Phonology - 1

Underlying representation

The mental or abstract representation in MG of the basic phonemic form that speakers store in mind (phonemes)

EX: /s/

Surface representation

The actual pronunciation of a word after phonological rules have been applied (allophones)

EX: [s], [z], [Iz or əz]

Example of underlying and surface rep.

In English, the plural suffix “-s” has an underlying form /s/, but it can surface as [s], [z], [Iz or əz] depending on the preceding sound (phonological rules).

Speech sound disorder (SSD)

children with SSD are less able to acquire phonemic contrasts than typically developed children (TD)

The acquisition of phonemes requires

categorical perception. We group sounds as phonemes by ignoring the variation between them

Babies learn the phonemes of thier L1 by

hearing a lot of meaningful contrasts between sounds in minimal pairs

Contrastive Distribution

2 sounds occur in the same phonetic environment but creates different words with different meaning

Minimal Pairs

words that differ in only 1 parameter, where that 1 paremeter also change the meaning of the word

Minimal Pairs proves

The 2 sounds are in contrastive distribution and, therefore are 2 distinct phonemes

EX of not a mininal pair

[wɔɾəɹ] and [wɔtəɹ] = water

• both mean the same thing so [ɾ] and [t] are not phonemes of English

Evidences for phoneme

• minimal pair

• shared environment

Shared environment

ex:

• sip, clip (i_#)

• fig, big (i_#)

• [p] and [g] are in contrastive distribution

EX on how to explain phonemes using minimal pair

sin [s ɪ n] and sing [s ɪ ŋ]

• [n] and [ŋ] sounds appear in the same position (same phonetic environment), and swapping them changes the meaning

• this means [n] and [ŋ] are in contrastive distribution and therefore the 2 sounds are distinct phonemes

Allophones

Different pronunciation (phonetic variation) of a single phoneme in a given language. They often occur in a specific environment

Complementary Distribution

When the 2 sounds never appear in the same environment and their occurrence is predictable based on phonological rules

EX of complementary distribution

[p] vs [p^h]

• [p] occurs after s in a consonant cluster

  • spin [s p ɪ n]

• [p^h] occurs at the beginning of a stressed syllable

  • pin [p^h ɪ n]

• Since [pʰ] and [p] never appear in the same environment, they are in complementary distribution and are allophones of the same phoneme /p/ in English

Elsewhere case (default)

a more general form of sounds, which appear with no special rules

ex: from the example above

• [p] is the elsewhere case because it doesn't have specific phonological rules to where it appeared

• /p/ → [p], [p^h]

you can find elsewhere case when

when the rule create no natural class (have nothing in common), more general

we would consider [p^h]

To have a simpler distribution, because it needs specific rules, but [p] doesn’t have a specific rule. It’s more general