Phonemic Analysis

Phonemic Analysis

1. 2 DISTINCTIVENESS AND CONTRAST

   • PHONEME
     • A contrastive segmental unit that may have predictable phonetic variants.
   • Words like pin, tin, kin, end differ only in their initial consonant segments.
   • And words like beat, bait, bet, bat differ only in their vowel segments

2. 3. SOUNDS THAT DO NOT CONTRAST: ALLOPHONES

   • ALLOPHONES are phonetically conditioned predictable variants of the phoneme.
   • On the basis of: The phonetic quality of neighbouring sounds Position Influence of prosodic elements:
   • ELSEWHERE ALLOPHONES: Abstract level and Concrete level

3. 4. PHONEMES AS CATEGORIES

   • Allophones, such as [d] and [‰] form an abstract phonological category, the phoneme /d/.
   • Phonological categories – the phoneme – used to distinguish between words, but allophones cannot.

4. 6. COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION

   • The distribution of allophones is such that one never appears in the same phonetic context as the other.
   • PHONETIC SIMILARITY
     • Sounds that represent different pronunciations of the same phoneme must be phonetically similar.

5. 7 FREE VARIATION

   • When two phonemes appear in the same context
     • economics /i/ or /s/ either /i/ or /aj/
   • FREE VARIATION AMONG ALLOPHONES: map [p] or [p¹]or [b¬ ] mat [t] or [t¹] or [t¬]

6. 8 MINIMAL PAIRS

   • A minimal pair consists of two forms with distinct meanings that differ by only one segment found in the same position of the word.
   • NEAR MINIMAL PAIRS
     • Segments in nearly identical environments. Near minimal pairs occur more frequently in languages with large phonemic inventory and long words.

7. 1 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

   • PHONETICS
     • The study of the inventory of all speech sounds that humans are capable of producing.
   • PHONOLOGY
     • The study of the sound systems of languages. The study of the wide range of sounds that the human vocal apparatus can produce.

8. 5. PHONOLOGICAL RULES

   • Phonological rules are language specific! They are productive, conform to the well-formedness condition, and reflect unconscious knowledge