Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology

Posted on Oct 10, 2024 in Language

Language

Phonetics and Phonology

Phoneme: The smallest unit of language that distinguishes meaning. While a phoneme itself doesn’t have meaning, it can alter the meaning of a word.

Phonation: The physical production of speech sounds.

Phonetics: The study of the physical properties of speech sounds. It describes sounds based on their articulation, transmission, and perception.

Phonology: The study of how sounds function within a specific language. It analyzes the relationships between sounds and how they combine to form meaningful units.

Branches of Phonetics

Articulatory Phonetics: Studies the movements and positions of the speech organs involved in producing sounds.

Acoustic Phonetics: Studies the physical properties of sound waves produced during speech.

Auditory Phonetics: Studies how the ear perceives and processes speech sounds.

Sound Production

Sound Source: Airflow from the lungs. To produce sound, obstacles are placed in the airflow. Three main types of sound production are:

• Vibration
• Closure
• Frication

Classification Criteria: Sounds are classified based on their manner and place of articulation.

Modes of Articulation

Modes of articulation describe the degree of constriction in the vocal tract. They include:

• Voiced: b, d, g, m, n, ɲ, j, r, l, a, e, i, o, u
• Voiceless: p, t, k, tʃ, f, s, x
• Occlusive
• Fricative
• Affricate
• Vibrant
• Lateral
• Vowel
• Nasal/Oral

Place of Articulation

Place of articulation describes where the constriction occurs in the vocal tract:

• Bilabial: b, p, m
• Labiodental: f, v
• Interdental: θ, ð
• Dental: t, d
• Alveolar: s, z, l, r
• Palatal: ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ, j
• Velar: g, k, x, ŋ

Other Articulatory Features

Opening Level: The distance between articulators at the point of maximum constriction.

Area of Articulation: The point of greatest contact between the tongue and the palate.

Linguistic Units

Smallest Unit: A unit with both a signifier (form) and a signified (meaning).

Allophones: Contextual variations of a phoneme.

Homophony: Words that sound the same but have different meanings.

Language Types

• Isolating: Words and morphemes are the same (e.g., Chinese).
• Agglutinative: Morphemes have a fixed form (e.g., Turkish).
• Inflectional: Morphemes can have multiple forms (e.g., French).

Meaning

Lexical Meaning: Dictionary meaning.

Grammatical Meaning: Meaning related to grammatical function.

Morphemes

Morpheme: The smallest meaningful unit in a language.

Free Morphemes: Can stand alone as words.

Bound Morphemes: Must be attached to other morphemes.

Inflectional Morphemes: Indicate grammatical information (e.g., tense, number).

Derivational Morphemes: Create new words from existing ones (prefixes, suffixes, infixes).

Word Formation

Words can be analyzed based on semantic, syntactic, and distributional criteria.

Affixes: Prefixes, suffixes, infixes, circumfixes, and transfixes.

Interfixes: Elements between roots or before suffixes.

Phonological Units

Sound: The smallest phonetic unit.

Feature: A distinct characteristic of a sound.

Word: A unit that can stand alone and has meaning.

Phonological Word: A unit centered around a primary stress.

Intonational Unit: A unit between two pauses.

Syllable: A unit of pronunciation.

Allophones: Variations of a phoneme.

Homophony: Words with the same sound but different meanings.

Inflection: Changes in a word’s form to express grammatical function.

Derivation: The process of forming new words by adding affixes.