Chapter 4

Defining distributions:

Consonant allophones

4.1 Phonemes revisited

That is to say if we are dealing with two allophones of the shame phoneme, the two must occur in
non – overlapping sets of enviroments. On other hand, clear, elveolar [l] and dark, velar [ƚ] occur in
predictably different and enviroments :in Standard Southern British English, the clear more front one
appears word – initially or between vowels, as in lip, lot, mallow, and the dark, more back one word
– finally or before a consonant, as in pill, tall, halt.

In doing so, we will also discover that certain phonemes form groups, in that they have similar
allpohones in similar environments. We must try identify what members of such groups have in
common, and what makes certain phonemes work together.

4.2 Making Generalisations

In one case, we found that /k/ has two variant pronuciations, namely velar [k] in cupboard and
palatal [c] in kitchen. However, providing a list of words where the relevant allophones appears is
only our statring point. Phonologists are intrested in generalisations about the language they are
working on, and indeed in generalisations about languange in general ; and generalisations are not
best expressed simply as lists, as these do not reveal the factors witch the forms in the lists have in
common. As an example, recall [c] and [k] allophones of /k/. English speakers will have palatal and
velar pronunciations distributed as in (1) :

Kitchen [cɪʃən] keys [ci˸z]

Cupboard [kɅbəd] car [kɑ:]

As the previous chapters showed , the vocal organs undergo very comples, coordinated movements
during speech, and anything that simplifies the gymnastics involved while not jeopardising
comprehension is understandably very welcome to speakers.

We can test this hypothesis by finding lots of other examples where /p/, /t/ and /k/ appear word –
initially, and checking whether there is aspiration. After a while when we kept finding data that
agreewith our observation and not finding data that disagree, we can feel more confident that our
generalisation is the right one, and regard our hypothesis as confirmed.
4.3 Making statements more precise

Having established that certain sounds are allophones of the same phoneme, and that they are in
complementary distribution we might write a statement like (2) to say what happens to the
phoneme or phonemes in question, and where.

a. /k/ and /g/ become [c] and [Ɉ] when they are followed by a front vowels.
b. /p/, /t/ and /k/ become[ 𝑝ℎ ], [ 𝑡 ℎ ] and [𝑘 ℎ ] at the very beginning of a word.

These statements express the main generalisation in each case. Similarly, we can not see what /k/
and /g/ have in common, or indeed what the resulting allophones have in common, simply by
looking at the phonemes symbols.

Instead of voiced and voiceless, or oral and nasal, we can then write [+voice] and [-voice], and [-
nasal] and [+nasal]. This distinctive features allow each segment to be regarded as a simultaneously
articulated set, or matrix, of binary features, as shown in (4).