Phonology

How to describe the phonology of a language?

• Saying what units of sound are

• How are those units organised

What is phonology?

• A formal level of linguistic statement

• Abstract

• Meaning is socially negotiated and conventional not inherent in the form of words

Three main things phonology is concerned w/

Patterns of distribution, contrast, and explanations for sound change

distribution

• how is the sound structure of language(s) organised

• what are possible and impossible words + why

contrast

e.g. changing [t] for [b] forms a different word, but replacing a [t] with a glottal doesn’t

change

how and why do words/sounds change over time

phoneme

• an abstract category

• used to make lexical distinctions

• different phonemes are in parallel or contrastive distribution w/ each other

allophone

• a contextually determined realisation of a phoneme

• is predictable according to some rule of the lang.

• different allophones of the same phoneme are in complementary distribution to each other

minimal pairs are pairs of words that…

• differ in only one sound

• have different meanings

complementary distribution

• e.g. spiderman + Peter Parker

• two sounds X and Y are in complementary distribution if Y never occurs in any of the phonetic environments where X occurs

what does it mean if phones are in free variation?

two different phones can be used interchangeably in the same environment without changing the meaning of a word

• e.g. glottalised and non-glottalised plosives syllable-finally in English

what is defective distribution?

[h] in Eng. only occurs syllable-initially, [ŋ] only occurs syllable-finally - but they are not allophones of the same phoneme even tho they’re in CD

/l/ darkening distribution

mostly [l] is found word-initially and its velarised form is found word-finally

obligatory contour principle (OCP)

two identical things can't appear next to each other on the melodic tier

whats another word for long consonants

geminates

terminology for syllable weight

• only 1 short V in the rhyme = light

• any other kind of rhyme = heavy

• have a coda = closed

• no coda = long

what is sonority?

the sonority of a sound is its relative loudness compared to other sounds, all else (pitch etc.) being equal

how do syllables link to sonority?

syllabes have the most sonorous thing in the middle + the least sonorous thing at the edges

[l] darkening syllable

clear [l] in onset dark in coda of syllable

syllables link to peak in sonority?

• a syllable is associated with a single peak in sonority

• this peak is the nucleaus and is more sonorous (in the hierarchy) than its neighbors on both sides

what forms the onset of the syllable?

• segments preceding the nucleus form the onset

• an onset may have maximally 2 positions, where the left position is less sonorous than the right

how to form the coda of a syllable?

segments following the nucleus form the coda

• sonority decreases in the coda from left to right

how to form the rhyme?

the nucleus and coda form the rhyme, the max number of positions in a rhyme is 3

what is phonotactics?

the sounds sequences which may occur in a given language

why are certain consonant onset clusters /pm/ /dn/ etc. impossible in English?

adjacent consonants must be ‘far enough' away from each other on the sonority hierarchy - what cnstitutes far enough is language specific

what are guttural sounds

for arituclations further back than the dorsum (i.e. pharynx or larynx)

what can coronal sounds be divided into

+anterieor and -anterior

what is a natural class?

the set of all sounds sharing a given set of features in a language

how to express static patterns?

static patterns i.e. phonotactic restrictions can be expressed as either positive or negative statements

how to formulate a phonological rule?

e.g. phoneme X is realised as sound Y when it occurs betweeen sound A and sound B

what do ASR models do?

• an algorithm listens to your voice

• then compares the speech signal w/ trained acoustic models

examples of ASR model mistakes

• [t] perceived as a [s/z]

• /t/-glottalisation misperceived as nothing