English Phonology

Lecture 1: Phonemes and Allophones; Describing English Sounds

What is language? Æ What is it that we know when we know a language? Æ

What is it that we know when we know English?

I. Phonological Knowledge (roughly):

a) Sounds
b) Sound Patterns

Thus, phonologists are concerned with:

a. Sound Inventory

What sounds does the language make use of?

Exercise 1: Which ones of the followings are possible sounds of English?

a. [!]: as in tut-tut! / tsk-tsk!

b. [y]
c. []
d. []
e. []

What relationship do these sounds have to each other?

Which are used contrastively and which are the variant pronunciations of
contrastive sounds?
Can we predict the different realizations of a contrastive sound?

b. Sound patterns
Which sound combinations are allowed?

Exercise 1: Which of the followings can be a possible word of English?

a. hled
b. ok
c. tlnaz
d. ala
e. pkar
f. plask
g. talg

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II. The concept of phoneme and allophony: “Same but different”:

Aspirated vs. unaspirated stops in English

pill spill
till still
kill skill

PHONETIC FACT: There is a burst or puff of air after the /p/ in pill, till, and kill,
that is absent in spill, still, and skill.

Aspiration: The period between the release of the closure of a consonant and
the start of the vocal cord activity for the vowel that comes after it. This period is
usually felt as a puff of air.

pill [phIl] spill [spIl]

till [thIl] still [stIl]
kill [khIl] skill [skIl]

Aspiration Rule in English: Aspiration occurs on all voiceless stops occurring

as the first sound in a stressed syllable.

• Although aspirated stops and unaspirated stops are physically different ,

we consider both to be the same sound.
• For English, aspiration is not employed to create a meaning difference.

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• Human mind also ignore other physical/perceptible differences which are
not relevant for particular purposes:

shoes

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 a a A

A a A

The first letter of the alphabet

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II. Same sounds but different representations

Two or more languages might share the same sound or sounds but this does not
mean that those languages organize these sounds in the same way.

a. Hindi aspirated stops:

[phal] "knife edge"

[pal] "take care of"

[kapi] "copy"

[kaphi] "ample"

• Aspiration is "contrastive" in Hindi.

• [pal] for "knife edge" instead of [phal] is like saying "shave" instead of
"save".
• Hindi speakers cannot "overlook" the difference between aspirated and
unaspirated stops because they distinguish meaning based it.

b. [s] and [] in English and Japanese:

Japanese English

[imasu] ‘do’ [slæ] ‘slash’

English: Can [s] and [] can distinguish meaning?

Hint: Look for “minimal pairs”!

[el] ‘shell’ [mæ] ‘mash’

[sel] ‘sell’ [mæs] ‘mass’

Japanese: Can [s] and [] distinguish meaning?

• Unlike English, these two sounds cannot distinguish meaning in Japanese

because we cannot find any minimal pairs contrasting these two sounds.
• Say [simasu] instead of [imasu]: would the meaning of the word change?

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 • You might, at most, be perceived as a foreigner and sound funny.
• Try to do the same with: "I [s/]aved my head this morning"
• If there is [i] in a word, we will never see the sound [s] before it.
• Given [s] and [], what can then precede an [i] in Japanese?

Phonological Conclusions:

• [s] and [] are contrastive and the occurrence of the two is unpredictable in
English.
• In Japanese, we can predict their distribution.
• In Japanese, [s] and [] are considered to be the "same" sound even
though they may be phonetically distinct.

Phonology deals with the following questions:

1. Of all the sounds in a language, which are predictable?

2. What is the phonetic context that allows us to predict the occurrence of
these sounds?
3. Which sounds affect the meaning of words?

c. English lateral liquid (/l/):

lean

let

lace

kneel

tell

sail

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 Articulatory Facts about /l/: An alveolar consonant

But, when saying the first three words (i.e., lean, let, lace):

[l]: clear ‘l’ / alveolar lateral

Tip of the tongue: high, touches the alveolar ridge

Back of the tongue: down

Sides of the tongue: drawn in so that the air escapes around the tongue

But, When saying the last three words (i.e., kneal, tell, sail):

[]: dark ‘l’ / velarized lateral

Tip of the tongue: may be raised

Back of the tongue: high

Center of the tongue: low

Sides of the tongue: curled in

• /l/ may be pronounced several different ways. And, we overlook this

difference when we learn words that contain this sound.

What is the distribution?

Rule (to be revised in the following lectures):

Before a vowel, we say [l], after a vowel we say [].

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Thus, English [l] and [] are in predictable (complementary) distribution.

Turkish Scots Gaelic

[so] ‘left’ [bala] ‘town’
[sol] ‘a musical note’ [baa] ‘wall’

d. English voiceless alveolar stop /t/:

tip

stick

little

Acoustic/ articulatory phonetic facts:

FACT #1: Aspiration

Examples:

[phat] vs. [spat] "pot" vs "spot"

[thek] vs. [stek] "take" vs. "stake"

FACT #2

a. Speakers of American English:

The /t/ in "little" sounds a lot "softer" (and a bit voiced). In American English, this
sound is actually pronounced as a flap ([]).

Flap: A flap sound is a consonant in which one articulator strikes the other with a
sliding motion (as in the Spanish word pero).

b. Speakers of (non-Standard) British English:

/t/ is pronounced as a glottal stop []

• At least at some psychological level, that this word contains a /t/ sound
although we may not pronounce or hear it as such.

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 /t/

[t] [th] [r] []

_________________________________________________

What is a phoneme?

A class of speech sounds that are identified by a native speaker as the same
sound is called a phoneme.

The different phonetic realizations of a phoneme are called allophones.

Thus:

[ph] and [p] are the allophones of the same phoneme in English; Whereas in
Hindi, [ph] and [p] are different phonemes.

[l] and [] are the allophones of the same phoneme in English; whereas in
Turkish and Scots Gaelic, they are different phonemes.

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Phonemes are the psychological (abstract) representations or units of actual
physical realizations of phonetic segments.

Remember:

If two sounds are separate phonemes, then they are contrastive (in terms of
meaning).

• If the two phones are allophones of the same phoneme, then they are
non-contrastive.
• To determine whether a given pair of sounds is contrastive, linguists look
for minimal pairs.

Minimal Pair:

A minimal pair is a pair of words with different meanings with exactly the same
pronunciation except for one sound that differs.

Examples:

• [tek] vs. [tep] "take" vs "tape"

• [tim] vs [dim] "team" vs "deam"
• [kapi] vs [kaphi] "copy" vs. "ample" (Hindi)

Do [l] and [r] belong to the same phoneme in English?

Look for minimal pairs!

[lif] "leaf"
[rif] "reef"

[læk] "lack"
[ræk] "rack".

Given that we have minimal pairs that contain [l] and [r], we can say that [l] and
[r] are contrastive thus they are separate phonemes (i.e. they are NOT
allophones of the same phoneme).

How about in Korean?

[param] "wind"

[irim] "name"

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[pal] "foot"

[mal] "horse"

In Korean, minimal pairs can never be found for [l] and [r] because these sounds
can never occur in the same position in words.

This set of data shows that [r] occurs between two vowels but [l] never occurs in
the same environment.

That is, [l] and [r] are in complementary distribution in Korean. They are mutually
exclusive. In the same context, you can never find both.

Complementary Distribution
Superman and Clark Kent are different "physical realizations" of the cartoon
character.

When Clark Kent is present, Superman is NOT.

Don't forget:
When sounds are in complementary distribution, they cannot be contrastive. The
replacement of one sound for the other does not change the meaning of the
word.

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III. Phonemes of English

CONSONANTS

When describing a consonant, use the following parameters:

VOICE: do your vocal cords vibrate?

PLACE: Which cavity is involved? Which articulators are used?

MANNER: how is the sound produced?

Voicing

Try putting a hand lightly on your throat and then say the following words,
drawing out the initial sounds.

If you feel vibration, this means that your vocal cords are open and the sound in
question is a voiceless sound. If, on the other hand, you feel some vibration or a
buzzing feeling, this is due to the vibration of your vocal cords which are closed
together. This means that the sound you are making is a voiced sound.

feel, veal

zip, sip

thigh, thy

gap, cap

cheap, jeep

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Oral vs. Nasal Cavities

Place of Articulation

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Note: There are also alveopalatal and palatal sounds in English, for which I don’t
have figures. The two articulatory points associated to these sounds are between
the alveolar ridge and the velum.

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Manner of Articulation

How is the airstream modified by the vocal tract to produce the sound?

Stops : Sounds that are stopped completely in the oral cavity for a brief period of
time.

Fricatives: If the airstream is not completely stopped because of a narrow

passage in the oral cavity that causes friction and turbulance.

Affricates: a stop closure + slow release (fricative)

Liquids: some obstruction formed by the articulators, but not narrow enough to
cause any real constriction.

Glides: slight closure of the articulators, they are almost like vowels. Therefore,
they are often called semi-vowels.

CONSONANTS VS: VOWELS

• Consonants are produced with some closure or restriction in the vocal

tract as the airstream is pushed through the glottis out of the mouth.

• When vowels are produced, there is nothing in the vocal tract that narrows
the passage such that it would obstruct the free flow of the airstream. That
is, vowels are produced without any articulators touching or even coming
close together.

• Vowels are the most audible, SONORANT (or intense) sounds in speech.

• Vocal fold vibration is the sound source for vowels. Therefore, all vowels
are, almost always, VOICED.

• Unlike consonants, there is neither place of constriction or closure (place

of articulation), nor a specific manner of articulation.

• The shape of the vocal tract determines the quality of the vowel. There are
several ways in which we can change the shape of the vocal tract:

1. raising or lowering the body of the tongue

2. pushing the tongue forward or pulling it back

3. rounding the lips

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 Figure 1: tongue position for [i]

Figure 2: Tongue position for [æ]

Figure 3: Tongue position for [u]

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We can classify vowels by answering the following questions:

1. How high is the tongue?

HIGH , MID , LOW

2. Is the tongue advanced or retracted?

FRONT , CENTRAL , BACK

3. Are the lips rounded?

ROUNDED , UNROUNDED

4. Is the tongue tense?

TENSE, LAX

• Compare the vowels in ‘beat’ and ‘bit’, or ‘bait’ and ‘bet’.

• TENSE vowels ([i],[u],[e],[o]) are produced with greater tension of the
tongue muscles than their LAX counterparts (all others). TENSE vowels
are phonetically longer than LAX vowels.

Diphthongs

‘toy’, ‘loud’, ‘hide’

• Diphthongs are two part vowel sounds that consist of a vowel plus a glide
(either [j] or [w]) in the same syllable.

[j]: as in "rye", "bite", "why"

[w]: as in "hour", "brow"

[oj]: as in "boy", "coin"

Note 1: There may be some variation in the way some of the words given in the
vowel section of this lecture are pronounced in English (e.g., the pronunciation of
the word ‘bait’). Furthermore, different books may employ different phonetic
symbols (e.g., sometimes, you might see the vowel in ‘bite’ being transcribed as
[aI]). For consistency, we will stick to the symbols used above.

Note 2: The consonant and vowel charts are posted separately. The worksheet
for the tutorials is in the Problems/Solutions folder.

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