What sound does ë make in english

INTRODUCTION TO PHONOLOGY

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One of the first task of a phonologist describing a language is to determine its phonemic inventory.

Namely, what sounds does the language use, and which distinctions among these are contrastive, i.e. which sounds are phonemically (non-)equivalent.

The methodology

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How to determine if two sounds are different phonemes:

Select two words (or phrases) that differ only in those two sounds. e.g. [hi], [hu]

If the two words have a different meaning, they are a minimal pair. [hi], [hu] is a minimal pair.

In that case, the two sounds are separate phonemes, i.e. they are contrastive, as the alternation between the two corresponds to a difference in meaning. [i] and [u] are different phonemes.

.CONTRASTIVE/NON-CONTRASTIVE SOUNDS

[bid] vs [mĩnt]

The vowels in [bid] and [m ı̃nt] are different, but speakers have a strong intuition they’re the same.

The distinction is hard to perceive for an English speaker, but it’s there: vowels are nasalized when next to a nasal consonant. The fact that English speakers find it hard is part of what we’re trying to explain.

This is also a language-particular fact:

Brazilian Portuguese: [hi] (he laughs) vs. [hĩ] (kidney).

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The methodology

• This same methodology tells us that [i] and [ĩ] are not separate phonemes in English: you cannot find two words that differ only in these sounds.

• The same methodology tells us that [i] and [̃ ı] are different phonemes in Brazilian Portuguese. Why?

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English plosive phonemes

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Voicing and place contrasts:

“pill” [pɪl] /p / “bill” [bɪl] /b/ “till” [tɪl] / t / “dill” [dɪl] /d/ “kill” [kɪl] /k / “gill” [gɪl] /g/

English nasal phonemes

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Place contrasts:

“some” [sʌm] /m/ “sun” [sʌn] /n / “sung” [sʌŋ] /ŋ/

/m/ is labial /n / is alveolar /ŋ/ is velar

Pop quiz: Eastern Inuktitut

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(i) List all minimal pairs. (ii) Find the contrastive vowels.

[iglumut] ‘to a house’ [pinna] ‘that one up there’ [ukiaq] ‘late fall’ [ani] ‘female’s brother’ [aiviq] ‘walrus’ [iglu] ‘(snow)house’ [aniguvit] ‘if you leave’ [panna] ‘that place up there’ [aglu] ‘seal’s breathing hole’ [aivuq] ‘she goes home’ [iglumit] ‘from a house’ [ini] ‘place, spot’ [anigavit] ‘because you leave’ [ukiuq] ‘winter’

Pop quiz: Eastern Inuktitut

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[iglumut] ‘to a house’ [iglumit] ‘from a house’ [panna] ‘that place up there’ [pinna] ‘that one up there’ [ani] ‘female’s brother’ [ini] ‘place, spot’ [ukiaq] ‘late fall’ [ukiuq] ‘winter’ [aglu] ‘seal’s breathing hole’ [iglu] ‘(snow)house’ [aivuq] ‘she goes home’ [aiviq] ‘walrus’ [aniguvit] ‘if you leave’ [anigavit] ‘because you leave’

Vowel phonemes: / i , a , u /

Allophony

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Allophones do not occur randomly.

Context (mostly) determines which allophone is used on a given occasion.

Which allophones to use when is another aspect of the language that the child learns.

Phonemes vs. allophones

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Phonemes are distinctive: their distribution is unpredictable.

Allophones are not distinctive: their distribution is (mostly) predictable.

The distinction here is between contrastive and complementary distribution.

Complementary distribution: English / l /

/l/ has three allophones: [l], [l], [ë] ˚

[blu] ‘blue’ [phl�aw] ‘plow’ [glim] ‘gleam’ [khl�œp] ‘clap’ [slɪp] ‘slip’ [khl�i® ‘clear’ [flɔg] ‘flog’ [phl�ej] ‘play’

[phuɫ] [hɪɫ]] [stiɫ]] [ejɫ]]

‘pool’ ‘hill’ ‘steel’ ‘ail’

Environment [l] [l�] [ɫ] after word initial [p, k] no yes no end of syllable no no yes Elsewhere yes no no

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Pop quiz: Spanish voiced dentals

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Spanish [d] and [D] are allophones of the phoneme /d/. Why?

[drama] ‘drama’ [kaða] ‘each’ [sentiðo] ‘felt’ [fiðel] ‘Fidel’ [dar] ‘to give’ [dexo] ‘I leave’ [oðio] ‘hatred’ [nuðo] ‘knot’ [estuðiante] ‘student’ [dos] ‘two’ [donde] ‘where’ [eðað] ‘age’

What’s the distribution of [ð] and [d] in Spanish? [ð] occurs after a vowel, and [d] elsewhere.

When two sounds are in ...

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Contrastive distribution, they are distinct phonemes: minimal pairs unpredictable

Complementary distribution, they are allophones of the same phoneme: no minimal pairs predictable, systematic

Back to phonemes and their allophones

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Environment [l] [l] [ɫ] after [ph, kh] no ẙ es no end of syllable no no yes elsewhere yes no no

The phoneme / l / is considered to have [l] as its basic allophone. The other allophones appear in highly specific environments; [l] appears “elsewhere”.

Stated as rules

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Environment [l] [l] [ɫ] after [p, k] no ẙ es no end of syllable no no yes elsewhere yes no no

This allows us to write two simple rules:

[l] becomes [l�] after [ph, kh]. [l] becomes [ɫ] in end of syllable.

Elsewhere, no rule applies, and [l] stays [l].

Underlying and surface representations

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˚

“plow” “pool” “blue” Underlying representation /plaw/ /pul/ /blu/ Surface representation [phlaw] [phuɫ] [blu]

Rule notation

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“x becomes y between A and B”

x → y/ A B

Rule notation: Voiceless [l] ˚

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“[l] becomes [l] after [p h]” ˚

˚ [l] → [l] / [p]

“[l] becomes [l] after [kh]” ˚

˚ [l] → [l] / [k]

Rule notation: Velarized [ɫ]]

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“[l] becomes [ɫ] at the end of a syllable”

[l] → [ɫ] / (C)}σ

THE THEORY OF DISTINCTIVE FEATURES

Roman Jakobson (cf Jakobson, Halle and Fant (1952) and Jakobson and Halle (1956): There is an universal (relatively small) set of phonological features and that each sound is simply a complex of phonological features.

Each feature corresponds to a phonetic property that can be used by a language to distinguish words, e.g. aspiration in Thai.

BINARY FEATURES: It is also proposed that phonetic properties refer to a single phonetic dimension of which languages utilizes exactly two polar configurations:

Thus the difference between oral and nasal is thought of in term of the two configurations that the velum may take: lowered/raised so that we have [+nasal] sound or [-nasal] sounds. No language known make a distinction between three degree of nasality: fully nasal, partially nasal and non nasal.

Features (from Halle (1995)) (cf. also Clements (1985), Sagey (1986)):

MAJOR FEATURES [Consonantal] [Sonorant]

STRICTURE FEATURES [suction] [continuant] [strident] [lateral]

ARTICULATORY FEATURES

[nasal ] Soft Palate

[retracted tongue root] Tongue Root [advanced tongue root]

[stiff vocal folds] Larynx [slack vocal folds] [constricted glottis] [spread glottis]

[anterior] Tongue Blade [distributed]

[round] Lips

[back] Tongue body [high] [low]

VOWEL FEATURES:

Distinctive features for vowels: i È u‹ � e E œ a O o I Ë u

high + + + - - - - - - - + + + low - - - - - - + + - - - - - back - - - - - - - + + + + + + round - - + + - - - - + + - + + ATR + - + - + - - - - + + - +

Features serve as: • instructions to articulatory actions; • make up the representations of words an morphemes in

speakers’/listeners’ memories. • Are needed to recover the lexical representations present in the signal

Rule notation: Back to voiceless [l] ˚

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“[l] becomes [l] after [p] or [k]” ˚

˚ [l] → [l] / [p]

˚ [l] → [l] / [k]

Is something more general happending here?

[p] and [k] are both aspirated voiceless plosives

We need features

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Phonology is sensitive to features :

Features allow us to capture generalizations: one instead of several rules.

“[l] becomes [l] after a aspirated voiceless plosive” ˚

˚ [l] → [l] / [-continuant, +stiff v.f., +spread gl., ]

Features

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Phonological rules tend to also only focus on the features that are changing, so as to highlight their phonetic motivations:

[l] → [+spread gl.] / [-continuant, +stiff v.f., +spread gl., ]

The process seen here is called assimilation. The motivation is articulatory.

PHONOLOGICAL ALTERNATIONS

In most languages the same morpheme can appear in various phonetic shapes in different words, i.e. morphemes may have more than one phonetic realization:

The plural suffix in English: (1) -Iz (buses, brushes)

-s (cats, lips) -z (birds, dogs)

(2) president /prezidənt/ presidenc+y /prezidəns-/ president+ial /prezidenS-/

This situation is called an alternation: a given morpheme has alternant or varying pronunciations in different contexts. Each variant pronunciation is called an alternant or allomorph of that morpheme.

How do we select the right combination of allomorphs?

One could hypothesize that speakers memorize the different pronunciations of the words.

(3) a) [nÈs] [fÈp] [mœg]

b) [nÈs-Iz] [fÈp-s] [mœg-z]

c) *[mœg-Iz], *[mœg-s]

Phonologists account for the problem of allomorphy by assuming that there is a basic form of the morpheme and by deriving the allomorphs by means of phonological rules

The English Plural:

Basic form of plural morpheme: /-z/

Rules:

[-sonorant] à[+stiff vocal folds]/ -sonorant _____ +stiff vocal folds

(9 ) Ø-->[I] / -sonorant _______ -sonorant +continuant +continuant +strident +strident

• Coronal Coronal