PHONOLOGY:%20THE%20SOUND%20PATTERNS%20OF%20LANGUAGE%20See%20also%20

1
PHONOLOGYTHE SOUND PATTERNS OF LANGUAGESee
also Phonetics, Spelling, and Writing Systems

• by Don L. F. Nilsen
• and Alleen Pace Nilsen

2
MINIMAL PAIRS

• CONTRASTIVE DISTRIBUTION Pronounce the
  following minimal pairs bit, beat, bet,
  bat, bite, bought, but, and bout
• In these words, the vowel sounds are in exactly
  the same phonetic environment, preceded by a /b/
  and followed by a /t/.
• Since only the vowel is changing, then the
  changing of the vowel must be making the
  difference in distinguishing these different
  words.
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 268)

3
COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION

• Now consider these minimal pairs in English
  then-den, lather-ladder, and breathe-breed.
  In English /ð/ and /d/ are in contrastive
  distribution.
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 275-278)
• But in Spanish, /ð/ and /d/ are in complementary
  distribution. /ð/ always occurs between vowels
  and /d/ never occurs between vowels.
• In the Spanish word duda for example, the first
  ltdgt is pronounced /d/ and the second is
  pronounced /ð/.

4

• In Spanish, these two sounds never occur in the
  same phonetic environment, never allow there to
  be contrasting minimal pairs, and never make a
  real difference.
• In Spanish, therefore, the difference between /ð/
  and /d/ is said to be phonetic, but not
  phonemic.
• Notice that in Spanish these two sounds are
  spelled with the same letter of the alphabet,
  ltdgt.

5
NATURAL CLASSES OF SOUNDSNASALS

• /m/ /n/ and /?/ are in a natural class called
  nasals. Natural classes are important so that
  linguists can make generalizations, like In
  English, vowels become nasal in the environment
  of nasal consonants.
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 282-284)

6

• ASPIRATION

• /p/ /t/ and /k/ form the natural class of
  voicless stops. In English, voiceless stops are
  aspirated if they are followed by a stressed
  vowel and not preceded by /s/.
• This makes sense because aspiration is a puff of
  air. This puff would occur after a stop. It
  would occur into a stressed syllable. If the
  consonant were voiced or if some of the air had
  leaked out because of a preceding /s/, the
  aspiration would be less pronounced.
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 239-240, 281)

7
VOICING

• When Verbs add -ed to become past tense this
  ending becomes voiced if the preceding sound is
  voiced as in planned or voiceless if the
  preceding sound is voiceless as in jumped.
• Since /t/ is not voiced and vowels are voiced, a
  /t/ between vowels often becomes voiced so that
  latter and writer are pronounced like
  ladder and rider.
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 238-241)

8
PALATALIZATION

• When a word that ends with a /t/ is followed by a
  ual, -ial, or -ion ending, the palatal vowel
  lty-gt changes the /t/ sound into a /c/ sound.
• addict ? addiction
• act ? actual or action
• part ? partial
• predict ? prediction
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 236-238)

9
STOPS BECOMES CONTINUANTS

• Because /k/ is a stop, and vowels are
  continuants, an affix beginning with a vowel
  often changes /k/ to /s/.
• critic ? criticize or criticism
• fanatic ? fanaticism
• romantic ? romanticism
• This ability of the ltcgt to have two different
  pronunciations allows us to spell these words the
  same way even though they are pronounced
  diffently. The benefit of this is that it helps
  us to see that these words are in the same
  word-family even though the ltcgt part is
  pronounced differently.
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 284-288)

10
CONSONANT ASSIMILATIONFOR EASE AND SPEED

• VERB 3rd sing pres ind sings, hits
• VERB past buzzed, jumped
• VERB past part popped, killed
• NOUN plurals cats, dogs
• NOUN possessives Mike's, Fred's
• ADJ substantive its, ours
• PREFIX (NOTE im- assimilates as follows)
  illegal, immature, impotent, indelicate,
  irreligious
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 284-288)

11
CONSONANT DISSIMILATION FOR CLARITY

• VERB 3rd person singular present inddicative
  buzzes
• VERB past tense heated
• VERB past participle spotted
• NOUN plural horses
• NOUN possessive Maxs
• NOUN belfry
• ADJ ignoble
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 288-289)

12
MORE CONSONANT ASSIMILATIONS

• MODAL PLUS "HAVE" ASSIMILATION coulda, mighta,
  shoulda, woulda
• MODAL PLUS "TO" ASSIMILATION gonna, hafta,
  hasta, supposta, useta
• CONTRACTIONS aint, cant, couldnt, wont,
  wouldnt, shant, shouldnt, maynt, (mightnt,
  mustnt)
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 284-288)

13
DISSIMILATION AGAIN

• -al is a suffix that changes a Noun into an
  Adjective, but when the Noun ends in /l/,
  dissimilation occurs
• anecdotal but angular
• penal but perpendicular
• spiritual but similar
• venal but velar
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 288-289)

14
VOWEL REDUCTION AND ASSIMILATION

• BRITISH VOWEL REDUCTION aluminum, laboratory,
  secretary
• LONG AND SHORT GRADES do-done, go-gone,
  nation-national, obscene-obscenity,
  punitive-punish, sign-signature, soup-supper
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 257)

15
vowel reduction and word stress

• When a suffix changes a word from one Part of
  Speech to another, this suffix affects which
  syllables are stressed, and which are unstressed
  and can change to different vowel grades like
  schwa or short grade

16
analysis-analytic compete-competition maintain-maintenance medicine-medicinal phone-phonetic solid-solidity Talmud-Talmudic telegraph-telegraphy (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2011 297-298, 337-338)
17
HISTORIC PHONOLOGY REFLECTED IN SPELLINGS

• TRACES ic-ich-I, knight, hostel-hôtel- hotel,
  scribere-écrire-scribe
• DOUBLETS chief-chef, dish-discus, hotel-hostel,
  ship-skiff, shirt-skirt
• GRIMM'S LAW courage-hearty, corn-horn,
  decade-ten, dozen-twelve, dent-tooth,
  pedestal-footnote, padre-father, plate-flat,
  pyre-fire

18
!MORE HISTORIC PHONOLOGY REFLECTED IN SPELLINGS

• GERMANIC UMLAUT child, goose, man, mouse, woman
  (cf. book-beech)
• GREEK RHOTOCISM genus-generic opus-opera
• ENGLISH schwa and silent e
• ACRONYMS AS WORDS AID, AIDS, BIRP, CREEP, GASP,
  MANURE, MASH, NOW, NUT, SAG, VISTA, ZIP

19
!!FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON PHONOLOGY SPELLING

• BORROWINGS chaise longue, cole slaw,
  frankfurter, hamburger, lingerie, rouge,
  schnitzel, wiener
• BILINGUAL COGNATES actual, embarazada,
  grocería, libraria, molestar, principio, (cf.
  blanket white, porpoise pig fish, puny puis
  né, walrus whale horse)
• INDO-EUROPEAN ABLAUT sing-sang-song
• MODAL PAST-SUBJUNCTIVE can-could, may-might,
  shall-should, will-would

20
!!!FINAL THOUGHTS FROM OGDEN NASH

• The one-l lama,
• Hes a priest.
• The two-l llama,
• Hes a beast.
• And I will bet
• A silk pajama
• There isnt any Three-l lllama.
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2007 290)
• In response to this poem one wit remarked, A
  three-alarmer (three-l lllama) is a really big
  fire.

21

• References
• Clark, Virginia P., Paul A. Eschholz, and Alfred
  F. Rosa, ed. Language Readings in Language and
  Culture, Sixth Edition. Boston, MA Bedford, St.
  Martins, 1998.
• Eschholz, Paul, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark.
  Language Awareness. Bedford/St. Martins, 2009.
• Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams.
  Phonology The Sound Patterns of Language. An
  Introduction to Language, 9th Edition. Boston,
  MA Thomson Wadsworth, 2011, 266-323.
• Have, Paul ten. Doing Conversation Analysis A
  Practical Guide. London, England Sage
  Publications, 2007.
• Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen.
  Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor.
  Westport, CT Greenwood, 2000.
• Nilsen, Don L. F., and Alleen Pace Nilsen.
  Pronunciation Contrasts in English, 2nd Edition.
  Long Grove, IL Waveland Press in 2010.