Phonology.docx

1、Phonology Phonology Study Focus Phonology Phoneme Allophone Minimal pairs Complementary distribution Suprasegmental features 1. What is phonology? Phonology aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication. Wha

2、t is a sound pattern? (1) the set of sounds that occur in a given language； (2) the permissible arrangements of these sounds in words； (3) the processes of adding, deleting, or changing sounds. The English language English has many words with the pattern consonant-vowel-consonant. Many words contain

3、 consonant clusters. English consonant clusters are quite limited in the sounds they may contain. No more than three consonants may occur at the beginning of a word. When three initial consonants do occur, the first must be /s/. Every word must contain at least one vowel-like segment, except interje

4、ctions like sh! There are limitations on the co-occurrence(共现) of certain vowels with certain consonants in the same syllable. E.g. the vowel of house does not occur before a final /b, p, m, f, v/. 2. Phonology and phonetics Phonology and phonetics are both concerned with speech sounds, but they dif

5、fer in their approach and focus: Example: How is the sound l studied in phonetics and phonology The difference between the clear l and dark clear l: leaf li:f blackblk lose lu:z dark : pool pu: milk mk full f or f The two sounds are fundamentally the same, since they have one and the same function i

6、n communication, in distinguishing between words and meanings despite their difference in pronunciation. The distribution pattern of the different versions of the l sound, a complementary pattern. We use clear l before a vowel, such as loaf, and dark at the end of a word after a vowel or before a co

7、nsonant. 3. Phone, phoneme, and allophone3.1 Phone音素 A phone is a phonetic unit (语音单位)or segment(音段). The speech sounds we hear and produce during linguistic communication are all phones. Phones are individual sounds as they occur in speech. A phone does not necessarily distinguish meaning. mi:t and

8、 ni:t spit and sphit3.2 Phoneme音位 The smallest unit of sound in a language which can distinguish two words. (a) 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: / and /i/. Therefore, /p/, /b/, / and /i/ are p

9、honemes of English. The number of phonemes varies from one language to another. Characteristics of phonemes A phoneme is a phonological unit(音系单位). It is a unit that is of distinctive value. It is an abstract unit. It is not any particular sound, but rather it is represented or realized by a certain

10、 phone in a certain phonetic context. E.g. the unaspirated p and the aspirated ph are all phones of the phoneme /p/. A phoneme is capable of distinguishing meaning. We can tell the difference among /mn/, /pn/, /bn/, /tn/, /rn/, /kn/, /n/ because they all contain a different phoneme.3.3 Allophone音位变体

11、 The different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments. The unaspirated p（不送气） and the aspirated ph（送气） are allophones（音位变体） of the phoneme /p/（音位）. The phoneme /l/ can be realized as clear l（清晰） and dark （模糊）.（They are the allophones of the phoneme /l/. 4. Phonemic c

12、ontrast, complementary distribution, minimal pair Phonetically similar sounds might be related in two ways: phonemic contrast(音位对立) complementary distribution (互补分布) Phonemic contrast: If two phonetically similar sounds are two distinctive phonemes, they form a phonemic contrast. e.g. /p/ and /b/ in

13、 /pit/ and /bit/*Complementary distribution Complementary distribution refers to the situation in which phones never occur in the same phonetic environment. If two phonetically similar sounds are allophones of the same phoneme, then they do not distinguish meaning, but complement each other in distr

14、ibution, i.e. they occur in different phonetic environments. So allophones are said to be in complementary distribution. We use clear l before a vowel, such as loaf, and dark at the end of a word after a vowel or before a consonant. Minimal pair最小对立体 A basic way to determine the phonemes of a langua

15、ge is to see if substituting one sound for another results in a change of meaning. If it does, the two sounds then represent different phonemes. An easy way to do this is to find the minimal pairs. When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the s

16、ame place in the strings, the two sound combinations are said to form a minimal pair. bear pear big pig bill pill pill till till kill bear pear big pig bill pill pill till till kill Accordingly, we can conclude that /b/ /p/ /t/ /k/ are phonemes in English. Minimal set feat, fit, fat, fate, fought, f

17、oot big, pig, rig, fig, dig, wig 5. Phonological rules Sequential rules序列规则 Assimilation rules 同化规则 Deletion rule省略规则 Sequential rules: rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language. For example，if a word begins with a l or a r, then the next sound must be a vowel. Students pr

18、esentation： Topic：initial sound is /s/ If three consonants should cluster together at the beginning of a word, the combination should obey the following three rules: (1)The first phoneme must be /s/ (2) The second phoneme must be /p/ or /t/ or /k/ (3)The third phoneme must be /l/ or /r/ or /w/ Based

19、 on the sequential rules, we can tell what arrangements of sounds can form possible words in a language. blik, klib, bilk, kilb spring, strict, square Assimilation rules: The assimilation rule assimilates one sound to another by copying a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones s

20、imilar. When a speech sound changes, and becomes more like another sound which follows it or precedes it, this is called assimilation. The i: sound is nasalized in words like bean, green, team, scream. The alveolar nasal n is assimilated to a velar nasal in the word incorrect, because k is a velar s

21、top. The sound assimilation (for ease of articulation) is reflected in the spelling (word formation): In English, the negative prefix appears as im- before words such as possible: As possible starts with a bilabial sound, the prefix im- ends in a bilabial sound. Why not inpossible? Can you explain i

22、ntolerant? How about illegal and irregular? Progressive assimilation Regressive assimilation Reciprocal assimilation Whats this? Its easy. Whats happened? I used to In bed Ten minutes Dont be late. Good-bye In case I dont care. Good girl This shape This year Has she come? Wheres yours? education sit

23、uation Deletion rule: The deletion rule determines when a sound is to be deleted although it is orthographically represented (present in the spelling). sign signature design designation paradigm paradigmatic The rule: delete a g when it occurs before a final nasal consonant. 6. Suprasegmental featur

24、es 超切分特征 Syllable Stress Tone (pitch movement) Intonation6.1 Syllable A unit in speech which is often longer than one sound and smaller than a whole word. The syllable is defined by the way in which vowels and consonants combine to form various sequences. Vowels can form a syllable on their own or t

25、hey can be the center of a syllable. Consonants are at the beginning or end of syllables and with a few exceptions, do not usually form syllables on their own.6.2 Stress The pronunciation of a word or syllable with more force than the surrounding words or syllables. Word stress and sentence stress W

26、ord stress refers to the relative force given to the syllable(s) of a word. The location of stress in English distinguishes meaning. Sentence stress refers to the relative force given to the components of a sentence. Students presentation: Topic 1: word stress and part of speech Topic 2: sentence st

27、ress I bought an English-Chinese dictionary. Group-discussion I am painting my living room blue. 我有一本朋友送的英汉词典。 A shift of stress may change the part of speech of a word: import, increase, rebel Alteration of stress distinguishes a compound noun from a phrase consisting of the same elements: blackbir

28、d, black bird; black board; green house; hotdog, hot dog Word stress distinguishes two types of ing+noun combinations: Compound: dining-room, reading glasses, sewing machine Noun phrases with an ing participle modifier: sleeping baby, swimming fish The parts of speech that are normally stressed in a

29、n English sentence are nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, numerals and demonstrative pronouns. The parts of speech that are normally unstressed in an English sentence are articles, person pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. To give special emphasis to a certain idea, an u

30、nstressed word can be stressed.6.3 Tone (pitch movement) Tones are pitch variations, which are caused by the differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords. When we listen to people speaking, we can hear some sounds or groups of sounds in their speech to be relatively higher or lower than others. T

31、his relative height of speech sounds as perceived by a listener is called pitch. In the English question Ready? Meaning “are you ready?” the second syllable dy will be heard as having a higher pitch than the first syllable. Pitch variations can distinguish meaning, especially in tone languages like Chinese6.4 Intonation When pit