LESSON 6

Phonological Component: Phonology

Introduction

One lesson gained from phonetics is that humans can produce a considerable
variety of speech sounds. Yet each language limits the number of speech sounds that it
uses. The sounds are organized into sound systems. Although the sound system of
each language differs, some interesting general patterns are found in languages all over
the world. Phonetics deals with the nature of speech sounds. Phonology is concerned
with factors that are rooted in language as a system: that is, with the intrinsic systems
used to organize speech sounds.

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the week, you are expected to:
 Explain relationship between phonology and phonetics.
 Define the words phonemes and allophones.
 Distinguish between phonetic and phonemics.
 Explain minimal pairs and sets.

Pre-Competency Checklist

Activity 11
Before we proceed, please answer these questions. Pls see VLP

1. Are the term phonetics and phonology similar?

2. Are the sound of /p/ in the words pit, spit and tip pronounced the same?
3. Are the words tank and thank allophones?
4. Are cat and pat minimal pairs?
5. Are cat, pat, hat, bat minimal sets?

If your answer is NO to items 1 & 2 and YES to items 3-5, then, you are correct. To
dig deeper in the field of phonology, let us read the Explore part and learn more.
Learning Resources

 Lecture-Discussion Text
Reference: A Concise Introduction to Linguistics 2nd Edition, pp.62-83
 Guided Web/Internet Browsing
 Activity Sheet (Uploaded/Offline Submission)

Explore

Discussion Text

PHONETICS vs. PHONOLOGY

Phonetics is the study of speech sounds, their physical properties,

the way they are received and decoded by the brain and the way they
are produced.
Phonology is the study of the sound system of a language. It can
also refer to the study of the sound system of all languages including
universal rules of sound.

PHONEMES & ALLOPHONES

Phoneme is a perceived unit of language that signals a difference
in meaning when contrasted to another phoneme. All the vowels and
consonant sounds in the English alphabet are phonemes. Different
phoneme used, for instance in the initial sounds would mean difference
in meaning. It is also the smallest unit of sound.
Ex: Phoneme p and phoneme b
pat – adding p to at becomes pat but when you substitute p to
b, it becomes bat resulting to difference in meaning.
Allophone is a variation of a phoneme. Variation means difference
in the production of the same phoneme.
Ex: 1. Allophones of the phoneme /p/ are [p] (unaspirated p) and
[ph] (aspirated p).
Note that:
When you aspirate, you produce the sound making a piece of
paper moves as you produce it.
2. Allophones of the phoneme /k/ are [k] (unaspirated p) and
[kh] (aspirated p).
 3. Allophones of the phoneme /t/ are [t] (unaspirated p) and
[th] (aspirated p) and [th] ( as in thank & three)
We, therefore say that /p/ and /b/ for example, are different
phonemes and that [p] and [ph] are allophones of /p/.
Notice that allophones are placed inside brackets, but phonemes
are placed between slashes.

PHONETICS & PHONEMICS

Etic and Emic are terms derived from phonetic and phonemic
and first used by linguists.
Etic refers to concepts and categories that have meaning to the
linguist and may have little or no meaning to the people being studied.
The concepts are general in nature. For example, the category bilabial
stop would not have meaning to most people, but it would have to the
linguist. In other words, bilabial stop has no intrinsic meaning to a
speaker. Instead, bilabial stop is an extrinsic category used by linguists
for analytical purposes.
Emic refers to distinctions that are meaningful (intrinsic) to the
members of a society, such as the distinction between the sounds /b/
and /m/ in the words bat and mat. The /b/ and /m/ change the
meaning of words if they are substituted for each other.
MINIMAL PAIRS & MINIMAL SETS
One way to discover regularities in language is by finding minimal
pairs and minimal sets.
A minimal pair is made up of two forms (such as words,
phrases, sentences) differ in meaning, contain the same number of
sound segments and display only one phonetic difference, which
occurs at the same place in the form.
If there are more than two forms being compared, then we are
referring to minimal sets.
Therefore, cat and pat is a minimal pair. These words have three
sound segments, differ only in the initial consonant sounds and mean
different things.
Meanwhile, cat, pat, rat, bat and fat and so on represent a
minimal set.
 FREE VARIATION
This refers to the different pronunciations of the same word. For
example, the word pretty may be pronounced /priti/ or /pridi/. So, the
two way of pronouncing the word pretty are the free variations of the
word pretty. Note, however that these free variations do not signal a
difference in meaning. In other words, even if the same word has so
many free variations, still, its meaning remains the same.
BROAD & NARROW TRANSCRIPTION
Narrow transcription, also called Phonetic transcription
refers to transcribing words into distinctive and nondistinctive
features/symbols.
Broad transcription, also called Phonemic transcription
refers to transcribing words into distinctive features/symbols ONLY. It
is restricted to sound distinctions.
Note that:
Distinctive features/symbols – only IPA symbols of sounds.
Nondistinctive features/symbols – include features of
aspiration, voicing, point and manner of articulation, and diacritical
marks (like the mark : for long vowels).

Therefore, in the case of the word pit, it would be written /p ɪt/

in broad transcription and written as /phɪt/ in narrow transcription. In
the narrow transcription the aspiration feature / h/ is added in the
transcription.

I hope you have understood the discussion, the first three questions in the
discussion board are the same questions found under the pre-competency assessment,
wherein your answers may be based commonly on prior knowledge. However, your
answers to the discussion board questions must be based from the insights that you
have learned from the discussion texts.
 Discussion Board
Pls see VLP
Activity 12

Questions for Discussion:

1. What is the difference in the meaning of the terms phonetics

and phonology?
2. What is a phoneme?
3. What are allophones?
4. What are minimal pairs? Sets?
5. What are free variation?
6. What is a narrow/phonetic transcription?
7. What is a broad/phonemic transcription?

We are done with the lesson. Did you understand the lectures? If you feel that
some parts of the lesson are not yet clear, please feel free to post your questions and
send it to my FB messenger account.

I guess you are now ready for the evaluation of your understanding… Goodluck!!!

Please take note of the outputs to be submitted and the due date of submission
as highlighted below:
Post-Competency Checklist

Pls see VLP

Activity 13

LITERATURE REVIEW

Research and look for data to comprehensively and

substantially answer and explain the question below:
Why Foreign Speakers Have Trouble with English
Make sure that you duly cite the link and the sources that
you have used as a reference.
The research paper should not be less than 200 words.