Understanding Phonemes: Key Concepts and Examples

1. Phonemes By - Prof. Jare M. R. Head, Dept. of English, S. M. Joshi College, Hadapsar, Pune-28.

2. Phonemes A limited no. of distinctive sound units English - 44 phonemes Def. - “The smallest contrastive linguistic unit which may bring about a change of meaning” – Daniel Jones “The phoneme is the minimal unit of distinctive sound-feature” – Bloomfield Phonemes can be found by minimal pairs. Two words that differ in only one sound are called a minimal pair Pet, bet, get, set, net, let /p, b, g, s, n, l/ Hat, hit, heat, hot, heart /æ, I, i:, o, a:/

3. Voiced and voiceless • Those speech sounds for which the vocal cords do not vibrate, are called voiceless sounds e.g. /p,t,k/ • The speech sounds for which the vocal cords vibrate are called voiced sounds e.g. /b,d,g/ • All the vowel sounds are voiced speech sounds

4. Allophones • Each phoneme may have a number of variants, these variants are called allophones • Allophones of a phoneme are not significant from meaning point of view • Allophones are the different phonetic realizations • E.g. /ph, th, kh / • Central /k/ in ‘calm’, retracted /k/ in ‘cool’, and fronted /k/ in ‘keel’ • Clear /l/ and dark /l/ • Allophones are phonetic variations.

5. Syllabic consonants • Syllable is made by one or more phonemes • Vowel is at the centre of the syllable e.g. dog, bad • Syllable formed without a vowel is called syllabic consonant e.g. /n/, /l/ cotton, mutton, battle, little etc.

6. Syllable structure • Syllable structure is represented by the “cvc” formula • V = a 7. cccvc = street • Vc = us 8. cccvcc = strange • Cv = sea 9. cccvccc = strands • Cvc = boss 10. vcccc = ancles • Ccv = play 11. cvcccc = texts • Cccv = straw 12. ccvcccc = twelfths

7. Tonic syllable • Tonic syllable is the last prominent syllable in the tone unit where the tone change begin. Tone unit is a sequence of accented syllables, one or more of which are prominent. Facts on Tone unit & Tonic Syllable: Each tone unit contain only one tonic syllable. • Each tone unit carries one change of tone. • We mark Tone unit boundaries by placing a " rectangle " at the beginning of the Tone unit. • Tonic syllables must have a high degree of prominence. • Tonic syllables are syllables which carries a tone and also a type of stress. • Tonic syllables are also known as nucleus. • Prominence is extra emphasis given to accented syllables by means of key, volume and duration. • Unemphatic : He is reading a novel. (not a drama) • Emphatic : This is my book. (no doubt about it) • This is my book. (it is mine only, not of any other person)

8. Tone groups • A unit of an intonation pattern, having its own nucleus • may contain a single word, a phrase, a clause or a sentence. • Longer sentences are usually divided into tone groups • Division of groups corresponds to grammatical division of clauses and phrases. • Examples : • ̀When he came, / - / I ̀asked him to ̀wait. • ̀If you study, / - / you will get success. • ̀The ̀boy studied hard / - / but he ̀failed

9. Thank you