User:John Stephenson/sandbox: Difference between revisions

From Citizendium
Jump to navigation Jump to search
imported>John Stephenson
(old page for test)
imported>John Stephenson
(http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Phonology&oldid=100209128 - IPA tags, + ref copyedit)
Line 1: Line 1:
'''English''' is a [[West Germanic languages|West Germanic]] language which arose historically from a number of Germanic varieties in [[England]]. As a result of the [[colonialism|colonial]] history of the [[United Kingdom]], it is the [[native language]] of much of the populations of numerous countries, including [[Ireland]], the [[United States of America]], [[Canada]], [[Australia]], [[New Zealand]], and [[South Africa]]. It also functions as a ''[[lingua franca]]'' in international business, education and diplomacy, and is widely taught as a foreign or second language. Today, many other countries use English for [[official language|official]] purposes or have adopted it as a national language, creating new varieties of English in nations such as [[India]], [[Pakistan]], [[Malaysia]] and [[Singapore]].
{{linguistics}}
'''Phonology'''<ref>[[Greek language|Greek]] ''phonē'' = voice/sound and ''logos'' = word/speech.</ref> is a subfield of [[linguistics]] which studies the system speakers use to represent [[language]]; this includes units of [[sound]] in a spoken language and [[hand]] movements in a [[sign language]].<ref>Signs are distinguished from [[gestures]], such as waving at someone in greeting, in that the latter are non-linguistic or supply extra meaning alongside the linguistic message.</ref> Although there are potentially infinitely many ways of producing a [[sound]] or moving a [[hand]], phonologists are interested only in how these group into abstract categories: for example, how and why speakers of many languages perceive the difference between [l] and [r] as nonsignificant,<ref>Symbols in square brackets represent speech sounds using the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]]; slanting brackets, as in /kæt/ 'cat', are used to represent [[phoneme]]s - distinct, abstract units that may represent several sounds.</ref> whereas others consider them distinct enough to distinguish different [[word]]s.<ref>[[Japanese language|Japanese]] has a single phoneme /r/ to represent ''l'' and ''r'', while English contains two, i.e. /l/ and /r/.</ref> Phonology also goes beyond differences between individual sounds, involving topics such as [[syllable]] structure, [[stress (linguistics)|stress]], [[accent (linguistics)|accent]] and [[intonation (linguistics)|intonation]].


==The History of English==
One task in phonology is to identify distinctive units within a language. For example, in [[English language|English]], the words ''pin'' and ''bin'' seem to each consist of three ''segments'', with only the first differing. Phonologists may refer to these first units as different ''[[phoneme]]s'', and the contrast between /p/ and /b/ as ''phonemic'' - the two words are a ''minimal pair'' differing by only one phoneme. Though most phonologists no longer consider phonemes to be psychologically 'real', they remain in phonological study as a kind of shorthand for referring to more complex phonological representations that more adequately explain how such examples differ.<ref>See Chomsky & Halle (1968) for the first major work that abandoned the phoneme as a true unit of phonology, in favour of more abstract ''phonological features''.</ref>
Initially, [[Old English]] was a group of dialects reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. Because of the Viking raids and settlements in the north-eastern part of Britain from the late 8th century onward, the [[West Saxon|West-Saxon]] dialect, spoken in the only remaining free Anglo-Saxon kingdom (Wessex), naturally dominates the surviving written record. The Vikings, mostly from Denmark, but also to some extent from Norway, influenced the English language in the areas where they mixed with the Anglo-Saxon population.


===Proto-English===
''[[Phonetics]]'' focuses on the physical sounds of speech, and thus it often informs phonological inquiry by showing how [[pronunciation]]s are related.<ref>Phonetics also studies [[speech perception]] (how the brain discerns sounds) and [[acoustics]] (the physical qualities of sounds as movement through air), as well as articulation (sound production through the movements of the lungs, tongue, etc.).</ref> However, since this sort of inquiry does not primarily concern itself with the study of abstract patterns in language, phoneticians' work usually complements linguistics, rather than constituting a central component.
The [[Germanic peoples|Germanic]] [[tribe]]s who gave rise to the English language (the [[Angles]], [[Saxon people|Saxons]], [[Frisians]], [[Jutes]] and perhaps even the [[Franks]]), traded with and fought with the [[Latin]]-speaking [[Roman Empire]] in the process of the Germanic invasion of Europe from the East. Many Latin words for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people even before any of these tribes reached Britain; examples include ''camp'', ''cheese'', ''cook'', ''dragon'', ''fork'', ''giant'', ''gem'', ''inch'', ''kettle'', ''kitchen'', ''linen'', ''mile'', ''mill'', ''mint'' (coin), ''noon'', ''oil'', ''pillow'', ''pin'', ''pound'', ''punt'' (boat), ''soap'', ''street'', ''table'', ''wall'', and ''wine''. The Romans also gave English words which they had themselves borrowed from other languages: ''anchor'', ''butter'', ''cat'', ''chest'', ''devil'', ''dish'', and ''sack''.


According to the ''[[Anglo-Saxon Chronicle]]'', around the year [[449]], [[Vortigern]], King of the [[Brython|Britons]], invited the "Angle kin" (Angles led by [[Hengest]] and [[Horsa]]) to help him in conflicts with the [[Picts]]. In return, the Angles were granted lands in the south-east of England. Further aid was sought, and in response "came men of Ald Seaxum of Anglum of Iotum" ([[Saxon people|Saxons]], [[Angle tribe|Angles]], and [[Jutes]]). The ''Chronicle'' talks of a subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the [[heptarchy]]. Modern scholarship considers most of this story to be legendary, and politically motivated, and the identification of the tribes with the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes is no longer accepted as an accurate description (Myres, 1986, p. 46ff), especially since the Anglo-Saxon language is more similar to [[Frisian language|Frisian]] than any single one of the others.
Most writing systems, such as the [[Roman alphabet]] used for English, represent phonology in some way, such as the letter ''b'' indicating the phoneme /b/, though this relationship is often inexact. This relationship between reading and phonological knowledge is of concern to linguists interested in [[orthography]] (written language), [[language acquisition]] specialists, and educators concerned with developing literacy.<ref>See for example Katz & Frost (1992); Young-Scholten (2002); Connor et al. (2007).</ref>


===Old English===
{{see also|Old English}}
English emerged from many Germanic dialects that were brought by Germanic invaders from northwestern Europe, from what is now [[Germany]], [[Denmark]] and the [[Netherlands]]. The previous, mostly Celtic languages of the British Isles were largely driven westwards as their speakers retreated or intermingled with the new settlers, and today there is little evidence of their presence in the vocabulary of English. Eventually, the Saxon tribes of [[Wessex]] came to dominate, and it was their dialects that provided most of the foundations of what later came to be seen as a new language, now called Old English.


===Middle English===
==Phonemic analysis==
{{see also|Middle English}}
Part of the phonological study of a language involves looking at data (phonetic [[transcription (linguistics)|transcriptions]] of the speech of [[native speaker]]s) and trying to deduce what the underlying [[phoneme]]s are and what the sound inventory of the language is. Even though a language may make distinctions between a small number of phonemes, speakers actually produce many more phonetic sounds. Thus, a phoneme in a particular language can be pronounced in many ways.
Later Old English became heavily influenced by [[Old Norse]], brought with later Northern European [[Viking]] invaders, most of them from Denmark. The subjugation of the Anglo-Saxons in 1066 by the Normans led to swift change for their language. Its status declined quickly, as [[Norman French]] became the exclusive language of court and government. [[Latin language|Latin]] has long been studied in England, but under the Normans its use also increased. English was still the everyday language of most people, however, as the country had entered a period of [[diglossia]] where the 'high' languages of French and Latin co-existed in separate levels of society from the 'low' language of English. However, as the centuries passed, Norman lords and barons adopted ever-more English, and Norman French fell out of favour. By the end of the fourteenth century, [[Richard II of England]] had taken his kingly oath in his native English tongue, and the language was restored to the dominant position it had enjoyed prior to the conquest. After 300 years of Norman French and Latin, however, plus the continued influence of Scandinavian dialects, the language had absorbed a tremendous amount of vocabulary from those languages, as well as shifting towards new patterns of [[syntax]] and [[phonology]] which would strongly distinguish Middle English from its later modern descendants.


===Modern English===
Looking for minimal pairs forms part of the research in studying the phoneme inventory of a language. A [[minimal pair]] is a pair of words from the same language, that differ by only a single sound, and that are recognized by speakers as being two different words. When there is a minimal pair, the two sounds constitute separate phonemes. (It is often not possible to detect all phonemes with this method so other approaches are used as well.)
{{see also|Early Modern English}}
From about the middle of the fifteenth century, significant changes began in the phonology of English: the pronunciation of [[vowel]]s in particular began to change. This '[[Great Vowel Shift]]' saw the vowels of English move upwards in the mouth or [[diphthong]]ise; for example, ''house'' was originally pronounced with the high back vowel [uː], as in ''ruse''; it lowered and centralised slightly to [aʊ] over time, with the process most active in southern England and absent altogether in [[Scotland]] (where ''house'' is still [huːs]). In turn, as the highest vowels diphthongised, lower vowels moved up to replace them. The English lexicon also changed, with more words from Latin and modern French, plus a significant number from [[Greek language|Greek]]. This has continued to the present day, with languages worldwide adding to the vocabulary of English.


===Historical spread of English===
===Phonemic distinctions or allophones===
The 'journey' of English around the world began with its movement throughout the [[British Isles]], eventually becoming the language most commonly spoken throughout the modern [[state]]s of the [[United Kingdom]] and the [[Republic of Ireland]]. Meanwhile, the language reached [[North America]] though [[colonisation]], and subsequently became widely spoken in Britain's [[colony|colonies]], such as the settlements of [[Australia]] and [[Canada]]. As these outposts developed in [[economy|economic]] and [[politics|political]] importance over the centuries, so the language became an essential ''[[lingua franca]]'' - to do [[business]] other peoples inside and outside the [[British Empire]] found it advantageous to [[learning|learn]] English as a [[second language acquisition|foreign or second]] language.
If two similar sounds do not constitute separate phonemes, they are called [[allophone]]s of the same underlying phoneme. For instance, voiceless stops (/p/, /t/, /k/) can be aspirated. In English, [[voiceless stop]]s at the beginning of a word are [[Aspiration (phonetics)|aspirated]], whereas after /s/ they are not aspirated. (This can be seen by putting the fingers right in front of the lips and noticing the difference in breathiness as 'pin' and 'spin' is said.) There is no English word 'pin' that starts with an unaspirated p, therefore in English, aspirated [] (the [ʰ] means aspirated) and unaspirated [p] are allophones of an underlying phoneme /p/. In some other languages, for example [[Thai language|Thai]] and [[Quechua]], this same difference of aspiration versus non-aspiration is phonemic, and therefore speakers will consider them to be significantly different.


==English as a global language==
Another example of allophones in English is how the /t/ sounds in the words 'tub', 'stub', 'but', and 'butter' are all pronounced differently (in American English at least), yet are all perceived as "the same sound."
{{seealso|Varieties of English}}
[[Image:Writing-pen-english.jpg|thumb|right|300px|An example of [[written language|written]] English.]]


===Speakers===
Another example: in English and many other languages, the liquids /l/ and /r/ are two separate phonemes (minimal pair 'life', 'rife'); however, in [[Korean language|Korean]] these two liquids are allophones of the same phoneme, and the general rule is that [ɾ] comes before a vowel, and [l] does not (e.g. ''Seou'''l''''', ''Ko'''r'''ea''). A native speaker will tell you that the [l] in Seoul and the [ɾ] in Korean are in fact the same sound.  What happens is that a native Korean speaker's brain recognises the underlying phoneme /l/, and, depending on the phonetic context (whether before a vowel or not), expresses it as either [ɾ] or [l]. Another Korean speaker will hear both sounds as the underlying phoneme and think of them as the same sound.
Today, English may be identified as a [[global language]], due to its widespread use in business, the [[internet]] and amongst diverse groups of people who wish to overcome a [[language barrier]]. Estimates put the number of fluent speakers at upwards of half a billion,<ref>See ''[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=eng Ethnologue: Ethnologue report for language code: eng]''.</ref> a majority of whom are probably [[native speaker]]s. However, there are many millions more with some knowledge of the language.


===English as a threat to other languages===
===Change of a phoneme inventory over time===
One argument concerning the apparent worldwide dominance of English is that it might be a threat to ''[[linguistic diversity]]'', with many languages going [[language death|extinct]] as speakers switch to English. However, evidence of this phenomenon is actually thin on the ground. Outside the 'English-speaking nations' ([[country|countries]] historically most closely associated with English, such as England, [[New Zealand]] and Australia), most speakers of English learn it in addition to or alongside a native language. In addition, English is by no means dominant in every sphere of influence; some evidence suggests that more [[blog]]s are written in [[Japanese language|Japanese]],<ref>''Global Voices Online'': '[http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/04/16/japan-number-1-language-of-bloggers-worldwide Japan: number one language of bloggers worldwide]'.</ref> for example, and other tongues enjoy lingua franca status in various regions of the world. [[French language|French]] and [[German language|German]], for example, are still much-used in [[Europe]], and [[Swahili language|Swahili]] remains an important language for cross-cultural communication in [[East Africa]].
The particular sounds which are phonemic in a language can change over time. At one time, [f] and [v] were allophones in English, but these later changed into separate phonemes. This is one of the main factors of historical change of languages as described in [[historical linguistics]].


==See also==
==Other topics in phonology==
*[[American English]]
Phonology also includes topics such as the [[syllable]], [[Assimilation (linguistics)|assimilation]], [[elision]], [[epenthesis]], [[vowel harmony]], [[Tone (linguistics)|tone]], non-phonemic [[Prosody (linguistics)|prosody]] and [[phonotactics]]. Prosody includes topics such as [[Stress (linguistics)|stress]] and [[intonation]].
*[[British and American English]]
 
*[[British English]]
===Syllables===
*[[Early Modern English]]
:''Main article: [[Syllable]]''
*[[English grammar]]
Native speakers of many languages may well have certain intuitions about how many 'beats' there are in a given word; for example, most English speakers would agree that there are two 'syllables' in the word ''butter'' but only one in ''but''. That such phonological intuitions exist is one reason for phonologists to want to find about what syllables are; another reason is that assuming their existence explains a good deal about the way sounds and signs pattern in language.
*[[English phonemes]]
 
*[[Middle English]]
Syllables cannot be defined through reference to breathing or articulatory movements; they are abstract, phonological units rather than a physical phenomenon. Syllables do not easily correspond to muscular contractions, for instance; nor do they correlate well with predictable changes in [[pitch]].<ref>See Laver (1994: 114); Davenport & Hannahs (2005: 73-74).</ref> Initially, defining syllables was such a difficult task that early [[generative phonology]] ignored it; only in the 1970s and 1980s was a serious reanalysis attempted.<ref>Chomsky & Halle (1968) do not use the syllable; it was reintroduced gradually as a segment-based boundary-creation rule (Hooper, 1972), then later as a full unit of phonological organisation (Selkirk, 1984).</ref>
*[[Old English]]
 
*[[Spelling pronunciation]]
Since the syllable was reintroduced to phonological theory, it has come to be seen as essential in defining the behaviour of segments and stress in many languages. For instance, predicting whether a British English /l/ will be velarised or not is difficult without referring to positions within the syllable: if an [l] forms part of the ''rhyme'' of the syllable (the component containing the vowel or syllabic consonant) it will be velarised; if it is part of the ''onset'' (the initial part of the syllable), then it will not.<ref>Without the syllable, a set of untidy rules is required to explain the distribution of what are called 'clear' and 'dark' (velarised) ''l'': the dark ''l'' appears word-finally (''pal'', ''panel'') and before a consonant (''hold''), ''except'' before [j] (''Italian''); otherwise, clear ''l'' appears.</ref> The syllable is one of the mechanisms that organise the order and positioning of segments.
*[[Varieties of English]]
 
===Word stress===
In some languages, [[Stress (linguistics)|stress]] is non-phonemic.  Some examples include [[Finnish language|Finnish]] and all ancient Germanic languages ([[Old Norse]], [[Old English language|Old English]] and [[Old High German]]) as well as some modern Germanic languages such as [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]]. However, in other modern-day Germanic languages such as German or English, stress is phonemically distinctive, although there are only a few minimal pairs. In German, for example, /ˈaugust/, the personal name August, contrasts with /auˈgust/ , the month August.
 
The distinction of stress is often seen in English words where the verb and noun forms have the same spelling.  For example, consider /ˈrɛbəl/ 'rebel' the noun (which places the emphasis on the first syllable) contrasted with /rɪˈbɛl/ 'rebel' the verb (which instead puts the emphasis on the second syllable).
 
Another example is the pair ''insight'' /ˈɪnsaɪt/ and ''incite'' /ɪnˈsaɪt/, where in the former the stress lies on the first syllable and in the latter on the second syllable. In some regional pronunciations of American English, the words ''Missouri'' and ''misery'' are also distinguished only by stress: in ''Missouri'', the stress lies on the penultimate syllable, but in ''misery'' it lies on the first syllable.
 
==Theories of phonology==
===Generative phonology===
[[Noam Chomsky]] and [[Morris Halle]]'s 1968 work ''[[The Sound Pattern of English]]'' (SPE) formed the basis for ''[[generative phonology]]''. In this view, phonological representations were a sequence of segments which are underlain by [[distinctive feature]]s. These features were an expansion of earlier work by [[Roman Jakobson]], [[Gunnar Fant]], and Halle. The features describe aspects of articulation and perception, are from a universally fixed set, and have the binary values + or -. For example, [+voice] would be a featured underlying distinctively voiced segments such as [v] or [g]. Ordered phonological rules govern how this ''underlying representation'' is transformed into the actual articulation in speech (the ''surface form''). An important consequence of the influence ''SPE'' had on phonological theory was the downplaying of the syllable and the emphasis on segments. Furthermore, the 'generativists' integrated morphology with phonology.
 
===Autosegmental phonology===
In [[1976]] [[John Goldsmith]] introduced [[autosegmental phonology]]. Phonological phenomena were no longer seen as ''one'' linear sequence of segments, known as feature combinations, but rather as "some parallel sequences"" of features which reside on multiple ''tiers''.
 
===Optimality theory===
In a course at the LSA summer institute in 1991, [[Alan Prince]] and [[Paul Smolensky]] developed [[Optimality Theory]] — an overall architecture for phonology, according to which languages choose the phonetic form of a word that best satisfies a list of [[constraint]]s which are ordered by importance: a lower-ranked constraint can be violated when this is necessary in order to satisfy a higher-ranked constraint. The approach was soon extended to morphology by [[John McCarthy]] and [[Alan Prince]], and has become one of the dominant trends in phonology.
 
===Government phonology===
[[Government Phonology]], which originated in the early 1980s as an attempt to unify theoretical notions of syntactic and phonological structures, is based on the notion that all languages necessarily follow a small set of [[principle]]s and vary according to their selection of certain binary [[parameter]]s.  That is, all languages' phonological structures are essentially the same, but there is restricted variation that accounts for differences in surface realizations.  Principles are held to be inviolable, though parameters may sometimes come into conflict.  Prominent figures include [[Jonathan Kaye]], [[Jean Lowenstamm]], [[Jean-Roger Vergnaud]], [[Monik Charette]] and [[John Harris]].
 
===Natural phonology===
In the late 1960s, [[David Stampe]] introduced [[Natural Phonology]]. In this view, phonology is based on a set of universal [[phonological process]]es which interact with one another; which ones are active and which are suppressed are language-specific. Rather than acting on segments, phonological processes act on [[distinctive feature]]s within prosodic groups. Prosodic groups can be as small as a part of a syllable or as large as an entire utterance. Phonological processes are unordered with respect to each other and apply simultaneously (though the output of one process may be the input to another). The principles of Natural Phonology were extended to [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] by [[Wolfgang U. Dressler]], who founded [[Natural Morphology]].


==References==
* [http://www.bartleby.com/61/ ''American Heritage Dictionary''] A full-scale dictionary emphasising the earliest theoretical [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] origins of English words, including an interactive list of Proto-Indo-European roots.
* [ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext97/bwulf10.txt Project Gutenberg's Beowulf translation by Francis Gummere]
* {{cite book | author=[[John C. Wells]] | title=Accents of English | location=[[Cambridge]] | publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] | year=[[1982]] | id=ISBN 0-521-22919-7 (vol. 1), ISBN 0-521-24224-X (vol. 2), ISBN 0-521-24225-8 (vol. 3)}}
* J.N.L. Myres, ''The English Settlements (Oxford History of England)'', Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN 0-19-821719-6.
* [http://www.englishclub.com/english-what.htm A short history] - A short history of the origins and development of the English language


==Footnotes==
==Footnotes==
{{reflist|2}}
{{reflist|2}}
==References==
*[[Noam Chomsky|Chomsky N]] & Halle M (1968) ''The Sound Pattern of English.'' New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0262530972.
*Connor CM, Morrison FJ, Fishman BJ, Schatschneider C & Underwood P (2007) '[http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1134513 The early years: algorithm-guided individualized reading instruction].' ''Science'' 315: 464-465.
*Davenport M & Hannahs SJ (2005) ''Introducing Phonetics and Phonology.'' London: Arnold. ISBN  0-340-81045-9.
*Frost R & Katz L (eds) (1992) ''Orthography, Phonology, Morphology and Meaning.'' Amsterdam: Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-444-89140-2.
*Hooper JB (1972) 'The syllable in phonological theory.' ''Language'' 48: 525-540.
*Laver J (1994) ''Principles of Phonetics.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521456555.
*Selkirk EO (1984) On the major class features and syllable theory. In Aronoff M & Oerhle RT (eds) ''Language Sound Structure.'' Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp.107-136. ISBN 978-0262010740.
*[[Martha Young-Scholten|Young-Scholten M]] (2002) Orthographic input in L2 phonological development. In Burmeister P, Piske T & Rohde A (eds) ''An Integrated View of Language Development: Papers in Honor of Henning Wode.'' Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier. pp.263-279. ISBN 3-88476-488-8.
==See also==

Revision as of 08:36, 20 August 2008

Linguistics
Phonology
Syntax
Morphology
Semantics
Pragmatics
Theoretical linguistics
Generative linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
Language acquisition
First language acquisition
Second language acquisition
Applied linguistics
Psycholinguistics
Phonetics
Sociolinguistics
Creolistics
Evolutionary linguistics
Linguistic variation
Linguistic typology
Anthropological linguistics
Computational linguistics
Descriptive linguistics
Historical linguistics
Comparative linguistics
History of linguistics
Languagenaturalconstructed
Grammar

Phonology[1] is a subfield of linguistics which studies the system speakers use to represent language; this includes units of sound in a spoken language and hand movements in a sign language.[2] Although there are potentially infinitely many ways of producing a sound or moving a hand, phonologists are interested only in how these group into abstract categories: for example, how and why speakers of many languages perceive the difference between [l] and [r] as nonsignificant,[3] whereas others consider them distinct enough to distinguish different words.[4] Phonology also goes beyond differences between individual sounds, involving topics such as syllable structure, stress, accent and intonation.

One task in phonology is to identify distinctive units within a language. For example, in English, the words pin and bin seem to each consist of three segments, with only the first differing. Phonologists may refer to these first units as different phonemes, and the contrast between /p/ and /b/ as phonemic - the two words are a minimal pair differing by only one phoneme. Though most phonologists no longer consider phonemes to be psychologically 'real', they remain in phonological study as a kind of shorthand for referring to more complex phonological representations that more adequately explain how such examples differ.[5]

Phonetics focuses on the physical sounds of speech, and thus it often informs phonological inquiry by showing how pronunciations are related.[6] However, since this sort of inquiry does not primarily concern itself with the study of abstract patterns in language, phoneticians' work usually complements linguistics, rather than constituting a central component.

Most writing systems, such as the Roman alphabet used for English, represent phonology in some way, such as the letter b indicating the phoneme /b/, though this relationship is often inexact. This relationship between reading and phonological knowledge is of concern to linguists interested in orthography (written language), language acquisition specialists, and educators concerned with developing literacy.[7]


Phonemic analysis

Part of the phonological study of a language involves looking at data (phonetic transcriptions of the speech of native speakers) and trying to deduce what the underlying phonemes are and what the sound inventory of the language is. Even though a language may make distinctions between a small number of phonemes, speakers actually produce many more phonetic sounds. Thus, a phoneme in a particular language can be pronounced in many ways.

Looking for minimal pairs forms part of the research in studying the phoneme inventory of a language. A minimal pair is a pair of words from the same language, that differ by only a single sound, and that are recognized by speakers as being two different words. When there is a minimal pair, the two sounds constitute separate phonemes. (It is often not possible to detect all phonemes with this method so other approaches are used as well.)

Phonemic distinctions or allophones

If two similar sounds do not constitute separate phonemes, they are called allophones of the same underlying phoneme. For instance, voiceless stops (/p/, /t/, /k/) can be aspirated. In English, voiceless stops at the beginning of a word are aspirated, whereas after /s/ they are not aspirated. (This can be seen by putting the fingers right in front of the lips and noticing the difference in breathiness as 'pin' and 'spin' is said.) There is no English word 'pin' that starts with an unaspirated p, therefore in English, aspirated [pʰ] (the [ʰ] means aspirated) and unaspirated [p] are allophones of an underlying phoneme /p/. In some other languages, for example Thai and Quechua, this same difference of aspiration versus non-aspiration is phonemic, and therefore speakers will consider them to be significantly different.

Another example of allophones in English is how the /t/ sounds in the words 'tub', 'stub', 'but', and 'butter' are all pronounced differently (in American English at least), yet are all perceived as "the same sound."

Another example: in English and many other languages, the liquids /l/ and /r/ are two separate phonemes (minimal pair 'life', 'rife'); however, in Korean these two liquids are allophones of the same phoneme, and the general rule is that [ɾ] comes before a vowel, and [l] does not (e.g. Seoul, Korea). A native speaker will tell you that the [l] in Seoul and the [ɾ] in Korean are in fact the same sound. What happens is that a native Korean speaker's brain recognises the underlying phoneme /l/, and, depending on the phonetic context (whether before a vowel or not), expresses it as either [ɾ] or [l]. Another Korean speaker will hear both sounds as the underlying phoneme and think of them as the same sound.

Change of a phoneme inventory over time

The particular sounds which are phonemic in a language can change over time. At one time, [f] and [v] were allophones in English, but these later changed into separate phonemes. This is one of the main factors of historical change of languages as described in historical linguistics.

Other topics in phonology

Phonology also includes topics such as the syllable, assimilation, elision, epenthesis, vowel harmony, tone, non-phonemic prosody and phonotactics. Prosody includes topics such as stress and intonation.

Syllables

Main article: Syllable

Native speakers of many languages may well have certain intuitions about how many 'beats' there are in a given word; for example, most English speakers would agree that there are two 'syllables' in the word butter but only one in but. That such phonological intuitions exist is one reason for phonologists to want to find about what syllables are; another reason is that assuming their existence explains a good deal about the way sounds and signs pattern in language.

Syllables cannot be defined through reference to breathing or articulatory movements; they are abstract, phonological units rather than a physical phenomenon. Syllables do not easily correspond to muscular contractions, for instance; nor do they correlate well with predictable changes in pitch.[8] Initially, defining syllables was such a difficult task that early generative phonology ignored it; only in the 1970s and 1980s was a serious reanalysis attempted.[9]

Since the syllable was reintroduced to phonological theory, it has come to be seen as essential in defining the behaviour of segments and stress in many languages. For instance, predicting whether a British English /l/ will be velarised or not is difficult without referring to positions within the syllable: if an [l] forms part of the rhyme of the syllable (the component containing the vowel or syllabic consonant) it will be velarised; if it is part of the onset (the initial part of the syllable), then it will not.[10] The syllable is one of the mechanisms that organise the order and positioning of segments.

Word stress

In some languages, stress is non-phonemic. Some examples include Finnish and all ancient Germanic languages (Old Norse, Old English and Old High German) as well as some modern Germanic languages such as Icelandic. However, in other modern-day Germanic languages such as German or English, stress is phonemically distinctive, although there are only a few minimal pairs. In German, for example, /ˈaugust/, the personal name August, contrasts with /auˈgust/ , the month August.

The distinction of stress is often seen in English words where the verb and noun forms have the same spelling. For example, consider /ˈrɛbəl/ 'rebel' the noun (which places the emphasis on the first syllable) contrasted with /rɪˈbɛl/ 'rebel' the verb (which instead puts the emphasis on the second syllable).

Another example is the pair insight /ˈɪnsaɪt/ and incite /ɪnˈsaɪt/, where in the former the stress lies on the first syllable and in the latter on the second syllable. In some regional pronunciations of American English, the words Missouri and misery are also distinguished only by stress: in Missouri, the stress lies on the penultimate syllable, but in misery it lies on the first syllable.

Theories of phonology

Generative phonology

Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle's 1968 work The Sound Pattern of English (SPE) formed the basis for generative phonology. In this view, phonological representations were a sequence of segments which are underlain by distinctive features. These features were an expansion of earlier work by Roman Jakobson, Gunnar Fant, and Halle. The features describe aspects of articulation and perception, are from a universally fixed set, and have the binary values + or -. For example, [+voice] would be a featured underlying distinctively voiced segments such as [v] or [g]. Ordered phonological rules govern how this underlying representation is transformed into the actual articulation in speech (the surface form). An important consequence of the influence SPE had on phonological theory was the downplaying of the syllable and the emphasis on segments. Furthermore, the 'generativists' integrated morphology with phonology.

Autosegmental phonology

In 1976 John Goldsmith introduced autosegmental phonology. Phonological phenomena were no longer seen as one linear sequence of segments, known as feature combinations, but rather as "some parallel sequences"" of features which reside on multiple tiers.

Optimality theory

In a course at the LSA summer institute in 1991, Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky developed Optimality Theory — an overall architecture for phonology, according to which languages choose the phonetic form of a word that best satisfies a list of constraints which are ordered by importance: a lower-ranked constraint can be violated when this is necessary in order to satisfy a higher-ranked constraint. The approach was soon extended to morphology by John McCarthy and Alan Prince, and has become one of the dominant trends in phonology.

Government phonology

Government Phonology, which originated in the early 1980s as an attempt to unify theoretical notions of syntactic and phonological structures, is based on the notion that all languages necessarily follow a small set of principles and vary according to their selection of certain binary parameters. That is, all languages' phonological structures are essentially the same, but there is restricted variation that accounts for differences in surface realizations. Principles are held to be inviolable, though parameters may sometimes come into conflict. Prominent figures include Jonathan Kaye, Jean Lowenstamm, Jean-Roger Vergnaud, Monik Charette and John Harris.

Natural phonology

In the late 1960s, David Stampe introduced Natural Phonology. In this view, phonology is based on a set of universal phonological processes which interact with one another; which ones are active and which are suppressed are language-specific. Rather than acting on segments, phonological processes act on distinctive features within prosodic groups. Prosodic groups can be as small as a part of a syllable or as large as an entire utterance. Phonological processes are unordered with respect to each other and apply simultaneously (though the output of one process may be the input to another). The principles of Natural Phonology were extended to morphology by Wolfgang U. Dressler, who founded Natural Morphology.


Footnotes

  1. Greek phonē = voice/sound and logos = word/speech.
  2. Signs are distinguished from gestures, such as waving at someone in greeting, in that the latter are non-linguistic or supply extra meaning alongside the linguistic message.
  3. Symbols in square brackets represent speech sounds using the International Phonetic Alphabet; slanting brackets, as in /kæt/ 'cat', are used to represent phonemes - distinct, abstract units that may represent several sounds.
  4. Japanese has a single phoneme /r/ to represent l and r, while English contains two, i.e. /l/ and /r/.
  5. See Chomsky & Halle (1968) for the first major work that abandoned the phoneme as a true unit of phonology, in favour of more abstract phonological features.
  6. Phonetics also studies speech perception (how the brain discerns sounds) and acoustics (the physical qualities of sounds as movement through air), as well as articulation (sound production through the movements of the lungs, tongue, etc.).
  7. See for example Katz & Frost (1992); Young-Scholten (2002); Connor et al. (2007).
  8. See Laver (1994: 114); Davenport & Hannahs (2005: 73-74).
  9. Chomsky & Halle (1968) do not use the syllable; it was reintroduced gradually as a segment-based boundary-creation rule (Hooper, 1972), then later as a full unit of phonological organisation (Selkirk, 1984).
  10. Without the syllable, a set of untidy rules is required to explain the distribution of what are called 'clear' and 'dark' (velarised) l: the dark l appears word-finally (pal, panel) and before a consonant (hold), except before [j] (Italian); otherwise, clear l appears.

References

  • Chomsky N & Halle M (1968) The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0262530972.
  • Connor CM, Morrison FJ, Fishman BJ, Schatschneider C & Underwood P (2007) 'The early years: algorithm-guided individualized reading instruction.' Science 315: 464-465.
  • Davenport M & Hannahs SJ (2005) Introducing Phonetics and Phonology. London: Arnold. ISBN 0-340-81045-9.
  • Frost R & Katz L (eds) (1992) Orthography, Phonology, Morphology and Meaning. Amsterdam: Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-444-89140-2.
  • Hooper JB (1972) 'The syllable in phonological theory.' Language 48: 525-540.
  • Laver J (1994) Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521456555.
  • Selkirk EO (1984) On the major class features and syllable theory. In Aronoff M & Oerhle RT (eds) Language Sound Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp.107-136. ISBN 978-0262010740.
  • Young-Scholten M (2002) Orthographic input in L2 phonological development. In Burmeister P, Piske T & Rohde A (eds) An Integrated View of Language Development: Papers in Honor of Henning Wode. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier. pp.263-279. ISBN 3-88476-488-8.

See also