Question: Do allophones have the ability to distinguish meanings? Note: what distinguishes meaning in one language does not necessarily do so in another language.
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Phonetics
Study substance (raw material) General Particular languages Study speech sounds from Study the functional units a physical point of view within the linguistic system Actual sounds Abstract system
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P. 33 In-class activities No. 2
(1) Characterize how the allophones of the phoneme /k/ are complementarily distributed.
[kh] in initial position
[k] after /s/
Lecture Five Phonology
Wang Xiang
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Phonology
Phonology is the study of the sound patterns and sound systems.
It is concerned with the liguistic patterning of sounds in human languages, with its primary aim being to discover the principles that govern how sounds are organized in languages.
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P. 34 No.3 (1) What distinctive feature makes /f/ and /v/ different? [voiced]
(2) Can you specify the distinctive features for the following phonemes? (a) /∫ / [voiceless] + [fricative] + [palatal] (b) /k/ (c) /n/ [voiceless] + [plosive] + [velar] [voiced] + [nasal] + [alveolar]
Phonology Study form, system, pattern
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Phones (音素), Phonemes (音位), and Allophones (音位
变体)
Phone: the smallest perceptible discrete segment of sound in a stream of speech. In /helθ/, /h, e, l,θ/ are four phones. Not all different phones can distinguish meaning. [ł]and [l]
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Allophone 音位变体
— the actual realization of a phoneme, the variants in different contexts.
e.g. Dark [l] or clear [l]: allophones of the phoneme /l/.
Aspirated [ph] and unaspirated [p]: allophones of /p/.
E.g. In Chinese the difference between ―ba‖(爸) and ―pa‖(怕) is caused by the feature of aspiration.
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Environment and Distribution(分布)
Environment of a sound: what precedes and follows it.
பைடு நூலகம்13
Complementary distribution
— two or more sounds can occur in different (never in the same environment), but predictable environments.
e.g. Allophones of the same phoneme. Clear [l] and dark [l] are in complementary distribution. Clear [l]: before vowels Dark [l]: before consonants or at the end of words. The sounds in complementary distribution and also phonetically similar are allophones of the same phoneme.
The sounds that are in contrastive distribution are different phonemes.
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Minimal pair (最小对立体)
a group of two words that have different meanings and are only distinguishable by one sound.
[p¬ finally (stop) ]:
[p]: elsewhere (speak)
In reality, the final sound [p] is either unreleased or unaspirated, without a resulting difference in meaning.
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Phonetics and Phonology
The differences between phonetics and phonology: approach and focus.
Phonetics is of general nature. It is concerned with all the speech sounds used in all human languages.
The only difference: /b/: voiced; /p/: voiceless.
/p/ and /b/ can occur in the same environment and distinguish meaning.
pin and bin, rope and robe
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Three Types of Distribution
The sounds that are always in free variation are allophones of the same phoneme.
The differences in meanings between these set of words are only on the basis of their different initial sounds [p] and [b]. Are dark [l] and clear [l] different phonemes?
e.g. ―ship‖ and ―sheep‖ /i/ and /i:/ When all the contrasting pairs of a language have been discovered, the phonemes of that language have been found.
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Free variation: two sounds appear in the same environment and the substitution of one sound for another does not cause a change in meaning. /p/
[ph]: initially (pear)
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Phonemic contrast (音位对立)
— phonetically similar sounds which are two distinctive phonemes. e.g. /p/ and /b/ The same place of articulation: lips.
The same manner of articulation: plosive.
[k¬ in final position. ]
―不完全爆破”: 在某些情况下, 发爆破音时, 气流不冲破阻碍, 而 只是发音器官在口腔中形成阻碍, 并稍做停顿, 也就是说, 做好要 发出这个爆破音的准备, 但不要发出音来。
(2) Is there any other way of charactering the complementary distribution of clear [l] and dark [ł]? [l] before vowels; [ł] elsewhere.
Contrastive distribution(对比分布)
— two or more sounds can occur in the same environment and the substitution of one sound for another brings about a change of meaning: e.g. big, pig
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Phoneme (音位):
Minimal distinctive unit in the sound system of a language.