phonemes, allophones and minimal pairs

Phonetic description

form of speech sounds (what they sound like + how they're produced + what speech sound they are)

Phonological description

function of the speech sound (what the speech sound does in a particular language) 

Phonology

organisation of sounds in a particular language

Phoneme

sound groups that make a meaning difference in a particular language

Contrasts

sounds are in contrast if changing one for another changes the words meaning, Eg)swapping /k/ and /g/ before /əʊt/ changes the meaning from coat to goat  

Parallel distribution

sounds swapped must be in the same position in two separate words 

Minimal pair

2 words which only differ in one sound which changes the meaning, used to find out if 2 sounds are separate phonemes

Complimentary distribution

one sound occurs in an environment where the other cannot 

Phonemic inventory

list of all phonemes in the language eg IPA chart  

Allophone

different versions (accents) of the same phoneme, imagine allophones being the children of a phoneme- they are all family but they are slightly different

Aspiration

[...ʰ]= puff of air

Un-aspirated

[...⁼]= no puff of air

Clear

the tongue stays forward/away from velum, always the case in onset (start of syllable)position

Dark

the back of the tongue rises towards velum, always the case in coda (end of syllable),symbolised [lˠ]

Vocalised

 involves no tongue + lip closure/ the back of the tongue is raised towards the velum, uses the symbol [o]

Diacritic

tiny symbols added to modify IPA symbols , either [...ʰ],[...⁼],[lˠ]

what is the point of finding minimal pairs

Finding minimal pairs allows us to establish phonemes of language  

example of an allophone

cat with a 't' or 'glottal stop', every phoneme occurs in slightly different forms depending on its position in the syllable

example of an aspirated allophone

/p/ in pan

example of an un-aspirated allophone

/p/ in span

example of a clear allophone

/l/ in lead

example of a dark allophone

/l/ in deal

example of a vocalised allophone

/l/ in milk in a london accent, sounding like ‘miwk’

3 rules for the properties of an allophone of the same phoneme

1) be in complementary distribution (never appear in the same place) 

2)be phonetically similar (produced in similar ways) 

3) never change meaning