LCD720

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LCD720 04/01/09

• Phonology and grammar

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Announcements

• Midterm
• Grades on Blackboard
• Reminder
• 10 of your grade is for participation
• Final paper
• Guidelines are on Blackboard
• Due on May 13 before class
• Submit on Blackboard (or e-mail)
• In Word (not pdf)

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Homework

• Construct a fill-in-the-blanks exercise for
  teaching contractions/blendings
• Form groups of three, and try out your exercise
  on your two fellow students
• Which items (blanks) worked well?
• Which items didnt work that well? Why? What
  changes do you suggest?

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Interfaces, or How pronunciation is involved in
other parts of language knowledge and skills

• Listening perception
• Grammar
• Orthography (spelling)

Today
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Phonology and grammar

• A morpheme may be pronounced differently
  depending on its phonological environment
  (morphophonology)
• E.g., past tense -ed
• Pronunciation problems can affect grammar
• Morphemes (regular and irregular forms)
• Word classes (nouns vs. verbs)
• Pronunciation needs to be addressed in the
  grammar lesson

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Phonology and regular morphemes

• English has 8 regular morphological inflections
• -s
• Plural nouns
• Possessive
• Third-person singular present tense
• -ed
• Past tense
• Past participle / passive
• Present participle -ing
• Comparative degree -er
• Superlative degree -est

-s and -ed change depending on the phonological
environment -ing, -er, and -est dont change
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-s morphemes
Note Pronunciation of all three morphemes is the
same, even if the spelling isnt

• Remember the rules
• Examples
• /z/ /s/ /?z/
• boys boats buses (plurals)
• sees makes uses (3rd sg verb)
• Marvins Mikes Roses (possessive)
• /z/ is the basic form (after vowels and voiced
  consonants)
• /z/ becomes /s/ after voiceless consonants
• /z/ becomes /?z/ after sibilants
• Sibilants /s/, /z/, /?/, /?/, /?/, /?/

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-s morphemes

• Possessive of regular plural nouns
• The girls book vs. The girls book
• The pronunciation is the same
• Possessive of irregular plural nouns
• Mens clothing, childrens toys
• s is added to the irregular plural form
• The same rules apply for contractions of is, has
  and does
• /z/ His names John
• /s/ Its raining
• (/?z/ Richs sick)

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Teaching -s morphemes

• Usually these three morphemes are not presented
  simultaneously
• Students should be reminded of the rules of the
  previously introduced morpheme
• Go through the five stages
• Consciousness raising
• (Listening discrimination)
• Instead e.g., fill-in-the-blanks with spoken
  text
• Controlled practice
• Guided practice
• Communicative practice

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Which allomorph?

• Plural allomorphs
• Do you hear /z/, /s/ or /?z/?
• Past tense allomorphs
• Do you hear /d/, /t/ or /?d/?

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Regular past tense -ed

• Give examples describe the rules
• What is the basic form?
• When does the form change, and why?
• What other verb forms have ed?
• What activities do you propose for each of the
  five stages, and why?
• What difficulties may arise when you develop an
  activity, e.g., should you avoid certain verbs?

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• My answers

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-ed

• Examples
• /d/ /t/ /?d/
• cried walked chatted
• robbed kissed added
• /d/ is the basic form (after vowels and voiced
  consonants)
• /d/ becomes /t/ after voiceless consonants
• /d/ becomes /?d/ after /t/ and /d/

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Teaching -ed

• Relevant for simple past, present/past perfect,
  and passive
• Similar to teaching s
• Go through the five steps
• Consciousness raising
• (Listening discrimination)
• Instead e.g., fill-in-the-blanks with spoken
  text
• Controlled, guided, communicative practice
• Caveat Many highly frequent verbs are irregular
  (was, had, did, made, )
• Make sure the exercises elicit regular verbs

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More morphophonology

• -ing (progressive, gerunds)
• -er and est (comparatives, superlatives)
• Irregular forms (nouns, verbs)
• Part-of-speech alternations

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-ing

• -ing is used for progressive participles
• walking, reading, studying
• -ing can be pronounced as -in
• Aint misbehavin
• Depends on formality and on the speaker
• Does not depend on the phonological environment

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-er and -est

• -er and -est have the same meaning as more and
  most (periphrastic forms)
• -er/more -est/most
• big bigger biggest
• more big most big
• beautiful more beautiful most beautiful
• beautifuller beautifullest
• When to use -er and -est, and when more and most?
• There are rules, but theyre not as strict as for
  -s and -ed
• What rules do you know? (see next slide)

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-er and -est
Hint The morphology has to do with the phonology
What rules for -er/-est vs. more/most?

• big bigger biggest
• small smaller smallest
• happy happier happiest
• friendly friendlier friendliest
• narrow narrower narrowest
• curious more curious most curious
• slowly more slowly most
• independent more most
• tender more most (tenderer/tenderest?)

• stupid more stupid most stupid
• stupider?
• stupidest?
• handsome more handsome most handsome
• handsomer?
• handsomest?

Try to think of more examples
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-er/-est vs. more/most

• -er/-est
• One-syllable words
• big bigger biggest
• small smaller smallest
• large larger largest
• Two-syllable words that end in y
• happy happier happiest
• Many two-syllable adjectives that end in
  unstressed ly, -ow, or le
• friendly friendlier friendliest
• narrow narrower narrowest
• gentle gentler gentlest

Or more / most friendly
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-er/-est vs. more/most

• more/most
• Many two-syllable adverbs ending in -ly
• slowly more slowly most slowly
• Other two-syllables adjectives and adverbs
• curious more curious most curious
• Adjectives and adverbs of three or more syllables
• independent more independent most independent

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-er/-est vs. more/most
Depends on formality

• Variable cases
• Two-syllables adjectives that end in er or ure
• tender more tender most tender
• tender tenderer tenderest
• Two-syllable adjectives that end in a weakly
  stressed vowel, with final /d/ or /t/
• stupid more stupid most stupid
• stupid stupider stupidest
• Two-syllable adjectives that end in weakly
  stressed -some
• handsome more handsome most handsome
• handsome handsomer handsomest

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Teaching comparative and superlative forms

• Dont introduce all rules at once
• This will overwhelm the student
• Start with the clearest, most basic rules
• One-syllable words get -er/-est
• Two-syllable words in -y get -er/-est
• Longer words (three or more syllables) get
  more/most
• Give a lot of examples
• When there are many rules and exceptions, its
  often easier to learn by analogy to examples

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Why is curiouser not good English? What rule
did Alice forget?
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-er/-est or more/most? And why?

• short
• noisy
• simple
• personalized
• stylish
• costly
• fabulous
• quiet
• careful
• appealing
• easily
• pale
• perfect

-er/-est -er/-est -er/-est more/most more/most eit
her more/most -er/-est more/most more/most more/mo
st -er/-est none!
one syllable two syllables, -y two syllables,
-le 3 syllables two syllables, other two
syllables, -ly 3 syllables two syllabes,
-t/-d two syllables, other 3 syllables 3
syllables one syllable cant get better than
perfect
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Irregular forms Nouns

• Some irregular forms come from Latin and Greek
• criterion criteria datum data
• Other irregular forms have a Germanic origin
• Vowel change
• foot feet man men
• This is still used in modern German
• Mann Männer (man men)
• f/v alternation
• leaf leaves wife wives shelf shelves
• Historically /f/ became /v/ between two vowels
  (when the e in leaves, wives, shelves was still
  pronounced)
• ?/ð alternation
• bath/baths truth/truths (? in singular, ð in
  plural)

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Irregular forms Verbs

• Two very frequent verbs
• be am/is/are was/were been
• go go went gone
• Other frequent, irregular verbs have recognizable
  patterns
• E.g., /?-æ-?/ pattern
• sing sang sung begin began begun
• These patterns are remnants of older rules
• Students can use these regularities to learn the
  verb forms

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Irregular forms Verbs

• Some examples verbs that get or have -t / -d
  (weak verbs)
• /d/ gt /t/
• build built built send sent sent
• no change
• let let let hit hit hit
• /iy/ /d/ gt /?/ /t/
• creep crept crept
• leave left left
• Vowel shortening (/iy/ gt /?/ /ay/ gt /?/)
• feed fed fed slide slid slid
• And more

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Irregular forms Verbs

• Some examples vowel change (strong verbs)
• Three different vowels
• sing sang sung begin began begun
• Same vowel in past and past participle
• dig dug dug win won won
• /ay/ - /ow/ - /?/ -en
• drive drove driven write wrote written
• Vowel change in past tense only
• run ran run come came come
• And more

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Teaching irregular forms

• Dont present all rules at once
• This will overwhelm the students
• Present exceptions, and a few rules
• am/is/are was/were been go went gone
• /?-æ-?/ pattern sing sang sung
• /d/ gt /t/ send sent sent
• no change hit hit hit
• Give a lot of examples
• When there are many rules and exceptions, its
  often easier to learn by analogy
• When students memorize the forms, they will
  discover some of the patterns on their own

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Part-of-speech alternations

• Remember
• Sometimes, nouns and verbs have a different
  stress pattern
• CONDUCT (n) vs. conDUCT (v)
• REBel (n) vs. reBEL (v)
• Note this is not a rule, just a pattern for some
  words
• There are other systematic differences between
  nouns and verbs as well...

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Part-of-speech alternations

• /s/-/z/, /?/-/ð/, /f/-/v/ alternations between
  nouns and verbs
• noun verb
• use/use /yuws/ /yuwz/
• loss/lose /l?s/ /luwz/
• advice/advise /?dvays/ /?dvayz/
• teeth/teethe /tiy?/ /tiyð/
• life/live /layf/ /l?v/
• proof/prove /pruwf/ /pruwv/
• Remember Voicing of consonants affects the
  length of the preceding vowel

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Part-of-speech alternations

• No stress vs. light stress
• DUplicate (n) vs. DUpliCATE (v)
• /?t/ /eyt/
• Location of stress
• CONDUCT (n) vs. conDUCT (v)
• PROJECT (n) vs. proJECT (v)
• Remember No stress vs. light/strong stress
  affects vowel reduction
• Can you think of more examples?

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Teaching part-of-speech alternations

• Dont present all rules at once
• This will overwhelm the students
• Present a few rules
• advice/advise life/live
• DUplicate (n) vs. DUpliCATE (v)
• CONDUCT (n) vs. conDUCT (v)
• Give a lot of examples
• When there are many rules and exceptions, its
  often easier to learn by analogy
• Caveat Dont assume students know either the
  correct pronunciation or the part of speech of
  any of these words

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Teaching phonology and grammar

• Address pronunciation as soon as these grammar
  items are introduced
• Pronunciation (and perception) of past tense,
  plural, possessive, etc. should be an integral
  part of the grammar lesson
• Students need to be able to hear the affixes and
  stress patterns correctly, so they can learn from
  the input
• Students need to be able to pronounce the
  suffixes and stress patterns correctly
• Remember that students may have problems with
  both the grammar and the phonology (clusters,
  stress, etc.)

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Why are third person -s and past tense -d so
difficult to learn?

• Despite being very frequent
• They are difficult to hear (low perceptual
  salience)
• very short
• in clusters
• in unstressed syllables
• /s, z/ and /t, d/ are just one sound and not a
  separate syllable
• Compare -ing, -er, -est

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Perceptual salience

• Identify the word
• Word 1
• Word 2
• Word 3
• Identify the word
• Word 1
• Word 2
• Word 3

• Identify the sound
• Sound 1
• Sound 2
• Sound 3
• Identify the sound
• Sound 1
• Sound 2
• Sound 3

added
/?d/
played
/d/
crunched
/t/
kisses
/?z/
ribs
/z/
ships
/s/
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Why are third person -s and past tense -d so
difficult to learn?

• They have three different allomorphs
• /s, z, ?z/ and /d, t, ?d/
• Compare -ing usually /??/, sometimes /?n/
• Compare -er/-est forms dont change
• Similar sounding morphemes
• Third person -s sounds the same as plural -s,
  possessive -s, and contractions of is and has
• Compare -er and est are usually comparatives

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Why are third person -s and past tense -d so
difficult to learn?

• They have complex meanings
• -s Third person singular present tense (3
  things!)
• Compare plural s plural (1 thing)
• L1 interference
• If L1 doesnt have subjectverb agreement or past
  tense, -s and -ed may be more difficult to learn
• They dont add much meaning (past tense is often
  clear from context or adverbial phrases)
• Further reading Meta-analysis by Goldschneider
  DeKeyser (2001, in Language Learning)

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Reflection

• If a student pronounces cats as /kæt/ and dogs as
  /d?g/, how can a teacher determine whether the
  student has a grammatical problem or a
  pronunciation problem?
• Do you recall learning any phonological
  differences in the parts of speech of English?
• Native speakers
• L2 speakers

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Reflection

• What would you do as a teacher?
• A student pronounces all past tenses as /?d/
• A student pronounces all words ending in -ate as
  /eyt/ regardless of the part of speech
• A student asks why the plural of wife is wives,
  but the plural of chief is chiefs

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Next class (April 22)

• Read Chapter 9, but skip
• The Alphabet
• Stressed and Unstressed Vowels and their spelling
  patterns
• Word-Internal Palatalization
• Read Chapter 2 from Phonics they use (on BB)
• Can you modify these activities for older
  children and adult?
• Homework assignment (not graded, not to be handed
  in) on Blackboard.
• Bring to class, and be ready to discuss