Introduction to linguistics

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Introduction to linguistics The sounds of
German R21118
Dr Nicola McLelland
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Lecture 3 (week 4)
I. Fricatives and affricates II. Phonological
features in generative phonology
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I. Fricatives and Affricates

• We have already met the fricatives in German
• labiodental f, v
• alveolar s, z
• palatal-alveolar ?, ?
• ? in German in borrowings only, such as
  Journalist, Mirage it is a fairly peripheral
  phoneme
• In English
• Vision /?/
• German /d?/ (i.e as part of the affricate)

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Fricatives

• labiodental f, v
• alveolar s, z
• palatal-alveolar ?, ?
• palatal ç as in ich (the voiced variant does
  not occur in German or English, but it is written
  like a j with a looped tail ?)
• velar x as in Buch
• Now Introducing the voiced velar fricative ?

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Fricatives

• Introducing the voiced velar fricative ?
• Occurs in northern parts of German after a back
  vowel in words like Tag , Burg (where standard
  German would expect /k/)

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Fricatives

• Introducing the voiced uvular fricative, which
  many people use for their /r/. Its phonetic
  sybmol is ?.
• (listen for the difference between ? and a
  uvular trill R)
• rot, Rathaus, ringen, irren

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The palatal semi-vowel /j/

• Chris Halls book (p.48) talks about this sound
  under the fricatives, but it is really usually a
  semi-vowel or approximant well come back to
  it.
• It occurs in words like Januar, Jubel, jot, Jahr
• Also a regional allophone for /g/ in some
  contexts, eg. gut jut, gemacht j?maxt
  (Berlin, Rhineland)

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The glottal fricative /h/

• nothing much to say about this same as in
  English!
• remember that the glottis is the gap between the
  vocal cords
• a glottal fricative is caused by a narrowing of
  the constriction between the vocal cords (but not
  enough to cause vibration gt voicing)

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Affricates

• An affricate consists of a stop followed by a
  fricative produced at the same (or nearly same)
  place of articulation (at same place
  homoorganic, Dt. homorgan)
• e.g. /pf/ labial (bilabial) stop /p/ labial
  (labiodental) fricative /f/
• /ts/ alveolar stop alveolar fricative
• /t?/ alveolar stop palatal-alveolar fricative
  (Deutsch, Tschechisch, otherwise not v. frequent)

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Affricates one phoneme or two?

• Should we treat the affricates as single
  phonemes, or as combinations of two?
• In favour of seeing them as one phoneme
• At the start of the syllable we can normally only
  have two consonants, as in Kraft, Draht, or only
  2 at the end in reverse order, Stark, Bürde
• (exceptions where the first consonant is ? e.g.
  Splitter, Stroh)
• In this regard, the affricate /pf/ seems to
  behave as a single phoneme, for it can be added
  to another consonant pfropfen, Karpfen

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Affricates one phoneme or two?

• Should we treat the affricates as single
  phonemes, or as combinations of two?
• Against seeing them as one phoneme
• Before /pf/ you can only have short vowels as in
  Tropfen (as well as liquids and nasals as in
  Karpfen, Dampf).
• But before any normal single consonant, short or
  long vowels are possible, e.g. before /s/ in Bus
  vs. Fuß
• This would suggest /pf/ needs to be treated as
  two phonemes

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Affricates one phoneme or two?

• For /ts/ and /t?/, the evidence is even more
  confusing
• In short, the jury is still out

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II. Phonological features in generative phonology
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Generative grammar

a revolutionary approach to linguistics which
began with Noam Chomsky in the late 1950s / early
1960s
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Generative grammar

first applied to syntax
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Cf. very brief encounter in Lecture 1

e.g. Der Junge spielte mit dem Ball.
S NP
VP D N
V PP
P NP
D
N Der Junge spielte mit dem Ball
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3. Generative grammar

S Sentence NP Noun phrase VP Verb phrase PP
Prepositional phrase D Determiner N Noun, V
Verb, D Determiner P Prepostion
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Generative grammar

Syntactic trees like this make the internal
structure of the sentence clearer e.g. they
reflect our sense that mit dem Ball is more
closely tied to spielte than it is to der Junge
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Generative grammar

tries to generate tree structures like this
using rules that reflect what native speakers
just know intuitively rules that produce all
possible grammatical sentences, no ungrammatical
ones easier said than done!
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Generative grammar

Principle of parsimony Maximally simple theory
to account for the data no unnecessary
(redundant) theoretical concepts Applied not just
to syntax, but also to phonology generative
phonology
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Generative phonology Using features to specify
phonemes economically

• Weve already seen that we can describe
  individual sounds by listing particular
  characteristics or features
• e.g. a labiodental,
• oral
• voiceless
• fricative is .?

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Using articulatory features to specify phonemes
economically

• Weve already seen that we can describe
  individual sounds by listing particular
  characteristics or features
• e.g. a labiodental, , oral voiceless fricative
  is . /f/

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Using articulatory features to specify phonemes
economically

• Weve already seen that we can describe
  individual sounds by listing particular
  characteristics or features
• e.g. a labiodental, oral voiceless fricative is
  . /f/
• e.g. 2 a voiced, nasal velar stop is ....

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Using features to specify phonemes economically

• Weve already seen that we can describe
  individual sounds by listing particular
  characteristics or features
• e.g. a labiodental, oral voiceless fricative is
  . /f/
• e.g. 2 a voiced, nasal velar stop is .... /?/

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Features
Generative phonology tries to reduce the number
of features we need to describe any sound
uniquely to the absolute minimum. By
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Features

• Generative phonology tries to reduce the number
  of features we need to describe any sound
  uniquely to the absolute minimum.
• By
• using some of the same features for vowels and
  for consonants
• e.g. back, which we have seen used for vowels
  like /a/ and /u/
• It can also be used to describe consonants such
  as the velars /k g x/ where the tongue is also
  quite far back

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Features .

• AND by specifying or for each feature
• e.g. consonantal we specify all consonantals
  as consonantal and all vowels as
  consonantal
• (i.e we dont need an additional feature for
  vowels)

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An overview of the features .

• / - consonantal
• (konsonantisch), kons
• refers to narrow constriction in the oral cavity
  either total occlusion (closing off) or
  friction
• everything except vowels and semi-vowels (w, j
  etc) are cons

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An overview of the features . Sonorant son
(sonorantisch)

• refers to resonance of a sound
• vowels, nasals, liquids l and r are son
• stops, fricatives and affricates pf, ts are
  -son

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An overview of the features . Sonorant son
(sonorantisch)

• refers to resonance of a sound
• vowels, nasals, liquids l and r are son
• stops, fricatives and affricates pf, ts are
  -son
• NB The -son group are called obstruents (sounds
  that occur in both voiced and voiceless forms).
  So, all obstruents are
• -son

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An overview of the features . Continuant cont
(dauernd kont, dnd
refers to obstruents with continuous friction
throughout i.e. fricatives f, v, s, z, etc.
are cont The other obstruents the stops and
the affricates (like pf, ts) begin with an
occlusion (complete closure). They are -kont
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An overview of the features . Lateral lat
When the middle part of the tongue is pressed
down so that air can escape around the sides For
our purposes, there is just one lateral, l
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An overview of the features . Anterior ant

• An obstruction in the mouth is formed further
  forward than palatal-alveolar
• i.e. it is at the
• lips,
• teeth, or
• alveolar ridge

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An overview of the features . Coronal cor
(koronal kor
Tongue tip is raised straight up from its
neutral position to hit either teeth or alveolar
ridge, or palatal-alveolar i.e. t, d, n, ?, s, z

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An overview of the features . High high
hoch
Body (blade) of the tongue is raised from neutral
position, as in ?, k, g
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An overview of the features . Low low tief

• Body (blade) of the tongue is lowered from
  neutral position
• (applies only to vowels)
• NB -low is not the same as high
• (-low could include tongue in neutral position,
  but high raised above the neutral position)

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An overview of the features . Back back
hinten

• Body (blade) of the tongue is drawn back from
  neutral position
• some vowels
• And velar consonants like k, g, x, ?
• NB -back is not the same as ant
• Palatal consonants are -ant, -hint, e.g. /ç/ as
  in ich
• velar consontants are -ant, hint, e.g. /x/ as
  in ach

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An overview of the features . Round round
rund
Lips are rounded, not spread (Applies to some
vowels only)
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An overview of the features . Tense tense
gespannt, gesp.

• We saw last week that some vowels are tenser than
  others, e.g. /i/ compared to /I/
• In some languages (but not European languages)
  tenseness may also be a distinguishing feature
  for some consonants, e.g. voiceless stops in
  Korean

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An overview of the features . Voice voice
(stimmhaft, sth)
Voiced when the vocal cords vibrate
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Comments on the features

• Annoyingly, the definition of the features is
  sometimes quite arbitrary e.g. that ant
  refers to a sound where the obstruction is in
  front of palatal-alveolar, which is not a
  natural boundary in any way

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Comments on the features

• Annoyingly, the definition of the features is
  sometimes quite arbitrary e.g. that ant
  refers to a sound where the obstruction is in
  front of palatal-alveolar, which is not a
  natural boundary in any way
• Sometimes it is clumsier to express traditional
  descriptions using the limited number of
  features, e.g.
• labial ant, -kor
• Velar -ant, -kor, hint

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Describing the consonants in terms of
phonological features

• see handout (from Ramers Vater1995 74)
• NB Ramers Vater introduce labial (which
  covers both bilabial and labiodental consonants),
  and do not use anterior
• exercise in your booklet, A.2.2 (p.43) and A2.3,
  A2.4 (try not to look at the answers!)

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Using features to describe phonological rules

• Focussing on features makes it easy to spot
  regular patterns, or phonological rules, and to
  describe them .
• what rule does the following describe?
• obstruent ? - stimmhaft / __ s
• / in the environment of, and s syllable
  boundary

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Using features to describe phonological rules

• A fricative or stop becomes voiceless when it is
  followed by a syllable boundary
• obstruent ? - stimmhaft / __ s
• i.e. Auslautverhartung
• rewrite the rule using the individual feature(s)
  necessary to specify the group of obstruents

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Using features to describe phonological rules

• A fricative or stop becomes voiceless when it is
  followed by a syllable boundary
• obstruent ? -stimmhaft / __ s
• Re-writing the rule to define the obstruents
• kons, -nasal, -son ? -stimmhaft / __ s
• or even just -son ? -stimmhaft / __ s

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Lets try and decode another rule

• -son, -kont, sth ? Ø / nas, hint _____

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Lets try and decode another rule

• -son, -kont, sth ? Ø / nas, hint _____
• This says that when an obstruent which is a
  fricative and voiced follows a velar nasal /?/,
  it is deleted.

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Lets try and decode another rule

• -son, -kont, sth ? Ø / nas, hint _____
• This says that when an obstruent which is not a
  fricative and is voiced, i.e a voiced stop,
  follows a velar nasal /?/, it is deleted.
• In practice the only voiced stop that can ever
  follow a /?/ is /g/, so the rule says, delete
  /g/ after /?/ , and it deals with cases like
  Hunger, /h???/ as opposed to hungrig, where the
  /g/ is pronounced after the /?/.