Phonetics and Phonology
语音学
音系学
Chapter 2
Phonetics vs. Phonology: Definition
 Phonetics
studies all speech sounds in
human languages: how they are produced,
transmitted and how they are received.
 Phonology: aims to discover how speech
sounds in a language form patterns and how
these sounds are used to convey meaning
in linguistic communication.
 Distinction: meaning
Phonetics vs. Phonology: Essential Concepts
 Phonetics:
-- voiceless vs. voiced
 Phonology
-- phoneme
-- suprasegmental features
 Ex.:
和 tea 中的 /t/
 发too中的/t/时, 舌位更靠近口腔前部
 发tea中的/t/时，舌位更靠近口腔后部
 语音学要研究这种/t/发音的不同之处, 音系学
研究too中的/u:/替换为/i:/，意思就变为tea。
 too
 Phonetics
studies how speech sounds
are produced, transmitted, and
perceived.
Fields of Phonetics （p. 44)
 Articulatory
phonetics (发音语音学):
-- speaker’s production
 Acoustic phonetics (声学语音学):
-- transmission’s medium
 Auditory phonetics (听觉语音学):
-- receiver’s reception
Articulation
of Sounds
(p.45)
Speech
organs
Position of the vocal folds: (p. 45)
voiceless (清音) and voicing(浊音)
 The
distinction between vowels and
consonants lies in the obstruction of
airstream.
 As there is no obstruction of air in the
production of vowels, the description
of the consonants and vowels cannot
be done along the same lines.
Description of Consonants (p.53)
 Three
steps:
-- voiced or voiceless
-- place of articulation
-- manner of articulation
pb
td
fv
m
θð
sz
kg
tʃ
dʒ
ʃ ʒ
ŋ
n
l
w
r
j
[?]
[?]
Description of Vowels (p. 52)
1. Openness of
oral cavity:
Close, open / Low,
mid, high
2. Tongue
retraction and
extension:
Front, central,
back
3. Lip rounding:
rounded,
unrounded
4. the number of vowels
Monophthongs:
[i:], [ɔ:], [u:], [ə:], [ɑ:]
--long vowel
[i], [ɔ], [ʌ], [e], [æ], [ə], [u] --short vowel
Diphthongs:
[ei], [ai], [ɔi], [ɛə], [uə], [iə], [au], [əu]
Triphthongs:
Fire [faiə], hour [auə], loir [lɔiə]山鼠类,
lower [ləuə], mayor [meiə=mɛə]
In each of the following pairs of words, the bold
italicized sounds differ by one or more
phonetic properties（features). Give the
symbol for each of the italicized sounds, state
their differences and, in addition, state what
properties they have in common.
 Example: phone-phonic

The o in phone is mid and unrounded

The o in phonic is low and rounded

Both are back vowels.
 bath—bathe
 reduce—reduction
 cool—cold
 cats—dogs
 impolite—indecent
English has a number of expressions such as
“chit-chat” and “flip-flop” which never seem to
occur in the reverse order（i.e. chat-chit, flopflip）. Here are more examples of this kind:
 criss-cross
hip-hop
riff-raff
 dilly-dally
knick-knacks see-saw
 ding-dong
mish-mash
sing-song
 fiddle-faddle
ping-pong
tick-tock
 flim-flam
piter-patter
zig-zag

Explain why the expressions never occur in the
reverse order.
Explanation
 In
the ablaut reduplications, the first vowel is
almost always a high vowel and the
reduplicated ablaut variant of the vowel is a
low vowel. There is also a tendency for the
first vowel to be front and the second vowel
to be back.
Phonology
 Phone
(p. 64): A phone is a phonetic unit or
segment. All the speech sounds we produce are
phones. Take the sounds in the following words
for example: feel, leaf, top, stop — [f] [i:] [l] [s]
[t].
Phonology (p. 56-8)


Phoneme(音位): phonological and abstract
unit, a unit of distinctive value; the smallest
unit of sound in a language which can
distinguish two words.
举例：
beat vs. seat, pig vs. peg,
Phonemes are usually put between two slashes:
/p/ /b/ /θ/ ð /
Allophone (p. 57)
Phonemes are abstract units and cannot be read out. Its
realization in certain phonetic environments results in
allophones, variants of the phoneme. Allophones are put
between two brackets. [p] [ph], [t][th], [k]
 Ex.
-- pin [phin] vs. stop [stɔp]
-- cape [kheip] vs. kick [khik]
-- bad [b’æd] vs. bed [bed]

More Examples
/k/
scar
[k]
class
[kh ]
skin
[c]
kiss
[ch ]
spit
[p]
cocktail
[k﹁]
pity
[ph]
factory
[c﹁]
/g
/
/p/
give
[ ]
garden
[g ]
stop talking [p﹁]
More examples
lead [l]
/l/
stop
[t]
top
[th ]
written
[?]
pen [ ]
get to
[t﹁]
meat
eighth
[
milk [ ]
pet
/e/
/m/
[e]
[m]
comfort [ ]
/t/
]
Change the following phonemic transcriptions
into phonetic transcriptions :
(a) /tip/
 (b) /bi:n/
 (c) /kis/
 (d) /wi:k/
 (e) /fel/

[thip]
 [bĩn]
 [khis]
 [wi: k﹁]
 [fel]

Minimal Pairs (p. 58)
 Minimal
Pairs :If two words are identical in
form except for one sound segment that occurs
in the same place in the string. i.e. fine vs. vine;
crick vs. creek, bowl vs. dole; lobe vs. load;
thigh vs. thy
 Minimal set: beat, bit, bait, bet, bat, bite
Complementary Distribution (p. 64)
 If
two or more phones never occur in the same
phonological context, they are in complementary
distribution.
1. Allophones of one phoneme:
-- aspirated and unaspirated stops
2. The velar nasal [ŋ] and the glottal glide [h]
tar / star
sing / hat
tar / car
written/written
(p. 59)
Distinctive Features (p. 60)
区别性特征
A distinctive feature is a feature
which distinguishes one phoneme
from another.
List features that can differentiate the
following pairs of sounds:
/k/, /g/
 /n/, /l/
 /i/, /u/
 /i/, /e/
 /æ/, /ɔ:/
 /s/, /f/

/-voiced/, /+voiced/
 /+nasal/, /-nasal/
 /+front//-rounded/, /-front//+rounded/
 /+high/, /-high/
 /+front/, /-front/
 /+sibilant/, /-sibilant/

Sequential Constraints (p. 62)

Explain why: church—churches, ooze—oozes,
kiss—kisses, but death—deaths, cloth--clothes

Sibilants [ʧ] [ʤ] [s] [z] [ʃ] [ʒ] are not allowed to be
followed by another sibilant, but [θ] and [ð] aren’t
sibilants (齿擦音).
Homorganic Consonants (p.63)
Explain why: im-possible, im-moral,
but in-decisive, in-tangible
 The phoneme following the negative prefix (im or
in) must have the same place of articulation with n
or m.
 This constraint leads to assimilation (同化) : p.51
 在in-discrete中，n发成[n]
在in-conceivable中，n发成[ŋ]
在in-put中，n发成[m]

Suprasegmental features
(超切分特征) p. 65

Suprasegmental features: non-segmental
phonemic features that occur above the
level of the segments
Syllable 音节 (p. 66)
Syllable = (onset)首音 + peak音节峰 + (coda)尾音
step
/st/ /e/ p/
onset peak coda
syllable core
Word Stress (p. 67)
The location of stress in English distinguishes
meaning, e.g. a shift in stress in English may
change the part of speech of a word:
 Ex.:
verb: im5port; in5crease; re5bel; re5cord …
noun: 5import; 5increase; 5rebel; 5record …
 Compounds have initial stress while adj. nouns stress the
noun, eg.
-- hotdog: a kind of food
-- White House
-- hot dog: an overheated dog
-- white house

Sentence Stress (p. 68)
Sentence stress----Generally, nouns, main verbs,
adjectives, adverbs, numerals, and demonstrative
pronouns are stressed. Other categories like articles,
person pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, and
conjunctions are usually not stressed.
 Note: for pragmatic reason, this rule is not always
right, e.g. we may stress any part in the following
sentences:
He is driving my car.
My mother bought me a new skirt yesterday.

Pitch and Intonation
 The
meaning of a pitch will strongly be
affected by the context in which it appears.
 yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
Fall
low rise
level high rise rise fall
Agree go on
bored surprise insist
Assert
impatient question
neutral
Intonation 语调 (p. 70)
 When
pitch, stress and length variations are
tied to the sentence rather than to the word,
they are collectively known as intonation.
 English has two types of intonation that are
most frequently used:
-- falling (matter of fact statement)
-- rising (doubts or question)
Examples of Intonation
He is not ↘there.
He is not ↗there?
Your father is a teacher, isn’t ↗ he?
Your father is a teacher, isn’t ↘ he?
What did you put in your ↘drink, ↗ Jane?
What did you put in your ↗ drink, ↘ Jane?
Tone 声调 (p. 71)

Mandarin普通话, Cantonese广东话, and
Vietnamese越南话 are examples of
contour tone languages.
 Register
tone languages (predominately in
Africa) have level tones (平调), usu. in just
two pitch registers: high and low.