Phonology Flashcards
Phonology
- concerned with how the sounds are represented and stored in the brain
- studies their abstract mental representations
- grammar of sounds, our implicit knowledge of sound structure
Goals of phonology
1.determine what phonological knowledge is like
2.How sounds are stored + represented in brain
3.How mental representations result in systematic phonetic variation in speech,
o at the level of segments or suprasegmentals;
o within a given language and across languages.
-phonological knowledge deals with representations at various levels:
-Word level, syllable level, segment level, and feature level.
Phonological contrasts
- Some segments in a language contrast with each other, while others don’t.
- alveolar fricatives [s] and [z] in English are contrastive, because substituting [z] for [s] and vice versa changes the word meaning
minimal pairs
-forms have distinct meanings, yet differ only in one segment ([s] or [z])
phonemes
Segments that contrast with each other in a given language
- part of our phonological knowledge; they are represented in the brain
- Not all sounds pronounced in a language need to be stored in the brain
allophones
- Predictable variants
- we have clear intuitions about phonemes of the language (because we store them in the brain), but not about allophones (because we do not store them, but produce automatically when we speak)
levels of representation
phonemic representation
phonetic representation
phonemic transcription
contrastive segments only
-/ /
phonetic transcription
non-contrastive, allophonic detail
-[ ]
complementary distribution
Segments that occur in different, non-overlapping environments
Phonological analysis
-determine the phonemic status of segments in a given language: Are they separate phonemes or allophones of a phoneme?
steps of Phonological analysis
-Determine the environments which they occur
-State your generalizations about the environments:
Are the environments in which the segments occur the same/overlapping/are they completely different?
-Conclude whether separate phonemes/allophones. need to be phonetically similar for allophones
-If allophones, determine which allophone is the basic one(elsewhere). basic allophone is assumed to be phoneme
Environments
-Linear order relation: after x (voiceless consonants), before x, betw. x and y, word initially/word finally
-Higher level than segments: position in the syllable
-If same or overlapping, segments are separate phonemes. (You are done.)
o If environments completely different, segments are likely to be allophones of a phoneme
logical possibilities
Two phonemes,
One phoneme, /A/,[A] env. x [B] env. y
One phoneme, /B/ [A] env. x [B] env. y
near-minimal pairs
two sounds occur in nearly identical environments (and the word meaning is different)
Allophonic variation
usually systematic, based on segments’ phonetic properties
class
Phonemes that are similar phonetically tend to pattern together, as a class generalization pattern together
rules
formal statements about how phonemes of UR converted to allophones of PR
derivation
rule application
- applies when in right context
- doesn’t apply if does not have the right context (we say that the rule is not applicable here)
- should be sufficiently general, should capture generalizations about segments affected by processes or triggering these processes
Rule format
- which segment/class of segments is/are affected (the undergoer of the process),
- how it is or they are affected (what changes into what) and
- in which particular context (the environment)
rule format
- undergoer should include all the segments that undergo the change + exclude the segments that do not undergo it
- environment should include all segments/other contexts that trigger change
- change should specify what segment property has changed without mentioning properties that haven’t changed
prose rule format
What (undergoer of the process) becomes what when/where
natural classes
Groups of segments that commonly pattern together
based on articulatory properties the segments share
Major classes
consonant/vowel, sonorant/obstruent, syllabic/non-syllabic
Consonants classes
oLaryngeal (glottal) states: voiced/voiceless, aspirated, murmured;
oManner: nasal/oral, stop, fricative, affricate, lateral, liquid, glide;
oPlace of articulation:-labial: biliabial, labiodental
-coronal: dental, alveolar, alveopalatal, palatal
-dorsal: velar, uvular;
-glottal
Vowel classes
oMajor types: simple vowel, diphthong oHeight: high, mid, low oBackness: front, central, back oRounding: rounded/unrounded oTenseness: tense/lax oLength: long/short oOther: nasalized, retroflexed, reduced, devoiced
syllable
- Many allophonic processes refer to the syllable structure.
- Rhyming in poetry
- Language games often refer to the internal structure of the syllable
syllable structure
nucleus (N): the peak of the syllable
onset (O): the syllabic unit before the nucleus
coda (Co): the syllabic unit after the nucleus
rhyme (R): the nucleus and coda together
Universality of the syllable
- All languages have syllables.
- have the syllable types of V and CV, with CVC
Phonotactics
-refers to constraints on what segments can go into -Onset, Nucleus, and Coda, and in what order
-Combinations of consonants primarily depend on the manner of articulation, thus sonority
More sonorous consonants (glides, liquids, and nasals) tend to occur closer to the nucleus
some languages have onset or coda clusters that violate sonority
Onset Clusters
/s/-vls. stop-liquid/glide (non-nasal sonorant C)
sprint: a gradual increase in sonority towards the nucleus and a decrease after it
Accidental gaps
Not all combinations are possible in a language. There are two types of gaps in the system
forms that are possible but happens not to occur in the language
o snook, splick, sclop, trock
Systematic gaps
-violate the language phonotctics, ungrammatical
o/tl-/ /bz-/ /pt-/ /fp-/ in English: *tlick, *bzough, *ptag, *fpew, etc
Loanwords
involve phonological adaptation of the source words so as to fit the native phonotactics
Accidental gaps–no need to fix
ovodka (from Russian), taco (from Spanish), ninja (from Japanese)
Systematic gaps–need to fix
o psychology (from Greek): onset */ps-//s-/;
Syllabification
the procedure for setting up syllables
Step 1 - Nucleus formation
Step 2 - Onset formation
o Identify segments before/to the left of N and project O maximizing onsets. Link the O to σ.
Step 3 - Coda formation
o Identify the leftover segments and project them into Co. Link Co to R.
order: Nucleus formation > Onset formation > Coda formation
- Nucleus is head of the syllable
- CV is cross-linguistically universal syllable type
- Onset formation
- CVC is common but not universal syllable type, there is cross-linguistic tendency for onsets to syllabify before codas
Differences in syllabification
- In apply /p/ and /l/ are tautosyllabic (same syllable), onset
- In Atlantic /t/ and /l/ are heterosyllabic (different syllables)
Rule ordering
- Order: A > B
- Order: B > A
- Rules A and B have to be ordered:
- Rule A has to precede Rule B otherwise output is partly ungrammatical
- Two given rules do not always have to be ordered
