Phonology

Phonology

Consider the sound of the consonant in the English word the. This sound is a voiced dental fricative. In
French, this sound does not exist, which is why English spoken with a French accent is famous for
replacing it with a voiced alveolar fricative z, which is very similar. The reason for this is that the number
of linguistic sounds which humans can produce is greater than the number which actually occurs in each
language. When studying an individual language, like English, we can therefore focus in only the sound
that occur in that language and the system by which they relate to each other. Studying a system of sounds
is called phonology.

When looking at the phonological system of an individual language, we limit our study to those sounds
which are perceived by speakers as distinct and capable of indicating some grammatical significance.
Sounds which meet these criteria are called phonemes. For instance, the [l] and [r] are perceived as
distinct and help us understand the difference between lice and rice. However, [l] and [r] are not distinct
phonemes in many Asian languages, which is why speakers of those languages often have trouble
distinguishing the two words when speaking English. Linguists use the IPA to represent phonemes but
indicate that they are phonemes by placing them between slashes. Thus the word fish is rendered /fˆß/ (US
/fˆš/). This is called phonemic transcription, as opposed to the phonetic transcription described above.

In general, it is only necessary to use phonemic transcription when studying the English language.
Phonemic transcriptions represent the pronunciation of a word and the precise number of phonemes in the
word. Thus the word fish has three phonemes, which can be seen clearly in the transcription /fˆß/

The High Back and Mid Back vowels are rounded

The positions of the low sounds are very unstable, and the /a/ sound may be central orback, depending upon the speaker (some linguists use /å/ or /Å/ to represent the back version). InAmerican pronunciation the vowel /ø/, which tends to occur in words with o, au, ou, and aw spellings, hasbeen almost completely been replaced by /a/. So you may find it hard to hear if you pronounce the wordhot with the same vowel as in father. You may think of the vowel /ø/ as the vowel in hot, spoken with aBritish accent. Most American speakers still pronounce /ø/ before /r/, as in for.The mid central vowel /\/ has a special name; it is called a schwa. This vowel, and the slightly lower /√/

Monophthongs and Diphthongs

The vowels shown above are all pronounced in one part of the mouth. These are called monophthongs.
English also possesses vowels which are pronounced in two contrasting parts of the mouth, called
diphthongs. Note the spelling “phth” in both words.
The diphthongs in English are as follows:
Back-Front Back-Back
Low-High
Mid-High
/ai/
/oi/
/au/
Here are some examples of how these sounds are pronounced:
high /hai/ boy /boi/ house /haus/
Note that many students incorrectly try to transcribe the sound in high with /ˆ/. The symbol /ˆ/ indicates
the monophthongal sound in bitter /bˆt\r/, and the symbol /ai/ indicates the diphthong in biter /bait\r/.
The pronunciation of diphthongs varies a good deal in English, which means that linguists often
transcribe them in other ways. The following table contains some of the acceptable alternative
transcriptions which you may encounter. You may choose any of these if you feel that they more closely
reflect your pronunciation.
/ai/
/au/
/oi/
/aˆ/, /åi/, /åˆ/, /aj/, /åj/
/a¨/, /åu/, /å¨/, /aw/, /åw/
/oˆ/, /øi/, /øˆ/, /oj/, /øj/
As you can see, some people interpret the second element of a diphthong as a glide consonant. However, I
suggest that you avoid these transcriptions, since they make the syllabification rule given below more
complicated. Note also that the historical English monophthongs /i/, /e/, /u/, and /o/ are largely
pronounced as diphthongs today (something like /ij/, /ei/, /uw/, and /ou/ respectively). You can detect this
if you listen to an English speaker pronounce the Spanish name Jose. Apart from the pronunciation of the
s as /z/, the English speaker’s diphthongal pronunciation of o and e is responsible for the noticeable
English accent. In Spanish, these vowels are true monophthongs. However, in an introductory course like
this one, it is not necessary to use separate transcriptions for /i/ and /ij/, /e/ and /ej/, etc., since the sounds
are so similar. You may represent these sounds as monophthongs.