CH 2: Phonology and Orthography

        

         Letters are a crude way to try and capture sound

                   hodgepodge and slapdash. 

 

Western European Languages all try to get by with the Latin alphabet, which was designed for none of them

 

(hence all the differences in orthography we have to learn).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Systematic attempt to represent sounds in writing:

International Phonetic Alphabet

 

Another complete IPA, with audio!

 

[ ]   /  /

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phonemes: phonological atoms

the smallest unit of sound

differences in phonemes result in different meaning

cop vs. top

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Allophones: different sounds which do not result in different meanings

Can be hard to get your head around; be sure to get your mouth around it.

Say all this stuff out loud, a lot.

T in stop and top

P in spin and pin

dark and clear “r” and “l”

rude vs curl

letter vs girl

 

Beware: none of these sounds are as discrete as a written version would lead us to believe

 

 

 

Phonetic continuum:

in real speech everything blends together

 

even the same word is pronounced differently at different times in different phonemic environments

 

Most obvious: “a” and “the

stressed and unstressed versions

 

        

 

 

CONSONANTS AND VOWELS:

 

NB: now we are taking about SOUNDS, not LETTERS.

 

Each of these sounds can be represented in a variety of ways

 

/f/ can be spelled “f” or “ph” or “gh

 

sometimes in real speech the actual pronunciation is quite different than the spelling:

 

matter” (= /d/)

 

Or when we frequently pronounce “th” as /d/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Consonants

 

Qualities of Consonants:

·       Place of articulation

·       Voicing

·       Orality / Nasality

·       Manner of Articulation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Voicing: voiced/unvoiced

Bus / buzz

is / this

leaf / leaves

Hold your vocal chords!

Obama and his unvoiced final “s”

paper/s/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nasality/ Orality:

only 3 nasal sounds in English:

/m/ /n/ and /ng/ (like hang)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place of articulation:

 

All these parts you may have never thought about before:

 

Lips, teeth, tongue, hard palate, alveolar ridge, velum

 

 

GO OVER CHART WITH NOISEYS:

 

         See websites

 

See this Place of Articulation chart in particular

Another (Furman)

Brinton and Arnovick's Consonant Chart

 

--------------------------->Millward, A Biography of the English Language

Good for Americans

Be able to recognize this chart

Be able to distinguish among a stop, affricate, fricative, and nasal

 

 

 

 

 

Vowels

Even more trouble; very, very variable among different speakers

Many of our vowels will differ, which is good

 

English vowels per se are trouble: because of the Great Vowels Shift

After spelling had been reasonable established (according to Latin alphabet) all of the vowels changed pronunciation

 

Pronunciation based on spelling in English is rarely matched with other European languages or with the IPA

 

The names of the letters are also not universal: think of French “a, e, i

 

Where these noises come from, relatively:

 

Front                   Central       Back

High

Middle

Low

 

Draw a FACE on your chart

Brinton & Arnovick chart, faced

 

Millward’s Vowels

 

 

Front vowels are unrounded

 

Back are most rounded (in Modern English)

         Schwa: “uh”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diphthongs:

 

The real key here is TWO SOUNDS, blended together;

         a glide and a vowel (or vowel and a glide). 

         Do not be confused by spelling:

not all diphthongs are spelt in Modern English with two vowels.

 

Millward’s diphthongs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stress / Stress Accent

 

         Fixed stress from Germanic

 

Variable from Latin and French

 

         Reduction of unstressed vowels to

                   / ə / or / ɪ / 

                            kilometer /k ɪ l ə m i d ə r/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alphabet:

 

         Not only is it crude, it’s a ancient hand-me-down

                   Phonographic, alphabetic (not syllabic)

 

All the ALPHABETS derive from the same parent:

Alphabets, not all writing systems

(Chinese does not have an alphabet, nor does Japanese)

 

Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Cyrillic, Latin alphabet:

All developments from the same origin (Phoenician!) despite the fact that the languages are not necessarily related

Hebrew, Arabic, Phoenician are Semitic languages, non-Indo-European

their alphabets do not indicate vowels

 

 

         Runic Alphabet

 

 

 

Modern English uses the Latin alphabet plus:

 

V / U                   I / J             W      Y                 Z