Phonology (2)

Phonology (2)

Dr. Ansa Hameed

Phonology Phone Phoneme Allophone Minimal Pairs Free Variation

Previously…

Co-articulation Effects

Supra segmental Features

Today’s Lecture

ORIGIN AND HISTORY

The term co-articulation dates from the 1930s when Menzerath and De Lacerda published a book:

Koartikulation, Stererung und Lautabgrenzung (1933).

Since the late 1960s the experimental investigation of coarticulation has developed into a major area of research.

The phenomenon of co-articulation became apparent with the detailed investigation of co-articulatory effects.

Co-Articulation Effects

Articulation is how speech sounds are produced, made or articulated.

Co-articulation is the way in which the movements of different articulators affect each other and the ways in which preceding and following articulations of an individual articulator affect its current articulation.

“The process of making one sound almost at the same time as the next is

called co-articulation”.


There are two well known co-articulation effects:

Assimilation Elision


ASSIMILATION

Assimilation is a regular and frequent sound change process by which a phoneme changes to match an adjacent phoneme in a word. A common example of assimilation is vowels being nasalized before nasal consonants as it is difficult to change the shape of the mouth sufficiently quickly.

“When two phonemes occur in sequence and some aspects of one phoneme is taken or

copied by another, the process is known as assimilation”.


Types of Assimilation


PROGRESSIVE ASSIMILATION

If the phoneme changes to match the preceding phoneme, it is progressive assimilation. Progressive assimilation is also known as left-to-right or perseveratory or preservative, lagging or lag assimilation.

“If a phoneme is affected by one that comes earlier in the utterance, this

assimilation is termed as progressive”. For example: Baking, Organ, Bacon…


REGRESSIVE ASSIMILATION If the phoneme changes to match the

following phoneme, it is regressive assimilation, also called right to left or anticipatory assimilation. “If a phoneme is affected by one that

comes later in the sentence, this is called regressive assimilation”.

For example: I can go. Let me check! Good morning! Good boy.


RECIPROCAL ASSIMILATION Very occasionally two sounds (invariably adjacent) may

influence one another in reciprocal assimilation. When such a change results in a single segment with some of the features of both components, it is known as coalescence or fusion. This notion was identified by Sanskrit Grammarians as Sandhi or fusion. “If there is a mutual influence between the two

phonemes, it is reciprocal assimilation”. For example: What you want? Would you? In case you need it Has your letter come?


Elision is the omission of one or more sounds such as a vowel, a consonant or a whole syllable in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes a sound may be elided for euphonic effects.

“The term elision describes the disappearance of a sound”.

Or “The omission of a sound segment which would be

present in the deliberate pronunciation of a word in isolation is technically described as elision”.

The reason of elision is, in some instances, the difficulty of putting certain consonants sounds together while maintaining a regular rhythm and speed.

Elision

WORD-INTERNAL Weak, central vowels are elided when

they occur in unaccented syllables between two consonants.

Examples: certain, student, vision, classical, nasal, etc.

Alveolar consonants are elided when they occur between two consonants.

For example: handsome, postpone.

Types of Elision

AT WORD BOUNDARIES Word-final alveolars [t,d] are generally

elided when they are preceded and followed by other consonants, especially when the following consonant is a plosive.

Examples: next turn, best joke, send two, rubbed down.

THINK OF SOME EXAMPLES OF ASSIMILATION AND ELISION IN URDU LANGUAGE

Examples: ‘Ghalat’ spoken as ‘ghalt’ ‘Qadar’ spoken as ‘qadr’


DEFINITION 1. ‘denoting a feature of an utterance other than

the consonantal and vocalic components, for example (in English) stress and intonation’

Retrieved From:http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/suprasegmental

‘of or relating to significant features (as stress, pitch, or juncture) that occur simultaneously with vowels and consonants in an utterance’


Linguistics . pertaining to or noting features of speech,as stress, pitch, and length that accompany individual consonants and vowels and may extend over more than one such segmental element;pertaining to junctural and prosodic features

. Retrieved from:http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/suprasegmental


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stress

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/segmental

SyllablesORIGIN . Greek sullabē, fromsun- 'together' + lambanein 'take‘

‘a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word; for example, there are two syllables in water and three in inferno’.

Retrieved from:http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/syllable

Supra segmental Features: Syllable

A syllable is a unit of sound composed of

a central peak of sonority (usually a vowel), and

the consonants that cluster around this central peak.


Parts of a Syllable:

1.ONSET:( Optional)Initial segment of a Syllable

2. RHYME: ( Obligatory) Core of a syllable, consisting of a nucleus and coda

3.NUCLEUS/CENTRE/PEAK: (Obligatory)Central segment of a syllable Coda/Termination: (Optional) Closing segment of a syllable

NOTE(A syllable thus has three positions):

Nucleus/Centre/Peak Onset Coda/Termination


A syllable is a unit of sound ,and, therefore we should look at the phonetic transcription of words and not their Orthographic representation.


Phonetically ,a syllable is said to consist of a centre which has little or no obstruction to the flow of air and which sounds comparatively loud

KINDS OF SYLLABLES

Open Syllables Closed Syllables Syllables consisting of only a vowel Syllables where the central vowel is both preceded

and followed by one or more than one consonant


A Syllable is made up of two kinds of elements :

Vowels Consonants

The vowels are the obligatory elements and the consonants are the optional. A vowel can be a syllable by itself ,it may be preceded by one,two,or three consonants .Or it may be followed by one ,two, three, or four consonants.


The vowel is the central element in a Syllable and is called the Nucleus. The consonants that precede the central vowel are called the Releasing Consonants while the consonants that follow the Central vowels are called Arresting Vowels.

The structure of English syllable can thus be shown as:

(CCC) V (CCCC)


When two or more consonants occur together without a vowel between them in the same syllable, such consonants are said to form a CONSONANT CLUSTER e.g. the word (TEXTS ) has a four consonant-cluster at the end .

When two or more consonants occur together in a word but belong to different syllables (e.g the consonants /n/ and /t/ in the word (CONTEXT),they are called ABUTTING CONSONANTS


SYLLABIC CONSONANT In a Syllable, a nucleus is generally a

vowel ,preceded or followed by consonants ,which are marginal elements but there are some special cases where the consonant is the nucleus of the syllable e.g.in words like Bottle cattle,kettle, cotton and mutton,the second syllable has two sounds ,both consonants either /tl/or /tn/.In such cases /t/ and /n/ occupy the nuclear position and are called SYLLABIC CONSONANTS ,represented as V.(i.e. not as C )


Stress

‘An emphasis given to a particular syllable or word in speech, typically through a combination of relatively greater loudness, higher pitch, and longer duration…..

’ http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/stress

Supra segmental Features: Stress

A Syllable prronounced more prominently than the other syllables in the sme word is said to be STRESSED or ACCENTED syllable.A stressed syllable is often mentioned by a small vertical line just above and before its beginning ,as shown in ‘chapter and ad ’mire


Primary stress Secondary stressI

In English we find three kinds of syllables in term of stress :

Syllables with primary or strong stress Syllables with secondary or weak stress Syllables with no stress


There are four features that have been identified crucial in deciding stress placement

The Phonological structure of these syllables,(i.e.the sequences of consonants and vowels making up the syllables

The grammatical category of the words(i.e.whether the word is noun,adjective or a verb)

The morphological structure of word i.e whether the word is Simple or Compound


Examples of the words that are orthographically similar but differ in pronunciation ,in accordance with the Word Class to which they belong:

(The stress is placed on the second syllable of Verb, but on the second syllable of nouns and adjectives)

ABSTRACT CONDUCT CONTRAST PERFECT INSULT PERMIT REBEL RECORD


Intonation

Definition: In linguistics, the use of changing vocal pitch to convey grammatical information or personal attitude.

Retrieved from:http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/intonationterm.htm

Supra segmental Features: Intonation

‘the rise and fall of the voice in speaking’

Retrieved from:http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/intonation

‘manner of utterance; specifically : the rise and fall in pitch of the voice in speech’

Retrieved from:http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intonation

Supra segmental Features: Intonation

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/intonation







‘the quality of a sound governed by the rate of vibrations producing it; the degree of highness or lowness of a tone’:

Supra segmental Features: Tone

Speech may be divided into tone units.Each tone unit is composed of:

A tonic syllable (obligatory) Optional elements which precede the tonic

syllable (pre-head, head) Optional elements which follow the tonic

syllable (tail)


Complex Tones and Pitch Height

Fall: neutral statement Rise: neutral question, Fall-Rise: scepticism Level: boredom, disinterestIn ordinary speech intonation tends to take

place within the lower part of the speaker´s pitch range. Only with strong feelings we use extra pitch height.

Neutral Statement: Fall

Rise: questioning, doubt, desire to continue conversation

Fall-Rise: surprise, scepticism

Level: boredom, lack of interest

Recap

Fromkin, V. & R. Rodman (1988). An Introduction to Language. New York: Holt-

Saunders, 4th edition. Gimson, A.C. (1980). An Introduction to the

Pronunciation of English. London: Ed. Arnold, 3rd edition. Jones, D. (1950). An Outline of English Phonetics.

Cambridge: Heffner & Sons. Mc Carthy, P. (1967). English Pronunciation.

Cambridge: Heffer & Sons, 4th edition Kathryn LaBouff (2007), Singing and Communicating

in English. Oxford Univ. Press

References

Retrieved from::http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/suprasegmental

Retrieved from:http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/suprasegmental

Retrieved from:http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/intonationterm.htm

Retrieved from:http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/intonation.

Phonology (2)

Documents

coarticulation effectsthere

coarticulation effectselision

phenomenon of coarticulation

known coarticulation

current articulation

term coarticulation

anticipatory assimilation

common example of assimilation