Phonetics & Phonology: The Sounds of Language

Written =/ Spoken

• Speech is often considered the more basic form of language than writing.

• Speech introduces a different type of complexity to understanding, including needing to meaningfully segment a continuous stream of sounds and dealing with phonetic

  variation for individual words.

• Segmenting a continuous stream into words is hard, but we're very good at it

• In English, segmenting out meaningful units/words seems almost effortless. But how

  much is this something we learned, and how much is it part of the speech signal? Let's try 

  languages you might not know

• From the acoustic signal alone, we can't determine word boundaries. We must learn them

• There is not a direct correspondence between writing and speech

  • Tomato: UK [tʰə̥ˈmɑːtʰəʉ̯]

  • US [tʰə̥ˈmeɪɾoʊ]

    • Phonetic notation uncovers differences that spelling of the word doesn't

IPA: International phonetic alphabet

• In written language, we use letters to spell words conventionally. To more accurately transcribe spoken language, we try to directly capture the phones (i.e., discrete sound units) to represent the actual sounds speakers produce. To do so, we can use the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)

• The IPA is a great phonetic alphabet to use because it is applicable to all spoken human languages, rather than just English.

• Furthermore, within IPA, there is a one-to-one correspondence between sounds and symbols so that each symbol represents only one sound and each sound is represented by only one symbol.

• In addition, the IPA can be used to transcribe different levels of detail, from broad transcriptions to a very fine level of phonetic detail

• Top is Place: where the sound is produced in your mouth

• Bottom is Manner: how the sound is produced

Sounds of a Language

• Claim: The sounds [k] and [g] are meaningfully different sounds in English. 

• wick / wig; crab / grab; hunker / hunger ← minimal pair 

  • → These words are identical except for the sounds [k] and [g].

  • In other words, it's impossible to predict which sound to use based on the contextual sounds surrounding it (hun?er).

• → Yes, the sounds [k] and [g] are meaningfully different sounds in English because they are in an contrastive distribution in English.

• Does this tell us anything about their distribution in another language?

  • No

• Claim: The sounds [k] and [g] are meaningfully different sounds in Kikamba

  • Bantu language spoken in Kenya

• Kikamba has [k] and [g] as separate sounds, such as in [kosuuŋga] ('to guard').

• However, in Kikamba, [g] can only appear after [ŋ]. [k] can appear word-initally or in the middle of a word between vowels, as in [kwaaka] ('to build'). It never appears after [ŋ]. Therefore we cannot find a single minimal pair.

• → No, the sounds [k] and [g] are not meaningfully different sounds in Kikamba because they are in complementary distribution in Kikamba. In contrast to English, which sound is produced will not change the meaning of the word

• In sum: [k] and [g] are sounds we can define language-independently. They are phones

• In English, [k] and [g] are in contrasting distribution and are, therefore, meaningful in the 

  language. They are phonemes in English.

• In Kikamba, [k] and [g] are in complementary distribution and are, therefore, not meaning-giving in the language. They are allophones in Kikamba

Say the words top and stop out loud! (Focus on the ‘t’ sound while holding your palm in front of your mouth.) Anything you can notice?

• There is a short burst of air after the ‘t’ in top but not in stop. This is called aspiration

• → phonetic transcription: [thɑp] and [stɑp]

• Is there a meaningful difference between [th] and [t] in English?

  • native English speakers have a very difficult time hearing these as different sounds

  • switching the sounds does not change the meaning of the word: [sthɑp] sounds odd, but it does not sound like any word other than stop

• There are four different sounds in the American English inventory ([t, th, ɾ,ʔ]) that are somehow the “same” sound ‘t.’ (top [thɑp], stop [stɑp], little [lɪɾl], kitten [kɪʔn])

• Signifies the difference between phonetics and phonology: physically (articulatorily and acoustically), there are four different sounds, but at some psychological level, these are all the same sound to a native speaker

English versus Hindi Speakers

• In contrast to English, a native speaker of Hindi does not / cannot ignore aspiration.

• Hindi

  • [phəl]

  • [pəl]

  • [bəl]

• Gloss

  • ‘Fruit’

  • ‘Moment’

  • ‘Strength’

  • For the native Hindi speaker, aspirated [ph] is as different from unaspirated [p] as [ph] is from [b] to English speakers

• But since aspiration never makes a difference in the meanings of English words (e.g., [mæp] and [mæph] for map), native English speakers are usually not aware of it.

• [p] and [ph] are contrastive in Hindi because replacing one sound with the other in a word can change the word’s meaning, but they are not in English

• This similarly holds for /t/. [t] and [th] in English would be members of the same set. By contrast, speakers of Hindi perceive [t] and [th] as different. That is, they are contrastive in

• Hindi (e.g., [tal] ‘beat’ and [thal] ‘plate’)