LNGT0101 Announcements Introduction to Linguistics • Homework assignment 3 is posted on the website. You have till Monday Oct 22nd to turn it in. • We probably won’t have class presentations until after the midterm, unless some topic arises in class discussion leading to one of the Myths. Lecture #10 • The textbook readings. Oct 10th, 2012
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What do you know when you know that Phonology: First piece of the puzzle English has a /t/ sound? • Remember that the first goal of linguistic theory is to answer the following question: • Native speakers of English, like most of you “What is it that we know when we know a are, know that English has one /t/ sound in language?” the words team, steam, rat, and writer, but at • The study of phonology is one step towards the same time you pronounce each /t/ in a this goal: It reveals to us the kind of different way: as [th], [t], [t subconscious knowledge that native speakers ˺], or [ɾ], depending have about the sound system of their on the phonological context. language.
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Phonemes vs. allophones Two main questions in phonological analysis
• Phonemes are meaning‐distinguishing sounds. They • First, how do we know if two sounds in a are abstract entities. They are unpredictable. They particular language are phonemes or allophones, stand in contrastive distribution. given a set of data from that language? For this, • Allophones are phonetic variants of the same we follow the step‐by‐step procedure we phoneme. They are the physical sounds we say and discussed on Monday. hear. They are predictable. They stand in complementary distribution. • Second, if the two sounds turn out to be • Phonemes become allophones via phonological allophones of the same phoneme, how do we processes (e.g., aspiration, nasalization, devoicing, express this fact in terms of a phonological rule? etc.). These processes are represented by For this, we follow a formalization procedure. phonological rules.
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1 Step‐by‐step procedure Step‐by‐step procedure
• Step 1: Look for minimal pairs for the two sounds. If • Step 3: Determine which one of the two they exist, then the two sounds are phonemes. If allophones should be the underlying form (this is not, move to Step 2. the one that typically occurs in the most • Step 2: Determine if the two sounds are in environments), and which one should be the overlapping or complementary distribution (you can derived form (this is the one typically with a more draw a table for that). restrictive distribution). ‐ If overlapping, then they are most likely phonemes (but we • Step 4: Write a formal phonological rule that can’t be sure). ‐ If complementary, then they are definitely allophones of shows how the derived form is obtained from the the same phoneme, in which case we move to Step 3. underlying form. We discuss that step today.
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Phonological rules
• Informally speaking, a phonological rule takes The formalization procedure: an underlying form as input, operates on it, Representing phonological and gives a derived form as output. • The operation of the rule, however, is subject knowledge in the form of rules to a main restriction: it has to occur in a certain phonological environment.
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Phonological rule notation Phonological rule notation
• Abstractly, we can represent this in the following notation: X Y/ ___ Z • • Basic definitions: Suppose instead that we want to say that X ‐ the ‘’means ‘changes to’; changes to Y after (rather than before) Z. ‐ the slash ‘/’ means ‘in the environment of’; and How do we do that in rule notation? ‐ the ‘___’ positions the input in relation to other • elements in the phonological environment (e.g., before Well, a simple change will get us the or after). required result: • What this rule simply says is “An input X changes to X Y / Z ___ Y when it occurs before Z.”
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2 An example: Vowel nasalization in English vs. Scots Gaelic Phonological rule notation • English vowel nasalization: “In English, vowels become nasalized before a nasal • Suppose further we want to place a certain consonant.” restriction on the occurrence of the input • Formal rule: V [nasal] / ___ [nasal] sound. For example, that it has to occur • But now, how about vowel nasalization in Scots “syllable‐initially” or “at a word boundary.” Gaelic, where vowels become nasalized after nasal consonants. How do we express that in rule • Again, we can come up with two simple notation? notations to indicate either environment. V [nasal] / [nasal] ___
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Phonological rule notation Aspiration
• By convention, we will use “$” to indicate a • Let’s consider the rule for aspiration of voiceless syllable boundary, and “#” to indicate a word stops in English: boundary. “Voiceless stops become aspirated in English when they occur syllable‐initially.” • Now, read the following abstract rules. • How do we represent that in formal rule notation in X Y / $ ___ phonology? X Y / ___ $ [voiceless stop] [aspirated] / $ ___ X Y / ___ # • Now, in which of these words does aspiration take • Can you figure out what each means? place? tone, stone, maintain, intimidate 15 16
Challenging the aspiration rule /l/‐devoicing
• Consider now the rule for /l/ devoicing in English. Informally put, the rule says: • But now, consider this: “/l/ gets devoiced when following a syllable‐ Usain Bolt runs [fæs.t´®] than any other initial voiceless stop.” human being. • How do we represent this in phonological rule • Why no aspiration here? notation? /l/ [l•] / $ [voiceless stop] ___ • Now, in which of these words does /l/‐devoicing take place? place, pile, claim, booklet, meatloaf
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3 Vowel length in English Vowel length in English
• Remember the rule for vowel length in English? • But now consider these cases: “Vowels are lengthened before voiced obey [o be ] consonants.” ʊ ɪ redo [ idu] bad [bQːd] bat [bQt] ® leave [liːv] leaf [lif] • Why is there no vowel lengthening here? • How would the rule look like in formal notation?
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Revisiting vowel nasalization Word‐final devoicing
• There is no vowel nasalization in the • Suppose a language has the following rule: pronunciation of the word phonetics “A voiced stop gets devoiced if it occurs at [fənɛtɪks], contrary to our earlier rule: the end of a word.” V [nasal] / ___ [nasal] • How do we represent this in phonological rule • Can you now figure out why? notation? [voiced stop] [voiceless] / ___ # • German Bad ‘bath’ is pronounced [ba:t].
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Phonological rule notation Vowel nasalization ‘at a distance’
• In some cases an element in the • Suppose a language has a rule like this one: environment may be optional. How do we “Vowels become nasalized before nasal represent that in the notation of our rules? consonants in coda position, even if there is another consonant intervening.” • Parentheses will do the trick. Consider this • So, in such a language, the following holds: rule. What does it say? lam [lãm]latm[lãtm] X Y / ___ (Z) $ • How do we represent this in phonological rule notation? V [nasal] / ___ (C) [nasal] $
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4 Phonological rule notation Deletion
• Sometimes we might have more than one • How about deletion rules? For these, we use context for the application of a rule. How do Ø we indicate that using our rule notation? the symbol in the output of the rule (i.e., • Braces come to the rescue, as in this rule: after the arrow). What does the following rule say? Z X Y / ___ C Ø / ___ # # • The above rule simply means that “X changes to Y either before Z or at word boundary.”
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Deletion Deletion in multiple contexts
• Suppose a language has the following rule: • Suppose a language has the following rule: “A consonant deletes if it occurs at the end • “Do not pronounce /r/ if it is followed by a of a word, unless the next word starts with consonant in coda position or if it is word‐ a vowel.” final.” • How do we represent this in phonological rule • How do we represent this in phonological rule notation? notation? C Ø / ___ # C • French: les garçons versus les amis.
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Deletion in multiple contexts Epenthesis • The Ø comes in handy for phonological rules that insert sounds as well. The key difference here is that /r/ Ø / ___ C $ the Ø will be in the input to the rule. # • For example, in some English dialects, consonant clusters of [l] and another consonant are not allowed • RP: farm and dear in syllable‐final position. Speakers of these dialects, therefore insert a [´] to fix the syllable, e.g., milk is pronounced [milәk]. • In rule notation, this would be represented as: Ø [´] / [l] ___ C $ • Predict how speakers of these dialects say elf and milky?
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5 So, which form is derived from the other? So, which form is derived from the other?
• Question: Given two allophones of one phoneme • The rule of thumb is this: The form that occurs in the language, how do we decide which one is in a larger number of phonetic contexts is the underlying form and which one is the surface most likely to be the underlying form. form? In other words, which one is derived from • The form that is restricted in its occurrence to the other? particular contexts is most likely to be a • As a case in point, we assumed that oral vowels in derived form. The underlying form, thus, is English get nasalized before nasal consonants. typically the elsewhere form. But what would go wrong if we assume instead that nasal vowels get “oralized” before nonnasal • Note: A ‘larger number of contexts’ does not consonants? mean ‘a larger number of words in the data.’
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So, which form is derived from the other? Revisiting earlier phonology problems
• For example, in English oral vowels occur • For practice on phonological rule notation, initially, finally, as well as before nonnasal let’s go back to the phonology exercises we consonants. Nasal vowels, by contrast, occur did last time in class, and write a phonological only before nasal consonants. rule for each case of allophonic variation in • Conclusion: English vowels are underlyingly each language. oral. • Can you extend this reasoning to aspiration in English?
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Standard Italian Standard Spanish
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6 Russian Korean
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Mokilese Next class agenda
• Morphology: Read Chapter 3, pp. 76‐99.
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