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Chapter 3 Summary

Chapter 3 discusses phonology, the study of sound patterns in language, focusing on phonemes, allophones, and phonological rules. It explains how phonemes are the basic sound units that can change meaning, while allophones are variations of phonemes that do not affect meaning. The chapter also covers syllable structures, phonotactic constraints, and various phonological processes such as assimilation, deletion, and metathesis.

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10 views4 pages

Chapter 3 Summary

Chapter 3 discusses phonology, the study of sound patterns in language, focusing on phonemes, allophones, and phonological rules. It explains how phonemes are the basic sound units that can change meaning, while allophones are variations of phonemes that do not affect meaning. The chapter also covers syllable structures, phonotactic constraints, and various phonological processes such as assimilation, deletion, and metathesis.

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Kỳ Bùi
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Chapter 3

Phonology: The Sound Patterns of Language

Summary

Phonology is the study of the patterns of sounds in a language – how those different sounds are related
and combined with one another.

Some patterns are simple and easy. Others are much more complex and require more time and a larger
set of data to examine.

1. Phonemes and Allophones

Phonemes are the basic forms of sounds and are sensed in speakers’ mind rather than spoken or
heard.

Allophone: Different ways of pronouncing a single phonemes depending on the context it occurs.

Distribution of Phonemes Distribution of Allophones

Phonemes are contrastive sounds in a Allophones are in complementary


language, and so in contrastive distribution, distribution. Because they are mutually
which means replacing it with one another exclusive, they don’t appear in the same
changes the word’s meaning. phonetic environment.

Minimal pair is a pair of words with distinct Allophones sometimes has free variations.
meaning that differ only in one sound in the They may appear in the same phonetic
same position. environment but do not change the word’s
meaning.

2. Phonological rules

Phonological rules are rules that tell speakers how to pronounce a phoneme differently in different
environments.

Phonological rules apply not to an individual sound, but rather to a group of sounds known as a
natural class.

Assimilation: a sound becomes more similar to a neighboring sound.

Regressive assimilation, a sound influences its preceding sound; one or a set of its phonetic
properties moves backward to a preceding segment.

Progressive assimilation, a sound influences its following sound, one or a set of its phonetic
properties moves forward to a following segment.

Vowel nasalization in English is classified as regressive assimilation.

Possessive marker voicing is classified as progressive assimilation.

Dissimilation: a sound becomes less similar to a neighboring sound.


Fricative dissimilation rule applies for words ending with consecutive fricatives, such as fifth and
sixth.

Insertion: A sound is inserted to the phonetic representation of a word. The process of inserting a
vowel or consonant is also called epenthesis.

/ə/ insertion rule: Required in the regular past tense formation of verbs in English. When a regular
verb ends with an alveolar stop [t] or [d], speakers insert the [ə] before the past tense suffix [d]
resulting in [əd].

Voiceless stop insertion rule applies in casual speech. Between a nasal consonant and a voiceless
fricative, speakers often insert a voiceless stop having the same place articulation as the nasal.

Deletion: A sound is removed from the phonetic representation of a word.

[ə] deletion rule: an unstressed schwa is often deleted when the preceding syllable contains a
stressed vowel.

[g] deletion rule: deletes a [g] when it precedes a final nasal consonant.

Metathesis: The order of sounds is reversed

Strengthening: A sound becomes stronger, also known as fortition.

The voiceless stops in English are pronounced as aspirated when they appear at the beginning of a
stressed syllable.

Weakening: A sound becomes weaker, also known as lenition.

Flapping rule: [t] or [d] is replaced by [ɾ] when it appears between a stressed vowel and an
unstressed vowel.

3. Syllables

Sounds are combined into a syllable.

Nucleus: Usually a vowel, a nucleus is the core of the syllable.

Onset: a consonant preceding the nucleus.

Coda: a consonant following the nucleus.

The nucleus and coda together constitute the subsyllabic unit called a rime.

Some example of syllable structure:

1. A syllable consists of a single vowel which acts as the nucleus is called a minimum syllable.
2. A syllable consists of a nucleus vowel preceded by one onset consonant.
3. A syllable consists of a nucleus vowel followed by one coda consonant.
4. A syllable consists of a nucleus vowel preceded by one onset consonant and followed by one
coda consonant.

Phonotactic constraints in English


The onset having a two-consonant cluster with the first initial [s]

English codas.

For a syllable with one soda consonant, any consonant sound, except [h], [r], [w], and [y], can serve
as the coda.

For a syllable with two soda consonant, one type contains one of a small set of consonants, [s,m,n,
ŋ,l] as the first final consonant. The other type contains a small set of consonants, [t,d,θ,s,z] as the
second final consonant.

Syllable shapes in English


Question 2 pg. 71

a. Calorie-gallery
Anchor- anger
Back- bag
b. Lace-race
Alive-arrive
ball-boar
c. map – nap
scammer – scanner
boom – boon
d. pack – back
cap – cab
e. fan – van
infest – invest

Question 3 pg 71

a. [ə] Deletion
b. [ə] Deletion
c. [ə] Deletion
d. [ə] Deletion
e. [ə] Deletion

Question 5 pg 72

a. Regressive assimilation
b. Regressive assimilation
c. Regressive assimilation
d. Regressive assimilation

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