Exploring Language and Linguistics

PREVIEW

The focus of the last chapter was on phonetics, examining the characteristics of speech sounds, how they are produced and their physical properties, along with important related issues such as tone and intonation, and the crucial distinction between (phonetic) transcription and (orthographic) spelling systems like English writing. In this chapter we turn to phonology, which focuses on the systematic organization of speech sounds. As we will see, there are systematic behaviours in the speech sounds of language that cannot be attributed to the phonetics alone. We will also see that some aspects of the sound system of language – for instance, native speakers’ intuitions about the relationships among the sounds of their language which may be at odds with phonetic reality – can be best understood at an abstract level of representation.

INTRODUCTION

In the previous chapter it was pointed out that phonetics deals with the characteristics of speech sounds themselves, while phonology deals with the organization of speech sounds into systems. There are aspects of the sound systems of human languages that cannot be explained by phonetics alone. Consider first the Greek word πτέρυγα [ˈptɛrɪɣɑ] > ‘wing’, the French word psychologie [psikɔlɔʒi] > ‘psychology’ and the German word Knie [kniː] ‘knee’ (and remember that the symbols in square brackets [] show how the words are pronounced). And now consider English: there are no words beginning with the sounds [pt], [ps] or [kn]. Since Greek, French and German are human languages, it cannot be the case that [pt], [ps] and [kn] are impossible (for human beings) to pronounce. Rather, it is a fact about the organization of the sound system of English that initial [pt], [ps] and [kn] are disallowed. Looking more closely, it is not really a fact about words, but a fact about syllables: English syllables do not begin with [pt], [ps] or [kn]. Recall from Chapter 2 that English spelling does not accurately represent how words are pronounced. There are words of English spelt with <pt>, <ps> and <kn>, as in pterodactyl, psychology and knee, but there are no words of English in which these sequences are routinely pronounced at the beginnings of words or even at the beginnings of syllables. In these cases only one of the initial consonants is pronounced: [tɛɹəˈdæktəɫ], [saɪˈkɔlɔʤiː], [niː].