phonology音系学

• Phonemes音位: distinctive speech sounds • minimal pairs最小对立体: pairs of words that differ in only
one sound, e.g. pit-bit, bet-bat, cat-cap
• contrastive distribution对立分布: the two different sounds in a minimal pair are in contrastive distribution. Normally sounds in contrastive distribution are different phonemes.
• The onset position may be empty (e.g. eat) or filled by a consonant (e.g. cap) or a consonant cluster of two or three consonants (e.g. play, street). The nuclear position may be filled by a vowel (e.g. cap) or a syllabic consonant (e.g. pencil, pardon). And the coda position may be empty (e.g. tea) or filled by a consonant (e.g. cap) or a consonant cluster of two, three or four consonants (e.g. caps, sixth, sixths, prompts). So the syllabic structure in English can be represented as:
• Voiced sound → voiceless / _________ voiceless
• A voiced sound is transformed into a corresponding voiceless sound when it occurs before a voiceless sound.
3 Phonology
The study of sound patterns and systems
3.1 Phonology and Phonetics
• 1. Phonetics: it is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human languages: phonetic features they possess, how they can be classified, etc. physiological character
• Syllables: a phonological unit that is composed of one or more phonemes. Mono/ poly-syllabic words
• Syllabic structures: typically, a syllable consists of onset (consonant preceding the rhyme) and rhyme which consists of nucleus or peak (vowel or syllabic consonant) and coda (consonant following peak).
Minimal set
• 4. Minimal set: When more than two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the string, all the many sound combinations are said to form a minimal set
• Allophones音位变体: variants of the same phoneme, e.g. light-wheel-play: clear-dark-devoiced, pipe: aspiratedunaspirated
• complementary distribution互补分布: those sounds that never occur in the same environment are in complementary distribution, e.g. clear [l] before a vowel-dark [l] after a vowel-devoiced [l] after a voiceless consonant, aspirated [p] initially-unaspirated finally
• 2. Phonology: it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication. Social character
• Phonological processes: processes in which a sound undergoes a change in certain environments or contexts and we can write phonological rules to represent these changes: e.g.
• 2. Phonemic contrast: two phoneti源自文库ally sounds that are distinctive phonemes
• 肚子 饱 了 • 兔子 跑 了
• dùzi-tùzi bǎo-pǎo
• [ t—t‘] [ p—p‘]
• till—still peak—speak
• concerned with those aspects of sound features that involve more than single sound segments
• Suprasegmental phonemes超切分音位: stress, pitch, intonation
• → is transformed into; / specifies the environment in which the change occurs; _________ indicates the position of the target sound.
• An alveolar sound → velar / _________ velar
• 3. Allophones: the different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments. They are the allophones of that phoneme.
• peak [phi:k]
3.2 Phone, Phoneme, and Allophone
• 1. Phone: a phonetic unit or segment, some distinguish meaning, some don’t
• 2. Phoneme: an abstract phonological unit of distinctive value that is represented or realized by a certain phone or phones. It is a collection of distinctive phonetic features.
• Beat, bit, bet, bat, boot, but, bait
• 5. free variation: if the segments appear in the same position but the mutual substitution does not result in the change of meaning, they are said to be in free variation. 难(nan--lan), white, economics, either, direction
• Languages differ in the selection of contrastive sounds.
– In English, the distinction between aspirated [ph] and unaspirated [p] is not phonemic.
– In Chinese, however, the distinction between /p/ and /ph/ is phonemic.
Minimal pair最小对立体
3. Minimal pair: When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the string, the two sound combinations are said to form a minimal pair • Pill/bill; pill/till; till/kill; kill/dill/; dill/gill • /p, b, t, d, k, g/ • Cut/but; big/peg; peak/leap
speak [sp=i:k] / p /—[ph] [p=]
• lead [li:d]
deal [di:ł]
/ l /—[l] [ł] [l]
3.3 complementary distribution, Phonemic contrast, and minimal pair
• 1. Complementary distribution: the allophones of the same phoneme are said to be in complementary distribution because they do not distinguish meaning, but complement each other in distribution, i.e. they occur in different phonetic environments.
• Suprasegmental features are those aspects of speech that involve more than single sound segments.
• The principal suprasegmentals are:
Suprasegmental phonology超切分音系学
音质音位在语流中总是按出现时间先后一段一段地排成线性序 列，所以又叫做音段音位。
（二）超音质音位
超音质音位：根据音高、音强、音长的特征归纳出来的功能差 别单位。超音质音位主要指调位、时位、量位。
超音质音位不局限于一个音的音位，常附在音段音位的序列上 面，所以又叫做超音段音位。
3. Suprasegmentals
2.3.4 Some rules in phonology
• The phonological rules are the underlying rules governing the combination of sounds and their variations.
• 1. Assimilation rule • 2. Aspiration rule • 3. Flapping rule
• An alveolar sound is transformed into a corresponding velar sound when it occurs before a velar sound: e.g. sink
四、音位的分类→音质音位和超音质音位
（一）音质音位
音质音位：根据音质特征所构成的功能差别来考虑，从音质辨 义的角度归纳出来的音位。音质音位主要指元音、辅音音位。