Phonetics and phonology - introduction

Dr. C. Serena Santonocito

[email protected]
 A Poem – Our Strange Language
When the English tongue we speak Think of “hose” and “dose” and “lose”;
Why is “break” not rhymed with “weak” And think of “goose” and not of “choose”;
Think of “comb” and “tomb” and “bomb”;
Will you tell me why it’s true
“Doll” and not “roll”, “home” and “some”;
We say “sew” but likewise “few”; And since “pay” is rhymed with “say”
And the marker of a verse Why not “paid” with “said”, I pray?
Cannot rhyme his “horse” with “worse” Think of“blood” and “food” and “good”;
“Beard” sounds not the same as “Mould” is not pronounced like “could”;
“heard”; Why “done” but “gone” and “lone”?
“Cord” is different from “word” Is there any reason known?
To sum all up, it seems to me
Cow is “cow” but low is “low”
Sounds and letters don’t agree.
“Shoe” is never rhymed with “foe”;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THGLikzuu-o&ab_channel=SummerSummer
• In writing words are made of letters

• In speech words are made of sounds

• Letters are not always the same as sounds

In British English
ü 26 letters in the alphabet
ü 44 sounds (some variations depend on articulations, social factors)

Letters vs. Sounds

Transcribed between slashes / /

v Distinction between graphic units and phonic units

phonetic units

Written letters do not always correspond to the

sounds that we utter when we pronounce
something in English.
Great vowel shift
LETTER SOUND

O /əʊ/

But also…
/ɒ/ -> sock, lock

/ʌ/ -> come, Monday

/uː/ -> cool, fool

1 sound (phoneme)

Different spellings
1 letter s

Different sounds one letter can correspond

to more than one sound
when it is pronounced

Sister /s/
Sharp /ʃ/
Decision /ʒ/
The phonetic alphabet
- Spelling does not consistently represent the sounds of a language;

E. g. The same sound may be represented by different combinations of letters -> he,
key, believe
The same letter can represent a variety of sounds -> father, village

- Some letters may be not pronounced at all

E.g., psychology, write, knot

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
Developed in the 19th century to accurately represent the pronunciation of languages.
Using IPA symbols, we can represent the pronunciation of words in a one-to-one correspondence
system.
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
 place
manner

Phonemic notation commonly uses IPA symbols that are rather close to the default pronunciation of a
phoneme, but for legibility or other reasons can use symbols that diverge from their designated values, such
as /r/, which in phonetic notation is a trill for English < r >, even when pronounced as a labialized
approximant [ɹʷ].
Some definitions
Graphemes: alphabetical signs independent of their pronunciation -> between < >
Phones: actual sound produced, independent of the phonological system of a language -> between [ ]
Phonemes: the smallest unit that discerns meaning between sounds -> between / /

PHONE PHONEME
Actual sound Abstract representation
Deals with acoustics and Deals with meaning
physical articulation
Some definitions
Graphemes: alphabetical signs independent of their pronunciation -> between < >
Phones: actual sound produced, independent of the phonological system of a language -> between [ ]
Phonemes: the smallest unit that discerns meaning between sounds -> between / /

Written -> graphemes

House Spoken aloud -> phones

The sound represented within one’s mind -> phoneme

Some definitions
Graphemes: alphabetical signs independent of their pronunciation -> between < >
Phones: actual sound produced, independent of the phonological system of a language -> between [ ]
Phonemes: the smallest unit that discerns meaning between sounds -> between / /
Allophones : different ways a phoneme can be represented or produced
Phonetically distinct variants of a phoneme. The occurrence of one allophone rather than
another is usually determined by its position in the word (initial, final, medial, etc.).
Allophones do not distinguish one word to the other; contrary to phonemes, they do not
determine significance.
E.g. various ways different speakers of the English language pronounce < t > + its phonetic
environment.
Hit
Tip
Little
Minimal pairs: two words distinguished by only one phoneme.

cheap /tʃiːp/ jeep /dʒiːp/

tune /tjuːn/ June /dʒuːn/

tin /tɪn/ ten /ten/

fill /fɪl/ fell /fel/
Phones -> studied in phonetics Phonemes -> studied in phonology
PHONETICS study of speech sounds and their PHONOLOGY study of the sound patterns that
physiological production and acoustic qualities, occur within a language by considering their
without considering their ability to distinguish relation to distinguish words meanings (cf.
meaning (phones). phonemes).

It acts at: practical (acoustic) and physiological It acts at: abstract level + meaning level.
level (articulatory organs).
Phonetics

“Phonetics is concerned with describing the speech sounds that occur in the languages of the
world […]. The first job of a phonetician is to try to find out what people are doing when they
are talking and when they are listening to the speech”

(Ladefoged 1993)

“The study of speech sounds”

(Fromkin and Rodman 1998)

Phonology
“Phonology is essentially the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language”
(Yule 2005)

“Phonology is concerned with how sounds pattern in a language”

(Fromkin and Rodman 1998)

“A branch of linguistics which studies the sound systems of languages […] .The aim of phonology is to
demonstrate the patterns of distinctive sound found in language….[it] is concerned with the range and
function of sounds in specific languages, and with the rules which can be written to show the types of
phonetic relationships that relate or contrast words and other linguistic units”
(Crystal 2018)
Segmental features
consonant and vowel sounds they can be said to occur in a certain order relative to one another.

Suprasegmental features
stress, rhythm, intonation, pitch, length etc.
Two kinds of sounds
Consonant sounds (C)
Vowel sounds (V)

The number of sounds in a word may not

be the same as the number of letters
Cf. duck
/dʌk/
Consonant sounds
They can be described following these parameters:
v Place of articulation
v Manner of articulation
v Voicing
Place of articulation
Where the obstruction in the vocal tract occurs.
The location in the vocal tract where the airflow is being restricted.
Main places of articulation are: dental, bilabial, alveolar, velar,
palatal, glottal.
Articulatory vocal organs
Tongue tip.
Blade of the tongue (the tapering part, opposite the
alveolar ridge).
Front of the tongue (opposite the hard palate).
Centre of the tongue (opposite where the hard and soft
palate meet).
Back of the tongue (opposite the soft palate).
Glottis = the opening between the vocal cords.
Larynx = voice box
Pharynx = tubular part of the throat above the larynx
Oral and nasal cavities.
Manner of articulation
It is the way the airstream is affected/obstructed as it flows from the lungs and out of the mouth and nose.
Main manners of articulation:
plosive o occlusive plosives or stops
spiranti o fricative fricatives
affricate affricates
nasali nasals
liquide liquids
approssimanti approximants
Voicing
Whether vocal cords vibrate or not.
Opposition: voiced vs. voiceless/unvoiced.
Voiced sounds are produced when vocal cords vibrate + the air flows freely through the glottis.
Voiceless sounds are produced when the vocal cords do not vibrate.
+ /m/, /n/, /ŋ /, /l/, /ɹ/, /j/, /w/
 Consonant sounds
place
Bilabial Labio- Dental Alveolar Palato- Palatal Velar glottal
Dental alveolar

manner Plosive
p b t d k g
Nasal
m n ŋ
Fricative
f v Ɵ ð s z ʃ ʒ h
Affricate
ʧ ʤ
Approximant
w ʋ ɹ j
liquids
Lateral
l
Selected references
Ladefoged P. (1993) A Course in Phonetics. Fort Worth, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Fromkin V. and Rodman R. (1998) An Introduction to Language. Fort Worth, Harcourt Brace College
Publishers.
Porcelli, G. and Hotimsky, F. (1997). Manuale di pronuncia inglese. Milano, SugarCo.
Skandera, P. and Burleigh, P. (2011). A Manual of English Phonetics and Phonology. Gunter Narr Verlag.
Yule, G. (2005). The sounds of language. In The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crystal D. (2002). The English Language. A Guided Tour of the Language. London: Penguin.
Crystal D. (2018). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. 3rd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
https://www.britannica.com/science/phonetics
https://www.britannica.com/topic/allophone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80d2CEeMyQQ&ab_channel=JonasWagner