The Sound
Pattern of Language
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is very simple:
to help you the reader, to pronounce English better than you do now. Millions
of foreign students want to learn English as well as they can; for some it is
only matter of reading and writing it, and they will find no help here. But
many students want to be able to speak English well, with a pronunciation which
can be easily understood both by their fellow-students and by English people,
and it is for them that this paper is specially intended.
Malang, April 2012
Writer
Contents
Preface
Unit One : the sound pattern of language
Ø Phonology
o
Phoneme
o
Phone and allophone
o
Minimal pairs
o
Phonotactics
o
Syllable
o
Consonant clusters
o
Connected speech
Ø List
the following verbs according to the –ed pronunciation
Ø Morphophonemic
alternations
Ø Morphophonemic
alternations
Unit two: the
conclusion
The
sound pattern of language
Phonology
Phonology
is essentially the description of the systems and pattern of speech sounds in a
language. It is the study of the sound system of a given language.
Phonemes
are usually enclosed in slanted brackets / /.
Infect these are used when a sound is discussed phonologically.
When
the sound is articulated, the Phonemes are enclosed in square brackets [ ]
Phoneme
and phone
Phone is different versions of that
sound-type regularly produced in actual speech.
Phoneme
is meaning –distinguishing sounds in a language. And also the abstract unit or
sound-type (in the mind) “. A phoneme is
the single sound also called segment. It
is the smallest phonetic unit in a language that is capable of conveying a
distinction in meaning, as the /r/ of rat and the /b/ of bat in English.
Phones
and allophones
A phone is a variation of sound.
When
we have a set of phones that are all
Versions
of one phoneme we refer to them as allophones.
An
allophone is a phonetic variant of a phoneme in a particular language.
Examples:
• [p]
and [pH] are allophones of the phoneme /p/.
• [t]
and [t H] are allophones of the phoneme /t/.
Minimal
pairs and sets
Phonemic distinctions
in a language can be tested via pairs and sets of words. When two words such as
pat and bat are identical in form except for a contrast in one phoneme,
occurring in the same position, the two words are describe as minimal pair. More accurately, they
would be classified as a minimal pair in the phonology of English. (Arabic does
not have this contrast between the two sounds.) Other examples of English
minimal pairs are fan-van, bet-bat, and
site-side. Such pairs have been used frequently in tests of English as a
second language to determine non-native speakers’ ability to understand the
contrast in meaning resulting from the minimal sound contrast.
When a group of words can be
differentiated, each one from the others, by changing one phoneme (always in
the same position), then we have a
minimal set. Thus, a minimal set based on the vowel phonemes of English
would include feat,fit,fat,fate fought,
foot and one based on consonants could have big,pig,rig,fig,dig,wig.
Phonotactics
Phonotactics is concerned with how sounds
are distributed or where they can occur in a word (beginning, middle, and end).
Syllables
•
part of language which at utters one
attraction
•
A syllable is a unit of organization for
a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two
syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus
(most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically
consonants).
Syllables
are often considered the phonological "building blocks" of words.
They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic meter, its
stress patterns, etc.
A
word that consists of a single syllable (like cat) is called a monosyllable
(such a word is monosyllabic)
While
a word consisting of two syllables (like monkey) is called a disyllable (such a
word is disyllabic).
A
word consisting of three syllables (such as indigent) is called a trisyllable
(the adjective form is trisyllabic).
A
word consisting of more than three syllables (such as intelligence) is called a
polysyllable (and could be described as polysyllabic), although this term is
often used to describe words of two syllables or more.
A
syllable must contain a vowel sound.
One
syllable can consist of:
- Me:
CV – Ham: CVC – Green: CCVC – Splat: CCCVC
A
syllable has to have a vowel and could consist of just one vowel. Ex: I.
Consonant
clusters
• A
consonant cluster is a set of more than one consonant meeting in a syllable.
• In syllables
with 3 initial consonants the 1st one is usually an unvoiced sibilant /s/ like
in [sprèd] spread, [spríÑ] spring, [strètß] stretch. /s/ cannot occur in 2nd
place in an initial cluster. E.g. we have [spaík] spike but [saík] psyche
• Whenever
several consonants occur together at the end of a word then the last one
Connected
speech
The process of producing one sound
almost at the same time as the next is called co-articulation. Co-articulation
effects can be of the following types:
– Assimilation
– Elision – Liaison
Vowels
and consonants segments combine into syllables; syllables combine into words;
and words combine into phrases and sentences.
Assimilation
When two phonemes occur in sequence and
some aspect of one phoneme is taken or ‘copied’ by the other, the process is
known ASSIMILATION. Ex: in polite In terms of the physical production of
speech, one might assume that this regular process is occasioned by ease of
articulation in every day talk. In isolation, you would probably pronounce / I/
and /ǽ/ without any nasal quality at all. However, in saying words like pin and pan, the anticipation of forming the final nasal consonant will
make it, easier; to go into nasalized articulation in advance and consequently
the vowel sounds in these words will be in precise transcription, [I] and [ǽ].
This is a very regular feature of English speaker’s pronunciation. So regular,
in fact, that a phonological rule can be stated in the following way:’ any
vowels become nasal whenever it immediately precedes nasal.
Elision
Note that in the
last example, in the employment of preceding and following nasals, the [d]
sound of and has simply disappeared.
The [d] sound is also commonly ‘omitted’ in the pronunciation of a word like friendship,[friensIp]. This ‘omission’
of the sound segment which would be present in the deliberate pronunciation of
a word in isolation is technically described as elision. Ex: Aspect
List
the following verbs according to the –ed pronunciation
•/t/
-/íd/ -/d/
•I
liked it a lot.
•I
wanted to speak to him.
•I
lived in Milan 2 years ago.
•I
finished my book.
•I
stopped smoking.
•I
started playing the piano last year.
•I
worked for a call centre last month.
•I
cleared the table and went to bed last night.
Morphophonemic
alternations
The
morpheme –ed is realised as
–
[íd] when the word ends in /t, d/ e.g.
wanted [wântíd], hated [heítíd];
– [d]
When the word ends in any voiced phoneme or vowel and semi vowel. e.g. Allowed [ëlaúd];
– [t]
When it ends in any voiceless phoneme. e.g. licked [líkt].
•
/íd/
wanted Started
•
/d/
lived Cleared
•
/t/
liked Finished
Stopped Worked
Morphophonemic
alternations
When we consider the inflections –s (third
person singular) and –ed (past form) we call morphophonemic alternations the
different pronunciations they can have, according to different word spelling.
Pronunciation of –s:
–/íz/ when the word ends in a fricative /f, v,
†, ∂, s, z, ß, Ω/ like bushes [búßíz];
–/-z/
when the word ends in voiced phoneme or vowel like boys [bòíz] friends[frèndz];
–/-s/
when it ends in any voiceless phoneme like bikes [baíks], cooks [kúks]
Conclusion
We
have just seen the definition and units of the sound pattern of language so we
can conclude from them above. Part one’s knowledge of a language is knowledge
of the sound pattern of language is phonology. The one of the unit of the sound
pattern of language is phonology. The definition of phonology, phonology is
essentially the description of the systems and pattern of speech sounds in a
language. The phonology of the language includes the inventory of phones, the
phonetic segment that occur in the language, and the ways in which their
pattern. It is patterning that determines the inventory of the more abstract
phonological unites. And parts of phonology are Phoneme. Phone and allophone
Minimal pairs, Phonotactics, Syllable, Consonant clusters and Connected speech
all of them are important for making our English speaking especially our
pronunciation, and we can pronounce and read a word in English well.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar