Phonetics & phonology

Phonetics & phonology 3/24/2014

AGENDA • Go over corrected homework in pairs/small groups (5 min) • Make any corrections to hwk due today, then turn in (5 min) • Go over answers (I’LL SHOW THEM) (10 MIN) • Quiz on natural classes (15 min) • INTRO TO PHONEMIC ANALYSIS (10 MIN) • LET’S SOLVE SOME PHONEMIC ANALYSIS PROBLEMS (30 MIN)

Introduction to phonemic analysis Key concepts Phoneme Minimal pair Contrastive distribution Allophone Complementary distribution Environment

Phonemes • Native speakers of the language regard them as different sounds, like /p/ vs. /b/ in English • Because they are regarded as different sounds, they can be used to distinguish words, as in minimal pairs, like pat-bat in English • That means that you cannot predict which sound will be used based on where it is in the word (in the pat-bat case, both /p/ and /b/ are found at the beginning of a word before exactly the same sounds). • This is called contrastive distribution, meaning that /p/ and /b/ contrast. They can be found in the same kind of place in a word (e.g. at the beginning, before at), so the sounds themselves show the contrast.

allophones • Native speakers regard them as the same sound, like [ph] and [p] in English. In fact, native speakers tend not to realize that they do not actually sound the same; for example they think the /p/ in pill and the one in spill are the same until they hear spill without the /s/. • Because they are regarded as the same sound, they are not used to distinguish words. • Instead the choice of one or the other is predictable from the context. For example, aspirated versions of voiceless stops are found at the beginning of a stressed syllable and at the beginning of a word, while the voiceless versions are NOT—they are found elsewhere. • This is called complementary distribution, meaning that you ALWAYS find one of the sounds in a particular placewhere you NEVER find the other sound. • ‘Sometimes’ and ‘usually’ don’t count; you need an ALWAYS and a NEVER for our purposes.

Let’s try it! • For the Swahili problem, we will create one list for [o] and another for the mid back lax vowel. • We want to know if [o] and the mid back lax vowel are found in the same environment (contrastivedistribution, meaning they are separate phonemes), or different environments (complementarydistribution, indicating that they are likely allophones of the same phoneme).

Conventions for recording segment environments • The list should always have the sound in the middle represented by an underline_ and the sound before it written before the underline and the sound after it written after. E.g. t_t • Sometimes ‘at the beginning of the word’ or ‘at the end of the word’ is the relevant environment. Word boundaries (the beginning or end of the word) are represented by #. E.g.t_# • If there are two examples of a sound in a word, record them both (separately) on the list. • There are also sometimes two different sounds in the same word (e.g. the Swahili word for sheep). Be sure to record both sounds, each on its proper list. • Each item on the list should be written on a separate line so that all the underlines line up. • [o] [ ] • t_th_n • t_# • d_#

Phonetics & phonology