Class Notes from February 16, 2012 (on phonology and writing phonological
rules)
1.)
Homework
Grammatical words of English
[pleŋk]
Ungrammatical words of English
*[lpeŋk]
[preŋk]
*[rpeŋk]
[briŋ]
*[rbiŋ]
[bræɡ]
*[rbæɡ]
[twi]
*[wti]
• The feature we’re actually interested in overall is [+sonorant] vs. [-sonorant] sounds.
• Onset Phonotactic Principle: In an onset, if one consonant is [+sonorant], it must come
second.
• This problem was intended to illustrate the Sonority Sequencing Principle
• Some of you noticed that the onsets of ungrammatical words would have generally made good
codas. This demonstrates that in codas, you want your [+sonorant] sounds to come first.
• Languages prefer to build syllables with the most vowel-like sounds (the most sonorous
sounds) nearer the middle and the least vowel-like sounds (stops, voiceless fricatives) near the
edges. Syllables structured in this way conform to the sonority profile
[…….-sonorant ……………………..] […………….……..+sonorant/vowels……………]
[-continuant]
nasals
approximants
vowels
[l, r] [j,w]
low sonority
high sonority
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
constricted vocal tract
unconstricted vocal tract
low in acoustic energy
high in acoustic energy
• This seems to be a very strong tendency among languages. I’ve posted a link to a study that
looks at Egyptian Arabic, Hindi, Mongolian, and Malayalam (unrelated languages) and finds
that the preferred shape of syllables in all of these languages obeys the sonority sequencing
principle.
1 2.)
Phonology
• PHONEME: The abstract, mental representation of a sound. The form of a phone that is found in
the list of words that make up your mental lexical.
o Phonemes are written between / slanted brackets /
• ALLOPHONE: One of a set of (potentially) multiple phones used to pronounce a single phoneme.
o Allophones are written between [ square brackets ] (the way we’ve been writing
everything up to this point).
• A single phoneme will correspond to one or more allophones.
• Your Basic Task in Phonology Problems: determine whether two phones are allophones of
the same abstract phoneme, or allophones of two distinct abstract phonemes.
Do you have this?
/phoneme/
4
[allophone]
[allophone]
/phoneme/
1
[allophone]
Or this?
/phoneme/
1
[allophone]
How can you tell?
If you can find minimal pairs for two phones (they are in complementary distribution), you know
that each is an allophone of a different phoneme.
If you can’t find minimal pairs for two phones, you know that they are allophones of the same
phoneme.
3.)
Example of Allophones in English
[pʰɪt]
[pʰrəәpʰer]
[pʰle]
[spɪt]
[rəәtʰɪrn]
[wɪks]
[tʰɪl]
[kʰlɪr]
[wɪk]
[stɪl]
[kʰɪl]
[skɪl]
• When [p], [t], and [k] are pronounced with a release of air, we describe them as being
ASPIRATED.
o We can represent aspirated phones with a superscript h, e.g, [ph], [th], [kh]
2 • When [p], [t], and [k] are not pronounced with a release of air, we describe them as being
UNASPIRATED.
o We can represent unaspirated phones by leaving off the superscript.
• What is the distribution of [tʰ], [pʰ], and [kʰ]?
o They are all found at the beginning of an Onset
• What is the distribution of [t], [p], and [k]?
o They are found everywhere else (in Codas, not at the beginning of Onsets)
• What does this tell us? These phones are in complementary distribution. There are no minimal
pairs containing [p] and [ph].
o [p] and [ph] are two different allophones of the same phoneme, /p/
o [t] and [th] are two different allophones of the same phoneme, /t/
o [k] and [kh] are two different allophones of the same phoneme, /k/
4.)
Walking through a Phonology Problem
• The following words are from Tagalog (Filipino).
datiŋ
dami
dumi
daɾatiŋ
manduɾukot
‘to arrive’
‘amount’
‘dirt’
‘will arrive’
‘pickpocket’
daɾaʔiŋ
maɾumi
maɾami
daʔiŋ
mandukot
‘will complain’
‘dirty’
‘many’
‘to complain’
‘to go pickpocketing’
Step 1: Are there any minimal pairs?
Step 2: Figure out the distribution of [d] and [ɾ]. Make a chart! # means word boundary, __
means ‘where the phone goes’
[d]
#_a
#_u
n_u
[ɾ]
a_a
u_u
a_u
Generalizations:
[d] occurs word-initially
[d] also occurs after nasals
[ɾ] occurs between vowels
The sounds are in complementary distribution. There are no minimal pairs. We know they are
allophones of the same phoneme.
3 Step 3: What is the phoneme? You’ll select one of the phones as basic: that one will be the
phoneme. The phone you select as the phoneme will have the widest distribution (we can
describe its distribution as “elsewhere”).
It looks like [d] has a wider distribution than [ɾ]. So, we can model the relationship
between phonemes and allophones as shown below:
/d/
3
[d]
[ɾ]
Step 4: Write a rule describing where /d/ surfaces as [ɾ]. Define the environment such that
everywhere else, /d/ surfaces as [d].
/d/  [ɾ] / Vowel __ Vowel
“The phoneme /d/ becomes [ɾ] when (in the environment) of between vowels.”
5.)
Group Problem 1: Swampy Cree
[b] and [p]:
[asabap]
[mibit]
[wabos]
[nabew]
‘thread’
‘tooth’
‘rabbit’
‘man’
[p]
#_a
s_w
a_#
[paskwaw]
[ospwaɡan]
[pimi]
‘prairie’
‘pipe’
‘lard’
[b]
a_o
a_a
i_i
a_e
The distribution of [b] is “between vowels.” It looks like [p] has the “elsewhere” distribution.
Rule: /p/  [b] / Vowel __ Vowel
(/p/  [p] / elsewhere)
[k] and [g]:
[kodak]
‘another’
[oɡik]
‘these’
[waskow]
‘cloud’
[tʃiɡahiɡan]
‘axe
[niɡi]
‘my house’
[tahki]
‘often’
[koɡos]
‘pig’
[niska]
‘goose’
[k]
#_k
s_o
#_o
h_i
s_a
[g]
o_i
i_a
i_i
o_o
o_a
The distribution of [g] is “between vowels.” It looks like [k] has the “elsewhere” distribution.
Rule: /k/  [g] / Vowel __ Vowel
(/k/  [k] / elsewhere)
4 [d] and [t]:
[mibit]
[tahki]
[kodak]
‘tooth’
‘often’
‘another’
[nisto]
[adim]
[mide]
[t]
i_#
#_a
s_o
‘three’
‘dog’
‘heart’
[d]
o_a
a_i
i_e
The distribution of [d] is “between vowels.” It looks like [t] has the “elsewhere distribution.
Rule: /t/  [d] / Vowel __ Vowel
(/t/  [t] / elsewhere)
• What have we learned about Swampy Cree?
• We have learned that there are three phonemes in the language, /p, t, k/. Each of these
phonemes maps onto two different allophones:
/p/
3
[p]
[b]
/t/
3
[t]
[d]
/k/
3
[k]
[g]
• We have also learned that the rules that change each phoneme into the form of the
allophone that looks different from the phoneme (i.e., /p/  [b]) have something in
common….
Rule 1: /p/  [b] / Vowel __ Vowel
Rule 2: /k/  [g] / Vowel __ Vowel
Rule 3: /t/  [d] / Vowel __ Vowel
• It would be nice if we could make a more general statement about phonological rules in the
language…let’s try to combine these three rules into one rule.
• Attempt One:
/p, t, k/  [b, d, g] / Vowel __ Vowel
(/p, t, k/  [p, t, k] / elsewhere)
• This is a good first pass attempt! It relates the three rules to each other, which was our goal.
• Attempt Two:
• Can we make our rule even more general? We are still listing out the phones individually.
This is descriptively adequate but not very theoretically informative.
• We’ll try instead with features:
5 Rule, final form: /-continuant, -voiced/  [+voiced] / [+vocalic] __ [+vocalic]
• How did I come up with this rule?
o Between the / slanted / brackets, I listed those features that are necessary to
characterize the phonemes as a set: they are all [-continuant] and [-voiced]. I
could have added more features, but as long as I’ve characterized all and only
those phonemes which I have evidence participate in the rule, I’ve done my job.
o Between the [ square ] brackets, I listed only the features that change when you go
from the phoneme to the allophone that doesn’t look like the phoneme (i.e., from
/p/ to [b]). The only feature that changes is [-voiced] goes to [+voiced].
o After the slash /, I put the environment. Since I’m characterizing the phonemes
and allophones in terms of features, we should do the same for the environment.
All vowels are [+vocalic].1
1 We
could have added [+tense], too: all the vowels we see in the environments are also [+tense].
6