Phonology
Phonology Is…
The study of sound systems within a
language
 The study of how speech sounds pattern
 The study of how speech sounds vary
 The study of how speech sounds contrast
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Definitions
Phone: speech sound
 Phoneme / /
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Contrastive units in a language
Never pronounced
Realized by one or more allophones
Allophone [ ]
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Pronounced (every sound you produce)
Variation of a phoneme
Possibilities
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Allophones of separate phonemes
/t/

[t]
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/th/

[th]
Allophones of the same phoneme
/t/


[t]
[th]
Questions to Ask When
Comparing Phones
What is the environment?
 Is there a difference in meaning?
 Are they allophones of the same
phoneme or do they belong to different
phonemes?
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Types of Distribution
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Contrastive distribution:
Difference in meaning
 Form a minimal pair
 Belong to separate phonemes
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Example:
‘cat’ [khQt] and ‘hat’ [hQt]
Types of Distribution Cont.
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Free variation:
Phones appear in exactly the same
environments.
 No difference in meaning.
 Are allophones of the same phoneme.
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Example:
‘Economics’ [i] or [E] initially.
Types of Distribution Cont.
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Complementary distribution:
Phones appear in differing environments
 Phones are allophones of the same
phoneme
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Example:
‘Top’ [thap] and ‘stop’ [stap]
Variation in Sounds:
The Case of “t” in American English
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Say the following words:
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top, stop, metal, right
What is the difference between the four
“t”s?
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‘top’ [thap] the “t” is aspirated [th]
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‘stop’ [stap] the “t” is unaspirated [t]
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‘metal’ [mERl] the “t” is a flap [R]
‘right’ [raIt] the “t” is unreleased
[t]
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The Case of “t” in American English
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The sound we perceive as “t” actually has four
phonetic realizations.
Since in our mind, the abstract sound is still a “t”
we call “t” a PHONEME.
Phones go in brackets [t], phonemes go in
slashes /t/.
Every language has phonemes and variants of
that phoneme, which we call ALLOPHONES.
Appearance of allophones depends on rules.
Phonemes and Allophones
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What are the rules for the different
allophones of /t/?
/t/
[th]
[R]
[t]
[t]
Allophonic rules for /t/:
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/t/ [th] word-initally and in front of stressed syllables
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/t/  [R] intervocalically, when second vowel is
unstressed
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better, Betty, butter, cutie, buttocks
/t/  [t] word-finally
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table, treat, attend, until, attack
set, right, caught, pit
/t/ [t] elsewhere
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stop, street, antics, Baltic
Phonemes Are CONTRASTIVE
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We have established that phonemes are
abstract ideals of our language’s sounds in our
mind, which are realized as different
allophones
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Phonemes are also agents that produce a
change in MEANING between words. This
why we say that phonemes are contrastive
Minimal Pairs
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Take the following pronunciations:
 [braIth]
[braIt]
[braIt] = “bright”
 Violating “allophone rules” results in unusual
pronunciation, not confusion in meaning
When a switch in only one phone produces a
change in meaning of a word, the two sounds
CONTRAST so they must belong to different
phonemes
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[braIt] vs [braId]
[braIb] “bright/bride/bribe”
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So, we can say that in English, [t], [d]
ad [b] all belong to DIFFERENT phonemes /t/,
vs
Minimal Pairs
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Pairs (or trios, etc) of words that only differ in
one sound, while the other sounds remain the
same are called minimal pairs
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Ex: cane/gain; decree/degree; back/bag
What are some examples of minimal pairs to
contrast the following sounds?
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[P] v [b]
[s] v [s&]
[l] v [r]
Phonemes and Allophones
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So, in a pair of words like flea [fli] and
free [fri] we can determine that the
phones [l] and [r] are allophones of
DIFFERENT phonemes.
In a pair of words like [phIt] and
[spit] we can determine that [ph] and
[p] are allophones of the SAME phoneme
(since we can say [sphIt] and it’s still
understandable).
Upcoming Special Features…
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Bring Clark text on Friday
Journal 1 is due this Friday (next class!!!)
Homework 1 is being given out today
Homework 1 is due on Monday
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Test 1 is next Friday covering:
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9 ideas about language (review Clark, ch.5)
Phonetics (vowels and consonants)
Phonology (from today’s class and Friday’s)
Morphology (upcoming)