LCD720 – 04/01/09
Phonology and grammar
Announcements
• Midterm
– Grades on Blackboard
• Reminder
– 10% of your grade is for participation
• Final paper
– Guidelines are on Blackboard
– Due on May 13 before class
– Submit on Blackboard (or e-mail)
– In Word (not pdf)
Homework
• Construct a fill-in-the-blanks exercise for
teaching contractions/blendings
– Form groups of three, and try out your
exercise on your two fellow students
– Which items (blanks) worked well?
– Which items didn’t work that well? Why? What
changes do you suggest?
Interfaces, or How pronunciation is
involved in other parts of language
knowledge and skills
• Listening: perception Today
• Grammar
• Orthography (spelling)
Phonology and grammar
• A morpheme may be pronounced
differently depending on its phonological
environment (morphophonology)
– E.g., past tense -ed
• Pronunciation problems can affect
grammar
– Morphemes (regular and irregular forms)
– Word classes (nouns vs. verbs)
• Pronunciation needs to be addressed in the
grammar lesson
Phonology and regular morphemes
• English has 8 regular morphological inflections
– -s
• Plural nouns
• Possessive
• Third-person singular present tense
– -ed
-s and -ed change
• Past tense
depending on the
• Past participle / passive
phonological
– Present participle: -ing
environment;
– Comparative degree: -er
-ing, -er, and -est
– Superlative degree: -est
don’t change
-s morphemes
• Remember the rules
• Examples:
/z/
– boys
– sees
– Marvin’s
/s/
boats
makes
Mike’s
Note: Pronunciation
of all three
morphemes is the
same, even if the
spelling isn’t
/əz/
buses
uses
Rose’s
(plurals)
(3rd sg verb)
(possessive)
• /z/ is the basic form (after vowels and voiced
consonants)
– /z/ becomes /s/ after voiceless consonants
– /z/ becomes /əz/ after sibilants
• Sibilants: /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʧ/, /ʤ/
-s morphemes
• Possessive of regular plural nouns
– The girl’s book vs. The girls’ book
– The pronunciation is the same
• Possessive of irregular plural nouns
– Men’s clothing, children’s toys
– ’s is added to the irregular plural form
• The same rules apply for contractions of is, has
and does
– /z/ His name’s John
– /s/ It’s raining
– (/əz/ Rich’s sick)
Teaching -s morphemes
• Usually these three morphemes are not
presented simultaneously
– Students should be reminded of the rules of the
previously introduced morpheme
• Go through the five stages
– Consciousness raising
– (Listening discrimination):
• Instead: e.g., fill-in-the-blanks with spoken text
– Controlled practice
– Guided practice
– Communicative practice
Which allomorph?
• Plural allomorphs:
– Do you hear /z/, /s/ or /əz/?
• Past tense allomorphs:
– Do you hear /d/, /t/ or /əd/?
Regular past tense -ed
• Give examples; describe the rules
– What is the basic form?
– When does the form change, and why?
• What other verb forms have –ed?
• What activities do you propose for each of
the five stages, and why?
– What difficulties may arise when you develop
an activity, e.g., should you avoid certain
verbs?
• My answers…
-ed
• Examples:
/d/
– cried
– robbed
/t/
walked
kissed
/əd/
chatted
added
• /d/ is the basic form (after vowels and voiced
consonants)
– /d/ becomes /t/ after voiceless consonants
– /d/ becomes /əd/ after /t/ and /d/
Teaching -ed
• Relevant for simple past, present/past perfect, and
passive
• Similar to teaching –s
• Go through the five steps
– Consciousness raising
– (Listening discrimination):
• Instead: e.g., fill-in-the-blanks with spoken text
– Controlled, guided, communicative practice
• Caveat: Many highly frequent verbs are irregular (was,
had, did, made, …)
– Make sure the exercises elicit regular verbs
More morphophonology
•
•
•
•
-ing (progressive, gerunds)
-er and –est (comparatives, superlatives)
Irregular forms (nouns, verbs)
Part-of-speech alternations
-ing
• -ing is used for progressive participles
– walking, reading, studying
• -ing can be pronounced as -in’
– Ain’t misbehavin’
– Depends on formality and on the speaker
– Does not depend on the phonological
environment
-er and -est
• -er and -est have the same meaning as more
and most (periphrastic forms)
– big
– beautiful
-er/more
bigger
*more big
more beautiful
*beautifuller
-est/most
biggest
*most big
most beautiful
*beautifullest
• When to use -er and -est, and when more and
most?
– There are rules, but they’re not as strict as for -s and
-ed
• What rules do you know? (see next slide)
-er and -est
What rules for -er/-est vs. more/most?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Hint: The
morphology has
to do with the
phonology
big – bigger – biggest
• stupid – more stupid
small – smaller – smallest
– most stupid
happy – happier – happiest
stupider?
friendly – friendlier – friendliest
stupidest?
narrow – narrower – narrowest
curious – more curious – most
• handsome – more
curious
handsome – most
• slowly – more slowly – most …
handsome
• independent – more …– most
handsomer?
…
handsomest?
• tender – more … – most …
(tenderer/tenderest?)
Try to think of more examples
-er/-est vs. more/most
• -er/-est
– One-syllable words
• big – bigger – biggest
• small – smaller – smallest
• large – larger – largest
– Two-syllable words that end in –y
• happy – happier – happiest
– Many two-syllable adjectives that end in
unstressed –ly, -ow, or –le
• friendly – friendlier – friendliest
• narrow – narrower – narrowest
• gentle – gentler – gentlest
Or: more / most
friendly
-er/-est vs. more/most
• more/most
– Many two-syllable adverbs ending in -ly
• slowly – more slowly – most slowly
– Other two-syllables adjectives and adverbs
• curious – more curious – most curious
– Adjectives and adverbs of three or more
syllables
• independent – more independent – most
independent
-er/-est vs. more/most
Depends on
formality
• Variable cases
– Two-syllables adjectives that end in –er or –ure
• tender – more tender – most tender
• tender – tenderer – tenderest
– Two-syllable adjectives that end in a weakly stressed
vowel, with final /d/ or /t/
• stupid – more stupid – most stupid
• stupid – stupider – stupidest
– Two-syllable adjectives that end in weakly stressed
-some
• handsome – more handsome – most handsome
• handsome – handsomer – handsomest
Teaching comparative and
superlative forms
• Don’t introduce all rules at once
– This will overwhelm the student
– Start with the clearest, most basic rules
• One-syllable words get -er/-est
• Two-syllable words in -y get -er/-est
• Longer words (three or more syllables) get
more/most
• Give a lot of examples
– When there are many rules and exceptions, it’s often
easier to learn by analogy to examples
Why is “curiouser”
not “good English”?
What rule did Alice
forget?
-er/-est or more/most? And why?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
short
noisy
simple
personalized
stylish
costly
fabulous
quiet
careful
appealing
easily
pale
perfect
-er/-est
-er/-est
-er/-est
more/most
more/most
either
more/most
-er/-est
more/most
more/most
more/most
-er/-est
none!
one syllable
two syllables, -y
two syllables, -le
≥ 3 syllables
two syllables, other
two syllables, -ly
≥ 3 syllables
two syllabes, -t/-d
two syllables, other
≥ 3 syllables
≥ 3 syllables
one syllable
can’t get better than
perfect
Irregular forms: Nouns
• Some irregular forms come from Latin and Greek
– criterion – criteria; datum – data
• Other irregular forms have a Germanic origin
Vowel change
– foot – feet; man – men
– This is still used in modern German
• Mann – Männer (“man” – “men”)
f/v alternation
– leaf – leaves; wife – wives; shelf – shelves
– Historically /f/ became /v/ between two vowels (when
the ‘e’ in leaves, wives, shelves was still pronounced)
θ/ð alternation
– bath/baths; truth/truths (θ in singular, ð in plural)
Irregular forms: Verbs
• Two very frequent verbs
– be: am/is/are – was/were – been
– go: go – went – gone
• Other frequent, irregular verbs have
recognizable patterns
– E.g., /ɪ-æ-ʌ/ pattern
• sing – sang – sung; begin – began – begun
– These patterns are remnants of older rules
– Students can use these regularities to learn
the verb forms
Irregular forms: Verbs
• Some examples: verbs that get or have -t / -d
(‘weak verbs’)
– /d/ => /t/
• build – built – built; send – sent – sent
– no change
• let – let – let; hit – hit – hit
– /iy/ + /d/ => /ɛ/ + /t/
• creep – crept – crept
• leave – left – left
– Vowel shortening (/iy/ => /ɛ/; /ay/ => /ɪ/)
• feed – fed – fed; slide – slid – slid
– And more…
Irregular forms: Verbs
• Some examples: vowel change (‘strong verbs’)
– Three different vowels
• sing – sang – sung; begin – began – begun
– Same vowel in past and past participle
• dig – dug – dug; win – won – won
– /ay/ - /ow/ - /ɪ/ + -en
• drive – drove – driven; write – wrote – written
– Vowel change in past tense only
• run – ran – run; come – came – come
– And more…
Teaching irregular forms
• Don’t present all rules at once
– This will overwhelm the students
– Present exceptions, and a few rules
• am/is/are – was/were – been; go – went – gone
• /ɪ-æ-ʌ/ pattern: sing – sang – sung
• /d/ => /t/:
send – sent – sent
• no change:
hit – hit – hit
• Give a lot of examples
– When there are many rules and exceptions, it’s often
easier to learn by analogy
– When students memorize the forms, they will discover
some of the patterns on their own
Part-of-speech alternations
• Remember:
– Sometimes, nouns and verbs have a different
stress pattern
• CONDUCT (n) vs. conDUCT (v)
• REBel (n) vs. reBEL (v)
– Note: this is not a rule, just a pattern for some
words
• There are other systematic differences
between nouns and verbs as well...
Part-of-speech alternations
• /s/-/z/, /θ/-/ð/, /f/-/v/ alternations between nouns
and verbs
noun
verb
–
–
–
–
–
–
use/use
loss/lose
advice/advise
teeth/teethe
life/live
proof/prove
/yuws/
/lɑs/
/ədvays/
/tiyθ/
/layf/
/pruwf/
/yuwz/
/luwz/
/ədvayz/
/tiyð/
/lɪv/
/pruwv/
• Remember: Voicing of consonants affects the
length of the preceding vowel
Part-of-speech alternations
• No stress vs. light stress
– DUplicate (n) vs. DUpliCATE (v)
/ət/
/eyt/
• Location of stress
– CONDUCT (n) vs. conDUCT (v)
– PROJECT (n) vs. proJECT (v)
• Remember: No stress vs. light/strong
stress affects vowel reduction
• Can you think of more examples?
Teaching part-of-speech
alternations
• Don’t present all rules at once
– This will overwhelm the students
– Present a few rules
• advice/advise; life/live
• DUplicate (n) vs. DUpliCATE (v)
• CONDUCT (n) vs. conDUCT (v)
• Give a lot of examples
– When there are many rules and exceptions, it’s often
easier to learn by analogy
• Caveat: Don’t assume students know either the
correct pronunciation or the part of speech of
any of these words
Teaching phonology and grammar
• Address pronunciation as soon as these
grammar items are introduced
– Pronunciation (and perception) of past tense, plural,
possessive, etc. should be an integral part of the
grammar lesson
– Students need to be able to hear the affixes and
stress patterns correctly, so they can learn from the
input
– Students need to be able to pronounce the suffixes
and stress patterns correctly
• Remember that students may have problems
with both the grammar and the phonology
(clusters, stress, etc.)
Why are third person -s and past
tense -d so difficult to learn?
• Despite being very frequent
• They are difficult to hear (low perceptual
salience):
– very short
– in clusters
– in unstressed syllables
– /s, z/ and /t, d/ are just one sound and not a
separate syllable
• Compare -ing, -er, -est
Perceptual salience
• Identify the word
– Word 1 added
– Word 2 played
– Word 3 crunched
• Identify the word
– Word 1
– Word 2
– Word 3
kisses
ribs
ships
• Identify the sound
– Sound 1
– Sound 2
– Sound 3
/əd/
/d/
/t/
• Identify the sound
– Sound 1
– Sound 2
– Sound 3
/əz/
/z/
/s/
Why are third person -s and past
tense -d so difficult to learn?
• They have three different allomorphs
– /s, z, əz/ and /d, t, əd/
– Compare -ing: usually /ɪŋ/, sometimes /ɪn/
– Compare -er/-est: forms don’t change
• Similar sounding morphemes
– Third person -s sounds the same as plural -s,
possessive -s, and contractions of is and has
– Compare: -er and –est are usually
comparatives
Why are third person -s and past
tense -d so difficult to learn?
• They have complex meanings
– -s: Third person singular present tense (3 things!)
– Compare plural –s: plural (1 thing)
• L1 interference
– If L1 doesn’t have subject–verb agreement or past
tense, -s and -ed may be more difficult to learn
• They don’t add much meaning (past tense is
often clear from context or adverbial phrases)
• Further reading: Meta-analysis by Goldschneider
& DeKeyser (2001, in Language Learning)
Reflection
• If a student pronounces cats as /kæt/ and
dogs as /dɑg/, how can a teacher
determine whether the student has a
grammatical problem or a pronunciation
problem?
• Do you recall learning any phonological
differences in the parts of speech of
English?
– Native speakers
– L2 speakers
Reflection
What would you do as a teacher?
• A student pronounces all past tenses as
/əd/
• A student pronounces all words ending in
-ate as /eyt/ regardless of the part of
speech
• A student asks why the plural of wife is
wives, but the plural of chief is chiefs
Next class (April 22)
• Read Chapter 9, but skip:
– The Alphabet
– Stressed and Unstressed Vowels and their spelling
patterns
– Word-Internal Palatalization
• Read Chapter 2 from Phonics they use (on BB)
– Can you modify these activities for older children and
adult?
• Homework assignment (not graded, not to be
handed in) on Blackboard.
– Bring to class, and be ready to discuss