Lecture 3 of Lecture Phonetics & Phonology has content: Phonemes, Allophones, Symbols (Phonemic symbols, Phonetic symbols), Transcriptions (Broad / Phonemic transcription, Narrow / Phonetic transcription), Rules for English allophones. | Lecture 3 • Phonemes • Allophones • Symbols • Phonemic symbols • Phonetic symbols • Transcriptions • Broad / Phonemic transcription • Narrow / Phonetic transcription • Rules for English allophones 1 Phonemes • A phoneme is the smallest segment of sound which can distinguish two words. • Take the words ‘pit’ and ‘bit’. These differ only in their initial sound. ‘pit’ begins with /p/ and ‘bit’ begins with /b/. This is the smallest amount by which these two words could differ and still remain distinct forms. Any smaller subdivision would be impossible because English doesn’t subdivide /p/ or /b/. Therefore, /p/ and /b/ are considered two phonemes. • Other examples: 2 Minimal pairs • Pair of words such as ‘pit’ and ‘bit’, ‘pit’ and ‘pet’, ‘back’ and ‘bag’ which differ by only one phoneme in identical environment are known as minimal pairs. • More examples: • One way to identify the phonemes of any language is to look for minimal pairs. 3 Phonemes • There are 44 phonemes in English. They can be divided into two types: consonants (24) and vowels (20). • Each phoneme is meaningless in isolation. It becomes meaningful only when it is combined with other phonemes. • Phonemes form a set of abstract units that can be used for writing down a language systemmatically and unambiguously. • Reasons: A letter can be represented by different sounds. • A phoneme can be represented by different letters or combinations of letters. 4 Allophones • Allophones are the variants of phonems that occur in speech. • Reasons: the way a phoneme is pronounced is conditioned by the sounds around it or by its position in the word. For example: /t/ [t˙] • /t/ [t '] [t-] tea stay get there 5
