CHAPTER III

DEFINITION OF TERMS

3.1 Phonetic and Phonology

Robbins (1967) “Phonetics and phonology are both concerned with the same

subject matter of aspect of language, speech sounds, as the audible result of

articulation , but they are concerned with them from different point of views. Phonetic

is general (i.e. concerned with speech sounds as such without reference to their

function in a particular language) descriptive and classificatory. Phonology is

particular (having a particular language or languages in view) and functional

(concerned with working or functioning of speech in a language or languages).

Phonology has in fact been called functional phonetics.

Matthew (1974) “Phonology is concerned with the functioning of speech

units within the system of individual languages, whereas that of phonetics is

concerned with the nature and typology of speech sounds in themselves”.

Lass (1984) Phonology is “concerned with the function, behavior and

organization of sounds as linguistic items, that is, the sounds that are found in a

particular language”. Phonetics is “the study of sound themselves in the physical

world”, the physical world being comprised of fields like physiology, anatomy,

neurology and psychology of human beings.

Clark and Yallop (1990) Phonetics is the study of the different “facets of

speech”, including speech organs, articulation, properties of sound waves (i.e.

perception and transmission of speech sounds), while phonology is defined as

concerned with the “systems and patterns of sounds” that are present in a specific

language.

52
3.1.2 Vowels and Consonants

Definitions of Vowels

Catford (2001), Vowels are specified in terms of three variables or three

parameters: vertical tongue position (high-low), horizontal tongue-position (front-

back), and lip-position (rounded-unrounded).

Using the parameters of Catford’s , the vowel phoneme inventory in War

dialects of Khasi demonstrates three degrees of vertical tongue position, three degrees

of horizontal tongue positions and two degrees of lip position.

Jensen (2004:12) “Vowels are described using somewhat different

terminology from consonants since there is no obstruction in their production. The

parameters for vowels are the height of the tongue, the rounding of the lips and tongue

root position”.

Crystal (2003) defines vowels as sounds which are articulated without a

complete closure in the mouth and with a degree of narrowing which would produce

audible friction; the air escapes evenly through the center of the tongue. If the air

escapes evenly through the mouth it’s an oral vowel; if the air is simultaneously

released through the nose, it is a nasal vowel. For the description of vowel some

criteria has to be taken into consideration. They are the body of the tongue, the height

of the tongue and the lip positions. These are the factors that involves in the

production of vowel.

There are three parameters for describing vowel. These are

1. Body of the tongue

2. Height of the tongue

3. Position of the lips

53
1. Body of the tongue: Based on this parameter, the tongue is divided into three

parts. They are as follows:

Front vowels: It refers to the sounds during the production of which the front

of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate.

Central vowels: It refers to the sounds during the production of which the

central part of the tongue is raised towards the area between the hard palate and soft

palate.

Back vowels: It refers to the sounds during the production of which the back

part of the tongue is raised towards the soft palate.

2. Height of the tongue: Based on this parameter, the tongue is divided into:

Close /high vowel: It refers to a sound produced when the tongue is

in its highest position.

Half-close/ mid high vowel: It refers to a sound produced when the area of

articulation is immediately below close or high.

Half-open/ mid-low vowel: It refers to a sound produced when the area of

articulation is immediately above open or low.

Open/ low vowel: It refers to a sound produced when the tongue is

in its lowest positions.

3. Lips Position: Based on this parameter, the position of the lips is divided into the

following:

Rounded:It refers to those sounds produced with a narrowing of the lips.

Rounded vowels can also be explained in terms of the visual appearance of the

lips when they assume a rounded shape.

54
 Unrounded/spread: It refers to those sounds produced without any

narrowing of the lips. Unrounded vowels can also be explained in terms of the

lips when they are held close together and stretched sideways (as in a slightly

opened smile).

Diphthongs

A diphthong may be referred to as a vowel which has the quality of two

sounds or two vowels. In other words, it is when two vowels are being pronounced at

the same time as a single vowel

A diphthong consist of two half vowels, the first of which undergoes a rapid

transition into the other. One of the members of the vowel sequence will always

dominate over the other. The vowel glide must be performed with a single impulse of

breath, if there is more than one impulse of breath, the ear perceives two syllables.

Definitions of Consonants

Clark and Yallop (1990) describes consonants as sounds which show greater

constriction of the vocal tract than vocalic sounds and have less prominence.

Spencer (1996) attempts to describe a consonant in terms of three aspects or

parameters of a sound: its voicing, its place of articulation and its manner of

articulation. The description of consonantal sounds as provided by Spencer (1996) is

discussed in the following paragraph.

Jensen (2004:4) “Consonants are divided into groups along three basic

dimensions. First is the manner of articulation, which refers to how the sounds are

produced. Second is the place of articulation, the position in the mouth of the greatest

obstruction. Third is the state of the glottis in the production of the sound”.

55
 Crystal (2003) defines consonants as those sounds which are produced by a

closure or narrowing in the vocal tract so that the air flow is either completely blocked

or so restricted that the audible friction is produced.

For the description of consonants sounds there are three parameters,

below are the parameters:

1. Place of articulation

2. Manner of articulation

3. Phonation (Voicing)

1. Place of articulation: The different places of articulation in the production of

consonantal sounds are as follows:

Bilabials: The sounds which are produced by using the lips, where the upper lip

is the passive articulator and the lower lip is the active articulator. For

example [p[, [b] [m] as in the English words pat, bat and mat.

Labio-Dentals:The sounds which are produced by the lower lip and the upper teeth,

where the lower lip is the active articulator and the upper teeth are the

passive articulator. They are represented by the sound [f] and [v] as in

words like fat and vat.

Dentals: These sounds are produced with the tip of the tongue against the upper

teeth. The example for this sound is [θ]. Words like thin and bath are

both examples of this sound.

Alveolars: The sounds which are produced when the blade of the tongue touches

the alveolar ridge. Sounds like [t], [d], [n] as in the words top, dip, nut

are examples of this sound.

56
Palatals: This sound is produced when the front of the tongue touches the hard

palate. The examples from English are [ʃ] and [tʃ] as in the words

shoot and church.

Velars: This sound is produced with the back of the tongue touches the soft

palate or the velum. This sound is represented by a voiceless [k] and a

voiced [g] sound as in the English words kill and gold.

Glottals: The sounds that are produced in the larynx when the vocal cords are

held tightly. The symbol for this sound is [ʔ].

2. Manner of articulation

Stops: These sounds are produced when there is complete closure in the vocal

tract and the air is released suddenly. Sounds like [p], [b], [t], [k] etc, are all produced

by brief stopping of the airstream. The initials of the words like ten, bed and pit are all

examples of stops sounds.

Fricatives: The sounds that are produced when the articulators come very

close together such that the air is released gradually but causes audible friction.

English words like [f], [s] etc, as in the words far and sat are examples of fricatives.

Affricates: The sounds that are produced when the air pressure behind a

complete closure in the vocal tract is suddenly released but the separation is

sufficiently slow (gradual release) to produce audible friction. In other words, a stop

is first made and this contact is slackened so that there is fricative at the same point of

articulation. Sounds like [č] and [š] are fricatives in English and occur at the beginning

of the words cheap and jeep.

57
 Nasals: When the velum is lowered such that the air is released through

the nasal cavity, the sounds produced are nasal sounds. Nasals sounds are like [m], [n]

and [ŋ] as in the words knitting, name and morning begin and end with nasals.

Laterals: The sounds that are produced when the air escapes through the

sides of the tongue as it make contact with the alveolar ridge are called lateral sounds.

An English example is [l] as in led.

Tap/Flap: The sounds that are produced when there is single tapping by

one organ with the other.

Trill/Roll: The sounds that are produced when there is rapid tapping of

one organ against the other. The sound [r] as in the word red, road etc are examples

of trill sounds.

Glides: the sounds which are produced as transition sound. These

sounds are also called semi-vowels. The constriction of the sounds is more than that

of the consonant but less than a vowel. The sounds [w] and [y] as in the words we,

wet, you, yes etc are called glides sounds.

3. Phonation or Voicing:

Voiceless sounds: The sounds that are produced when the vocal cords are

held wide apart such that they do not vibrate and the air from the lungs passes freely.

Voiced sounds: Sounds that are produced when the vocal cords are held

loosely that the air from the lungs causes them to vibrate are called voiced sounds.

Glottal sounds: The sounds that are produced when the vocal cords are

held tightly and the air cannot escape but when they are opened, the air passes

suddenly and the sound is that of a mild cough.

58
Concepts in Phonology

Phone: Any speech sound is commonly defined as a phone.

Crystal (2003) defines phone as a smallest perceptible discrete segments of

sounds in a stream of speech (phonic continuum or phonic substance).

Phoneme: The following are the various definitions of phonemes as defined by

different phoneticians and phonologists:

Trubetzkoy (1968) “A phoneme is a phonological unit which cannot be

broken down into any smaller phonological units”.

Trubetzkoy (1939) Phonemes are the linguistically contrastive or significant

sounds (or sets of sounds) of a language. Such a contrast is usually demonstrated by

the existence of minimal pairs or contrast in identical environment (C.I.E.). Minimal

pairs are pairs of words which vary only by the identity of the segment (another word

for a single speech sound) at a single location in the word (eg.[mæt] and [kæt]). If two

segments contrast in identical environment then they must belong to different

phonemes. A paradigm of minimal phonological contrasts is a set of words differing

only by one speech sound. In most languages it is rare to find a paradigm that

contrasts a complete class of phonemes (eg. all vowels, all consonants, all stops etc).

For example, the English stop consonants could be defined by the following set of

minimally contrasting words:-

i) /p/ vs /b/

/pin/ /bin/

ii) /t/ vs /d/

/tip/ /dip/

iii) /k/ vs /g/

/kill/ /gill/

59
Allophones:

In phonology, allophones refer to the linguistically non-significant variants of

each phoneme. In other words a phoneme may be realized by more than one speech

sound and the selection of each variant is usually conditioned by the phonetic

environment of the phoneme. Similarly, Clark and Yallop (1990) describe allophones

as conditioned variants of a phoneme, generated by phonological conditioning.

Allophones are usually relatively similar sounds which are in mutually

exclusive or complementary distribution. The complementary distribution of two

phones means that the two phones can never be found in the same environment (ie.

the same environment in the senses of position in the word and the identity of

adjacent phonemes). If two sounds are phonetically similar and they are in

complementary distribution, then they can be assumed to be allophones of the same

phoneme. For example, in many languages voiced and voiceless stops with the same

place of articulation do not contrast linguistically but are rather two phonetic

realizations of a single phoneme (ie. /p/=[p,b],/t/=[t,d], and /k/=[k,g]). In other words,

voicing is not contrastive (at least for stops) and the selection of the appropriate

allophone is in some contexts fully conditioned by phonetic context (eg. word

medially and depending upon the voicing of adjacent consonants), and is in some

contexts either partially conditioned or even completely unconditioned (eg. word

initially, where in some dialects of a language the voiceless allophone is preferred, in

others the voiced allophone is preferred, and in others the choice of allophone is a

matter of individual choice).

Laver (1994) defines allophones as speech sounds regularly occurring in a

number of different structures and contexts may be classified as members of a given

phoneme if their occurrences are in complementary distribution, and if they display

60
sufficient phonetic similarity to make it plausible to class them together as members

of a common set.

The members of a given phoneme or allophones can be transcribed by using

phonetic symbols enclosed in square brackets. It is important to note that the concept

of an allophone is itself an abstract concept, and is not to be equated directly with that

of a phone, which is a single differentiable phonetic event. The phonetic manifestation

of a given allophone may vary slightly, on a random basis. On each occasion that a

phonetic difference is perceptible, a different phone is involved.

Grouping sound into phonemes:

In the phonemic approach to the phonology, linguists commonly referred to

the following principles in deciding whether these sounds belong to the same

phoneme. These are:

(1) Contrastive Distribution: Two sounds can substitute one another in the same

environment, and bring about a change in the meaning. Sounds occurring in

contrastive distribution are said to be separate phonemes.

(2) Complementary distribution: Two sounds cannot occur in the same

environment. If one sound occurs, the other sound does not occur. They are

said to be mutually exclusive. Sounds occurring in complementary distribution

are said to be allophones.

(3) Free Variation: Two sounds can substitute one another in the same

environment, and the substitution does not bring about a change in meaning.

Sounds occurring in complementary distribution are said to be allophones.

(4) Pattern Congruity: The pattern or the organization of sounds in a language

determines whether sounds are phonemes or not.

61
(5) Phonetic Similarity: Sounds which share phonetic similarities can be

allophones.

(6) Economy Principle: The lesser the number of phonemes, the better.

In the analysis of the phonemic inventory of Lamin and Shala, the

above principles are taken into consideration.

62