PHONOLOGY

PHONOLOGY

1. WHAT IS PHONOLOGY?

   • PHONETICS: Study of possible sounds which can be made with vocal tract
   • PHONOLOGY: How a particular language uses those possibilities
     • Rules and Regulations

2. SYLLABLES

   • HOW TO DEFINE?
     • At least one vowel
     • MUST contain a loud centre with little obstruction (usually a vowel)
     • MAY BE sounds on either side
   • TECHNICAL TERMINOLOGY
     • NUCLEUS : Core of sylllable (VOWEL)
       • NUCLEUS + CODA = RIME
     • ONSET : All consonants before nucleus (OPTIONAL)
     • CODA : All after Nucleus (OPTIONAL)

3. SYLLABLES IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES

   • IN ENGLISH
     • The formula allowed for ENGLISH - Co3 V Co4
   • IN OTHER LANGUAGES
     • All languages allow onsets, but not all allow codas (Eg Hawaiian)
     • Noem langs only allow 1 coda consonant (Japanese)
   • IN CHILD SPEECH
     • First words often made up of CV structure (mama, dada)
     • As they get older move to more complex structures
       • Still have problems with clusters in adult target
         • 'glove' [g^V} cluster reduction
         • 'Glove' [gel^V] epenthesis (adding a vowel)

4. STRESS

   • SYLLABLES = Stressed or unstressed
     • Stressed sound more prominent
       • louder
       • longer
       • Higher pitch
     • Dessert and Desert - differ on lexical level due to stress
   • STRESS IN CHILDS SPEECH
     • Young children sometimes delete unstressed, in multisyllabic words
       • weak syllable deletion
   • STRESS IN SENTENCES
     • Not all words in sentence are stressed
       • If a word is stressed, will be in same place as in isolation
         • Occasionally stress can shift, but this is rare
           • 'Chinese takeaway', names...

5. WEAK FORMS

   • A strong form is the way we say it in isolation
     • Sentence - less time to say words, so syllables (esp vowels) are weakened
     • Strong form of monosyllabic word
       • stressed
       • full vowels (not schwas)
   • COMPULSORY WEAK FORMS
     • Around 40 words where weak forms are obligatory in an unstressed position
       • fish and chips - fish n chips
         • n allowed as it is a sonorant vowel
           • similar to 'l'
   • Monosyllabic words which get weakened easily
   • Different from water with a schwa
     • vowel reduction