3. Phonemesvs. Allophones

1)Phonemes – ultimate minimal units of speech, capable of differentiation of the meaning of the units of a higher morphological, semantic level:

/mæn/ (man) - /men/ (men);

/bild/ (build) - /bilt/ (built);

/ka: t/ (cart) - /kʌ t/ (cut) ;

Abstract and constant

Their function: to differentiate the sound envelops of morphemes or words, the difference between them is semiologically relevant

2) Allophones are realizations of phonemes in speech; the difference between allophones does not change the meaning of words

Phonemes realized in speech in different variants depending on the phonetic environment. Each allophone appears in a certain position, certain environment, different allophones of the same phoneme never occur in a similar environment.

[l] inlay, play, bill, altogether – allophones of phoneme /l/

[t] intea, task, sty, little, written – allophones of phoneme /t/

3) Phonemes vs. Allophones

Speech – continuum of sounds which can be broken into discreet units.

But: tell = /t/-/e/-/l/; tale - /t/-/ei/-/l/. Isei1 sound or 2?

Number of sounds – infinite but number of sound types - ?

The existing variety of sounds have to be categorized and systematized to understand which belong to what type of sound.

Functional approach to sounds – phoneme

Take – stake

aspirated/non aspirated /t/ =

non aspirated/ aspirated /t/

Conclusion: aspirated/ non-aspirated voiceless strong plosives are different sounds but they do not affect the meaning of a unit of a higher level, the word.

They are allophones of the phoneme /t/

4) Same allophones – different phonemes.

At the same time one and the same sound can be an allophone of different phonemes:

• Glottal stop

/ʔ/ - glottal stop. It’s used as a reinforcement for vowels and is an allophone of p,t,k.

-the last sound in: light, take, trip

-multisyllable words: stoplight, apartment, backseat

-phrases: right now, talk back, fax machine

/ʔ/serves regularly for many RP speakers as a syllable boundary maker, when the initial sound of the second syllable is a vowel

cooperate /kəʊˈʔɒpəreɪt/

geometry/dʒiˈʔɒmətri/

Any initial accented vowel may be reinforced by a preceding glottal stop, when particular emphasis is placed on the word whatever the preceding sound:

It’s [ʔ]empty, I haven’t seen [ʔ]anybody

• Shwa

/ə/allophone of vowels in unstressed position

perfect/ˈpɜːfɪkt/ - perfection/pəˈfekʃn/

conversation /ˌkɒnvəˈseɪʃn/ - converse /kənˈvɜːs/

courage /ˈkʌrɪdʒ/ - courageous /kəˈreɪdʒəs/

5)A distributional analysis

Distribution is a general term used in linguistics to refer to the total set of linguistic contexts or environments, in which a unit(a phoneme, a morpheme or a word) can occur. Every linguistic unit has a characteristic distribution.

Distribution of speech sounds- the set of phonetic environments in which a sound occurs/ The range of places within a word which a given sound may occur.

Env. 1. Final position (bee, lay, four)

Env. 2. Before strong Cs (beat, late, fought)

Env. 3. Before weak Cs (bead, laid, Ford)

A distributional analysis would plot the places in larger linguistic units where smaller units occur, such as the distribution of phonemes within a syllable or a word or words within a sentence. To identify a phoneme several procedures were developed by phonologists for the purpose of identifying the phonemes of the language or establishing the phonemic status of the sound.