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Phone Meal Lo Phone Web
Phone Meal Lo Phone Web
Topics
The course material for this topic is divided into the following subtopics:1) Introduction 2) The Premises of Practical Phonemics
eg.
IF AND IF THEN
Phonemes
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. [mt] and [kt]). 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.). eg. the English stop consonants could be defined by the following set of minimally contrasting words:i)
Only // does not occur in this paradigm and at least one minimal pair must be found with each of the other 5 stops to prove conclusively that it is not a variant form of one of them. ii)
Again, only five stops belong to this paradigm. A single minimal pair contrasting // and /k/ is required now to fully demonstrate the set of English stop consonants. iii)
/n/ vs /kn/
Sometimes it is not possible to find a minimal pair which would support the contrastiveness of two phonemes and it is necessary to resort to examples of contrast in analogous environment (C.A.E.). C.A.E. is almost a minimal pair, however the pair of words differs by more than just the pair of sounds in question. Preferably, the other points of variation in the pair of words are as remote as possible (and certainly never adjacent and preferably not in the same syllable) from the environment of the pairs of sounds being tested. eg. // vs // in English are usually supported by examples of pairs such as "pressure"
A syntagmatic analysis of a speech sound, on the other hand, identifies a unit's identity within a language. In other words, it indicates all of the locations or contexts within the words of a particular language where the sound can be found.
For example, a syntagm of the phone [n] in English could be in the form:( #CnV..., #nV..., ...Vn#, ...VnC#, ...VnV..., etc.)
[sn], "snort" [snot] and "snooker" [snk]. In this case, the only
consonant (for English) that can occupy the initial "C" slot is the phoneme /s/, and so the generalised pattern could be rewritten as "#snV...".
Allophones
Allophones are the linguistically non-significant variants of each phoneme. In other words a phoneme may be realised by more than one speech sound and the selection of each variant is usually conditioned by the phonetic environment of the phoneme. Occasionally allophone selection is not conditioned but may vary form person to person and occasion to occasion (ie. free variation). A phoneme is a set of allophones or individual non-contrastive speech segments. Allophones are sounds, whilst a phoneme is a set of such sounds. Allophones are usually relatively similar sounds which are in mutually exclusive or complementary distribution (C.D.). The C.D. of two phonemes means that the two phonemes 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 C.D. then they can be assumed to be allophones of the same phoneme. eg. in many languages voiced and voiceless stops with the same place of articulation do not contrast linguistically but are rather two phonetic realisations of a single phoneme (ie.
/p/=[p,b],/t/=[t,d], and
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). eg. Some French speakers choose to use the alveolar trill
[r] when in
the village and the more prestigious uvular trill [] when in Paris. Such a choice is made for sociological reasons.
Phonetic similarity
Allophones must be phonetically similar to each other. In analysis, this means you can assume that highly dissimilar sounds are separate phonemes (even if they are in complementary distribution). For this reason no attempt is made to find minimal pairs which contrast vowels with consonants. Exactly what can be considered phonetically similar may vary somewhat from language family to language family and so the notion of phonetic similarity can seem to be quite unclear at times. Sounds can be phonetically similar from both articulatory and auditory points of view and for this reason one often finds a pair of sounds that vary greatly in their place of articulation but are sufficiently similar auditorily to be considered phonetically similar (eg. [h] and [] are voiceless fricatives which are distant in terms of glottal and palatal places of articulation, but which nevertheless are sufficiently similar auditorily to be allophones of a single phoneme in some languages such as Japanese). eg. In English,
ever occurs at the beginning of a syllable (head, heart, enhance, perhaps) whilst // only ever occurs at the end of a syllable (sing, singer, finger). They are, however, so dissimilar that no one regards them as allophones of the one phoneme. They vary in place and manner of articulation, as well as voicing. Further the places of articulation (velar vs glottal) are quite remote from each other and is oral whilst
/h/
// is nasal.
According to Hockett (1942), "...if a and b are members of one phoneme, they share one or more features". Phonetic similarity is therefore based on the notion of shared features. Such judgments of similarity will vary from language to language and there are no universal criteria of similarity.
The following pairs of sounds might be considered to be similar. i) two sounds differing only in voicing:
[c] etc.)
[,] is considered to be close enough to that of the alveolar stops [t,d] to be considered phonetically
articulation of the apicodental fricatives similar. v) Any two vowels differing in only one feature or articulated with adjacent tongue positions
[ ] [i ] [ ] [i y] [ ]
Although it is implied above that the notion of "phonetic similarity" is in some way less linguistically abstract (more phonetic?) than the notion of complementary distribution, it is, nevertheless, a quite abstract concept. The are no obvious and consistent acoustic, auditory or articulatory criteria for phonetic similarity. Further, since a notion of similarity implies a continuum the following question must be asked of two phones in complementary distribution. How similar must they be before they are to be considered members of the same phoneme? There are many examples of very similar phones which are perceived by native speakers to belong to separate phonemes. In English, for example, a word terminal voiceless stop may be either released and aspirated or unreleased. The homorganic (1) voiced stop may also be
released or unreleased. Often the unreleased voiced and voiceless stops may actually be identical in every way except that the preceding vowel is lengthened before the phonologically voiced stop. In terms of phonetic similarity, the two unreleased stops may actually be identical and yet be perceived by native speakers to belong to different phonemes. For example:-
/kp/[kp] ... [kp] /kb/[kb] ... [kb] ... [kp] (nb. " " means unreleased stop and " " means partially lengthened
vowel) Conversely, phones which are very dissimilar (at least from certain perspectives) may be felt by native speakers to belong to a single phoneme.
eg. Japanese
(2)
From an articulatory perspective, these phones seem very dissimilar (bilabial, palatal, and glottal) being produced at the extreme ends of the vocal tract. They are, however, relatively similar acoustically and auditorily (they are all relatively weak voiceless fricatives). This kind of phonetic similarity is listener orientated rather than speaker orientated.
eg. English
/t/
[t] initially [k,] does not occur although they are articulatorily closer
nb.
/k/
Phonemic Pattern
A pair of phones in complementary distribution may sometimes be classified into separate phonemes on the basis of phonemic pattern. In other words, is there a group of phonemes which exhibit a similar pattern of distribution (eg. clustering behaviour, morphology, etc.) to one of the phones being examined? In the case of the pair there are some similarities in patterning between fricatives, and between
[h], []
For example, there is a suffix which when placed before a word commencing with a stop has the effect of negating the original
Clearly, this pattern suggests that [] behaves in some instances with the same phonological pattern as the other nasals. It does in fact raise the question of
until the 1600's, but now there are quite a few minimal pairs which have since crept into the language. ("sin"/"sing", "run"/"rung").
Phonological Space
The greater the distance between a phoneme and its nearest neighbours, the greater the scope for allophonic variation. In other words, the larger the number of redundant features (ie. features which when changed will not create another phoneme) the greater the number of allophones which can actually occur.
eg. English
/p/
(nb. + indicates that a feature is present, - indicates that a feature is absent, +/- indicates that a feature is optional) Changing the feature [-voice] to [+voice] will create feature [bilabial] will create
/t,k/ (or potential allophones of them) and changing the feature [stop] will create /w,f,m/. The only feature with
complete freedom of movement is aspiration, and variation of this feature does indeed create the main pair of allophones of this phoneme in English.
eg. English
/r/
[] [] []
[] []
alveolar approximant voiceless alveolar approximant (after voiceless sounds) retroflex approximant (West England) alveolar flap (Scottish) eg. uvular fricative (Tyneside)
[n]
The possible varieties of /r/ seem to include variations of manner, place and voicing. The only restrictions are that its allophones may not overlap with those of
[p] vs [b] and [k] vs [] are separate phonemes then it is likely that [t] vs [d] are separate
eg. IF unequivocal evidence that phonemes 3. "Sounds tend to fluctuate" Free variation of allophones, eg. sometimes sometimes
/tas/ = [das]
4. "Characteristic sequences of sounds exert structural pressure on the phonemic interpretation of suspicious segments or suspicious sequences of segments" For example, in the interpretation of syllable structure:eg1.
[ia] [tsa]
= =
/ja/ / tsa/
All clear syllable initials are found at the start of the words and are always $CV... . All clear syllable finals are found at the end of words and are either ..VC$ or ..V$. There are no unambiguous examples of CC clusters at the start or end of a syllable therefore the most likely
[saplam] thus /sap$lam/. In the cases of [maba],[nasa] and [pasak] the most
analysis would be to place the syllable boundary in satisfactory syllabification would be to place the medial consonant in the second syllable (placing at the end of the first syllable would require an additional syllable initial $V... which is not unambiguously attested (ie. no words begin with a vowel)).
Some extra premises (Pike lists more but these are the most important) 1. "Every language has consonants and vowels" 2. "Certain kinds of segments may be vowels in one language but consonants in another." eg.
3. "The dichotomy between vowel and consonant is not strictly an articulatory one but is in part based on distributional characteristics." 4."A long vowel or consonant may in some languages constitute two phonemes." eg.
5. "A sequence of two segments may in some languages constitute a single phonetically complex phoneme." eg. [atsa] = /at$sa/ in L1 and /atsa/ in L2 (nb. $ = syllable boundary) It may be that L2 only allows open syllables (V and CV) and so the L1 form would be illegal. 6. "Some segments may be non-significant transition sounds" eg. in English /e/ may be [e], where the glottal stop is phonemically non-significant. 7. "If two segments are sub-members of a single phoneme, the NORM of the phoneme is that sub-member [allophone] which is least limited in its distribution and least modified by its environments." eg. /n/ [] /__ {k/} and environmental modification)
8. "In order to be considered sub-members of a single phoneme, two segments must be (a) phonetically similar and (b) mutually exclusive as to the environments in which they occur." 9. "When two phonemic conclusions each appear to be justifiable by the other premises, and each seems to account for all the available facts of all types, that conclusion is assumed to be correct (a) which is the least complex, and (b) which gives to suspicious data an analysis parallel with analogous non-suspicious data, and (c) which appears most plausible in terms of alleged [coarticulations in] specific environments.
Reference
The following books/papers were referred to but aren't required reading. Hockett, C.F. (1942) "A System of Descriptive Phonology", Language, 18(1), 3-21 Pike, K.L. (1947) Phonemics, U.Michigan Trubetzkoy, N.S. (1939) "Grundzge der Phonologie". Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 7, Reprinted 1958, Gttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. Translated into English by C.A.M.Baltaxe 1969 as Principles of Phonology, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Additional Reading
Students should also read the following:Clark, Yallop & Fletcher (2007) (Chapter 4)
Footnotes
1. Homorganic sounds are two or more sounds that have the same place of articulation but which differ in manner of articulation. 2. This pattern reflects Japanese in the mid 20th century. This pattern has undergone recent change.