语言学简明教程Chapter_3

Chapter 3 Phonology: Sound Patterns (音位/音系学): 3.1 Introduction3. 2 The Distinctive Sounds of Language

3.3 Minimal pair (最小对立体) 3.4 Some rules of phonology3.5 Beyond the Sound Segments 超音段特征1

3.1 IntroductionPhonology is the study of the sound patterns (systems) of language. It is concerned with the linguistic patterning of speech sounds, that is, the ways in which speech sounds form systems and patterns in human languages, with its primary aim being to discover the principles that govern the way sounds are organized in languages, and to explain the variations that occur. It is also called phonemics.2

Phonetics & phonologyBoth are concerned with the same aspect of language--the speech sounds. But they differ in their approach and focus. Phonetics is the study of sound production and properties. It is of general nature; it is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human languages; it aims to answer questions like how they are produced, how they differ from each other, what phonetic features they have, how they can be classified, etc. Phonology aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.

3.2 The Distinctive Sounds of Language

sound (声音) Phone(语音)

Phoneme (音素/音位)Allophone (音位变体)

A phone(语音)— a speech sound; a phonetic unit or segment. The speech sounds we hear and produce during linguistic communication are all phones. Phones do not necessarily distinguish meaning, h some do, some don‘t, e.g. [ beit ] & [ bait ], [spit] & [pit].It is the smallest identifiable unit in a stream of speech that is able to be transcribed with an IPA symbol.

A phoneme(音素,音位)— is a phonological unit; it is a unit of distinctive value; an abstract unit, not a particular sound, but it is represented by a certain phone in certain phonetic context, e.g. the phoneme /p/ can be represented differently in [pit], [tip] and [spit]. It is the smallest unit of sound in a language which can distinguish two words in meaning.

For example, the words ―pan‖ and ―ban‖ differ only in the initial sound: pan‘ begins with /p/, and ban‘ with /b/. Therefore, /p/and /b/ are phonemes in English. The number of phonemes varies from one language to another. English 6 is often considered to have 44 phonemes.

Allophones(音位变体)(Variation, departure from the normal)

--- the phones that can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments; the same phoneme in different forms.

For example, pat [ ph ] aspirated

sport [p ] regulartip [ p ] unaspirated

The above three phones of [ ph ] [ p ] [ p ] are called the allophones of the same phoneme/p/.7

Reflect

Why do we pronounce /l/ differently when it occurs in different positions of words? [li:d], [fi: ], [helθ], [plei]

3.3

Minimal pair (最小对立体)

Minimal pair--when

two different forms are identical (the same) in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two sound combinations are said to form a minimal pair.

e.g. beat, bit, bet, bat, boot, but, bait, bite, boat /bi:t/, /bit/, /bet/, /b æ t/, /but/, /bΛt/, /beit/, /bait/, /b ut/How about beat and pit?9

Exercise

Which of the following words would be treated as minimal pairs? 1. pat, pen, more, heat, tape, bun, fat, ban, chain, main, pan 2. tale, bell, far, meal, vote, bet, pit, heel

Contrastive distribution & Complementary distribution

Contrastive

distribution 对立分布(Phonemic contrast) --different or distinctive phonemes are in contrastive distribution ( phonemic contrast ), e.g. /b/ and /p/ in [ bet ] and [pet].

Complementary distribution 互补分布 --allophones of the same phoneme are in complementary distribution. They do not distinguish meaning. They occur in different phonetic contexts, e.g. dark [ ~] & clear [l], aspirated [ph] & unaspirated [p ]. l11

3.4 Some rules of phonology Sequential

rules 序列规则

Assimilation Deletion

rule 同化规则 省略规则

rule

Sequential rules— the rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language, e.g. in English, ―k b i l‖ might possibly form: blik, klib, bilk, kilb. 1. If a word begins with a [l] or a [r], then the next sound must be a vowel. 2. If three consonants should cluster together at the beginning of a word, the combination should obey the following three rules, e.g. spring, strict, square, splendid, scream.

a) the first phoneme must be /s/, b) the second phoneme must be /p/ or /t/ or /k/, c) the third phoneme must be /l/ or /r/ or /w/.

Assimilation

rule

—assimilates one

sound to another by ―copying‖ a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones similar, e.g. the prefix in- is pronounced differently when in different phonetic contexts: indiscreet

inconceivable input impossible

alveolar [n] velar [η] bilabial [m] bilabial [m]

Assimilation in Mandarin 好啊 hao wa 海啊 hai ya 看啊 kan na 跳啊 tiao wa 天啊 ……14

Deletion

rule

—the omission of a sound segment which would be present in deliberate pronunciation of a word in isolation. It tells us when a sound is to be deleted although it is orthographically represented,

E.g. delete a [g] when it occurs before a final nasal consonant: design, paradigm, there is no [g] sound; but the [g] sound is pronounced in their corresponding forms: signature, designation, paradigmatic.

3.5 Beyond the Sound Segments 超音段特征What can distinguish the meaning of words?

phoneme

Suprasegmentssyllable word phrase sentence

Suprasegmental features stress重音 tone音调 intonation语调

—the phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments ( larger than phoneme):16…… 此处隐藏：3543字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……