Sound Structure Sound Structure Part II Phonology 2009 Review of Phonetics Speech sounds are decomposable into articulatory primitives (also known as features) Consonants and Vowels Feature differences (e g , voiced vs voiceless, nasal vs not nasal, labial vs alveolar vs velar) lead to the diversity of sounds across languages We seem to perceive speech sounds as discrete units rather than continuous acoustic signals Seeing Speech Further aspects of sound Cognitive How important is speech to lang.
Sound Structure Part II: Phonology 2009 Review of Phonetics • Speech sounds are decomposable into articulatory primitives (also known as features) • Consonants and Vowels • Feature differences (e.g., voiced vs voiceless, nasal vs not nasal, labial vs alveolar vs velar) lead to the diversity of sounds across languages • We seem to perceive speech sounds as discrete units rather than continuous acoustic signals Seeing Speech Further aspects of sound: Cognitive • How important is speech to language? • The phoneme: the basic, distinctive sounds of a language – What it means to be distinctive • How words are organized into subparts (syllables and other units) for the determination of stress • Knowledge of language the internal “grammar” in your mind will get more and more abstract than the physiological aspects of language Cross-Linguistic Differences • Everyone has encountered a language that contains a speech sound that is not in their native language • As a general point, languages differ greatly both in terms of how many phonemes they have and in terms of which phonemes they have – Number of phonemes: • Many: Some Khoisan languages, around 140 phonemes • Few: E.g Hawaiian, 13 phonemes Being Distinctive • We refer to the phonemes above as distinctive because they make contrasts between different words • This can be illustrated for stops by using minimal pairs: a pair of words that differ in only one phoneme: pill bill till kill [p] vs [b] dill gill [t] vs [d] [k] vs [g] Lost in Translation R vs L • Many Korean and Japanese speakers have trouble learning the contrast between R and L in English • It is NOT because these sounds are absent in the native language – Seoul vs Korea – Notice that they are NOT in contrastive positions (l at the end of a syllable but r at the front) – But English uses R and L contrastively: minimal pairs – bLue~bRew, Light~Right, maLt~maRt – Phonology is not just about the sound inventory, it’s also about how sounds are put in use Differences that are not distinctive • Some aspects of pronunciation are not distinctive – Example: aspiration (puffing air) pit vs spit – The former [p] is aspirated, but the [p] in the latter is not – But: the distinction between aspirated and nonaspirated [p] is not distinctive in English (although it is in other languages) That is, in English there are no pairs like [phIt] ‘hole in the ground, etc.’ [pIt] (whatever this might be) Rule of thumb: come up with minimal pairs as a test for phonemes Transcribing differences • When we transcribe speech sounds using the IPA notation, we may so in different ways – If we are interested in every phonetic detail, we would indicate effects like aspiration in English, even if it is not distinctive ([phIt]) – If we are interested more in the phonological inventory, we would omit the aspiration, as it is not distinctive ([pIt]) • For our purposes we will be concentrating on the latter type • Sometimes when we focus on phonology, an abstract representation, we use slashes, e.g /p/ Rules of Pronunciation • [vowel] ➔ [nasal] / [nasal consonant] • the change • here, nasal • Notice: I didn’t put [nasal vowel] I don’t have to put vowel b/c that doesn’t change • Only put what changes = simpler, less to remember Rules of Pronunciation • [vowel] ➔ [nasal] • “when” / [nasal consonant] Rules of Pronunciation • [vowel] ➔ [nasal] / [nasal consonant] • This is the environment that causes the change • The underlining shows the position of the sound that’s changing • Here: before a nasal consonant Rules of Pronunciation • To show “after a nasal consonant”, we could have done this: • [nasal consonant] _ • To show “between a nasal consonant and a nasal consonant”, we would have done this: • [nasal consonant] _ [nasal consonant] Rules of Pronunciation • So, English speakers unconsciously know the following rule: • [vowel] ➔ [nasal] / [nasal, consonant] • “vowels become nasal when before a nasal consonant” • This is a rule of assimilation, making sounds more similar • Rules of dissimilation (making sounds less similar) also exist, but are less common Phonemes and their distributions • Other cases of distinctive features lead to some interesting observations • Consider the nasals: – rum run rung • These phonemes are distinct at the end of the word; but, [ng], unlike the other two, has the property that it never occurs word-initially in English – map nap *ngap • In order to understand these patterns, we have to move from the phonemes to the principles by which phonemes are organized into words and other units The Syllable • A familiar notion is that of the syllable: as in, ‘Philadelphia’ has five syllables – Newborns perceive speech in terms of syllables – Basically, each vowel corresponds to a syllable • A refined set of hypothesis about the syllable is important for many linguistic generalizations • Definitions (initial): – Onset: the beginning of the syllable – Nucleus: vowel in the middle of the syllable – Coda: consonant(s) at the end of a syllable Syllable Structure Legislator: le-gi-sla-tor; four syllables (σ) Monosyllabic cat: σ Onset k Rhyme Nucleus æ Coda t Onsets and Speech Errors Spoonerisms (Rev Dr W A Spooner, 1844-1930) Target: Output: dear old queen queer old dean Target: Output: You have wasted the whole term You have tasted the whole worm Target: Output: You missed my history lectures You hissed my mystery lectures Further aspects of the syllable • Onset: – English normally allows two consonants – [s] can be added initially in many cases as well, resulting in onsets with three consonants (e.g splash) – All sounds can occur in this position with the exception of [ng] Thus the subdivision of the syllable is crucial for stating this generalization • Coda: – English normally allows two consonants, although again there are cases where more stack up (e.g belts) Syllables and wellformedness • Conditions on syllable structure define a set of (phonologically) possible words in a language; for instance – Actual words: brick, true, free, crab, etc – Non-words that are possible words of English: blick, clee, flork – Impossible words: *bnick, *fnee, *dmay – Words in which historical change has made an initial consonant silent: knee, knight, gnat – Another reason that we don’t just memorize words but form generalizations over them Differences across languages • Languages differ in terms of the constraints they impose on syllable structure: – E.g Hawaiian: • No coda consonants • Maximum of one consonant per onset • Examples: ink > 'ỵnika Norman > Nolemana – E.g Polish: many consonant clusters at the beginning of words that are impossible in English: bzdura "nonsense" babsk "witch" grzbiet [gzhbyet] "back" marnotrawstw [mar-no-trafstf] "of wastes" Infixation: more on this next week Suffix: Attached to the end of a word (work-ed) Prefix: Beginning (un-important) Infix: Inside a word What is an example of an infix in English? There is at least one phenomenon with the relevant properties this illustrates the basic principle that larger linguistic units are built out of smaller ones Expletive infixation Expletive Infixation is not something that our English teachers instruct us in; yet we know a great deal about it – what’s the rule? Go home and try with your friends & Tas It has to with stress patterns of language inde-f*cking-pendent unrea-f*cking-listic *indepen-f*cking-dent *unreali-f*cking-stic Summary • Articulatory features • Phonemes • Syllables • Feet • Words • Sentences ... to the diversity of sounds across languages • We seem to perceive speech sounds as discrete units rather than continuous acoustic signals Seeing Speech Further aspects of sound: Cognitive • How... contrastively: minimal pairs – bLue~bRew, Light~Right, maLt~maRt – Phonology is not just about the sound inventory, it’s also about how sounds are put in use Differences that are not distinctive •... to language? • The phoneme: the basic, distinctive sounds of a language – What it means to be distinctive • How words are organized into subparts (syllables and other units) for the determination