ELS102
THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
TOPIC NO.1
Phonology: The Sound Patterns
of Language
WEEK1
What is Phonology?
• Phonology is the description of the systems and
patterns of speech sounds in a language. It’s based
on a theory in which every speaker of a language
unconsciously knows about the sound patterns of
their language.
• Then, phonology is related to the mental or
abstract aspect of the sounds in language rather
than with the actual physical articulation of
speech sounds. Phonology is about the underlying
design, the blueprint of the sound type that serves
as the constant basis of all the variations in
different physical articulations of that sound type
in different contexts.
• • There are only a dozen or so features needed to
describe every speech sound in every human
language
– All the languages in the world sound so
different because the way the languages use
speech sounds to form patterns differs from
language to language
• The study of how speech sounds form patterns is
phonology
• Phonology tells us what sounds are in a
language, how they do and can combine into
words, and explains why certain phonetic
features are important to identifying a word .
What are Phonemes?
• Phonemes are the meaning-distinguishing
sounds in a language. The phonemes are single
sound types which came to be represented as a
single symbol. In this sense, for instance the
phoneme /t/ is described as a sound type, of
which all the different spoken versions of /t/ are
tokens. An essential property of a phoneme is
that it functions contrastively. We know that
there are two phonemes /t/ and /v/ in English
because there are only basis on the contrast in
meaning between fat and vat or fine and vine.
. This contrastive property is the basic operational
test for determine the phonemes which exist in a
language. It means, that if we substitute one
sound for another in a word there is a change of
meaning and then 2 different sounds represent
different phonemes.
What are phones?
• Phones are the different versions of sound types
produced in actual speech. Phones are phonetic
units and will appear in square brackets.
What are allophones?
• Allophones are a set of phones that represent the
different versions of a phoneme.
What is a minimal pair?
• Minimal pairs are phonetic distinctions in a
language tested via pairs of words. When two
words such as pat and bat are identical in form
except for a contrast in one phoneme in the
same position, the two words are described as
minimal pairs.
Examples of minimal pairs:
• Fan – Van
• Site – Side
• Safe – Save
• Ferry – Very
• Ship – Sheep
• Light – Right
• Lice – Rice
• Sheep – Ship
• Bad – Bat
• Look – Loop
• Darling – Dialing
What is a Minimal Set?
• Minimal sets are groups of words that can be
differentiated each one from the other by
changing one phoneme always in the same
position.
Examples of minimal sets:
• Feat, fit, fat, fate fought, food.
• Big, pig, rig, fig, rig, wig, dig.
TOPIC NO.2
Syllables and Clusters
WEEK1
• A syllable must contain a vowel or vowel-like
sound. The most common type of syllable also has
a consonant before the vowel. The basic elements
of a syllable are:
• · The onset: one or more syllables.
• · The rime: consists of the vowel, which is treated
as the nucleus and the following consonants,
treated as the coda.
• Both onset and the coda can consist of more than
one consonant also known as the consonant
cluster. For example, the combination st is a
consonant cluster, as osten in the word stop and as
a coda in the word post.
• There are many CC onset combinations permitted in
English Phonotactics, as in black, bread, trick, twin, flat
and throw, with approximants ( w, r, l) frequently
appearing in the second position.
Co-articulation effects
• In much of the preceding discussion, we have been
describing the speech sounds as if they are always
pronounced carefully and almost in slow motion, but
speech isn´t like that very often. Mostly our talk is fast
and spontaneous, and it requires our articulators to
move from one sound to the next without stopping. The
process of making one sound almost at the same time
as the next is called Co-articulation
There are two types of co-articulation
• Assimilation and Elision
• Assimilation
• It is the process in which two phonemes occur in sequence ans some
aspect of one phoneme is taken or copied by the other.
• For example, N becomes M or ŋ :
• It´s only ten miles from hereHe is Ken MillerOnly a man can carry that
• Elision
• It is the omission of a sound segment which would be present in the
deliberate pronunciation of a word in isolation. It´s very common in
consonant clusters, coda position: friendship, you and me.
•
TOPIC NO.1
The Pronunciation of
Morphemes: Plurals
WEEK2
• Some certain morphemes are pronounced
differently depending on their context
• For example, the English plural morpheme has
three
• Different pronunciation depending on what
noun you attach it to:
– It gets pronounced as a [z] for words like cab,
bag, and bar
– It gets pronounced as [s] for words like cap,
back, and faith
•
– It gets pronounced as [əz] for words like bus,
garage, and match .
TOPIC NO.1
Phonetics Vs. Phonology
WEEK2
• Phonetics looks at the physical production of
sounds, focusing on which vocal organs are
interacting with each other and how close these
vocal organs are in relation to one another.
Phonetics also looks at the concept of voicing,
occurring at the pair of muscles found in your
voice box, also known as the Adam’s apple. If the
vocal folds are vibrating, this creates voicing and
any sound made in this way are called voiced
sounds, for example “z”.
• If the vocal folds are not vibrating, this does not
lead to voicing and creates a voiceless sound e.g.
“s”. You can observe this yourself by placing two
fingers upon your voice box and saying “z” and
“s” repeatedly. You should feel vibrations against
your finger when saying “z” but no vibrations
when saying “s”.
•
Phonology however is associated more with the
abstract properties of sounds, as it is about how
these categories are stored in the mind.
Phonetics also describes certain properties as
being gradient such as voicing where we can
compare the length of voicing between two
sounds. For example in French, [b] is voiced for
longer than English [b]. In Phonology, these
segments are simply defined categorically as
being voiced or voiceless, regardless of these
subtle differences.
Phonetics is the study of the sounds of speech.
It is concerned with the physical properties of
speech sounds or signs (phones): their
physiological production, acoustic properties,
auditory perception, and neurophysiologic
status. Phonology, on the other hand, is
concerned with the abstract, grammatical
characterization of systems of sounds or signs.
