Intro to Linguistics – Phonology
Jarmila Panevov´a & Jirka Hana – October 13, 2010
Overview of topics
1. What is Phonology
2. Phonotactics
3. Phonemes
4. Phonological rules
5. Kinds of phonological rules
What to remember/understand:
Phonotactics, phoneme, [ ] vs. / /, minimal pair, phonological rule, assimilation, dissimilation,
insertion, deletion,
1
What is Phonology
Phonology:
• studies how sounds are organized in particular languages
• tries to discover the psychological patterns and underlying organization of sounds
shared by native speakers of a certain language.
• abstracts from the physical data provided by phonetics.
2
Phonotactics
Phonotactics studies what kind of sound patterns (sound combinations) are in in a particular
language and which are not.
For example, certain languages allow only do not allow consonant clusters (CV syllables; this
is a universal feature, but some languages are more strict than others). Interesting thing
happens with borrowings from other languages:
Japaneese:
besuboru
gorufurendu
– baseball
– girlfriend
Setswana (Botswana):
kirisimasi – Christmas
sutoraiku
arubaito
gelase – glass
1
– strike
– job (German Arbeit)
hafu – half
Shona (Southern Bantu language, Zimbabwe, replacing [l] with [r]): Strictly CV (C even
cannot be word final)
turoko
furusitopi
sitirecha
hendibhegi
kanduro
chitofu
–
–
–
–
–
–
truck
full stop
strecher
handbag
candle
stove
puruvhu
bhirifi
giramu
kirimu
bhirifi
–
–
–
–
–
proof
brief
gram
cream
breaf
Other examples:
• Word initial stress – Czech, Hungarian, Finish, English (for most words)
• Word final obstruents (stops, fricatives, affricates) are voiceless – Czech, Polish, Russian, German, Dutch and many other languages.
3
Phonemes
It is sometimes difficult for native speakers of a language to tell the difference between sounds
which may be completely distinct for speakers of...