Today we will talk about:

-Phonology-Phonemes-morphemes

What is phonology?

• Definition Phonology is the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages. Whereas phonetics is about the nature of sounds (or phones) per se, phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language

• Discussion The phonological system of a language includes

• an inventory of sounds and their features, and• rules which specify how sounds interact with each

other.

• Phonology is just one of several aspects of language. It is related to other aspects such as phonetics, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics.

• Here is an illustration that shows the place of phonology in an interacting hierarchy of levels in linguistics:

Who was Chomsky?

• Definition Generative phonology is a component of generative grammar that assigns the correct phonetic representations to utterances in such a way as to reflect a native speaker’s internalized grammar.

Phonetics … Phonology …

Is the basis for phonological analysis.Is the basis for further work in morphology, syntax, discourse, and orthography design.

Analyzes the production of all human speech sounds, regardless of language.

Analyzes the sound patterns of a particular language by•determining which phonetic sounds are significant, and•explaining how these sounds are interpreted by the native speaker.

phonemes• What are phonemes?

• A phoneme is a speech sound that helps us construct meaning. That is, if we replace it with another sound (where this is possible) we get a new meaning or no meaning at all. If I replace the initial consonant (/r/) from rubble, I can get double or Hubble (astronomer for whom the space telescope is named) or meaningless forms (as regards the lexicon of standard English) like fubble and wubble. The same thing happens if I change the vowel and get rabble, rebel, Ribble (an English river) and the nonsense form robble. (I have used the conventional spelling of “rebel” here, but to avoid confusion should perhaps use phonetic transcription, so that replacements would always appear in the same position as the character they replace.)

PHONEMES

• A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word.

• Knowing about phonemes is important for spelling.

• A phonemes may be made up of one or more letters which make one sound.

Notice how the three phonemes sound the

same.

Two new shoes

Spot the odd one out.

• Look carefully at the words below. • Can you spot the phoneme that is common to each set?• Which word doesn’t share the common phoneme?

• tree feet grew sleep• rain pain mail slap• know seat grow show• Boat away play stay

Phoneme Fallout.• Some of the phonemes have fallen out of the words below.

Can you guess if the missing phoneme is… oo, ew or ue?

• S n thr c l r m

• Ch sch l cr l kn

oo ew ue oo

ew oo ue ew

How many phonemes are there in the English language?

• Around 44

Vowel Phonemes:

PHONEME EXAMPLES

a cat

e peg bread

i pig wanted

o log want

u plug love

ae pain day gate station

ee sweet heat thief these

ie tried light my shine mind

oe road blow bone cold

ue moon blue grew tune

oo look would put

ar cart fast (regional)

ur burn first term heard work

or torn door warn (regional)

au haul law call

er wooden circus sister

ow down shout

oi coin boy

air stairs bear hare

ear fear beer here

Consonant Phonemes:

PHONEME EXAMPLES

b baby

d dog

f field photo

g game

h hat

j judge giant barge

k cook quick mix Chris

l lamb

m monkey comb

n nut knife gnat

p paper

r rabbit wrong

s sun mouse city science

t tap

v van

w was

wh where (regional)

y yes

z zebra please is

th then

th thin

ch chip watch

sh ship mission chef

zh treasure

ng ring sink

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/phonics/sandcastle/

MORPHEME MATCH-UPS

• What are morphemes?• A morpheme is the smallest single unit of

language that has meaning.

• WS

Morphemes

• A morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function.

• Ex. Tourists: -tour (one minimal unit)• -ist (meaning “person who does

something”)• -s (a third unit of grammatical

function indicating plurality)

Stress or loudness

• - increasing volume is a simple way of giving emphasis, and this is a crude measure of stress. But it is usually combined with other things like changes in tone and tempo. We use stress to convey some kinds of meaning (semantic and pragmatic) such as urgency or anger or for such things as imperatives.

Intonation

• - you may be familiar in a loose sense with the notion of tone of voice. We use varying levels of pitch in sequences (contours or tunes) to convey particular meanings. Falling and rising intonation in English may signal a difference between statement and question.

Rhythm

• - patterns of stress, tempo and pitch together create a rhythm. Some kinds of formal and repetitive rhythm are familiar from music, rap, poetry and even chants of soccer fans.

• But all speech has rhythm - it is just that in spontaneous utterances we are less likely to hear regular or repeating patterns.

Syllables

• When you think of individual sounds, you may think of them in terms of syllables. These are units of phonological organization and smaller than words.

• Alternatively, think of them as units of rhythm.