Phonology

Phonology is the study of how speech sounds form patterns.

Morpheme: Meaningful unit of a language that cannot be subdivided

Allomorphs: Variants of a single morpheme that occur in different environments

• e.g., [z], [s], [əz] are allomorphs — used to pluralize English words
  • [z] → “cabs” | [s] → “caps” | [əz] → “buses”

Minimal pairs: Two words with different meanings that are identical except for one sound segment occurring in the same place (e.g., cab [kæb] and cad [kæd])

• Use minimal pairs whose members take different allomorphs for phonological analysis

Morphophonemic rules: Particular phonological rules that determine the phonetic form of morphemes / pronunciation of specific morphemes

Phoneme: Abstract basic form of a speech sound (as perceived mentally, not pronounced physically) that cannot be subdivided

Allophone: Perceptible sounds corresponding to the same phoneme in various environments

• e.g., [pʰ] (as in “pit”) and [p] (as in “spit”) are allophones of the phoneme /p/

Phone: Particular realization (pronunciation) of a phoneme

Complementary distribution: Phones that do not occur in identical environments

• If phones are in complementary distribution and share most phonetic features → indicator that they may be allophones of the same phoneme

Contrastive distribution: Phones that do occur in identical environments

Nondistinctive/redundant feature: Does not distinguish phonemes from each other (e.g., in English: aspiration of consonants, nasalization of vowels)

Assimilation rule: Dictates how a sound changes to match neighboring sounds

Epenthesis: Process of inserting a consonant or vowel as part of a phonological rule

Syllable Structure

Syllable: A phonological unit composed of one or more phonemes

• Nucleus: Usually a vowel (but can be a liquid or nasal)
• Nucleus is preceded by an onset phoneme and/or followed by a coda phoneme
• Rime: Nucleus + coda
• Primary stressed syllable marked by acute accent ˈ; non-primary stressed syllables marked by grave accent ˌ

English Phonotactic Constraints

• Cannot have multiple stop consonants in the same syllable
• If a word begins with an affricate or a liquid, it must be followed by a vowel
• No more than three sequential consonants can occur at the beginning of a word
• Obstruent sequences that end a syllable can’t differ in their voicing

How to Do Phonological Analysis

(Are two phones different phonemes or allophones?)

1. Check for minimal pairs — if they exist, the phones are in contrastive distribution → different phonemes
2. If no minimal pairs — are the phones in complementary distribution? (do they appear in entirely different environments?)
3. If they are in complementary distribution and are phonologically similar → probably allophones of the same phoneme
4. The more basic allophone defines the phoneme