-
Phonology
?
What is phonology?
?
The study of
the sound systems of language.
?
Phonetics vs.
phonology?
?
Phonetics
?
General
purpose: to study all possible speech sounds
?
Specific purpose: to describe the
physical properties
?
Description
techniques: manner, place, voicing
?
Phonology
?
General
purpose: to study of the patterning of speech
sounds
?
Specific purpose
a) to discover
the principles that govern the way in which speech
sounds are organized
b) to explain the
variations that occur
?
Description
techniques: minimal pairs, distinctive features
?
Phonological
Units of Language
?
Phoneme
音位
?
Phoneme is a sound which is capable of
distinguishing one
word or
one shape of a
word from another in a
given language.
?
It is an abstract unit of a speech
sound, a unit used in phonology
?
The
phoneme is the smallest meaning-distinguishing
unit.
Phonemes: /
/
?
Look at the examples.
?
普通话
:
―
三
‖[
san]
→
[
θ
an]
?
English: sin
[sin]
→
thin[
θ
in]
Contrastive distribution
对立分布
?
If
sounds
appear
in
the
same
environment,
they
are
said
to
be
in
contrastive
distribution.
?
Typical
contrastive
distribution
of
sounds
is
found
in
minimal
pairs
and
minimal
sets.
?
Minimal pair
A minimal pair consists of two words
that differ by only one sound in the same
position.
?
bill [bil]
/b/
→
pill [pil]
/p/
?
leak [li:k]
/k/
→
leap [li:p] /p/
?
beat [bi:t]
/i:/
→
boot [bu:t] /u:/
?
Minimal pairs
are established on the basis of sound and not
spelling.
?
Minimal Sets
Minimal sets are
more than
two words that are distinguished by one segment in
the
same position.
?
Eg.
said / set/ says / sell
?
Three
requirements for a minimal pair:
①
same number of
segments
②
one
phonetic difference in the same place
③
different
meaning
Distinctive features
区别性特征
?
If When a
feature distinguishes one phoneme from another, it
is a distinctive feature.
?
e.g. In the English sound system, one
distinctive feature which distinguishes the /p/
in
'pin'
from
the
/b/
in
'bin'
is
/b/
is
a
voiced
stop
whereas
the
/p/
is
a
voiceless
stop.
?
The
principle distinctive features of
consonants
：
voicing
place of articulation
manner of articulation
?
Is the same
phoneme pronounced in the same way?
?
No.
For
example,
/p/
is
pronounced
differently
in
peak
[pi:k]
and
speak
[phi:k]
though
they belong to the
same phoneme /p/.
?
Complementary distribution
互补分布
–
allophones
音位变体
?
Sounds
that
are
not
found
in
the
same
position
are
said
to
be
in
complementary
distribution.
?
When
we
have
a
set
of
phones,
all
of
which
are
versions
of
one
phoneme,
we
refer
to
them as
the
allophones
of that
phoneme.
?
/p/:
speak
[sp
i:k
]
?
peak
[ph
i:k
]
?
Phone
音素，音子
?
Any speech
sound, a unit used in phonetics.
?
phones: [
]
?
/p/:
speak
[sp
i:k
]
?
peak
[ph
i:k
]
?
Phone, phonemes
and allophones
?
Phone
（音素）
: any
speech sound, a unit used in phonetics,
represented by
square brackets as [b],
[t], etc.
?
Phoneme
（音位）
:
an
abstract
unit
of
a
speech
sound,
a
unit
used
in
phonology, represented by slashes as
/b/, /t/, etc.
?
Allophones
（音位变体）
:
variations of a phoneme which are said to be in.
?
Phonological
Rules
1.
Assimilation rule
同化规律
Influence of
one sound upon another
①
Progressive
assimilation
顺同化
:
the
preceding
sound influencing the following sound
cats [s]
dogs [z]
①
Regressive
assimilation
逆
同
化
:
the following sound
influencing the preceding sound
?
?
newspaper /z/
→
[s]
ten persons /n/
→
[m]