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A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ALLOPHONIC VARIATION IN ENGLISH AND URHOBO LANGUAGE.
A seminar paper presented by
WAIVE OGHENEFEJIRI RITA (Matric No. 160362)Department of Linguistics & African Languages,Faculty of Arts,University of Ibadan.
In Partial Fulfillment of the Course LIN 701- READING IN LINGUISTICS
To The Department of Linguistics and African languages,Faculty of Arts,University of Ibadan, Ibadan Nigeria
February 2012
ABSTRACT
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This paper presents a contrastive analysis of the allophonic variations that exist in English and Urhobo languages. The main focus of this study is to identify allophonic variants in the aforementioned languages, and the environment that conditions the variations in the given segment. Furthermore, facts are presented to aid our understanding of classifying sounds as allophone of a phoneme with the aid of copious data drawn from both languages. Theoretical analysis would be given only where the need arises. This study attests to the fact that allophonic variation is systematic, hence an attempt is made at generalizing contrastive statements regarding the conditioning of allophones in the both language being contrasted. This is done in other to ensure that these variations today do not lead to sound change in the language tomorrow.
Key Words: Phone, phoneme, allophone, free variation, complementary distribution, allophonic variation, phonotatics, minimal pairs.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Title page 1
Abstract 2
Table of contents 3
1.0 Introduction 5
2.0 Linguistic background of languages used
5
2.1 English language 5
2.2 Location and population of Urhobo 6
3.0 Methodology 7
4.0 Related works on terminologies used
7
4.1 The Urhobo Language 7
Fig 1 Phonemic consonant chart of Urhobo 8
Fig 2 Phonemic vowel chart of Urhobo 8
4.2 Phoneme 9
4.3 Allophones 9
4.4 Allophonic variation 10
5.0 Analysis 10
5.1 Allophonic variations of consonants in English 11
5.1:1 Allophonic variations in Urhobo consonants 12
5.1:2 Contrastive statement on allophonic variants for stops 15
5.2 Allophonic variants for liquids and glides in English 15
5.2:1 Allophonic variants for glides in Urhobo 18
5.2:2 Contrastive statement on allophonic variants of liquid and glides 19
5.3 Allophonic variation of English vowel segment 20
5.3:1 Allophonic vowel segments in Urhobo 21
5.3:2 Contrastive statement on allophonic variation of nasal segment 22
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6.0 Hierarchy of problem
23
6.1 Scope and Limitation to the study 23
7.0 Conclusion 24
Reference 25
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1.0 INTRODUCTION
Knowledge of segmental contrast is fundamental to comprehending
language and the initial step in phonological analysis is to establish sounds in the
language that are in contrast. However in every language, there are many sounds
that do not contrast hence it is of great importance to examine the distribution of
sounds in words and to compare word meaning.
This work therefore will make up for the deficiency that prospective Urhobo
learners may have while analyzing the phonology of the language because
emphasis will be laid on the allophonic variation that exists in the language,
explanations on the realization of a phoneme (contrastive phonological unit)would
also be dealt with mainly with the aid of copious data drawn from both English and
Urhobo in other to achieve the goal of contrastive analysis.
2.0 LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND OF THE LANGUAGES USED
2.1 English language
The variety of the English language used in this work is restricted
to those varieties spoken predominantly by native speakers of English. This
implies that consideration will be based on the kinds of English spoken by the
inner circle members. The American English would be used to compare and
contrast.
At the time of Elizabeth I (1533–1603), there were at most seven million
native speakers of English. At the opening of the nineteenth century, English had
spread to every corner of the world, and in the course of the nineteenth and
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twentieth centuries i.e the time of Elizabeth II (1926– ) the number of native
speakers of English had increased to some 350 million. It is worthy to note here
that England (if not the whole UK) is the natural place where English was
developed as the language of the people. While it has been strongly affected by
various invasions, English is endemic in England. Everywhere else, English has
been introduced. In the inner circle such as New Zealand, USA Australia,
Anglophone part of south Africa country except the UK, a large group of English-
speaking people arrived bringing their language with them, and they became a
dominant population group in the new environment. Bauer (2002).
2.2 Location and population of Urhobo:
The Urhobo language is a south western Ediod language The Edoid
languages make up a sub-branch of the West Benue-Congo branch of Niger-
Congo, and are spoken in the southern part of Nigeria. They are classified into four
co-ordinate groups, namely Delta Edoid (DE), North Central Edoid (NCE), North
Western Edoid (NWE), and South Western Edoid (SWE). Elugbe (1973, 1989).
Urhobo is widely spoken in Delta state, in areas covered by the present Ethiope,
Okpe, Ughelli, Sapele and Warri Local Government Areas. There are twenty-two
(22) clans within the Urhobo speaking community namely: Agbarha, Agbarho,
Agbassa, Agbọn, Arhavwariẹ, Abraka, Egwhu, Evwreni, Ẹphrọn-otọ, Idjerhe, Ogọ
Oghara, Okere, Okparabe, OkpẹOlomu, Orogun, Udu, Ughelli, Ughienvwen
(Jeremi), Uvwiẹ, and Uwheru. Each of these clans has its dialect that differs from
the other in certain respects such as lexeme. However, most of them are highly
mutually intelligible. The Agbarho dialect is the standard variety which is used for
writing the language. It should also be noted that the choice of Agbarho as the
standard variety is neither for geographical nor population reasons but mainly for
intelligibility. Geographically the neighbours of the Urhobo to the South are the
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Ijaw speakers of Bomadi and Burutu, to the North are the Edo(Bini) speakers of
Oredo and Orhionmwon Local Government Areas; to the East are the Isoko and
Ukwani speakers of Isoko and Ndokwa local Government Areas and finally, to the
West are the Itsekiris of Warri North Local Government Area.
Aweto (2002) estimates that the population of Urhoboland was 1.2 million in 1991
and it is now about 1.5 million.
3.0 METHODOLOGY
The data collection method is essentially qualitative; the basic method
utilized in the collection of data was that of participant observation as well as
intense interview with key informants. A minor quantitative component of
gathering data for comparism, is information gathered from available data on the
phonology of Urhobo by Prof. Mrs R.O. Aziza.
Since no existing work has been done on this topic to the best of my knowledge, I
spent some days in Obi-Ayagha, a village in Otu-Jeremi in Ughelli South Local
Government Area of Delta State working on the orthography, close contact with
the key informant was also maintained with the aid of a mobile phone during the
course of this work in order to attain copious data.
4.0 RELATED WORKS ON TERMINOLOGIES USED
4.1 The Urhobo language
At the phonetic level, Urhobo has the following seven vowels [i, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, u].
The orthographic equivalents i, e, ẹ ,a, ọ, o, u are used for writing the language.
All seven vowels have nasal counterparts: [ῖ, e, ɛ, ã, ɔ, õ, ữ]. Elugbe (1991). The
syllable structure of the language is of three types, namely, V, CV, CCV.
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The standard Urhobo dialect is noted to have 28 consonant segment. Aziza (2007).
A chart for the Urhobo consonants and vowels is represented below.
Fig 1: A phonemic consonant chart of Urhobo
bilabial labiodental
alveolar postalveolar
palatal velar Labial velar
Labialised velar
glottal
Plosive p b t d c ɟ k g kp gb gw
Nasal m n ɲ ŋm
Trill rTap ɾFricative ɸ ß f v s z ʃ ʒ ɣ ɣw HC.approx
j ɰ W
l .approx l
Fig 2:Phonemic vowel chart of Urhobo
Front central back
close i u
close mid e o
open-mid ɛ ɔ
open
a
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4.2 Phoneme
The Prague School (N. S. Trubetzkoy, R.Jakobson) and American structuralist
(principally L.Bloomfield, Z.S.Harris) regard the phoneme as indivisible and as
minimally abstract. In this view, the phoneme is essentially a stuctureless object
which nonetheless has identifiable phonetic characteristics, it may be realized in
speech by phonetically different phones in different environment(i.e its allophone)
note that the allophones of a phoneme are united within it by their shared phonetic
similarities and by their complementary distribution. Phonemes are, however, not
the smallest units of phonetic description, because each phoneme represents a class
of phonetically similar sound variants, the allophones, which cannot be
contrastively substituted for each other, i.e. cannot stand in semantically distinctive
opposition. The phoneme is defined as the minimal unit of
speech that distinguishes meaning (e.g., pat vs. bat). At a more abstract level,
phonemes are merely bundles of features that are used to provide the necessary
information about the sound structure of words in the lexicon.
4.3 Allophones
According to the routeledge dictionary of languages and linguistics the term
allophone consist of two morpheme, i.e a prefix allo-, and the stem phone. Allo- is
a Greek word which means ‘another, different’. It is a designation for
morphological elements distinguishing variation of linguistic units on the level of
parole (i.e the actual language used by people) hence we can say an allo-form
(which includes allophones and allomorphs) represent variations of fundamental
linguistic units such as phoneme or morphemes on all levels of description. While
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the term phone refers to a segment or speech sound. In phonology phones become
allophones.
When two (or more) segments are phonetically distinct but phonologically the
same they are reffered to as Allophones (predictable variant of a phoneme). They
are concretely realized variants of a phoneme (contrastive phonological unit). The
classification of phones as allophones of a phoneme is based on
(a) their distribution (in terms of position in the segment)
(b) their phonetic similarity.
Allophones may be realized coincidentally as independent variants unaffected by
their phonetic environment ( free variation) such as English voiceless bilabial
plosive in final position, aspirated [ph] and unreleased [po] as in [taph] vs [tapo]
‘top’, these allophones are in free variation because they do not lead to a change
in meaning. Most allophones, however, are in complementary distribution ‘CD’
(sounds in CD are mutually exclusive) such as
[ph] in [phaut] pout and [p] in [spaut] spout.
[phӕn] pan [spӕn] span
[kh] in [khin] kin and [k] in [skin] skin
[th] in [thown] tone and [t] in [stown] stone
The data above exemplifies the fact that voiceless stops in English have
aspirated and unaspirated allophone. The reason for the allophonic variation of the
voiceless stop [p] is based on the syllable structure of the given words.
Other examples of voiceless stops in free variation is represented in the schema
below.
Phonemic level (phoneme) /tap/ /tɒp/ ‘tap’
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Phonetic level (allophone) [tӕph] [tӕpo] [tɒph] [tɒpo]
4.4 Allophonic variation
Allophonic variation is systematic, it occurs most often among phonetically
similar segments and it is conditioned by the phonetic context or environment in
which the segments are found.
Allophonic variation occurs because segments are altered and affected by the
phonetic characteristics of neighboring s elements or by the larger phonological
context in which they occur. If allophonic differences are phonotactic (i.e.
conditioned according to their placement/environment), language specific and in
complementary distribution, then the allophones are said to be ‘combinatory
variants.’ William (2001). Such phonetic variants cannot be freely substituted for
one another. Allophonic variation is triggered by a segment’s environment and it is
predictable. On the other hand, the phonetic features that are used to identify the
phonemes of a language are NOT predictable. These are known as distinctive
features.
Viewed from the perspective of features, allophonic variation is seen to be
not simply the substitution of one allophone for another, but rather the
environmentally conditioned change or specification of a feature. The liquid - glide
devoicing that occurs in English words like tree and twinkle, for instance is a
change in the value of of the feature [voice] from [+voice] to [-voice] after
voiceless stop consonant. Dobrovolsky (2001)
5.0 ANALYSIS
5.1 Allophonic Variations Of Consonants In English
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Voiceless stops in English are aspirated and this does not lead to a change in the
meaning of words. Aspiration is the period of voicelessness that follows the
voiceless closure phase of a stop. Ladefoged (1993).
Asides aspiration, voiceless stops can also be palatalized, labialized or be
unexploded in terms of their articulation in actual speech. Hence we can have the
possible allophones of the voiceless stops as shown below. Using /t/ we have
[tj] in till, teeth
[tw] in tooth, two
[th] in torch, tall
[to] in spot, spit
[t] in tilt, tin /t/
[tj] [tw] [th] [to] [t]
English realize /t/voiceless alveolar stop as, the basic form [t],
[tj]- palatalized, [tw]-labialised, [th]-aspirated, [to]-unexploded.
The same holds for all other voiceless stop in English.
In words like tool [tu:l], cool [ku:l], where the initial stop is followed by a
rounded vowel, the articulation of the stop often anticipates the lip rounding of the
next sound (contrast the articulation of the same voiceless stops in tin [tɪn], and
keen [kɪ:n]. These palatalised stops [tj] in ‘tin’ and [kj] ‘keen’ are of course nothing
but positionally defined allophones of the [t] and [k] phoneme, and their
palatalisation is non-dinstinctive). The same type of lip-rounding occurs before [w]
in words like
‘Twin ’ [twɪn] ‘queen’ [kwɪ:n]
‘Tweezers’ [twɪ:zǝz] ‘quick’ [kwɪk]
‘Twist’ [twɪst] ‘quiz’ [kwɪz]
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5.1:1 ALLOPHONIC VARIATIONS IN URHOBO CONSONANTS
Allophonic variation in Urhobo is systematic and this is not peculiar to the
language. It is a universal phenomenon. Evidence of the systematic nature is
evident in the fact that allophones pattern according to their membership in
phonetic class. Just as phonemic contrast found in each language are specific to
that language so also the actual patterning of phonemes and allophones is language
specific. Hence the distribution discovered for Urhobo language may not hold true
for other languages.
(1) The voiceless glottal fricative /h/ has two allophones that are in free
variation, they are ; [h] voiceless glottal fricative
[x] voiceless velar fricative
The use of one instead of the other is particularly a matter of choice. This is
obvious in the examples given below in data K.
Data A: ohọre /ohɔre/ [ohɔre] ~ [oxɔre] ‘neck’
Eha /eha/ [eha] ~ [exa] ‘play’
Uhoho /uhoho/ [uhoho] ~ [uxoxo] ‘shadow’
ọhọ /ɔhɔ/ [ɔhɔ] ~ [ɔxɔ] ‘sense
phonemic rep.(phoneme) /h/
phonetic rep.(allophones) [h] [x]
Note that the phonetic similarity between both allophones is that they are both
fricatives.
(2) The alveolar nasal /n/ also has two allophones [n] and [l] which occurs
sometimes in the same environment, but in most cases when the nasal is selected, it
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has the effect of nasalizing the following vowel segment. See examples in data B
below.
Data B: ọnẹ /ɔnɛ/ [ɔnɛ] ~ [ɔlɛ] ‘yam’
nọ /nɔ/ [nɔ] ~ [lɔ] ‘grind’
une /une/ [une] ~ [une] ‘song’
ọnokpa /ɔnokpa/ [ɔnokpa] ~ [ɔlokpa] ‘policeman’
onori /onori/ [onori] ~ [olori] ‘leader’
onorogun /onorogũ/ [onorogũ] ~ [olorogũ] ‘chief’
In the orthography of this language, the native speakers do not use just one symbol
for the one significant sound represented by [l] and [n], rather both are written.
However, the alveolar nasal is considered as the basic for the two reason below;
- It is more common to hear words with [n] than with [l], being that there exists
more words in this dialect with [n] which cannot be replaced with [l]. example
is as shown in data C below:
Data C:
nọ /nɔ/ [nɔ] ‘ask’
oni /oni/ [onĩ] ‘mother’
unu /unu/ [unũ] ‘mouth’
ọno /ɔno/ [ɔno] ‘who?’
ọnana /ɔnana/ [ɔnana] ‘this one’
A second reason for the realization of [n] as the basic phoneme is that, when loan
words which have the sound [l] enter into the language they are automatically
realized as [n]. See examples below
inọdoni [inɔdoni] ‘london’
inegọsi [inegɔsi] ‘lagos’
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inaya [inaja] ‘lawyer’
5.1:2 Contrastive statement
The realization of voiceless stops in Urhobo is very different from that of
English, reason being that all consonant in this language except the glottal
fricative/h/ and the alveolar nasal /n/ has only one allophone each.
While English realizes five different allophones for their consonants, as explained
above in , allophonic varaiation in Urhobo is evident only in the articulation of
the voiced glottal fricative/h/ whose variant is [h] and [x] (voiceless velar
fricative).
5.2 ALLOPHONIC VARIANTS FOR LIQUIDS AND GLIDES IN
ENGLISH
The realization of the liquid /l/ is usually not identical and many speakers of
English are unaware that they routinely produce the different articulations. This
variation can be heard clearly when the words in the data below are pronounced in
slow and steady speech.
Data D: Set 1 Set 2
blue [blu] plaw [pƖaᴜ]
gleam [glim] clap [kƖӕp]
slip [slɪp] clear [kƖɪr]
flog [flɒg] play [pƖei]
leaf [lɪf] plea [pƖi:]
[Ɩ]= voiceless alveolar lateral
[l] =voiced alveolar lateral
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These allophones never and do not contrast in English, in fact they do not have a
minimal pair such as [plei] and [pƖei] play, in which the phonetic difference
between /l/ and /Ɩ/ function to signal a difference in meaning.
A close examination of the distribution of the two laterals indicates that they both
vary symmetrically; all the [Ɩ]s occur after the class of voiceless stops while the
voiced [l] never occur after voiceless stops. Apparently it is a predictable property
of the phonology of English that voiceless laterals is found in the phonetic
environment coming after voiceless stops. Based on our explanations of sounds in
CD, We can thus agree that the two variants of /l/are in CD. The representation of
the relationship between the phoneme and its allophonic variant is shown below.
Phonemic rep. (phoneme) /l/
Phonetic rep.(allophones) [Ɩ] [l]after voiceless stop elsewhere
But there exist another variant of /l/ which many speakers of English use. This is
called the dark l [ɫ]. Its usage is as shown in the data below.
Data E: [phɪɫ] ‘pill’
[fɪɫ] ‘fill’
[bɒtɫ] ‘bottle’
[fᴜɫ] ‘full’
[bʌɫk] ‘bulk’
[hɛɫp] ‘help’
So we can attest to three variants of the phoneme /l/
So far it is obvious that the minimal pair test is a quick and direct way of
establishing that two or more sounds belong to separate phonemes in a language. If
the sounds contrast, they are allophones of different phoneme but if they do not
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contrast they may be considerd as allophones of the same phoneme. I have used
the word ‘may’ because in some cases, certain pattern of distribution prevents
some sounds in a language from contrasting. For this reason Aronoff et al(2001)
opines that we can establish the phonemic status of a sound by default. Consider
the set of data below:
Data F:
[ηɒp] ‘does not exist’ [hɒp] ‘hop’
[ηeɪt] ‘does not exist’ [heɪt] ‘hate’
[lɒη] ‘long’ [lɒh] ‘does not exist’
[pɪη] ‘ping’ [pɪh] ‘does not exist’
[sɪη] ‘sing’ [sɪh] ‘does not exist
[kƖӕη] ‘clang’ [kƖӕh] ‘does not exist’
From data F above, it is obvious that the voiceless glottal fricative [h] and the
voiced velar nasal[η] do not contrast in both initial and final position. Reason being
that a minimal pair could not be found in English language. Thus the fact that [h]
and [η] are in CD does not imply that they are allophones of one phoneme. rather
since they are phonetically distinct, we assume that each one is a member of a
separate phoneme in this case the pattern of distribution is of secondary
importance. Note here also that minimal pair or near minimal pairs help us to
establish sounds in contrast, while phonetic similarities and CDs help us decided
which sounds are allophones of a particular phoneme, However some sound
alternation are in free variation and thus they are allophones of the same phoneme
since the variation does not lead to a change in meaning and they are phonetically
similar
One general statement that holds true for English language is that liquids and
glides have voiceless allophone occurring after voiceless stops, and voiced
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allophones occurring elsewhere. The allophonic variation for the liquid [r]
(alveolar trill) is evident in the data G while that of glides are shown in data H
below.
Data G: Set 1 Set 2
Brew [bru:] prow [praᴜ]
green [gri:n] trip [trɪp]
grain [greɪn] crane [kreɪn]
drip [drɪp] creep [krɪp]
frog [frɒg] pray [preɪ]
shrimp [ʃrɪmp] tree [tri:]
Data H: glides /j/ and /w/ palatal and velar approximant.
Set 1 Set 2
view [vju:] cute [kju:t]
beauty [bju:ti] putrid [pju:trɪd]
swim [swɪm] twin [twɪn]
gwen [gwen] quick [kwɪk]
We can say liquids and glides are phonetically similar because they both belong to
the same phonetic class of non-nasal sonorant consonant.
5.2:1 ALLOPHONIC VARIANTS OF GLIDES IN URHOBO
The glides in this dialect /w/ (velar approximant), and /j/ (palatal approximant)
have two allophonic variants and they are non-syllabic. A representation of the
phoneme and their allophones is as shown below:
Phoneme /w/ /j/
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Allophones [w] [w] [j] [j] Before nasal elsewhere before nasal elsewhere Vowels vowels
The distinction between the oral and nasal glide is indicated by the nasality of the
vowel in the adjacent segment. See examples below:
Data I orthography Phonemic Phonetic Gloss
Owo /owɔ/ [owɔ] ‘leg’
Uwen /uwen/ [uwẽ] ‘nose’
Uwodi /uwodi/ [uwodi] ‘prison’
Ewun /ewun/ [ewũ] ‘shirt’
wẹ /wɛ/ [wɛ] ‘you’
wẹn /wɛn/ [wɛ] ‘breath’
uyẹn /ujɛn/ [ujɛ] ‘fly’ (sng)
Ya /ja/ [ja] ‘hang clothes’
Yan /jan/ [jã] ‘walk’
Examples of vowels changing to a glide and assimilating the nasality feature of the
following nasal vowel.
Data J isuesu /iswesu/ [iswesu] ‘administration’
Suensun /swensun/ [swẽsũ] ‘elastic’ (verb)
Esio /esjo/ [esjo] ‘pulling’
ẹsiọn /ɛsjɔ/ [ɛsjɔ] ‘refusal’
ẹriọ /ɛrjɔ/ [ɛrjɔ] ‘eating’
utiẹn /utjɛ/ [utjɛ] ‘orange’
uvie /uvje/ [uvje] ‘kingdom’
ovien /ɔvjɛn/ [ɔvjɛ] ‘servant’
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The above nasalized glides are certainly positionally determined allophone of the
phonemes /j/ and /w/. Their nasalisation is non- distinctive.
5.2:2 Contrastive statement
English liquids (/l/, /r/) and glides (/j/, /w/ ) have two allophones each. They
are voiced and voiceless allophones respectively as illustrated above. But in
Urhobo the liquids are phonemes on their own right with no alternative
articulation. So /l/ is realized as [l] voiced alveolar lateral, and /r/ is realized as [r]
voiced alveolar trill.
Unlike liquids, glides (/j/, /w/) in Urhobo have two variants (i.e allophones) they
are [j] - nasal glide which occur adjacent to a nasal segment, and [j] - oral glide
which occurs elsewhere.
5.3 ALLOPHONIC VARIATION OF ENGLISH VOWEL SEGMENTS
In English, the effect of nasalization on vowels are treated as allophonic variations.
This is because the nasalized version is usually not meaningfully contrastive. See
examples below.
Data K: ‘seed’ [sɪd]
‘seen’ [sĩn]
‘soot’ [sᴜt]
‘soon’ [sũn]
In data K above, the effect of the alveolar nasal [n] makes the [ɪ] to be nasalized.
So there are at least two phones [ɪ] and [ĩ] oral and nasal vowel respectively used
in English language to realize the single phoneme /ɪ/ as shown in the schema
below. The situation is the same for all other existing vowel in English. If they
occur before a nasal consonant, they assimilate the nasality feature and become
nasalized thereby leading to a variation from the basic oral vowel.
Phonemic rep.(basic) /ɪ/
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Phonetic rep (allophones) [ĩ] [ɪ] Before nasal consonant elsewhere
But this is not the case in Urhobo dialect which operates just like french in this
regard.
Data L mets [mɛ] ‘dish’
main [mɛ] ‘hand’
seau [so] ‘pail’
son [sõ] ‘sound’
Distinction between the nasal and oral vowel is phonemic in french just as we have
in Urhobo.
5.3:1 Allophonic vowel segments in Urhobo.
Urhobo has oral vowels as well as their nasal counterpart . Observation shows that
It is a usual phenomenon in this dialect for nasal vowel to occur near nasal
consonants precisely speaking ‘vowels preceeding the alveolar nasal /n/ are
predictably nasalized as evident in the data from Urhobo below.
Data M: Set 1 Set 2
Fa [fa] ‘flog’ fan [fã] ‘loosen free’
Se [se] ‘call’ sen [sẽ] ‘refuse’ deny’
Erhi [eri] ‘spirit’ erin [erĩ] ‘fish’
Su [su] ‘lead, rule’ fun [fũ] ‘extinguish’
Obviously allophonic nasalization is significant in Urhobo and this is because
minimal/near minimal pairs can be established.
The distinction between the oral and nasal vowel in this language is purely
phonemic because they give rise to a contrast in the meaning of words
A general hypothesis covering this distribution can thus be; ‘All oral and
nasal vowels have only one allophone each.’ As shown below:
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Phonemic rep /i/ /e/ /ɛ/ /a/ /o/ /ɔ/ /u/
Phonetic rep [i] [e] [ɛ] [a] [o] [ɔ] [u]
Nasal vowels
Phonemic rep /ĩ/ /ẽ/ /ɛ/ /ã/ /õ/ /ɔ/ /ũ/
Phonetic rep [ĩ] [ẽ] [ɛ] [ã] [õ] [ɔ] [ũ]
The allophonic distribution of nasal vowels can be generally stated by
referring to syllable structure of the language while distribution of oral vowels by
referring to the sub syllabic units which is the onset. i.e: ‘In Urhobo, vowels are
nasalized in syllable final position.’ This statement accounts for the words in Set
2 (data M) above.
5.3:2 Contrastive statement
Nasalization of vowel segments in English is not significant (allophonic) while that
of Urhobo is phonemic, reason being that if you substitute the oral vowel in
Urhobo with their nasal counterpart, it leads to a change in meaning of words as
illustrated in the analysis above.
Whereas the nasality of English vowels is purely phonetically conditioned thus it
does not lead to a change in meaning.
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6.0 HEIRACHY OF PROBLEM
Regardless of the fact that everyday speech contains a great deal of allophonic
variation, speakers pay little or no attention it. When this is not detected early and
diagnosed, it may lead to unintelligibility and most probably the loss of the unique
structure of a given language. Although allophonic variation is a universal
phenomenon, the actual patterning of phonemes and allophones are definitely not,
rather they are language-specific. This might pose a problem for the learner.
Hence learners of a language (say language B) should not overgeneralise the rule
of his L1 in order to aid competence in the new language. This work therefore will
aid pattern preservation of our sound segment.
Allophonic variation is conditioned not just by neighboring segments but
also by the syllable structure thus a clear cut distinction of the syllables shapes
governed by universal and language specific constraint should be attained so as to
be able to establish the existence of segmental unit.
6.1 Scope and limitation of the study
The scope of this work borders around the concise nature of data
presentation and analysis. Conscious effort was made to avoid redundancy while
dealing with the sound segments, thus only a selected few that exist in both
languages were described. However, emphasis was laid on all of them covertly
with the use of generalized statement. The fact that this seminar paper is of a
limited scope also imposed a limitation on the study. For instance: the
24consonants in English and 28 consonant segments in Urhobo were not analyzed
individually. Rather I grouped them into natural classes and made a generalization
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for the natural class. Although it has not been easy to gather the much data I
wanted to because research work such as these poses logistical problems, but as a
researcher I attempted the much I could.
7.0 CONCLUSION
We have seen that language tends to explore the same basic phonetic
parameters in building their phonological system, hence the findings in this work
demonstrates to us that the condition for realizing the various allophone of a
phoneme is the same cross-linguistically. Analysis of allophonic variant is more
concrete when we consider the phonetic condition in which they occur as well as
their distribution..
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Bernard Bloch (1941). “Phonemic Overlapping.” Journal of American Speech Vol
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Daniel Jones (2003). “English Pronouncing Dictionary”. Cambridge University
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Elugbe B. O. (1991). “The Limits of Accuracy in the Designs of Orthographies.”
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Hadmumod, Bussman, (1996) “Routledge Dictionary of language and linguistics.”
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