Lesson 2: Phonetics and Phonology
Phonology
To sum up we can say that ‘Phonetics’ is the physical manifestation of language in sound waves, and it is this discipline that explains how these sounds are articulated and perceived. ‘Phonology’; on the other hand, is the mental representation of sounds as part of a symbolic cognitive system, that is, it expresses how abstract sound categories are manipulated in the processing of language.
Therefore whilst "Phonetics" studies the individual sounds of speech, "Phonology" concerns the way in which the sounds interact with one another, the whole system of sounds and not only the sounds in themselves. When we know a language, we know which sounds belong to it and which sounds are foreign to it. We also know which ones affect the meaning of the words.
Anyone who knows English , for instance , knows that "sip" and "zip" and "sip" and "sit" mean two different things . Linguists are aware that if they substitute a sound in a word with another one which, in its turn , changes the meaning, the two sounds that ensue are defined "distinctive". It’s a question of "phonemes" : units of distinctive and opposition phonological description , that is to say , the smallest phonic unit capable of producing a transformation of meaning by means of "commutation".
In Italian , p/t/k are phonemes because they are in opposition in the "smallest pairs" (minimal pairs ) [ pane / tane / cane ] converting functionally ; e/e are functionally weak phonemes as the opposition of [ pèsca / pesca ] is held to be appreciable only in the case of a few speakers (normally from Tuscany ) . In English , too , we find "smallest pairs" (minimal pairs) words which have exactly the same number of sounds which differ only in one phoneme. Examples: cat / cup; chunk / junk; ship /chip.
The smallest pairs ( minimal pairs ) are pairs of linguistic units which are only in opposition on a pertinent tract ( pertinent tract ). Another example can be taken from French: unvoiced / voiced: port/bord. Occlusive/pertinent : peur/fleur. Contrary to a sound which can be heard and measured, a "phoneme" is an abstract entity , a class of sounds which share the same oppositions of other sounds in a language. Phonetical distinct sounds can help to realize the same "phoneme".
Therefore, "allophones" are phonetic variants of a same phoneme divided into : combinatory variants and free variants. In English, /l/ and /p/ are in opposition, but there are cases in which /l/ alone has two main realizations: when it appears initially, for instance in 'let' we call it a‘light’ /l/ because it is realised pretty much as an /l/, but when it appears at the end after a back vowel, as in ‘fell’, it velarises to a ‘dark’/l/.
When we pronounce the word , we clearly don’t think what kind of /l/ we are using, however, these different realizations are the ‘allophones’.
We often ask ourselves when a ‘phone’ is an allophone of one phoneme rather than another. Three criteria are applied in answering our main question: complementary distribution, free variation and phonetic similarity. Complementary distribution is said of two phones that are only allophones of the same phoneme if they do not appear in the same context.
Explanation: the Italian nasal consonants of the words 'inchiostro' 'angolo' [ink and corner] are identified in our mind with /n/ and /ŋ/ not with the other two nasal consonants such as /m/ or /ɲ/. So we can also say that /n/ and /ŋ/ are in complementary distribution because their distribution is such that in the context where one of these segments is present, there cannot be the other (segment).
The two segments exclude each other in a certain phonetic context. In other words, the phonetic element is not predictable from the context and, for this reason, it is not distinctive. If they cannot appear in the same phonetic context, then we cannot swap them. This makes sense if we remember that mostly allophones are different from one another as a result of ‘assimilation’, yet in the same phonetic context they would assimilate in the same way and thus be the same.
Assimilation makes one sound more like a neighbour (the fact that in English the ‘morpheme’ of the plural is pronounced [s] if the sound is voiceless such as in the word cat[s], and by [z] if the sound is voiced, such as in the word do [z] , is an instance of partial progressive assimilation). If we are dealing with the Combinatory Variants, the allophone of a phoneme A is a sound A’ phonetically distinct from the canonical conversion of A which shares with A a certain number of distinctive phonetical features and occurs with respect to this in complementary distribution, never in opposition in the same context. The Nasal Labio – dental [ n ] in "inverno" is, in Italian, an "allophone" of the phoneme /n/( for the sake of graphic convenience, an "allophone" is indicated by the phonetic symbol between square brackets ).
The allophonic statute is strictly idiolinguistic as that which is an allophone of a given phoneme in a language may be a distinct phoneme in another language : [ ŋ ] is an allophone of /n/ in Italian ( this only occurs in front of a velar consonant where [ n ] does not occur ) ; this is not the case in English where /n/e/ŋ/ are in opposition, for example, /’bæn/ “band” which is in opposition to /’bæŋ/ "explosion".
Minimal pairs are used to determine different phonemes in a language; so they are seen as words that have the same number of sounds differing only in one phoneme. Examples of minimal pairs in English and Italian: Ship /chip, Cat /cap, Pane / cane Kale / care, sane / sale, Pazzo/ pezza. Whether the speaker uses the uvular fricative or the alveolar trill , the meaning of the words does not change. This means that we have free variants of the same phoneme when two different entities meet in the same ‘environment’. In Italian, for example [ca[r]o] or [caRo] are different pronunciations of the same word. This can be caused by the defective pronunciation or by the particular habits of the speaker. In the case of the ‘short vowel’[i] and the ‘long vowel’ [i:] we have an ‘allophone’ of a single phoneme. As the short vowel [i] only occurs before voiceless consonants, and the long vowel [i:] occurs only before voiced consonants, they do not contrast.
However, the Phonological Rules which explain when and where phonemes will vary in pronunciation are made up of three main parts: a) Vowels - Consonants and their subclasses. b) The Phonetic change that will occur. c) The environment where the change takes place.
Phonologists created a kind of technical notation to define the different rules. The symbols are: C (consonants) V(vowels) L(liquid) G(glide) $ (syllable) ___$ (at the end of a syllable) $___ (at the beginning of the syllable) # word boundary #___ (at the beginning of a word or in the same word) ____# (at the end of a word).
Slashes // phonemes (i.e. /k/) and brackets [] are necessary to represent phonetic symbols. The symbol = implies “equal”, the use of the arrow → “becomes” (or is changed to).
The + and – , on the other hand , mean ‘presence or absence’ of a phonetical feature ( the voiceless, alveolar, stop /t/ would be [-voice] [+alveolar] [+stop]).
Some instances concerning English phonological rules: [-voiced +stop]→[+aspired]/$__: a voiceless stop becomes aspirated at the beginning of a syllable ( tip, biker); [-voiced +alveolar+sop]→[+glottal stop]/___[+nasal]#: a voiceless alveolar stop becomes a glottal stop when before a nasal in the same word (button); [+vowel ]→[+nasal]/___[+nasal]: a vowel becomes nasalized before a nasal sound (sun, wonder).
Phonological rules are very important as they ensure that the phonotactics of the language are respected even in ‘derived environments’.
They also place sounds in‘complementary distribution’ (that is they derive allophones from underlying phonemes): the distribution of aspirated stops is predictable because they are derived by rule from underlying voiceless stops in a specific ‘environment’. In phonology and phonetics, we call tract each feature which defines a sound either from the articulatory or the acoustic point of view.
