Phonology

Bouchaib Benzehaf
Applied language and culture studies lab
Chouaib Doukkali University
 Objectives
• Phoneme
• Phone and allophone
• Minimal pairs and minimal sets
• Substitution frame
• Complementary distribution, overlapping distribution and free distribution
• Distinctive features
• Natural classes
• Phonotactics
• The syllable
• Phonological processes
• Phonological rules
 What is phonology
 Phonology is the study of the sound system of a language; that is, what
sounds are in a language and what the rules are for combining those
sounds into larger units.
 Phonology can also refer to the study of the sound systems of all
languages, including universal rules of sound.
 Phonemes
 A phoneme is a perceived unit of language that signals a difference in
meaning when contrasted to another phoneme. This contrastive
property is the basic operational test for determining the phonemes
that exist in a language.
 If we substitute one sound for another in a word and there is a change
of meaning, then the two sounds represent different phonemes.
 In English, in most environments, /p/ and /b/ when substituted for each
other change the meaning of a word. We therefore say that /p/ and /b/
are different phonemes.
 Phonemes: Feature analysis
 We use features analysis to distinguish each phoneme from the next. If
the feature is present, we mark it with a plus sign (+) and if it’s not
present, we use a minus sign (−). Thus /p/ can be characterized as
[−voice, +bilabial, +stop] and /k/ as [−voice, +velar, +stop).
 Sounds which share some features (e.g. /p/ and /k/ are both voiceless
stops), they are sometimes described as members of a natural class of
sounds. The prediction would be that sounds which have features in
common would behave phonologically in some similar ways.
 This feature-analysis could help us to produce a phonological account
of permissible sound sequences in the language; for instance, words
beginning with /pl-/ and /kl-/ are common in English, but words
beginning with /vl-/ are not.
 Phones and allophones
 Phones refer to the different versions of one phoneme. When we have
a set of phones, all of which are versions of one phoneme, we add the
prefix “allo-” (= one of a closely related set) and refer to them as
allophones of that phoneme.
o [t] in “star”, [tʰ] in “tar”, [D] in “writer” and [t̪ ] in “eighth” are
allophones of the phoneme /t/.
o [p] and [ph] are allophones of the phoneme /p/.
 The crucial distinction between phonemes and allophones is that
substituting one phoneme for another will result in a word with a
different meaning, but substituting allophones only results in a
different pronunciation of the same word.
 Minimal pairs and sets
 Phonemic distinctions in a language can be tested via pairs and sets of
words. When two words such as pat and bat are identical in form
except for a contrast in one phoneme, occurring in the same position,
the two words are described as a minimal pair. Other examples of
English minimal pairs are fan–van, bet–bat, site–side.
 When a group of words can be differentiated, each one from the
others, by changing one phoneme (always in the same position in the
word), then we have a minimal set.
 One minimal set based on the vowel phonemes of English could
include “feat, fit, fat, fate, fought, foot”. Another minimal set based on
consonant phonemes could have “big, pig, rig, fig, dig, wig”.
Complementary distribution vs free variation
 Complementary distribution means that each of a series of sounds
occurs in different phonetic contexts and these sounds never contrast
with each other. Phones that are in complementary distribution with
each other are allophones of the same phoneme.

 An example of sounds in complementary distribution are [p] and [ph].

There are no minimal pairs for these sounds. The speaker will choose
[ph] only for words with the p sound in the initial position followed by
a stressed vowel, and will choose the [p] for most other contexts.
Complementary distribution vs free variation
 On the other hand, /p/ and /k/, as well as the other initial consonants
that occur before /æt/ in the minimal set “pat, cat” are all different
phonemes. The /p/ and /k/ are not in complementary distribution; but
show an overlapping distribution. Phones are characterized by an
overlapping distribution if they can occur in all or most of the same
phonetic environments.

 A form that has a “slot” that can be filled in with different items, such
as /_æt/, is called a substitution frame.
 Free Variation
 In addition to [p] and [ph], there is a third variation of /p/ which is [p ̚ ]
used in some dialects of English. [p ̚ ] is an unreleased sound. In
English, the [p ̚ ], or the [p] can occur in a word’s final position;
however, the difference in pronunciation does not change the meaning
of the word. Minimal pairs do not occur between [p ] and [p ̚ ]. The
sounds are not in complementary distribution, but in free variation.

 Free variation is a condition in which phonetically different sounds may

occur in the same environment without changing meaning. [p ̚ ] is an
allophone of /p/. But unlike the complementary relationship of [ph] and
[p], [p ̚ ] may be in overlapping distribution with [p]. This also applies to
/t/ and /k/.
 Free variation
 Another example of this type of free variation is that the word pretty
might be pronounced as [prɪti] or as [prɪDi]; also, /pəteto/-/pətato/
and /təmeto/-/təmato/.
 In any case of free variation, the different pronunciations do not signal
a difference in meaning. The pronunciation chosen is optional, not
obligatory as with complementary distribution.
 Exercise: phonemes and contrast
1. Are the phonetically different segments [m] and [n] phonemically
contrastive in English?
2. Are the phonetically different segments [p] and [pʰ] phonemically
contrastive in English?
3. Do the words sight and site form a minimal pair in English?
4. In English, voiceless stops are aspirated at the beginning of a word
and the beginning of a stressed syllable, but never in the middle of a
word nor at the end of a word. Which term best describes this pattern?
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise

Some people pronounce difficult as /dɪfɪkəlt/, while others say /dɪfəkəlt/.

/ɪ/ and /ə/are distinctive elsewhere. (They can be seen to form minimal
pairs.)
What is the phenomenon illustrated by the multiple pronunciations of
difficult?
Give other examples of this phonological phenomenon.
 Distinctive features
 A distinctive feature can be thought of as a basic building block of the
phoneme or more specifically any trait that distinguishes one phoneme from
another.
 For instance, in English, /p/ can be phonemically distinguished from /b/ by
the single feature called voicing: /b/ is voiced and /p/ is not.
 However, /p/ can also be thought of as resulting from a whole series of traits,
not just the fact that it is voiceless. /p/ is a consonant as opposed to a vowel;
it is oral, not nasal; it is a stop, not a fricative; and so on. Therefore, /p/ is the
sum of all its features.
 Another distinctive feature is [sonorant] (frictionless continuants, including
vowels, approximants, and nasals).
 Some distinctive features are based on the manner of articulation; for
instance, [nasal], [lateral], and [continuant].
 Distinctive features
 Some distinctive features are based on place of articulation like
bilabial, ....
 Other place-of-articulation features are based on what the lips are doing.
The feature called [round] refers to when the lips are made to protrude.
 Other sounds are dependent on what part of the tongue is involved.
Sounds in which the tongue tip or blade is raised in the front part of the
mouth are called [coronal]. If the body of the tongue is above the central
location in the mouth, they are called [high]. Sounds produced with the
tongue body lower than the central position in the mouth are called
[low]. Speech sounds produced with the tongue body behind the hard
palate are called [back] sounds.
 Distinctive features
 English sibilants are also called stridents. However, the feature [strident]
also includes some English non-sibilants such as (/f/ and /v/). The feature
[strident] refers to sounds (only fricatives and affricates) that are
produced with constriction that forces the air stream to hit two surfaces,
which results in high intensity noise.
 The feature matrix
The distinctive features mentioned in the preceding section are voice,
consonantal, syllabic, sonorant, nasal, lateral, continuant, tense,
reduced, round, anterior, high, low, back, and strident. Voiced sounds
contrast with voiceless sounds, nasal sounds with non-nasal (oral)
sounds, and so on. Linguists might indicate each distinctive feature with
a + or a −. This is a binary system of classification. The feature is either
present or absent. If a sound is voiced, it will be denoted as [+voice]. A
voiceless sound is shown as [−voice].
Feature Matrix for Some English Phonemes: Vowels
Feature Matrix for Some English Phonemes: Consonants
 Natural classes
A natural class is a subset of the total set of phonemes that shares a
small number of phonetic (distinctive) features, which distinguishes the
class from other natural classes. Natural classes play a significant role in
phonological regularities (rules). For instance, [p, t, k, b, d, g] all share
the following traits which make them form a natural class called oral
stops:
 Natural classes
One significant characteristic of a natural class is that the members of
the class will appear in about the same context (phonetic surrounding)
within words. Each member of a class will behave in approximately the
same manner throughout the language. Because of these regularities,
rules need not be written for each sound. Instead, we can postulate the
rules for the entire natural class. What applies to one oral stop, for
instance, often applies to all oral stops.
Exercises
Practice on features & natural classes
• English has, among others, the consonants {d p t g k ð}. Write which
of the consonants belong to the natural class of [-voi, -cont].

• Key: The natural class of [-voi, -cont] includes {p t k}.

Exercise 3
Exercise 3: Key
Exercises
Exercises
 Phonotactics
 Phonotactics is an area of phonology that studies the combinations of
phonemes that are allowed (or conversely restricted) in the formation of
syllables, consonant clusters, and sequences of vowels.
 Our phonological knowledge of the pattern of sounds in English words
would allow us to treat “lig” or “vig” as acceptable forms if, at some
future time, they came into use. [fsɪɡ] or [rnɪɡ] are unlikely ever to exist
as they have been formed without obeying some constraints on the
sequence or position of English phonemes (same thing with mbgo).
 These constraints operate on unit that is larger than the single segment or
phoneme (the syllable).
 The syllable
A syllable must contain a vowel or vowel-like sound, including
diphthongs. The most common type of syllable in language also has a
consonant (C) before the vowel (V) and is typically represented as CV.
Technically, the basic elements of the syllable are the onset (one or more
consonants) followed by the rhyme. The rhyme (sometimes written as
“rime”) consists of a vowel, which is treated as the nucleus, plus any
following consonant(s), described as the coda.
The syllable
 The syllable
Syllables like “me, to or no” have an onset and a nucleus, but no coda.
They are known as open syllables. When a coda is present, as in the
syllables “up, cup, at or hat”, they are called closed syllables. The basic
structure of the kind of syllable found in English words: green (CCVC),
eggs (VCC), and (VCC), ham (CVC), I (V), do (CV), not (CVC), like
(CVC), them (CVC), Sam (CVC), I (V), am (VC).
 Consonant clusters
 Both the onset and the coda can consist of more than one consonant, (a consonant
cluster). The combination /st/ is a consonant cluster (CC) used as onset in the
word “stop”, and as coda in the word “post”.
 There are many CC onset combinations permitted in English phonotactics, as in
black, bread, trick, twin, flat and throw. Note that liquids (/l/, /r/) and a glide (/w/)
are being used in second position.
 English can actually have larger onset clusters, as in the words stress and splat,
consisting of three initial consonants (CCC).
 The phonotactics of these larger onset consonant clusters is not too difficult to
describe. The first consonant must always be /s/, followed by one of the voiceless
stops (/p/, /t/, /k/) and a liquid or glide (/l/, /r/, /w/) (example: splash, spring,
strong, scream and square).
Phonological Processes (Coarticulation effects)
 It is also noticeable in English that large consonant clusters may be reduced
in casual conversational speech. This is just one example of a process that is
usually discussed in terms of coarticulation effects.

 Speech sounds in syllables and words are not always pronounced carefully
and deliberately, as in slow motion.

 Mostly our talk is fast and spontaneous, and it requires our articulators to
move from one sound to the next without stopping. The process of making
one sound almost at the same time as the next sound is called coarticulation.
 Assimilation
 When two sound segments occur in sequence and some aspect of one segment is
taken or “copied” by the other, the process is known as assimilation. In “I have to
go”, the voiced /v/ becomes voiceless /f/ under the influence of the voiceless /t/
that comes next. So, we typically say [hæftə].

 Vowels are also subject to assimilation. Any vowel becomes nasal whenever it
immediately precedes a nasal. So [ɪ] and [æ] which, in isolation, are pronounced
without any nasal quality at all become nasalised in words like “pin and pan” in
everyday speech in anticipation of forming the final nasal consonant and
consequently the vowel sounds in these words will be, in more precise transcription,
[ı˜] and [æ˜]:
 Coalescence
It is a phonological process by which two neighbouring sounds merge
into a single sound that has properties of each of the two original
sounds. Often, the resulting sound has the place of articulation of one of
the source sounds and the manner of articulation of the other:
 Elision
 Ellision is the process of not pronouncing a sound segment that might
be present in the deliberately careful pronunciation of a word in
isolation; e.g. [ən] for “and” in “you and me”, [himəsbi] for the phrase
he must be, …
 Vowels also disappear as in [kæmrə] for camera, [prɪznər] for prisoner
and [spoʊz] for suppose.
 Epenthesis
 Epenthesis means the insertion (addition) of one or more sounds into
a word, especially to the interior of a word.
 Epenthesis most often occurs between two vowels or two consonants;
but it can also occur between a vowel and a consonant, or at the end of
words.
 In certain varieties of English, a vowel breaks up the cluster
(epenthesis): film becomes [filəm] in Ireland, Scotland, and South
Africa.
 Normal speech
 These processes of assimilation, elision, coalescence and epenthesis
occur in everyone’s normal speech and should not be regarded as some
type of sloppiness or laziness in speaking.
 In fact, consistently avoiding the regular patterns of assimilation and
elision used in a language would result in extremely artificial-
sounding talk.
 The point of investigating these phonological processes is not to arrive
at a set of rules about how a language should be pronounced, but to try
to come to an understanding of the regularities and patterns which
underlie the actual use of sounds in language.
Study questions
 Phonological rules
 Phonological rules describe how phonemes are realized as their
allophones in the given environment.
 Environment in phonolgy typically refers to the neighbouring
phonemes.
Formal notation
Neutralisation
Epenthesis
Deletion
Metathesis
 Exercises on phonological rules
1. Write the phonological rule that accurately represents the process, “vowels
become nasalized before a nasal consonant”?
2. Which sentence accurately describes the process depicted in this phonological
rule?

3. Which sentence accurately describes the process depicted in this phonological

rule:
Key
 Exercise
Below are adapted and simplified versions of rules occurring in the
language Mongo (spoken in Congo). Translate the rules by means of
features. You may assume that the language has just 5 vowels, i.e. [i e a
o u] and two glides [w, j]. Recall that the typical equivalent glide for /u,
o/ is [w].
i. Vowel Truncation: The vowel /a/ deletes in front of another vowel
ii. Glide Formation: The vowel /o/ becomes a glide [w] before a vowel
iii. Affrication: The consonants /t/ and /d/ affricate to [tʃ] and [dʒ] before
glides.
Exercise: Key
 Exercise
Korean: Consider the distribution of [r] and [l] in Korean in the following words.
1. Are they allophones of one or two phonemes?
2. Do they occur in any minimal pairs?
3. Are they in complementary distribution?
4. In which environment does each occur?
Study the following data from Yoruba (West Africa):
a. State the distribution of the sounds undergoing alternation.
b. Are the sounds distinct phonemes or allophones of the same phoneme? If they are
allophones of the same phoneme, give evidence for this.
c. Is the occurrence of one or all the sounds involved in the alternation predictable or not
d. Formulate the rule accounting for the distribution of the sounds.
e. Name the phonological process involved in the sound alternation
a. State the distribution of the sounds undergoing alternation.
• ……[m] before b and f
• [n] before t and s
• [ŋ] before k and w
b. Are the sounds distinct phonemes or allophones of the same phoneme? If they are
allophones of the same phoneme, give evidence for this.
• ……The sounds [m, n, ŋ] are allophones of the same phoneme.
• Evidence : they are all nasal sounds which take the feature place of the following
consonants
c. Is the occurrence of one or all the sounds involved in the alternation predictable or not?
The occurrence of the three sound is predictable in the sense that the nature of the sound
involved in alternation depends on the place feature of the following sound
d. Formulate the rule accounting for the distribution of the sounds.
Thank you