Phonology

Phonology

Phonology: This is the study of how sounds are organized and used in other languages.

Phonology is studied and discussed in the field of linguistics alongside: Morphology, semantics, syntax, phonetics, and pragmatics. Below we have a nice diagram of the traditional pattern in which we study these elements of linguistics:

[[File: http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/phonolog.jpg]]

What is in the Phonology System?

1. Inventory of sounds and the features of these sounds.

2. Sounds Rules: how the sounds work with one another.

Are Phonetics and Phonology the same? No!

Why not? Phonetics

study of the production of all human speech sounds no matter the language.

Phonology

Study of the sound patterns specific to a language, such as French, Navajo, Arabic, etc.

      (A) Studies which phonetic sounds are significant in the target language.

      (B) Provides an explanation for how native speakers interpret these sounds.

Phonemes

What are Phonemes?

These are the smallest units of sounds used to determine the differences among utterances.

These are the distinctive units of sound in a particular language.

They help us differentiate meaning!

Example: The word pot- the [p] is aspirated vs. the word soup is not aspirated--> In English these two words belong to the same phonological category of the phoneme /p/. Even though the p's are different in regards to the phonetics!

Note to self: In other languages, such as Quechua, Thai, and Hindi, aspiration is essential when it comes to differentiating phonemes (some words in these languages only differ in that sense (aspiration vs. non-aspiration)).

When studying phonology we also study...

      (A) How sounds alternate

      (B) syllable structure, stress, intonation, and accent

      (C) Allomorphs- the way in which sounds replace one another in different forms of the same morpheme

IPA International Phonetic alphabet

What is it? A system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. The IPA is used by foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech pathologists and therapists, singers, actors, lexicographers, and translators. Many, many people use the International Phonetic Alphabet! As one can see, this is a very important part of linguistics and an essential tool for the entire world to use.

Where did it come from? "The IPA was first published in 1888 by the Association Phonétique Internationale (International Phonetic Association), a group of French language teachers founded by Paul Passy" (Omniglot 1).

What was its purpose?

The purpose of creating this system was to have a way of transcribing the sounds of speech for all spoken languages!

How does it work? The IPA provides a symbol for each specific sound. "Among the symbols of the IPA, 107 represent consonants and vowels, 31 are diacritics that are used to further specify these sounds, and 19 are used to indicate such qualities as length, tone, stress, and intonation" (Wikipedia).

International Phonetic Alphabet Chart:

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