Introduction to linguistics –
The sounds of German
R21118
Dr Nicola McLelland
Lecture 3 (week 4)
I. Fricatives and
affricates
II. Phonological
features in generative
phonology
I. Fricatives and Affricates
• We have already met the fricatives in German:
• labiodental [f, v]
• alveolar [s, z]
• palatal-alveolar [∫, Ʒ]
•[Ʒ] in German in borrowings only, such as Journalist,
Mirage – it is a fairly peripheral phoneme]
•In English:
Vision /Ʒ/
German /dƷ/ (i.e as part of the affricate)
Fricatives …
• labiodental [f, v]
• alveolar [s, z]
• palatal-alveolar [∫, Ʒ]
• palatal [ç] as in ich (the voiced variant does not occur in German or
English, but it is written like a j with a looped tail: [ʝ])
• velar [x] as in Buch
Now … Introducing the voiced velar fricative [ɣ]
Fricatives …
• Introducing the voiced velar fricative [ɣ]
• Occurs in northern parts of German after a back vowel in words
like Tag , Burg (where standard German would expect …/k/)
Fricatives …
• Introducing the voiced uvular fricative, which
many people use for their /r/. Its phonetic
sybmol is [ʁ].
(listen for the difference between [ʁ] and a
uvular trill [R])
rot, Rathaus, ringen, irren
The palatal semi-vowel /j/
• Chris Hall’s book (p.48) talks about this sound under the fricatives,
but it is really usually a semi-vowel or approximant – we’ll come
back to it.
• It occurs in words like Januar, Jubel, jot, Jahr
• Also a regional allophone for /g/ in some contexts, eg. gut [ju:t],
gemacht [jǝmaxt] (Berlin, Rhineland)
The glottal fricative /h/
• nothing much to say about this – same as in English!
• remember that the glottis is the gap between the vocal cords
• a glottal fricative is caused by a narrowing of the constriction
between the vocal cords (but not enough to cause vibration > voicing)
Affricates
• An affricate consists of a stop followed by a fricative produced at
the same (or nearly same) place of articulation (at same place =
homoorganic, Dt. homorgan)
e.g. /pf/ = labial (bilabial) stop /p/ + labial (labiodental) fricative /f/
/ts/ = alveolar stop + alveolar fricative
/t∫/ = alveolar stop + palatal-alveolar fricative (Deutsch, Tschechisch,
otherwise not v. frequent)
Affricates – one phoneme or two?
• Should we treat the affricates as single phonemes, or as combinations
of two?
• In favour of seeing them as one phoneme:
At the start of the syllable we can normally only have two consonants, as in Kraft,
Draht, or only 2 at the end in reverse order, Stark, Bürde
(exceptions where the first consonant is ∫ : e.g. Splitter, Stroh)
In this regard, the affricate /pf/ seems to behave as a single phoneme, for it can be
added to another consonant: pfropfen, Karpfen
Affricates – one phoneme or two?
• Should we treat the affricates as single phonemes, or as
combinations of two?
• Against seeing them as one phoneme:
Before /pf/ you can only have short vowels as in Tropfen (as well as liquids
and nasals as in Karpfen, Dampf).
But before any normal single consonant, short or long vowels are possible, e.g.
before /s/ in Bus vs. Fuß
This would suggest /pf/ needs to be treated as two phonemes
Affricates – one phoneme or two?
• For /ts/ and /t∫/, the evidence is even more confusing …
• In short, the jury is still out
II. Phonological
features in generative
phonology
Generative grammar
…a
revolutionary
approach to
linguistics
which began
with Noam
Chomsky in
the late 1950s
/ early 1960s
Generative grammar
… first applied
to syntax
Cf. very brief encounter in
Lecture 1 …
e.g. Der Junge spielte mit dem Ball.
S
NP
D
VP
N
V
PP
P
NP
D
N
Der Junge spielte mit dem Ball
3. Generative grammar …
S = Sentence
NP = Noun phrase
VP = Verb phrase
PP = Prepositional phrase
D = Determiner
N = Noun, V = Verb, D = Determiner
P = Prepostion
Generative grammar …
Syntactic trees like this make the internal
structure of the sentence clearer –
e.g. they reflect our sense that mit dem
Ball is more closely tied to spielte than
it is to der Junge
Generative grammar …
… tries to generate tree structures like
this using rules that reflect what native
speakers just “know” intuitively
… rules that produce all possible
grammatical sentences, no
ungrammatical ones
… easier said than done!
Generative grammar …
Principle of parsimony
Maximally simple theory to account for
the data; no unnecessary (redundant)
theoretical concepts
Applied not just to syntax, but also to
phonology: generative phonology
Generative phonology: Using
features to specify phonemes
economically
• We’ve already seen that we can
describe individual sounds by listing
particular characteristics or features
• e.g. a labiodental,
oral
voiceless
fricative is ….?
Using articulatory features to
specify phonemes
economically
• We’ve already seen that we can
describe individual sounds by listing
particular characteristics or features
• e.g. a labiodental, , oral voiceless
fricative is …. /f/
Using articulatory features to
specify phonemes
economically
• We’ve already seen that we can
describe individual sounds by listing
particular characteristics or features
• e.g. a labiodental, oral voiceless
fricative is …. /f/
• e.g. 2: a voiced, nasal velar stop is
....
Using features to specify
phonemes economically
• We’ve already seen that we can
describe individual sounds by listing
particular characteristics or features
• e.g. a labiodental, oral voiceless
fricative is …. /f/
• e.g. 2: a voiced, nasal velar stop is
.... /ŋ/
Features
Generative phonology tries to
reduce the number of features we
need to describe any sound uniquely
to the absolute minimum.
By …
Features
Generative phonology tries to reduce the
number of features we need to describe any
sound uniquely to the absolute minimum.
By …
• using some of the same features for
vowels and for consonants
• e.g. [back], which we have seen used for
vowels like /α/ and /u/
•It can also be used to describe consonants
such as the velars /k g x/ where the tongue
is also quite far back
Features ….
• AND by specifying + or – for each feature
• e.g. [consonantal ]: we specify all
consonantals as “[+ consonantal[” and all
vowels as “[ – consonantal]”
(i.e we don’t need an additional feature for
“vowels”)
An overview of the features ….
[+ / - consonantal]
(konsonantisch), [+kons]
• refers to narrow constriction in the oral
cavity – either total occlusion (closing off)
or friction
• everything except vowels and semivowels ([w, j] etc) are [+cons]
An overview of the features ….
Sonorant [+son] (sonorantisch)
refers to resonance of a sound
• vowels, nasals, liquids [l and r] are [+son]
• stops, fricatives and affricates [pf, ts] are
[-son]
An overview of the features ….
Sonorant [+son] (sonorantisch)
refers to resonance of a sound
• vowels, nasals, liquids [l and r] are [+son]
• stops, fricatives and affricates [pf, ts] are
[-son]
NB The [-son] group are called obstruents
(sounds that occur in both voiced and
voiceless forms). So, all obstruents are
[-son]
An overview of the features ….
Continuant [+cont] (dauernd [+kont], [+dnd]
refers to obstruents with continuous
friction throughout:
i.e. fricatives [f, v, s, z], etc. are [+cont]
The other obstruents – the stops and the
affricates (like [pf, ts]) begin with an
occlusion (complete closure). They are
[-kont]
An overview of the features ….
Lateral [+lat]
When the middle part of the tongue is
pressed down so that air can escape
around the sides
For our purposes, there is just one lateral,
[l]
An overview of the features ….
Anterior [+ant]
An obstruction in the mouth is formed
further forward than palatal-alveolar
i.e. it is at the:
•lips,
•teeth, or
•alveolar ridge
An overview of the features ….
Coronal [+cor] (koronal [+kor]
Tongue tip is raised straight up from its
neutral position to hit either teeth or
alveolar ridge, or palatal-alveolar
i.e. t, d, n, ∫, s, z …
An overview of the features ….
High [+high] [+hoch]
Body (blade) of the tongue is raised from
neutral position, as in ∫, k, g
An overview of the features ….
Low [+low] [+tief]
Body (blade) of the tongue is lowered from
neutral position
(applies only to vowels)
•NB [-low] is not the same as [+high]
•([-low could include tongue in neutral
position, but [+high] = “raised above the
neutral position”)
An overview of the features ….
Back [+back] [+hinten]
Body (blade) of the tongue is drawn back from
neutral position:
some vowels
And velar consonants like [k, g, x, ŋ]
•NB [-back] is not the same as [+ant]:
•Palatal consonants are [-ant, -hint], e.g. /ç/ as in ich
• velar consontants are [-ant, +hint], e.g. /x/ as in
ach
An overview of the features ….
Round [+round] [+rund]
Lips are rounded, not spread
(Applies to some vowels only)
An overview of the features ….
Tense [+tense]
[+gespannt, gesp.]
We saw last week that some vowels are
tenser than others, e.g. /i/ compared to /I/
•In some languages (but not European
languages) tenseness may also be a
distinguishing feature for some
consonants, e.g. voiceless stops in Korean
An overview of the features ….
Voice [+voice] (stimmhaft, [+sth])
Voiced = when the vocal cords vibrate
Comments on the features
• Annoyingly, the definition of the features
is sometimes quite arbitrary – e.g. that
[+ant] refers to a sound where the
obstruction is in front of palatal-alveolar,
which is not a natural boundary in any way
Comments on the features
• Annoyingly, the definition of the features
is sometimes quite arbitrary – e.g. that
[+ant] refers to a sound where the
obstruction is in front of palatal-alveolar,
which is not a natural boundary in any way
• Sometimes it is clumsier to express
traditional descriptions using the limited
number of features, e.g.
labial = [+ant, -kor]
Velar = [-ant, -kor, +hint]
Describing the consonants in terms of
phonological features
• see handout (from Ramers & Vater1995:
74)
• NB Ramers & Vater introduce [labial]
(which covers both bilabial and labiodental
consonants), and do not use [anterior]
• exercise in your booklet, A.2.2 (p.43) and
A2.3, A2.4: (try not to look at the answers!)
Using features to describe
phonological rules
• Focussing on features makes it easy to
spot regular patterns, or phonological
rules, and to describe them ….
• what rule does the following describe?
[+obstruent]  [ - stimmhaft] / __ ] σ
• / = “in the environment of”, and σ =
“syllable boundary”
Using features to describe
phonological rules
• A fricative or stop becomes voiceless
when it is followed by a syllable boundary
• [+obstruent]  [ - stimmhaft] / __ ] σ
• i.e. Auslautverh:artung
• rewrite the rule using the individual
feature(s) necessary to specify the group of
obstruents
Using features to describe
phonological rules
• A fricative or stop becomes voiceless when it
is followed by a syllable boundary
• [+obstruent]  [-stimmhaft] / __ ] σ
Re-writing the rule to define the obstruents:
• [+kons, -nasal, -son]  [-stimmhaft] / __ ] σ
• or even just: [-son]  [-stimmhaft] / __ ] σ
Let’s try and decode another rule
• [-son, -kont, +sth]  Ø / [+nas, +hint] _____
Let’s try and decode another rule
• [-son, -kont, +sth]  Ø / [+nas, +hint] _____
• This says that when an “obstruent which is a
fricative and voiced” follows a velar nasal /ŋ/,
it is deleted.
Let’s try and decode another rule
• [-son, -kont, +sth]  Ø / [+nas, +hint] _____
• This says that when an “obstruent which is
not a fricative and is voiced”, i.e a voiced stop,
follows a velar nasal /ŋ/, it is deleted.
• In practice the only voiced stop that can ever
follow a /ŋ/ is /g/, so the rule says, “delete /g/
after /ŋ/” , and it deals with cases like Hunger,
/hʊŋɐ/ as opposed to hungrig, where the /g/ is
pronounced after the /ŋ/.