TS 03 Writing - Phonetics - Phonology PDF

2 Writing Introduction to English Linguistics – Schleburg 2 Writing Principles of spelling Historical spelling: Words are spelled the way they were pronounced in earlier stages of the language (e. g. in the 15th century). He will come home as drunken as a mouse! Middl...

2 Writing Introduction to English Linguistics – Schleburg 2 Writing Principles of spelling Historical spelling: Words are spelled the way they were pronounced in earlier stages of the language (e. g. in the 15th century). He will come home as drunken as a mouse! Middle English: [heː wɪl ˈkʊmə ˈhɔːm as ˈdrʊŋkən as a ˈmuːs] Loanwords introduce additional letter-sound correspondences foreign to English: garage /-ʒ/, pizza /-ts-/, schadenfreude /ʃ-/ Morphological principle: An element of meaning is spelled the same even though its pronunciation varies. used /-d/ – produced /-t/ – alluded /-ɪd/ south /saʊθ/ – southern /sʌð-/ 2 Writing Modern English spelling In its details English spelling has been shaped by all sorts of coincidences … Doubt is spelled with ⟨b⟩ because it was (correctly) associated with Latin dubitare. Island is spelled with ⟨s⟩ because it was (wrongly) associated with Latin insula. Limb is spelled with ⟨b⟩ because it did not make a difference anyway. Could is spelled with ⟨l⟩ because would and should are. Ghost is spelled with ⟨h⟩ because CAXTON, the first English printer, had learned his trade in Flanders (where the corresponding word was gheest). The genitive -s (as in John’s) is spelled with an apostrophe because people (erroneously) thought -s was an abbreviation of his. Nostalgic signs often read »YE OLDE …« instead of »THE … « because people no longer recognised the Old English ⟨þ⟩. 2 Writing Modern English spelling As a consequence, modern English spelling has systematic shortcomings: The same spelling is used for different sounds: ⟨ea⟩ in read, head, break, real, bear, learn, heart, guinea italics are used to refer to a form or word ⟨angle brackets⟩ mark spelling symbols Different spellings are used for the same sound: talk, autumn, law, bore, broad, door, pour, sure Spelling often contains letters that are not pronounced at all: knowledge, whistle, heir (silent letters) More rarely, a word contains a sound that is not represented at all in the spelling: _one (missing letter) 2 Writing Modern English spelling In practical terms, the pronunciation of many an English word cannot be predicted from its spelling: few – sew, word – sword, culprit – pulpit... bough – cough – tough – though – through Some of the trickiest words are names: Arkansas, Thames, Worcestershire... 2 Scholarly Transcription How to write sounds So in order to identify speech sounds in the written medium, linguists have introduced a system of graphic symbols called... transcription... which is free from the shortcomings of traditional orthography. The ›phonetic alphabet‹ of the International Phonetic Association (IPA) is a standardised set of symbols which, though most of them are based on Latin letters, have only one exactly defined sound value each. www.ipachart.com 2 Scholarly Transcription How to write sounds The basic conventions of phonetic transcription are these: symbols are enclosed in square brackets: [e] a (triangular) colon marks a sound as long (in English, only for vowels): [iː] primary stress is indicated by a raised vertical stroke in front of the stressed syllable: [ˈbeɪsɪk] word boundaries and pauses can be indicated: [... |... ||... ], but there is neither capitalisation nor punctuation. Example: [ðə ˈbeɪsɪk kənˈventʃnz əv fəʊˈnetɪk trænˈskrɪpʃn ə ˈðiːz] 3 Phonetics and Phonology Introduction to English Linguistics – Schleburg 3 Phonetics Definitions Of the two approaches to speech sounds, phonetics deals with sounds as physical events, i. e. the ›substance‹ of spoken language. It is interested in... … how speakers produce how they are transmitted and how listeners perceive speech sounds, through the air, and interpret them. articulatory phonetics acoustic phonetics auditory phonetics 3 Phonetics Basic notions In the lecture ›Phonetics and Phonology‹ you will hear more about … vowels and their properties: high vs. low: bit – bat front vs. back: beat – boot long vs. short: bit – beat diphthongs: bite consonants and their properties: place of articulation: seem – theme manner of articulation: seem – team fortis vs. lenis (voiceless vs. voiced): team – deem 3 Phonetics front back Vowels close iː uː beat [ iː ] bit [ɪ] ɪ ʊ bet [e] bat [æ] but [ʌ] part [ ɑː ] ɜː/ɝː ɔː pot [ɒ] e ə port [ ɔː ] put [ʊ] boot [ uː ] ʌ bird [ ɜː/ɝː ] ɒ the [ ə ] (schwa, unstressed only) æ ɑː open vowel trapezium 3 Phonetics ɪ ʊ o e ə ɔ Closing diphthongs fail [ eɪ ] file [ aɪ ] foil [ ɔɪ ] foal [ əʊ /oʊ ] a foul [ aʊ ] 3 Phonetics ɪ ʊ e ə Centering diphthongs BE AE peer [ ɪə ] [ ɪr ] pear [ eə ] [ er ] poor [ ʊə ] [ ʊr ] 3 Phonetics Consonants lips and teeth- behind hard soft vocal both lips teeth teeth ridge ridge palate palate cords place labio- post- bilabial dental alveolar palatal velar glottal manner dental alveolar plosive p b t d k g affricate ʧ ʤ fricative f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ h nasal m n ŋ appro- w l r j ximant semivowel lateral continuant semivowel pull, bull; tin, din; came, game – fine, vine; thin, this; sink, zinc; mission, vision; hat – choke, joke – whim, win, wing – war, law, roar, your 3 Phonetics lips and teeth- behind hard soft vocal both lips teeth teeth ridge ridge palate palate cords place labio- post- bilabial dental alveolar palatal velar glottal manner dental alveolar plosive p b t d k g ➀ affricate ʧ ʤ fricative ➁ f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ➂ ➃ h nasal m n ➄ ŋ appro- w l r j ximant semivowel lateral continuant semivowel Some of the positions in this table not occupied by Standard English sounds: ➀ Varieties of English, German: “glottal stop” [ʔ] bu’’on = button, cf. uh- oh! ➁ Spanish: lenis bilabial fricative [β] cabeza ➂ German: fortis palatal fricative [ç] nicht ➃ German: fortis velar fricative [x] Nacht ➄ French, Italian, Spanish: palatal nasal [ɲ] Champagne, gnocchi, España 3 Phonology ›What something is and what it does‹ As opposed to general phonetics, phonology deals with the sound system of a particular language (i. e. the ›structure‹, not the ›material‹). It is interested in the distributions and functions of the sounds of that language and in the combinations of sounds allowed by that language. [z] [θ] [s] [ʃ] [t] 3 Phonology Free variants What happens when we replace the post-alveolar [r] with a retroflexive [ɻ] or a tap [ɾ] in any English word? The results will sound like belonging to different varieties of English, but in no instance will they correspond to different words or meanings. Phonologically speaking, i. e. in terms of their functional status within the English sound system, the sounds [r], [ɻ] and [ɾ] are free variants – the speaker has a choice. r ɪ ŋ ɻ ɾ 3 Phonology Phonemes What happens when we replace [s] with [z] in an English word? The change may result in a different word with a different meaning! In our example, the sequences [siːl] and [ziːl] form a minimal pair, i. e. a pair of words with the same number of sound segments, differing in only one position. Phonologically speaking, i. e. in terms of their functional status within the English sound system, the sounds [s] and [z] correspond to different phonemes. s iː l z 3 Phonology Phonemes Phonemes are defined as the smallest units of the language that distinguish meaning and transcribed with phonetic symbols enclosed in slashes: /s/ ≠ /z/ One minimal pair is enough to prove that /s/ and /z/ contrast in the English sound system and that the phonetic feature that distinguishes the two sound types (fortis vs. lenis or voiceless vs. voiced) is a distinctive feature. What happens if a learner does not correctly distinguish the phonemes of a language (e. g. mixing up /s/ and /z/)? A mistake at the level of phonemes may result in a different meaning from the one intended: seal ≠ zeal, juice ≠ Jews, cease ≠ seize. Nobody can speak correct or tolerably comprehensible English without perceiving and reproducing the meaning-distinguishing differences. 3 Phonology ›What something is and what it does‹ Phonological units do not exist in the real world: they are abstract elements of the system (langue). At the level of physical reality (parole) no two sounds will ever be completely identical … but speakers and hearers disregard little physical differences and accept sufficiently similar tokens as realisations of the same type within the system: /slashes/ are used to represent phonemes langue (system) discrete types realisation abstraction parole (reality) [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] tokens continuous