in these words will be in precise transcription [i] and [æ] . In fact, a phonological rule can be stated in the following way: 'any vowel becomes nasal  whenever it immediately precedes a nasal'.

2-You may pronounce  the word  'can' as (kæn), but if you tell someone  'I  can  go' ,  the influence  of  the  following  velar [g]  will  almost  certainly  make  the  preceding nasal sound  come  out as [η ]  (a velar)  rather  than [n]  (an alveolar). The   most   commonly observed 'conversational' version of the phrase is [ayk¶ηgo].In  many  words , the  vowel receives stress, but in the course of ordinary talk, that vowel may no longer  receive any stress. For example you may pronounce 'and' as [ænd] in isolation  but in the  casual use the phrase 'you and me', you say [¶n] as in [yu¶nmi]

*Dissimilation

They are rules in which a segment becomes less similar to another segment rather than more similar. For example, many speakers in English dissimilate the sequence of the two fricatives /fq/ in the word “diphthong”, and they pronounce it with a bilabial stop |p| instead of the labial fricative |f|. That is, they pronounce it à /d¶Pqoh/         instead of  /d¶fqoh/

*Elision

It is the omission of a sound segment.

Examples

1-'he must be' :[him^sbi]

2-'friendship' :[frensIp]

3-'aspects' :[æspeks]

2-'we asked him' :[wiæstIm]

3-Vowels also disappear as in the middle of [IntrIst]for interest , or [kæbnIt] for cabinet.

*Homorganic rule

It is a word that is divided into two syllables and they have the same place of articulation.

Examples :

/n/ à   han/dle

                n,d are alveolar

/h/àan/gle

           h,g are velar

V and C  length *

1- V+ Vd C= V:  long length (duration)

     handle & bead

2- V+V.l C= V

      beat

3- V+ pause= V:

     1            2

     white     tie

  word boundary : it may lengthen the vowel.

The sound in the first word ends in consonant and the second one starts with the same consonant .

*Syllable Structure

S + S

 syllable boundary.

am/ple

across syllable boundary.   

am/ble

ينتهي المقطع ب nasal  والمقطع الثاني يبدأ ب .oral stop

S1n + oral stop.

*Segment deletion and addition rule:

By means of this rule, we can add or delete not only a feature of a segment but also a whole segment.

a. Segment addition is like:

The two words: sense /sens/ and minse /mIns/ are pronounced by some people with an added |t|: sense /sents/ & minse /mInts/

b. Segment deletion is like

what we do with contracted form of the auxiliaries like:

I will à I’ll         ,    He is à He’s ,   He will not à He won’t

*Sequence of phonemes or Sequential Constraints

In general, the sequence of  phonemes of the language is not random.

If a nasal is followed by a stop, the sounds should be homorganic

a. a bilabial nasal should be followed by bilabial stops:

ex: ample – grumble – lamp – lamb

(|m| is the bilabial nasal and |p| or |b| are the bilabial stops)

          (|m|+|p| or |b|)

b. an alveolar nasal should be followed by alveolar stops:

ex: tend      grind          print           attentive

(the |n| is the alveolar nasal and |d| or |t| are the alveolar stops)

(|n| + |d| or |t|)

c. a velar from soft palate ,  nasal should be followed by velar stops: |g| and |k|:

	a velar nasal

 

ex: mango /mæhg¶È/          ankle /æhk¶l/     (/h/ + /g/ or /k/)

If a word begins with |l| or |r| , the next segment must be a vowel:

e.g.: little à       /|It|/                      right à /raIt/

3. If a word starts with |^tò| or |^dx| , the next segment must be a vowel:

ex.:

cheese	Job	Jack
|tòi:z|	|d3ob|	|d3æk|

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