?
Consonants
/p/
please, appeal
/b/
beat, bubble
/t/
tap, brittle, stink
/d/
dive, mud
/k/
kite, critical, critique, coughs
/g/
give, finger
/f/
toffee, fish
/v/
very, convoy, of
/θ/
bath, teeth, three
/ð/
the, this, teethe
/s/
symbol, race
/z/
dogs, zero, Xerox, reside
/ʃ /
fish, racial, petition
/ʒ/
casual, division
/dʒ/
judge, Jerry, plunge
/tʃ /
chicken, puncture
/m/
mango, sample, dumb
/n/
resign, never
/ŋ/
mango, finger, young, ankle
/h/
house, hiccup
/l/
lost, world
/r/
cart, warrior
/w/
wow, twist
/j/
yesterday, young
/ʔ/
uh-oh
1. Rush
2. Church
3. Yellow
4. Accomplice
We use these symbols to transcribe speech. For
example,
1. “cheese” would be transcribed this way: [tʃiz],
2. “bread” would be [brɛd],
3. “tea” would be [ti]
and 4. butter would be [bʌtə].
• Transcribe the following words
My
Slip
Brush
Try these sentences
- The man is tall
- My friend is short
- You are a good boy
• the phonemes of a language are ideal sounds. In actuality when we speak, we use these sounds
in combination with other sounds, and we move very quickly from one phoneme to another.
For instance, in saying “car” we do not say one phoneme at a time - [k-a-r] - but we say all the
phonemes as one flowing sound [kar].
• When this happens, the articulation of one sound sometimes affects or influences the
articulation of another sound, causing a variation from the ideal sound. Another way in which
allophones may be seen is because of variations in pronunciation. A good example is the way
Guyanese say words that contain “th’ sounds.
• Instead of “think” we say “tink”. But we all know that for Guyanese, these two words are
exactly the same – there is no difference in meaning between them. A Guyanese can choose to
articulate the “th’ sounds or not. Therefore, the variation between “th” and “t” is only a
phonological variation, and we say that “th” and “t” are allophones.
• suprasegmentals (or prosodic features) include stress, tone, and length. For example,
• “father” may have two meanings in Guyana depending on how it is pronounced. The word,
“father”, can either refer to a male parent;
• or a priest- the “faather”. A stress on the vowel [a] indicates the change in meaning. To represent
stress, the symbol used is [ ' ] and would be written over the [а́].
• Diacritics, which the IPA also uses, can be added to the existing phone to indicate a slight change in that sound.
•
• Some diacritics used are:
•
a. [:] which indicates length. Example, the vowel [a] in “yard” can be lengthened to “yaard”. Phonetically, we
would transcribe that as [ja:rd].
•
b. [~] indicates nasalisation, or when air flows through the nose to pronounce the word. For example, if a vowel
becomes nasalized we write it as [õ].Hold your nose and say “move”. You will notice that air is supposed to travel
through the nasal passage to pronounce [o]. Nasalisation will be discussed later in more details in the unit on
Phonology.
• c. [ʰ] indicates aspiration, or a puff of air, that is inserted along with other phonemes. If you put your hand in front
of your mouth, you will feel a puff of air when you begin to say the word “test”. We can transcribe that as
[tʰɛst].Another example is when some persons aspirate the word “egg” which would be transcribed as [ʰɛg].
Each phoneme is articulated at a particular point in our articulatory tract. The table below shows these areas of articulation:
Distinctive features of phonemes
Area of Articulation
Explanation
and Phonemes
1.
Bilabial
by the joining of the two lips
/p, b, m, w/
2.
Inter-dental
with tip of tongue between the teeth
/θ, ð/
3.
Labio-dental
/f, v/
with the top teeth on the bottom lip
Labio-dental
with the top teeth on the bottom lip
/f, v/
Alveolar
with the tongue touching the alveolar ridge
/t, d, s, z, n/
Alveo-palatal
with tongue between the alveolar and palatal areas
/ ʃ, ʒ, dʒ, tʃ/
Palatal
with the tip of the tongue on the hard palate
/l, r, j/
Velar
with back of tongue at the velum
/k, g, ŋ/
Glottal
at the glottis
/ h, ?/
paratus to shape the stream of air from our lungs. We do this shaping of the air in different ways, and these we classify as the manner of articulation features. These are shown in the table below:
Manner of Articulation
Explanation
and Phonemes
1.
Plosives or Stops
stopping the stream of air then releasing it
/p, b, t, d, k, g,? /
2.
Nasals
directing the air through the nose
/m, n, ŋ/
3.
Laterals
/l/
directing the air along the sides of the tongue
4.
Fricatives
releasing the air in a hissing manner
/f, v, h, s, z, θ, ð, ʃ, ʒ/
5.
Affricates
a combination of Stop and Fricative articulation
/dʒ, tʃ/
6.
Glides
starting the articulation at one point then smoothly ending it at another point
/w, j/
7.
Retroflex
/r/
with the tongue curled backwards
1. /dʒ /
2. /k/
3. /m/
4. /t/
5. /g/
6. /z/
7. /s/
8. /n/
9. /p/
•f
tʃ/
•Θ
• a voiced bilabial stop: /b/
•
a voiceless inter-dental fricative: / θ/
•
a velar nasal: /ŋ/
• /k/
• /g/
• /f/
• /j/
• /z/
• /dʒ/
• Voice and voiceless phonemes
Voicing refers to whether the vocal chords are vibrated or not during the production of a
phoneme. Phonemes that are produced with such vibration are called voiced phonemes while
those that are not are called voiceless phonemes.
• The following consonant phonemes are voiced: /b, d, g, m, n, ŋ, ð, ʒ, v, w, r, j, l, z, ʒ/
• The other consonants are voiceless./s, f
• Distinctive Features of Vowels (10 minutes)
• The distinctive features for vowels are described in terms of
• (1) place of articulation,
• (2) manner of articulation and
• (3) shape of lips.
• All the vowels are voiced.
•
• Place of articulation
• Vowels are described as high, mid or low, and front, central or back depending
on where in the oral cavity they are produced.
• Manner of Articulation
• Vowels are described as either tense or lax. Tense vowels are those which are
produced with some effort and energy. Lax vowels have the opposite qualities – they
are produced with less effort and energy.
•
• Shape of Lips
• The rounding or spreading of the lips is another distinctive feature in the
identification of different vowel phonemes. These different shapes of the lips are
clearly seen when vowels are uttered (check them for yourself in a mirror!).
PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES
1. Conditioning – this happens when the features of one phoneme influence another. The two phonemes
•
therefore become more similar to one another.
e.g. In English, we write “incomplete” /ɪnkɔmplit/ but we pronounce it [ɪŋkɔmplit] - the
alveolar nasal /n/ changes to a velar nasal [ŋ].
•
This happens because of the influence of the sound /k/ which follows it. If you check the distinctive
features, you will see that /k/ is a velar sound. Thus, in saying the word, your mouth prepares to make
the /k/ sound while it is making the nasal sound – it is easier to make two sounds of the same kind
instead of making an alveolar sound then a velar sound.
•
OTHER EXAMPLES
•
Ingratitude
•
Incompetent
1. Degemination – when two similar sounds are made in succession, they may be fused into one sound, or one
of them might be dropped.
•
e.g. many persons blend the /n/ and the /m/ into one sound in the word “environment” so it
is articulated as “enviroment”
1. Palatalisation - the addition of a /j/ sound between two phonemes
persons say “gyarden” instead of
“garden”.
•
e.g. in Guyanese Creole, many
1. Syncope/Ellipsis•
•
e.g.
omission of part of a word.
many persons say “compulsry” instead of “compulsory”
1. Prothesis addition of a sound or syllable at the beginning of a word.
•
e.g. some Guyanese say “hevry” instead of “every” -they add an
/h/ sound to the beginning of
words that begin with some vowels.
This kind of prosthesis is called Aspiration.
•
1. Apocopethe loss of sound(s) from the end of a word
•
e.g. in Guyanese Creole, we usually say “roun” rather than “round”
•
1. Raising - the change in point of articulation of vowels from a low point to
a higher one
•
e.g. Guyanese “trimble” from English “tremble”
•
1. Metathesis the transposition of sounds in a word
• e.g.
GCE “aks” from English ‘ask”
•
Do you know the difference
- Phonemes
- Phones
- Allophones
- Minimal pairs
1. State the number of morphemes in the following words: actor, strongest, precede, cupboard,
anthill, dogs, house.
2. State whether each of the above words is simple, compound, or complex.
• List the “bound” morphemes to be found in the following words: misleads, previewer,
fearlessly, precede, disentangled
Types of bound and free Morphemes
FREE LEXICAL- WORDS
FREE FUNCTIONAL- ASPECTS OF GRAMMATICAL
FUNCTION (CLOSED MORPHEMES)
NOUNS
ADJECTIVES
ADVERBS
VERBS
- SHOE
- PRETTY
- EARLY
- COME
CONJUNCTION
PREPOSITION
ARTICLES
PRONOUNS
BUT, AND ,SO YET.
UNDER, OF , IN
THE, A SOME
MY, YOU
Categories of Bound Morphemes
DERIVATIONAL- NEW WORD
INFLECTIONAL – GRAMMAR
PREFIX
SUFFIXES
GRAMMATICAL CONTRAST
- PAST TENSE (d, ed}
- CONTINUOUS TENSE (ing)
- PLURAL (S)/ES
COMPARATIVE – er
- SUPERLATIVE– est
- POSSESSION – ‘S/ S’
• Friend- fl
• The- ff
• Crime fl
• Singer
• Player
• Actor
• taller
REMEMBER
• Lexical morphemes are words that have meanings by themselves. Some examples are,
boy, food and door. Functional morphemes consist of the function words in the language –
conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns.
• Bound morphemes come in two varieties, derivational and inflectional, the core
difference between the two being that the addition of derivational morphemes creates new
words while the addition of inflectional words merely changes word form.
• Inflections are grammatical morphemes. They consist of word endings, like suffixes, but
unlike suffixes, inflections express only grammatical functions. Derivational morphemes
create new words in the language and are often used to make words of a different
grammatical category. Many new words are formed by adding derivational affixes to roots.
These word formation rules follow regular patterns.
MORPHOLOGICL PROCESSES
• LINGUISTIC BORROWING
• COMPOUNDING
• CLIPPING AND BLENDING
• COINAGE
• REDUPLICATION
• MORPHOLOGICAL MISANALYSIS