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Phonology:
Organization of Speech Sounds
Concepts
• Natural classes
• Phonemic analysis
• Contrastiveness, minimal pairs
• Allophones
• Phonological processes
• Alternation
Natural Classes
• To determine if a set of sounds forms a
natural class:
• the sounds must share one or more
features
• the sounds must be the complete set of
sounds sharing those features in the
given data
• constitutes all sounds of a language
that have that set of features
Natural Classes
• [m, n, ŋ] are the natural class of nasal
consonants if
• Contrastive distribution
• Predictable (complementary) distribution
• Free variation
Contrastive Distribution
• Sounds are contrastive if they distinguish
words with different meanings
• Minimal pairs
• two words which have different meanings
and differ in only one sound occurring in the
same environment
• e.g. [post] ‘post’ [tost] ‘toast’
• rain [n] vs. raid [d]; boot [b] vs. suit [s]
• Other examples?
Contrastive Distribution
• The minimal pair [post]/[tost] shows that
KEY POINT
Complementary Distribution: Example
• Two kinds of [p] in English
• aspirated: [phæt] pat
• unaspirated: [spæt] spat
• no minimal pairs are contrasted by [p] and [ph]
• The two kinds of [p] are predictable
variants
• word-initial /p/ is aspirated: [ph]
• /p/ after [s] is unaspirated: [p]
Complementary Distribution
• Two sounds are allophones if they occur in
mutually exclusive environments
• one sound occurs in one set of contexts
• the other sound occurs in a different set of
contexts
• Allophones are in complementary
distribution
• Allophones are predictable forms of
phonemes
Complementary Distribution
• surface allophones: [p], [ph]
• underlying phoneme: /p/
• predictable realizations:
• [ph] is the specific allophone (occurs in a limited
environment)
pit, pat, pass, repeat, pod
• [p] is the general allophone (occurs elsewhere)
spit, tip, tipped, erupt, tipper, tip off
Complementary Distribution
• Solution?
• Make the similar sounds identical
• Make the similar sounds more different
Tongue twisters in different
languages
She sells seashells by the seashore.
The shells she sells are surely seashells. Trentatré trentini entrarono a Trento
So if she sells shells on the seashore, tutti e trentatré trotterellando.
I'm sure she sells seashore shells. Thirty-three dwellers of Trent came into
Trent, all thirty-three trotting and
Fischers Fritz fischt frische toddling.
Fische.
The Fischer's son Fritz is
fishing for fresh fish. Un chasseur sachant chasser sait
chasser sans son chien.
Tres tristes tigres tragaban trigo en A hunter who knows how to hunt
tres tristes trastos en un trigal. knows how to hunt without his dog.
Three sad tigers were eating
wheat in three sad (lousy) dishes
in a wheat field.
Phonological processes
• Allomorphs in English
• 3 allomorphs of the past tense morpheme
▪ [-d], [-t], [-əd]