Fonética y Fonología Inglesa II

Profesora: Zanek, Emilia

Material de estudio - Clase 04

So… What are Phonemes and Allophones?

¿Qué es un Fonema o Phoneme?

Un fonema es una unidad sonora que puede distinguir una palabra de otra en un
lenguaje dado. Es decir, es la articulación mínima de un
sonido vocálico o consonántico. Por ejemplo: casa vs masa (los sonidos /k/ y /m/
establecen una diferencia de significado), mouse vs house (los sonidos /m/ y /h/
también establecen una diferencia de significado).
The smallest unit of sound in a language which can distinguish two words. For
example:
a) in English, the words pan and ban differ only in their initial sound: pan begins
with /p/ and ban with /b/
b) ban and bin differ only in their vowels: /æ/ and /i/.

Therefore, /p/, /b/, /æ/, and /i/ are phonemes of English. The number of
phonemes varies from one language to another. English is often considered to have
44 phonemes: 24 consonants and 20 vowels.

¿Qué es un Alófono o Allophone?

Un alófono es la variación de un fonema en un contexto fonético particular. Los

alófonos no cambian el significado de una palabra porque solo son sonidos que se
ven alterados por los sonidos que los preceden o que los siguen. Tomemos las
siguientes palabras en inglés: hit, tip and little el sonido que estas tres palabras
tienen en común es /t/ pero en cada una de ellas el sonido /t/ se pronuncia diferente.
An Allophone is any of the different variants of a phoneme. The different allophones
of a phoneme are perceptibly different but similar to each other, do not change the
meaning of a word, and occur in different phonetic environments that can be stated
in terms of phonological rules.

WHAT IS CONNECTED SPEECH AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

When we speak, we don´t do it separately, but continuously. That is to say, there is

a significant difference between the pronunciation of words in isolation and the
pronunciation of full sentences in which speech is connected. In linguistics, this
sequence is called connected speech. In connected speech, there appear different
processes by which sounds are linked, entwined, deleted or even changed.
Fonética y Fonología Inglesa II
Profesora: Zanek, Emilia

Elision
Elision or phonetic loss is a change consisting of the elimination or loss of one or
more sounds within a word or chunk.
For example: Debt = /det/ Island = /ˈaɪlənd/
Happen /hapn/

Linking
There are different types of linking. The most common takes place when one word
finishes in a vowel and the following starts in a consonant.
For example: She gets‿up‿at‿eight.

Assimilation
Phonetic assimilation is a change by which the pronunciation of one sound is
adjusted considering the neighboring sounds, and thus producing a modification in
the sound itself.
For example: /d/ + /j/ = /dʒ/
Would you like some tea? = would + you /wʊd ju:/ = /wʊdʒu:/

Strong/weak forms
Function words (those which help to build a sentence: prepositions, conjunctions
and pronouns) can be stressed or not stressed depending on the place they have
within the sentence and the emphasis we want to give.
For example:
his= /hɪz/ /ɪz/
him= /hɪm/ /ɪm/
her= /hɜː/ /hə/, /ə/
you= /juː/ /jʊ/, /jə/

But let’s take a look at Assimilation first…

ASSIMILATION

It is a changing process by which a sound in context takes another feature by the

influence of one or more neighbouring sounds within a word or at word boundary.
This happens in rapid speech, the organs make adjustments or “co-articulate”
regarding voice, place, and manner of articulation in order to make less effort in the
Fonética y Fonología Inglesa II
Profesora: Zanek, Emilia

production of speech, i.e. ease of pronunciation. This process is known as

assimilation and occurs in every language. There are two types of assimilation,
allophonic and phonemic, depending on whether the process involves allophones or
phonemes.
Compare: “ten bikes” “ten mice”

The phoneme /n/ (voiced alveolar nasal) in the utterance ‘copia en papel’ may be
changed
by the phoneme /m/ in rapid speech (case of phonemic assimilation), e.g.:
/ kopia enm papel /

NOTE: The alveolar nasal /n/ is replaced by the bilabial nasal /m/ because of the
influence of the following bilabial voiceless plosive /p/.

ALLOPHONIC ASSIMILATION

Allophonic assimilation is the result of a process of influence of a neighbouring

sound. The change occurs in a given feature of the affected sound in the matter of
voice (devoicing, half voicing), in the matter of manner of articulation (nasalization,
lateralization) or in the matter of point of articulation (dentalization, labio-dental
articulation, post-alveolar articulation or retracted articulation). This contextual
process of influence occurs at the moment of speaking in the context of articulation
of the neighbouring sounds; so the new allophone becomes similar to that
influencing sound. That is why some authors call this process “similitude”. We
classify allophonic assimilation regarding: i) the direction, ii) the features, and iii) the
time or moment involved in the process of assimilation.
Compare:

The phoneme /t/ (voiceless velar plosive) in the utterance ‘at nine’ maybe changed
slightly under the influence of the preceding /n/ (voiced velar nasal)
/ət̼ naɪn/

PHONEMIC ASSIMILATION
It is a process by which the influence of a neighbouring or adjacent sound is so
strong that a new phoneme is produced with one of the features of the influencing
Fonética y Fonología Inglesa II
Profesora: Zanek, Emilia

sound. It is a phenomenon of co-articulation regarding voice, place, and manner of

articulation as a result of economy of effort in the articulation of speech. So
phonemes are involved in this process. We classify the cases of Phonemic
assimilation taking into account: i) the time or moment of the production, ii) the
direction of the influence and iii) the features involved in the process of assimilation.