ENGLISH PHONETICS & PHONOLOGY LG204

ENGLISH PHONETICS &
PHONOLOGY
LG LG204

CLASS OUTLINE
� task review
� the relation between phonetics and phonology
� phonemes and allophones
� assimilation
� neutralisation
� cross-linguistic distribution of segments
�� basic sounds: language acquisition
� what have we learnt?
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PHONETICS-PHONOLOGY INTERFACE
� Phonology involves rule-governed patterns in
speech sounds (i.e. the study of the sound
structure of language) language).
� How do we know that the patterns in speech
sounds are “rule-governed”?
rule governed ?
– by their co-occurrence restrictions
– by the alternations they manifest
– we can create rules that capture their patterns
� Ph Phonetics i i is one of f the h means b by which hi h
phonological alternations are manifested.
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PHONEMES AND ALLOPHONES
� Phonemes: /b/ /p/
Minimal pair /bat/ /pat/
Contrastive distribution: phonemes contrast in
the same position
� Allophones of a phoneme are the concrete entities
of f speech. h
� They are typically phonetically similar i.e. they
have articulatory and acoustic features in
common
4

ENGLISH ALLOPHONES
� p
[ h [p ] i iti l iti
h ] initial position
[ [p] ] elsewhere l h
clear [l] before vowels
� l dark (velarised) [ɫ] before a consonant
voiceless i l [l] iinitially i i ll in i a stressed d syllable ll bl
following /p/ or /k/
Th ll h i li t
� These allophones are in complimentary
distribution because where one occurs the other
cannot 5

ENGLISH ALLOPHONES
� We saw that some varieties of English show an
alternation in the production of intervocalic /t/
which is sometimes produced as a glottal stop [ʔ]
� bu[t]er ~ bu[ʔ]er
� bu[t]on ~ bu[ʔ]er
� In this t s case although a t oug [ʔ] [ ] is s a an aallophone op o e of o [t], the t e
two sounds are not in complementary position
because the occur in the same position: they are
in free variation
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ASSIMILATION
� Assimilation is a process where one sound
becomes more like another
� Assimilation usually has a phonetic
explanation/manifestation
� Nasal place assimilation: a nasal agrees in place
with a following consonant:
in- > i[m]possible, i[ŋ]congruous
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NEUTRALISATION
� Neutralisation refers to cases where two
phonemes overlap in phonetic realisation
� /n/
[ [ɱ] ] bbefore f /f/ or / /v/: / e[ɱ]phatic, [ ] h ti
/m/ i[ɱ]fatuated
The contrast between /n/ and /m/ is neutralised
bbefore f /f/ and d / /v/ / i i.e. they th d do not t contrast t t i in thi this
positon
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& ɾ
• Are these sounds phonemes or allophones in Spanish?
a) [ɾoxo] rojo ‘red’ red [foro] forro ‘lining’ lining
b) [ɾeal] real ‘royal’ [foɾo] foro ‘forum’
• What about in Farsi?
a) [rah] ‘road’ [ruz] ‘day’
[barg] ‘leaf’ leaf [farsi] ‘Persian’ Persian
b) [ziɾa] ‘beacuse’ [siɾini] ‘pastry’
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Tagalog g g
• A Are [h] h and d [Ɂ] allophones ll h or phonemes? h ?
kahon ‘box’ kaɁon ‘to fetch’
hari ‘king’ ɁariɁ ‘property’
humagos ‘to paint’ Ɂumagos ‘to flow’
•Are [d] [ ] and [r] [] allophones p or pphonemes?
datiN ‘to arrive’ daraɁiN ‘will complain’
ddami i ‘ ‘amount’ ’ marumi i ‘di ‘dirty’ ’
mandurukot ‘pickpocket’ mandukot ‘go p.pkting’
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German
final obstruent devoicing: neutralisation
a) [ʃif] ‘ship’ ship [ʃifǝ] ‘ships’ ships
[blat] ‘leaf [blɛtɐ] ‘leaves’
b) [li:t] ‘song’ [li:dɐ] ‘songs’ nom. pl.
[vaɪp] ‘woman’ [vaɪbǝ] ‘woman’ gen. sg
[kluk] ‘clever’ [klugǝ] ‘clever’ nom.pl.
[gans] ‘goose’ [gɛnzǝ] ‘geese’ nom. pl.
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sound changes are not random
• Tagalog/Farsi
– [h] alternates with [Ɂ]
– [r] alternates with [ɾ]
assimilation
processes p
change h in i manner
• English
– [n] alternates with [ŋ] change in place
• German
– [t] alternates with [d]
change in voicing
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Consonant and vowel distribution:
UPSID
University of California Los Angeles Phonological
Segment Inventory Database
A database of phoneme inventories for 317+ languages
A representative sample to address questions such as:
�� what h t sounds d are most t ffrequent t i in the th world's ld'
languages?
� � are there h any sounds d which hi h occur in i all ll languages?
l ?
� do patterns of sounds recur in different languages?
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2,549 vowel segments in
UPSID
Front
High 452
29
vowel typology
Central
425 100
Mid 425 100
32
8
Low 81
0
Back
55
10 31
417
392
1
Red figures indicate unrounded vowels
Black figures indicate rounded vowels
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448
13
36
front vowels are
usually ll unrounded d d
(94%)
back vowels are
usually rounded
(93 (93.5%) 5%)
low vowels are
usually ll central l
(75%)
central vowels are
usually low (69%)
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/ a i u / are found in
all languages

vowel typology yp gy
how big are vowel inventories?
• the smallest
vowel systems have i
three members (6%
of UPSID
languages)
e.g: g Aleut, , Haida, ,
u
Larok, Ojibwa,
Quechua,
a Tagalog, AArabic
languages with more than 9 basic vowel qualities (i.e.
excluding length, length diphthongs and vowels with secondary
articulations e.g. nasal vowels) are typologically uncommon
15

vowel typology
most languages have between 5 and 7 vowels:
i
u i u
e o
e o
a
ɛ ɔ
a
e.g: Spanish,
Basque Basque, Gbari, Gbari
Mixtec, Swahili
e.g: Burmese,
Italian, Katcha,
Portuguese
Indo-European languages have relatively many vowels
ee.g.: g : Swedish 17, 17 German 15, 15 English 11 (disregarding 16
length)

consonant typology
• all UPSID languages contain stops
voiceless i l stops are more common than h voiced i d stops
(92% vs. 67%)
most languages have 2 stops (English has 6)
• not all UPSID languages g g contain fricatives
(Australian languages, for example, rarely have fricatives)
/s/ is the most frequent fricative (83%), (83%) followed by /ʃ/
and /f/
most languages have 4 fricatives (English has 8)
Kabardian has the largest g fricative inventory y ( (22!) ) 17

consonant typology
• only 3% of UPSID languages contained no nasal
languages with 2-4 2 4 nasal segments are common (/n/ is
the most common nasal) whilst 6 is the most recorded
voiceless nasals occur in less than 4% of UPSID
languages (but every language which has voiceless
nasals also has voiced nasals)
• 96% of UPSID languages contain at least one liquid
/l/ segments t are more common than th /r/ / / segments t
83% of liquids in UPSID are voiced
Hawaiian has only 8 consonants (/p k ʔ h m n l w/)
!Kung (spoken in Namibia) has 96 consonants!
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Language g g acquisition q
What sounds are more basic?
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Language acquisition
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Wh What t hhave we llearnt? t?
� Anatomy of speech
passive and active articulators, nasal-oral tract
� Articulation of consonants
manner, place, voice
� Acoustics of consonants
sound waves, frequency, amplitude, spectrograms
� Articulation of vowels
height, front-back, lip-rounding
� Description of vowels
Cardinal vowel system
21

Wh What t hhave we llearnt? t?
� Secondary articulation of vowels
palatalisation, labialisation, nasalisation
� Acoustic description of vowels
vowel formants and spectrograms
� Transcription
IPA, connected speech transcription
� Airstreams mechanism
states of the glottis, creaky & breathy voice,
ejectives, implosives, clicks
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Wh What t hhave we llearnt? t?
� Relation between phonetics and phonology
allophones, assimilation, neutralisation
PHONETICS:
� We have learnt a lot about English phonetics
� But also about phonetics in general by looking at
other languages
SKILLS:
� We have learnt/improved transcription skills
� We have improved our analytical skills through
exercises and assignments
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