Phonology

How to handle speech

Thorsten Trippel

Universität Bielefeld

Material provided by a pool of colleagues: Dafydd Gibbon, Vivian Gramley, Alexandra Thies

Overview

• Transcription task
• Phonology
• Minimal pairs
• Allophones
• Summary

Phonology

• Which sounds do you haven in English?
• How do you find out?

Phonology (2)

• Generalisations over language sounds
• not phonetics
• Definition of vowels:
  • Phonetics: no obstruction in vocal tract, described by tongue position, always voiced
  • Phonology: function as the core of a spoken unit (syllable)
• Definition of consonsants:
  • Phonetics: some articulators modify airstream; different formants in spectrogram, ...
  • Phonology: onset of a syllable, coda of a syllable; not core of the syllable

Minimal pairs

• two distinct words
• articulatory similar
• one speech sound difference
• proof: two different speech sounds involved
• Minimal pair

Example Minimal pairs

• sit
• seat
• sheet
• shit
• ...

Task Minimal pairs

• Create a list of minimal pairs of English!
• How many distinct sounds can you find?
• Transcribe them in IPA

Allophones

• Some sound differences: not word dinstinguishing
• Example:
  • aspiration of voiced labio-dental apporximant
  • aspirated bilabial plosive
• freely interchangable: free variation
• complementary, i.e. in certain contexts only: complementary distribution
• Two speech sounds that do not help distinguishing two different words but that are articulatory similar are called allophones.

Allophones or phonemes?

• Oma : Opa
• Rand : Rat
• Rad : Rat
• bitten : bieten
• Rosen (pronounced with an alveolar trill) : Rosen (pronounced with an uvular trill)
• Buch : Bücher
• dir : Tier

Allophones or phonemes? (cont)

• Rasen : rasen
• Sache : Sachen
• Milch : mild
• blau : Bau
• Weg : Steg
• chunk : hunk

Why can the Chinese hardly distinguish German:

• ʃʁaŋk
• ʃlaŋk
• Hint: Korean
  • [r] word initial or intervocalic
  • [l] else

Distribution

• Not all speech sounds in all environments
• Example: /t/ appears at syllable onset and coda in English
• Example: /w/ appears only at syllable onset, not coda
• Sometimes: complementary distribution, i.e. two very similar phonemes do not appear in the same environment, example German /x/ and /ç/ as in ach and ich
• Phonotactics of a language: the study of possible sound combinations of a language

Phonological features: used in autosegmental phonology and others

• binary system: + or -
• voice
• nasal
• lateral
• syllabic
• lateral
• continuant
• sonorant
• coronal
• anterior
• consonantal
• high
• low
• back
• round

Summary: Phonology

• study of generalizations over speech sounds
• inventory of speech sounds
• language specific
• non distinctive speech sounds: allophones
• meaning distinguishing speech sounds: phonemes
• test between allophone and phoneme: minimal pair