Northeast Luzon Adventist College

Introduction to Linguistics

Introduction to Phonology

Submitted by:

Raychelle Kaye B. Curameng

Judy Ann Ramos

Pantaleon Baysa

Submitted to:

Mrs. Janet Borromeo

Date:

July 23, 2019

 Phonology

 Phonology is the study of sound systems.

 Phonemes are the basic unit of sound and are sensed in your mind rather than
spoken or heard. Each phoneme has one or more sounds called allophones associated with it,
which represent the actual sound being produced in various environments.
- Phonemes are often presented surrounded by // in transcription
(e.g. /p/ and /b/ in English pat, bat).
So /p/ and /b/ are two phonemes because they can distinguish between words “pat”
and “bat”. /c/ is another, because it distinguishes the word “cat” from “pat” and “bat”.
- Allophones are any of the variants making up a single phoneme.
Example: You might pronounce the letter “T” differently in the two words “stand” and
“tip”.
 Minimal pairs – words that mean different things but differ only in one sound.

Example: The words tip and dip illustrate that [t] and [d] are separate phonemes, /t/ and
/d/, in English.

 Phonetics is the study of actual sounds of human languages, their production and their
perception. To represent sounds by letters in an accurate and uniform way the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was created.
 Free Variation is an alternative pronunciation of a word (or of a phoneme in a word) that
doesn't affect the word's meaning.
Free variation is "free" in the sense that it doesn't result in a different word. As William
B. McGregor observes, "Absolutely free variation is rare. Usually, there are reasons for it,
perhaps the speaker's dialect, perhaps the emphasis the speaker wants to put on the word".
 Vowel Sounds – vowels are sounds that are said without stopping the flow of air from your
lungs. The most commonly known vowel sounds are made by the letters a, e, i, o, u.
 Consonant Sounds – Consonants are sounds that are made by partial or complete closure of air
coming from your lungs. Consonants are represented by letters that are not vowels, which
means b, c, d, f, g and the rest.
 Distinctive features – alternate way to analyze sounds makes use of the concept of binary or
paired features where there is an opposition between the presence or absence of a feature in a
particular sound

[CONSONANTAL] made with closure in the vocal tract greater than that necessary for
glides, resulting in an impediment in the flow of air
[SONORANT] involving a regular pattern of vibration and lack of "noise", musical
sounds that can be sung or held on pitch
[SYLLABIC] functioning as the nucleus of a syllable and potentially carrying stress
[CONTINUANT] made with incomplete closure in the oral cavity
[NASAL] made with the velum lowered
[LATERAL] made with the lateral flow of air
 [VOICE] made with vibration of the vocal cords
[SIBILANT] made with a groove or trough along the center line of the tongue,
resulting in a strong hissing sound
[DELAYED RELEASE] made with the slow release of a stop
[ANTERIOR] made on or in front of the alveolar ridge
[CORONAL] made with the tip or blade of the tongue raised
[HIGH] made with the tongue raised in the palatal or velar regions
[BACK] articulated behind the palatal region
[ANTERIOR] made on or in front of the alveolar ridge
[CORONAL] made with the tip or blade of the tongue raised
[HIGH] made with the tongue raised in the palatal or velar regions
[BACK] articulated behind the palatal region

Feature Grid of Consonants

p B m T d n k G ŋ f v s z θ ð ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ l r y w h ʔ
[SYLLABIC] – – ± – – ± – – ± – – – – – – – – – – ± ± – – – –
[CONSONANTAL] + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + – – – –

[SONORANT] – – + – – + – – + – – – – – – – – – – + + + + – –
[NASAL] – – + – – + – – + – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
[ANTERIOR] + + + + + + – – – + + + + + + – – – – + + – – – –
[CORONAL] – – – + + + – – – – – + + + + + + + + + + – – – –
[HIGH] – – – – – – + + + – – – – – – – – – – – – + + – –
[BACK] – – – – – – + + + – – – – – – – – – – – – – + – –
[CONTINUANT] – – – – – – – – – + + + + + + + + – – + + + + + –

[DELAYED RELEASE] – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – + + – – – – – –

[SIBILANT] – – – – – – – – – – – + + – – + + + + – – – – – –
[VOICE] – + + – + + – + + – + – + – + – + – + + + + + – –
[LATERAL] – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – + – – – – –
 Note that all consonants except the glides and /h/ are [+CONSONANTAL]. Nasals, liquids, and
approximants are [+SONORANT], while fricatives, liquids, and approximants are
[+CONTINUANT].
 The four major classes of consonants can be differentiated as follows:
Stops [–CONTINUANT] nasals [–CONTINUANT]
[–SONORANT] [+SONORANT]
fricatives [+CONTINUANT] approximants [+CONTINUANT]
[–SONORANT] [+SONORANT]
In respect to place of articulation, labials, labiodentals, dentals, and alveolars are [+ANTERIOR];
and dentals, alveolars, alveolopalatals are [+CORONAL]. A way of grouping consonants according to
features is as follows:
For vowels, the following features may be identified, which are used along with the place
features [HIGH] and [BACK]:
[LOW] – made with the tongue lowered from the neutral, central position
[ROUND] – produced with lip rounding
[TENSE] – articulated with increased tension in the tongue
[REDUCED] – /ə/
See the feature grid for the basic English vowels below:
I ɪ e ɛ Æ ə ʌ u ʊ o ɔ ɑ
[HIGH] + + – – – – – + + – – –
[LOW] – – – – + – – – – – – +
[BACK] – – – – – + + + + + + +
[ROUND] – – – – – – – + + + + +
[TENSE] + – + – – – – + – + ± +
[REDUCED] – – – – – + – – – – – –
Note that vowels are all [+VOCALIC] (an open oral cavity with voicing) as well as [–
CONSONANTAL, +SONORANT, +VOICE, +CONTINUANT]. The diphthongs /eɪ, ɪu, aɪ, aʊ, oʊ, ɔɪ/ cannot be
distinguished by these features but must be treated as a combination of vowel + glide.

 Phonological Processes are patterns of sound errors that typically developing children use to
simplify speech as they are learning to talk. They do this because they don’t have the ability to
coordinate the lips, tongue, teeth, palate and jaw for clear speech. As a result, they simplify
complex words in predictable ways until they develop the coordination required to articulate
clearly.
Example: They may reduce consonant clusters to a single consonant like, “pane” for
“plane” or delete the weak syllable in a word saying, “nana” for “banana”

 Rules for forming plurals in English

a. In English, we form the plurals of nouns by adding –s to the singular.

 Example: Boy -> boys

b. There are several exceptions to this rule. Nouns ending in –s, -sh, -ch and –x, form their
plurals by adding –es to the singular.

Example: Box -> boxes

c. Most nouns ending in –o, generally form their plurals by adding –es.

Example: Mango -> mangoes

d. Some singular nouns ending in –o, form their plurals by simply adding –s.

Example: Piano -> pianos

e. Nouns ending in a consonant + -y, form their plurals by changing that –y into –i and
adding –es.

Example: Baby -> babies

f. Most nouns ending in –f or –fe form their plurals by changing –f or –fe into v and
adding –es.

Example: Leaf -> leaves

g. There are several exceptions to this rule and the following nouns form their plurals by
simply adding –s.

Example: Belief -> beliefs

h. A few nouns form their plurals irregularly.

Example: Man -> men

i. Some nouns have the singular and the plural alike. Examples are: swine, sheep, deer

j. The nouns dozen, score, pair, hundred and thousand do not have a plural form when
they are used after a number.
 Example: The car cost me five thousand dollars. (NOT … five thousands dollars)

 Intonation shows the speaker’s attitude. It is by changing the pitch that we can indicate
certainty, uncertainty, enthusiasm, boredom, and so on. Listeners become skilled at
detecting fine shades of meaning in other people’s speech. They can figure out if they
sounded unhappy, tired, sarcastic, and so on. These attitudes are picked up from every
fine variation in pitch and loudness.

Four Basic Types of Word Stress that lead to proper intonation in English:

a. Tonic Stress – the syllable in a word which receives the most stress in an
intonation unit. An intonation unit has one tonic stress.

Examples: He’s waiting

He's waiting / for his friend

He's waiting / for his friend / at the station.

Generally, the final tonic stress in a sentence receives the most stress. In
the example above, ‘station’ receives the strongest stress.

b. Empathic Stress – If you decide to emphasize something, you can change

the stress from the principal noun to another content word such as an
adjective or intensifier. This emphasis calls attention to the extraordinary
nature of what you want to emphasize.

Example: Standard statement: That was a difficult test.

Emphasizes how difficult the test was: That was a difficult test.

c. Contrastive Stress – used to point out the difference between one object
and another. It tends to be used with determiners such as ‘this, that,
these and those’.

Example: I think I prefer this color. Do you want these or those

curtains?
 Contrastive stress is also used to bring out given word in a sentence,
which will also slightly change the meaning.

 He came to the party yesterday. (It was he, not someone

else).

 He walked to the party yesterday. (He walked rather than

drove).

d. New Information Stress- When asked a question, the requested

information is naturally stressed more strongly.

Example: Where are you from? I come from Seattle, in the USA.

 Sentence and Phrase Stress

When words are combined into phrases and sentences, one syllable receives
more stress than others.
Phrasal stress can distinguish a compound noun from an adjective + noun
combination.

 Syllable Structure
Words consist of syllables. The structure of syllables is determined partly by
universal and partly by language specific principles. In particular, we shall discuss the
role of the sonoricity hierarchy in organizing the syllabic structure, and the principle of
maximal onset. Utterances are not mere strings of sounds. They are structured into
units larger than sounds. A central unit is the syllable. Words consist of one or several
syllables.

Syllables in English begin typically with some consonants. Then comes a

vowel or a diphthong and then some consonants again. The first set of consonants
is the onset, the group of vowels the nucleus and the second group of consonants
the coda. The combination of nucleus and coda is called rhyme.
 Why foreign speakers have trouble with English?

The success of English – or indeed any language – as a “universal” language comes with
a hefty price, in terms of vulnerability. Problems arise when English is a second language to
either speakers, listeners, or both. No matter how proficient they are, their own understanding
of English, and their first (or “native”) language can change what they believe is being said.

When someone uses their second language, they seem to operate slightly differently
than when they function in their native language. This phenomenon has been referred to as the
“foreign language effect”. Research has shown that native speakers of Chinese, for example,
tended to take more risks in a gambling game when they received positive feedback in their
native language (wins), when compared to negative feedback (losses). But this trend
disappeared – that is, they became less impulsive – when the same positive feedback was given
to them in English.

While reduced impulsiveness when dealing in a second language can be seen as a

positive thing, the picture is potentially much darker when it comes to human interactions. In a
second language, research has found that speakers are also likely to be less emotional and show
less empathy and consideration for the emotional state of others.

For instance, the Chinese-English bilinguals exposed to negative words in English

unconsciously filtered out the mental impact of these words. And Polish-English bilinguals who
are normally affected by sad statements in their native Polish appeared to be much less
disturbed by the same statements in English.

In another recent study, we found that second language use can even affect one’s
inclination to believe the truth. Especially when conversations touch on culture and intimate
beliefs.
 Since second language speakers of English are a huge majority in the world today, native
English speakers will frequently interact with non-native speakers in English, more so than any
other language. And in an exchange between a native and a foreign speaker, the research
suggests that the foreign speaker is more likely to be emotionally detached and can even show
different moral judgements.

And there is more. While English provides a phenomenal opportunity for global
communication, its prominence means that native speakers of English have low awareness of
language diversity. This is a problem because there is good evidence that differences between
languages go hand-in-hand with differences in conceptualization of the world and even
perception of it.

On the one hand, operating in a second language is not the same as operating in a
native language. But, on the other, language diversity has a big impact on perception and
conceptions. This is bound to have implications on how information is accessed, how it is
interpreted, and how it is used by second language speakers when they interact with others.

We can come to the conclusion that a balanced exchange of ideas, as well as

consideration for others’ emotional states and beliefs, requires a proficient knowledge of each
other’s native language. In other words, we need truly bilingual exchanges, in which all involved
know the language of the other. So, it is just as important for English native speakers to be able
to converse with others in their languages.

The best way to achieve near-native foreign language proficiency is through immersion,
by visiting other countries and interacting with local speakers of the language. Doing so might
also have the effect of bridging some current political divides.
References:

PDF

Kracht, M. Introduction to Linguistics

Eulenberg/Farhad (2011) CSD 232, Descriptive Phonetics. Distinctive Features

Szczegielniak, A. Introduction to Linguistic Theory, Phonology: The Sound

Patterns of Language

Web

https://benjamins.com/sites/z.156/exercise/c2q7

https://www.thoughtco.com/free-variation-phonetics-1690780