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Phonology - Shams
Class Phonology

Created Feb 29, 2020 1212 AM

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Introduction to Phonology
What is Phonology?

Phonology is the branch of linguistics concerned with the study of speech

sounds with reference to their distribution and patterning

What is the difference between Phonology and Phonetics?

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 Phonetics deals with human speech sound in general without refer to any
particular language. It is descriptive because it studies the articulation,
transmission and perception of speech sounds. Phonology on the other
hand deals with human speech sounds of a particular language, so it is
particular. Also, it is functional because it studies the rules which govern
the behaviour of speech sounds. It studies the sound system; how speech
sounds structure and function together.

Branches of Phonology

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 (a) Segmental phonology: it analyses speech into discrete segments, such
as phonemes;

(b) Supra-segmental phonology: it analyses those features which extend

over more than one segment. Such as intonation.

(c) Diachronic phonology : it studies patterns of sound change in the

history of language.

(d) Synchronic phonology : it studies sound patterns regardless of the

processes of historical change.

Branches of Phonetics

(a) ACOUSTIC PHONETICS the study of the physical

properties of speech sounds using laboratory instruments;
(b) AUDITORY PHONETICS the study of speech
perception;
(c) ARTICULATORY PHONETICS the study of speech
production.

Organs of Speech

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 Consonants

Vowels

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 The Phoneme

What's the difference between Phonemes, Phones, and Allophones?

(a) Phoneme : the smallest unit that distinguishes meaning between sounds
in a given language. (mental representation of sounds)

contrastive

distinctive

minimal

💡 We use broad transcription when describing phonemes. When we

are using broad transcription we use slashes (/ /).   puff /pʌf/

(b) Phone : the instances of phonemes in the actual utterances. (the

physical segments)

💡 Phones, the actual sound part that you can hear, are marked with
brackets ([])

(c) Allophone : the various physically distinct sounds which count as

executions of a given phoneme

💡 the /p/ phoneme has at least two variants : [p] and [pʰ]. This
means that [p] and [pʰ] are allophones of the phoneme /p/.

The prefix -allo comes from the Greek állos meaning “other,” so we can
think of allopones as “another way to pronounce a phoneme.”

Complimentary distribution

phonemes are said to be in complementary distribution if they never occur

in the same phonetic environment

Overlapping distribution

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 Contrastive distribution
Phonemes occur in the same phonetic environment where the distinction in
meaning is due to the particular phoneme (form minimal pairs)

Free variation

Phonemes are said to be in free variation if they do not affect the meaning
of the word (no minimal pairs)

How can we determine the phonemic status of two sounds?

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