Phonology: Introduction

İDB164 – Week 7
 Contents

Background
1. Phoneme
2. Allophone

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 - Background

speaker’s mind phonology

speaker’s mouth (articulatory) phonetics

sounds in the air (acoustic) phonetics

listener’s ear (auditory) phonetics

listener’s mind phonology

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 - Background

What is a sound in relation to speech?

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 - Background

SEGMENT
apartman
apaɹtman

a pa ɹtma n

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 - Background

bad
bed
bæd
bed

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 - Background

‘pit’ - pɪt ‘putt’ - pʌt

‘pet’ - pet ‘pot’ - pɒt
‘pat’ - pæt ‘put’ - pʊt

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 smallest meaning
distinguishing sound in the
1 Phoneme phonology of a language

A phoneme is the basic unit of a

language’s phonology, which is combined
with other phonemes to form meaningful
units such as words or morphemes.

‘pit’ - pɪt
p, ɪ and t come together to
form the word ’pit’

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 1 Phoneme

A phoneme is the smallest contrastive unit

which may bring a change of meaning.

‘pit’ - pɪt
‘pet’ - pet
The substitution of ɪ and e
brings a change in meaning in
the words ‘pit’ and ‘pet’.

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 1 Phoneme

A phonemic system refers to complete set

of phonemes in a language.

e.g.,
In English, despite there being
26 letters, there are 44
phonemes, i.e., unique sounds.
The 44 phonemes help to
distinguish one word or
meaning from another.

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A phonemic system refers to complete set

of phonemes in a language.
‘pit’e.g.,- pɪt
‘pet’
In English, -
despite pet
there being
26 letters, there are 44
phonemes, i.e., unique sounds.
The 44 phonemes help to
distinguish one word or
meaning from another.

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 1 Phoneme

‘kill’ – /kɪl/
‘kiss’ – /kɪs/
/l/ and /s/ are
phonemes of English

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 1 Phoneme

‘yol’ – /jol/
‘sol’ – /sol/
/j/ and /s/ are
phonemes of Turkish

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and they are contrastive

Phoneme is described as a contrastive or

distinctive sound within a language.

‘yol’ – /jol/
‘sol’ – /sol/
/j/ and /s/ are
phonemes of Turkish

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 1 Phoneme

minimal pair
pairs of words that differ in only one phoneme
They provide solid evidence for phonemic contrast, i.e.,
employed to find out the phonemes of a language

‘yol’ – /jol/
‘sol’ – /sol/

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 1 Phoneme

minimal pair
pairs of words that differ in only one phoneme
They provide solid evidence for phonemic contrast, i.e.,
employed to find out the phonemes of a language

How many vowels are there in Turkish?

A minimal pair test can be conducted to find out the
phonemes in Turkish.

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 1 Phoneme

How many vowels are there in Turkish?

A minimal pair test can be conducted to find out the
phonemes in Turkish.

‘ev’ /ev/ ‘is’ /is/

‘av’ /av/ ‘üs’ /ys/
inventory for Turkish
‘at’ /at/ ‘üs’ /ys/ vowel phonemes
‘it’ /it/ ‘us’ /us/
/e/ /a/ /i/ /œ/
‘il’ /il/ ‘kul’ /kul/
‘öl’ /œl/ ‘kıl’ /kɯl/ /y/ /u/ /ɯ/ /o/

‘öp’ /œp/ ‘kıl’ /kɯl/

‘ip’ /ip/ ‘kol’ /kol/

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 1 Phoneme

phoneme speaker’s mind phonology

phone speaker’s mouth (articulatory) phonetics

phone sounds in the air (acoustic) phonetics

phone listener’s ear (auditory) phonetics

phoneme listener’s mind phonology

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 1 Phoneme

and they are contrastive

Phoneme is described as a contrastive or

distinctive sound within a language.

‘yol’ – /jol/
‘sol’ – /sol/
/j/ and /s/ are
phonemes of Turkish

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 1 Phoneme

and they are contrastive

Phoneme is described as a contrastive or

distinctive sound within a language.

What ‘yol’ i.e.,/jol/

about, – Ankara as:
– /sol/
‘sol’ankara
aŋkara
/j/ and /s/ are
So, the n & ŋphonemes
distinction is not contrastive.
of Turkish
So, they are not phonemes for Turkish.
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‘kap’ – kap
‘pas’ – phas

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 An allophone is different
2 Allophone realization of a phoneme.

‘kap’ – kap
‘pas’ – phas

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 2 Allophone

[xh]
aspiration
puff of air released after
such sounds as p - t – k.

/p/

‘pin’ – [phɪn]
‘spin’ – [spɪn]

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 2 Allophone

/t/

‘tea’ – [thi:]
‘eat’ – [i:t]
[th] and [t] are mutually exclusive
THAT IS, they cannot occupy each other’s position.

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 2 Allophone

x
/t/

‘tea’ – [ti:]
‘eat’ – [i:th]
It is impossible to produce aspirated [th] in word final position.

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complementary distribution
The relationship among the allophones of a
phoneme is called complementary. Units that
are in complementary distribution cannot
change their position.

/t/

‘tea’ – [thi:]
‘eat’ – [i:t]
[th] and [t] are mutually exclusive
THAT IS, they cannot occupy each other’s position.

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 2 Allophone

environment
/x/

initial medial final

[x?] [x?] [x?]

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 2 Allophone

chemical formula of water

It is ABSTRACT.

H2O

below 0 oC between 0 and 100 oC above 100 oC

ice water vapour
Different occurrences of H2O are CONCRETE

So, there is a complementary

distribution among the concrete
instances of the H2O.

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 2 Allophone

environment

there is a difference between

the pronunciation of the words
‘lea’ and ‘eel’
‘clear l’ [ liː ] [ iːɫ ] ‘dark l’

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 2 Allophone

‘pin’ [ phɪn ]
‘spin’ [ spɪn ]

/p/ Phonemes are abstract units and

are found in our mind (i.e. linguistic competence)

[p] [ph] Allophones are concrete units and

are found in our production (i.e. linguistic performance)

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 2 Allophone

H2O Phoneme

below 0 oC between 0 and 100 oC above 100 oC

Allophone
ice water vapour

A H2O cannot occur as ice above 100 oC.

A phoneme /p/ cannot occur as [ph] in the middle of a word.
complementary distribution

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 2 Allophone

Allophones can be described as

CONDITIONED variants of a phoneme,
generated by PHONOLOGICAL
CONDITIONING.

<language-specific rules of pronunciation>

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 3 Symbols

Transcription IPA

With transcriptions, dictionaries tell

us about the pronunciation of words.

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no nəʊ
do duː
in spelling, these words are something similar
they both end in the letter o
but their
transcriptions are different
because they are pronounced differently

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PHONEMIC PHONETIC
TRANSCRIPTION TRANSCRIPTION
• The type used in dictionaries
• It is the transcription based on the
phonemes of a language.
NARROW BROAD
• detailed transcription • less detailed than
• One should involve all narrow
aspects of phonetic transcription
marks • Used when focusing
on a slight phonetic
difference among
the sounds

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Phonemic transcription

we have two different English sounds

saying d instead of t in the word bet, bed - bet
THE MEANING CHANGES

saying one sound instead of another changes the meaning

THEREFORE, we need to use separate symbols

for d and t in phonemic transcription

“t” and “d” are two separate phonemes

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On the other hand, the flap t (in letter) and the

regular “t” (in letter) are two very different sounds.
leɾə
However, there are no English words where saying letə
the flap t instead of the regular “t” (or the other way
around) changes the meaning.

Therefore, in phonemic transcription, we use the

same symbol for the flap t and the regular “t”.
In other words, we say that the flap t and the regular “t”
are the same phoneme.

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• less detailed than

narrow • detailed transcription
transcription
• One should involve all
• Used when focusing
aspects of phonetic
on a slight phonetic
marks
difference among
the sounds

Broad and narrow phonetic transcription

it is much more detailed than phonemic transcription
usually used by phoneticians

pin pɪn
spin spɪn

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Phonetic
transcription

when symbols are used to represent precise phonetic

values, they are often enclosed in square brackets
[xh]
phonemic symbols are enclosed within
slant brackets, slashes /x/

Phonemic
transcription

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 3 Symbols

bed - bet
/bed/ /bet/

pin [phɪn]
spin [spɪn]

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Phonology: Introduction
İDB164 – Week 7