Phonology What is Phonology? First we should know that the study of speech sounds is: 1- phonetics. 2- phonology. Phonetics is concerns with the following

What is Phonology?

First we should know that the study of speech sounds is:

1- Phonetics.

2- Phonology.

Phonetics is concerns with the following:

1- Auditory.

2- acoustic.

3- articulatory.

▪ Phonetics is the study of how the speech sounds are produced.

▪ Phonology is the physical properties or aspects.

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Phonology on the other hand:

▪ It is the principle that govern the distribution of these sounds.

▪ It is the mental abstract.

To make the difference clear look to the following :

Phonetics

The Basis for phonological analysis

Analyzes the production of allregardless of language

Phonology

The basis for further work in morphology, syntax, discourse, and orthograpgy desgin

Analyzes the sound patterns of a particular language by:

Explaining how these sounds are interpreted by the native speaker.

Phonemes and Allophones:

Phonemes

Contrastive/distinctive sound within a particular language���������(notation: /�/)

It is unpredictable

Over lapping distribution occurs in different places.

Allophones

A physical entity.

Also variant) = sound which counts as an alternative way of saying a phoneme in a particular language (notation: [�])

It is predictable

Occurs in complementary distribution i.e. occurs in certain places.

Variations of the phoneme

Aspiration feature:

/p/voiceless bilabial stop phoneme and have three different pronunciations

[pʰ]means that it is aspirated i.e. when you pronounce it you produce a puff of air like in the word /Pot/. It is aspirated because it comes in initial position of a word or syllable.

[p] It is unaspirated sound and it comes after the /s/ sound like in the word /spot/.

[p̚ ], it comes in final position like in the word /leap/.

Phonetic similarity:

[pʰ],[p], [p�] all of them share the main phonetic features it still a voiceless bilabial stop.

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Phonetic Complementary distribution:

- /t/ is a voiceless alveolar stop and has different allophones:

- [tʰ] aspirated because it is in initial position ex. �tick�.

- [t̚]unaspirated after /s/ ex. �stick�.

- [ɾ ]� flap , when the /t/ comes between two vowels it is a flap ex. �better� , �pretty� .

- [ ] a glottal stop ex. �bottle� also when it becomes between two vowels or vowel and a syllabic /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ or /l/ .

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▪ Sometimes some allophones are considered in some language as a phoneme

Word pairs whose sound structures are identical except one minimal difference, a single sound segment that occurs in the same place in the string

- The substitution of one for the other makes a different word, e.g. crick and creek (all the possible variations - crick, creek, crook, croak, crake, crack and crock constitute a minimal set).

-They are used to demonstrate that two phones constitute two separate phonemes in the language.

-An example for English consonants is the minimal pair of "pat" + "bat". In phonetics, this pair, like any other, differs in number of ways. In this case, the contrast appears largely to be conveyed with a difference in the voice onset time of the initial consonant as the configuration of the mouth is same for [p] and [b]; however, there is also a possible difference in duration, which visual analysis using high quality video supports.

Free variation

Two sounds occur in the same environment doesn�t change the meaning and they can�t be in minimal pairs because they are allophones not phoneme.

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Free variation vs. complementary distribution:

�� - Free variation: allophonic variation independent of the phonetic environment the phoneme occurs in; random interchangeability.

- Example of free variation of a consonantal phoneme:

- Realization of word-initial th (as in then, this, there) as either [�] or [d] (possibly due to reasons of unawareness or indifference of choice)