Phonological rules LING 200 Spring 2006 Foreign accents and borrowed words Borrowed words –often pronounced according to phonological rules of borrowing.

Phonological rules

LING 200

Spring 2006

Foreign accents and borrowed words

• Borrowed words– often pronounced according to phonological

rules of borrowing language

• Foreign accents– result from application of native language

phonology to target language phonology– especially if language learned as adult

Spanish loans into English

Spanish in English

[pres] Padres [phdez]

[t] taco [th]

[burito] burrito [bio]

[sndyeo] San Diego [sndiego]

[r] = alveolar trill

[] = voiced velar fricative

[] = retroflex approximant; [] = alveolar tap

The original shibboleth

Writing phonological rules

• A common format /A/ B / C ___ D

A = phoneme(s) which undergo the ruleB = aspect of pronunciation changed (allophone

created)/ = in the context of___ = location of phoneme in contextC, D = conditioning elements of the context

• = ‘A becomes or adds B when preceded by C and followed by D’

Examples of phonological rules

• Mohawk Voicing– /p t k/ [b d g] / ___ V (V = vowel)

• English Aspiration– /p t k/ [ph th kh] / syllable[___

(syllable[ = when syllable initial)

• Beware: sounds transcribed with diacritic symbols are not always the predictable allophones

More on allophones

• Allophones of a phoneme must be phonetically similar; e.g. [p], [ph] as allophones of /p/ in English

English [], [h]

• [] = velar nasal• English [], [h] are in

complementary distribution – [h] / ___ V

– [] / V ___

[hd] [d]

[hs] [s]

*[dh] *[d]

* = unattested, ungrammatical, does not occur

English [], [h]

• Why not /h/ [] / ___ #

or // [h] / # ___ ?

• Phonological rules typically add or change single aspects of pronunciation

• Either rule would be too complex

Some types of phonological rules

• Assimilation: sound becomes more similar to the context– e.g. Mohawk Voicing

/p t k/ [b d g] / ___ V

• Dissimilation

• Deletion

• Epenthesis

Dissmilation• A sound becomes less similar to another sound• Laryngeal contrasts in Hindi.

– [] = voiced retroflex stop– [] = voiceless retroflex stop

• [l] ‘branch’• [l] ‘postpone’• [hl] ‘wood shop’• [l] ‘shield’ 5 = retroflex

Dissimilation

• Sanskrit. [b] = voiced aspirated labial stop

/budyte:/ [budyte:] 'is awake'

/bubo:d/ [bubo:d] 'was awake'

/bo:dsyati/ [bo:tsyati] 'will be awake'

Dissimilation

Grassman's Law (Sanskrit, Indo-European):

• Voiced aspirated stops/affricates are deaspirated before another voiced aspirated stop/affricate.

• C C / ___ ... C

Deletion

• Cree. Algonquian (BC-Ontario, Canada)

/pi:simw/ [pi:sim] ‘sun’

cf. /pi:simwak/ [pi:simwak] ‘suns’

• /w/ Ø / C ___ #

Epenthesis

• = insertion

• Sahaptin [] epenthesis

• Sahaptin vowel inventory

front central back

high i i: u u:

low :

Sahaptin consonant inventorylabial alveolar palatal velar labio-

velaruvular labio-

uvularglottal

stops p p’ t t’ k k’ kw kw’ q q’ qw qw’

affricates sibilant ts ts’ c c’

lateral t t’

fricatives central s š x xw w h

lateral

nasals m n

lateral l

glides w y

[]

= voiceless (alveolar) lateral fricative

[yy] 'rash, pimples'

[p’u] 'teardrop'

[p] 'leaf'

Articulation of an ejective stop0. Vocal folds close, producing []

0. Back of tongue raises to velum, producing [k]

[k] vs. [k’]

[kúpi] 'coffee'

[k’úsi] 'horse'

[k:s] 'train'

[k’sk’s] 'small'

[k’] = velar ejective (stop)

[q] vs. [q’]

[qyí] 'shoe'

[q’í]‘single layer tule mat’

[q] = voiceless uvular stop

[q’] = uvular ejective uvular

velar

Consonant classes

obstruents p p’ t t’ k k’ kw kw’ q q’ qw qw’

ts ts’ c c’

t t’

s š x xw w h

sonorants m n

l

w y

Sahaptin [] epenthesis in clusters

• obstruent + obstruent– /pti:t/ [pti:t] ‘damp’

• obstruent + sonorant– /tmš/ [tmš] ‘chokecherry’

• sonorant + obstruent– /mti:t/ [mtí:t] ‘humid’

• sonorant + sonorant– /mli:š/ [mlí:š] ‘tongue’

Sahaptin [] epenthesis

/ # C __ C sonorant

Application of rule: /mti:t/

[] epenthesis

[mtí:t]