Working on the phonology of your field language

Finding the phonemes

What is a phoneme?• A phoneme is a unit of sound in a given language which distinguishes

meaning.

• Looking for minimal pairs show us how phonemes work.

• If a pair of a words differ with respect to the sound filling equivalent positions in both words and the words have different meanings, then those two sounds must contrast in that language

• The English words shoe [ʃu] and sue [su] contrast only in the initial consonant . They have different meanings. This means that /ʃ/ and /s/ must be separate phonemes in English

• Is that true of the same two sounds in Japanese?

Looking at the data

List the environments• Using shorthand • # for word edge• _ for the position of the sound under investigation

[s] [ʃ]#_ɑ ɑ _ i#_ o# _u

From this limited data set, a pattern emerges.

S and ʃ are not distinct

• The sound [s] and [ʃ] do not have the same distribution.

• From the data set, we could predict that the pronunciation [s] will never precede [i]. And that [ʃ] will never precede /ɑ, o/ or /u/.

• This means that [ʃ]is an allophone of /s/ and does the work of /s/ when it appears in a word preceding /i/.

allophones

• The meaning of the term allophone then is a variant of a phoneme which is inserted in a particular environment.

• This means that /s/ has the allophones [s] and [ʃ].

• Don’t believe me? Let’s have a look at some Japanese words and brandnames you may know:

More evidence

sushi Sanyo Toshiba

Mitsubishi Shiseido Subaru

miso Suzuki