Phonetics and Phonology: Sounds, Phonemes, Morphology
The Phonic Level
Phonetics is the discipline of linguistics that studies speech sounds. It analyzes their physical nature. There are three areas within phonetics:
- Articulatory Phonetics: Deals with how sound is produced in the speech apparatus.
- Auditory Phonetics: Studies how sounds spread through the air and are perceived by the auditory system.
Phonology
Phonology studies the mental or abstract aspects of sounds in language. The minimum unit of study in phonetics is the sound, while in phonology, it is the phoneme.
Production of Linguistic Sound
Linguistic sound production starts with a conscious decision that causes a nerve impulse. This impulse reaches the diaphragm and the vocal cords. Once this happens, the diaphragm compresses against the lungs, expelling the air required for phonation. Vocal activity starts immediately.
Phonemes and Sounds
Phonemes are minimal units that differentiate meanings, but are meaningless themselves.
Consonant Phonemes
The Spanish phonological system has nineteen consonant phonemes that are differentiated according to the manner and place of articulation, and the function of the vocal cords.
Accent and intonation are simultaneous and superimposed on segmental phonemes. These elements are called suprasegmental features. The intonation of an utterance is a series of ups and downs of tone produced around accentual syllables and at the end of phonic groups.
Morphological Units
Morphology needs to define and describe its properties, which are the root, word, and morpheme base.
Word
The word is the minimum free form in a statement. It may change its position, although with certain restrictions. For example, you cannot change the order of an article + noun.
Key Features of Words
- Severability: Other units can be inserted between two units.
- Potential Break: Before and after, marking off the unit.
Root
The root is the starting point of morphological analysis. It is the basic or constant segment in the signifier of any word that results from removing all the morphemes that accompany it.
Inflectional Morphology
Inflectional morphology deals with the grammatical variations of words that are expressed through inflectional morphemes.
Nominal Inflection
Includes variations of nouns and adjectives to express grammatical gender and number.
Gender Inflection
In Castilian, nouns and adjectives can be masculine or feminine.
Lexical Morphology
Lexical morphology deals with the study of procedures for creating new words.
Composition
Composition is the procedure by which a new word is formed by joining two or more words.
Derivation
Derivation is the procedure of creating new words by incorporating a morpheme to a lexical base.
Parasintesis
Parasintesis is the procedure of word formation by which both a prefix and a suffix are incorporated into a lexical base (e.g., trap > entrap).
Other Procedures
In addition to composition, derivation, and parasintesis, other procedures of word formation include lexical shortening, acronyms, and initialisms.