lecture - Phonology or Phonetics PDF

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Summary

Differences between phonetics and phonology, alternations, levels of representation...

Description

Phonology Lecture 2 Levels of representation  

Phonetics = Concrete Phonology = abstract

Phonology

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Phonology is a apart of the grammar and provides the interface with he external world Phonetics is not part of grammar and provides the concrete expression of this internal interface Phonology is interested in the systematic organisation of speech sounds in language Phonology is not phonetics, but phonetics often provide evidence for our conclusions about phonology

Generalisations       

One of the tasks of phonology is to ‘capture generalisations’ In other words to identify recurring patterns in the sound system of a language (or of language in general) and to express those recurring patterns The strength of some generalisations is that they predict new words will behave in the same way A correct generalisation is also a prediction Importantly, this generalisation is about the voiceless stops as a class, so the prediction is about the behaviour of the class as a whole Generalisations allow us to make predictions about the phonology of language. In turn predictions allow us to create hypotheses and test these hypothesis Generalisations allow us to make predictions about phonology of language including: Words of a new language The behaviour of new words and the behaviour of borrowed words

Alternations 

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Among the generalisations captured by the phonology are the relations between phonemes and allophones, where an allophone of a specific phoneme occurs in a distinct environment Consider the palatalization of the coronals /s/, /z/, /t/ and /d/ /s/ - [ʃ] = miss vs mi[ʃ] you /z/ - [Ʒ] = his vs hi[Ʒ] unit /t/ - [tʃ] = hit vs hi[tʃ] you /d/ - [d Ʒ] = feed vs fee[dƷ] you Without phonology we would have to say miss has 2 forms

Contexts

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There may be various contexts which can be relevant to a sort of alternation In the case of the palatalization of coronal consonants just seen, the context is primarily phonetic; when followed by a palatal glide [j], a coronal consonant palatalises. A change like this is very common in language Nasalisation of a vowel in the vicinity of a nasal segment is another common feature of languages It may occur to the left or to the right of a nasal segment, depending on the language In English nasalisation spreads to the left from a nasal stop to an adjacent vowel with the same syllable Position within a syllable can be a crucial context for phonological alternation We saw that sonorants /w, l, ɹ, j/, in English devoice after a voiceless consonant, but only within – not across – syllables

Alternation types and conditioning  

Alternations in phonology may be ‘conditioned’ i.e. caused by a variety of things Alternations may be: Phonetic = triggered by a specific phonetic context Phonetic and Morphological = triggered by something phonetic together with some restriction from word formation, e.g. a prefix or suffix Phonetic, morphological and lexical = triggered by something phonetic, but having morphological restriction and a restriction to a specific type of word

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Phonetically conditioned alternations = along with palatalization seen above, another example is nasal assimilation, where the nasal stop matches the place of articulation or following an obstruent e.g. In /ɪn/ But [ ɪm] brazil / [ ɪm] France/ [ ɪn] Norway/ [ɪn] Canada Either we encode the alternation into theory, suggesting that there is an underlying form /ɪ n/ with four diferent shapes (as assumed by generative phonology), or do we have to list four diferent forms in the lexicon for the single word in. Our grammar has to state where each of the four forms is inserted

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Morphologically restricted phonetically conditioned alternations Consider the past tense marker -edPlayed/missed/chipped/batted/loaded/loved/watched/kicked etc. After a verb ending in a voiced sound (including vowels, but not coronal’s) it’s [d] (play[d], judg[d]) After a verb ending in voiceless sound (but not coronal’s) it’s [t] (miss[f], kick[t]) After a verb ending in a coronal stop ([t] or [d]) it’s [ əd] or [ɪd] depending on your accent (batt[əd], load[əd]

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The process afects the past tense marker, i.e. an inflectional affix, and is not general English phonology. The fact that the affix is [d] after vowels and sonorant’s and not [t] is arbitrary – we can happily say both played [ple ɪd] and plate [ple ɪt] as well as felled [f ɛld] and felt [fɛlt] There are exceptions, i.e. a number of verbs which ought to have a past tense ending in [ əd] don’t – sat not sitt[əd], hurt not hurt[əd], built not buil[əd]

Phonetically conditioned alternations with morphological and lexical restrictions Consider the words magic vs magician, music vs musician, electric vs electrician In each of these cases the final [k] of the base noun appears as [ ʃ] in the derived noun This looks like it could be phonetics, the palatalization of [k] under the influence of the palatal [ɪ] But in English its not usually the case that /k/ followed by [ ɪ] becomes [ʃ] – kill is not [ɪʃ] It’s not part of the general phonology of English The suffix -ian attaches only to words of romance origin i.e. its lexically restricted

Levels of representation   

A phoneme is a phonological representation, so the underlying or abstract form related to some (set of) surface forms. Those surface forms, the allophones of a particular phoneme, count as part of the phonetic representation Phonological representations include other structures: Features and subsegmental structure Syllables and syllable structure Feet and metrical structure Phonological relations between various structures

Relating the phonological structures to the surfaces 

A phonological rule may be used to express what the surface form of some phoneme should be in a context. So to express the aspiration of word-initial voiceless stops in English, we can use a rule like.

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Rules are not the only way of relating underlying forms to surface forms

Rules and rule writing

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Rules are taken to be formal objects in phonological theory and there are specific conventions that are followed in writing them

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Word boundary: # Beginning of a word: #_ End of a word: _# Morpheme boundary: + Following a morpheme: +_ Before a morpheme: _+

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Parentheses notation for optional elements: A-> B/ C(D)_E This could mean either in the environment CD_E OR C_E A->B/ (C)(D)_E Four rules = CD_E / C_E / D_E OR _E

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Brace notation ({ }: either / or

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Parentheses and braces can allow rules with overlapping environments to be collapsed. Giving the following rules

Rule vs distribution

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A rule is a statement of change; a distribution is a static statement of environments where X is found Rule /d/ -> [t] / _ # This describes for e.g. German final devoicing where /hʊnd/ ‘dog’ surfaces as [hʊnt] A distributional statement: the [t] allophone of /d/ occurs word finally

Optional Elements – concrete example

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Consider the example of the behaviour of /ɹ/ in non-rhotic dialects of English. In these dialects a final-r is not pronounced [fa:] Therefore: /ɹ/ -> Ø / _# Implyinf /faɹ/ -> [fa:] (the lengthening of the vowel would be a separate rule)...