Introduction to Linguistic for ELT

Rengga Sanjaya Burhan, Taufiq, Yudith Rahman Saputra, and

Yunda Septario Virgo

English Teaching Department, IAIN batusangkar

yundaravirgo@gmail.com

Phonological Process

a. Definition of phonological process

Phonological process or allophone rule is one of phonology aspect
should be mastered in order to understand and have good English language. It
is concerned about how an original sound can change when it is around the
other sounds. It means that the sound can be affected by the others.

Phonological process has several terms. Erlinda (2010:87) states

phonological process as allophonic process. Similar with Erlinda, Tench
(2011:61) calls phonological process with allophonic variation. In other ways,
Yule (2010:46) says phonological process as co articulation effects because it
requires articulators moving from one sound to the next without stopping.
Lastly, Roach (2000:120) names phonological process as connected speech.

Moreover, Radford et al (2009:4) says many words change their

phonetic form, in the way they are pronounced, in connected speech, sound
changes being determined by the nature of neighboring sounds within a word,
phrase or sentence. One sound is changed into another sound under certain
circumstance. The distribution of the sound is governed by phonological rule.
It shows that a phonetic can be changed in connected speech into another
sound because affected by the neighbor’s sound.
 Furthermore, Hayes (2009:26) defines phonological process with
generalization about the patterning allophones. It means that a pattern of a
phoneme which has allophone will be formalized in phonological. The pattern
of a phone is generalized in phonological process.

Similarly, Odden (2005:44) states that phonological process is similar

with allophonic relations. His analyses phonological process is not about
transcription of a sound, but is rather the mental rules which govern the
pronunciation of a word in a given language. It can be concluded that
phonological process is about the rule of application in pronunciation in a
word, not in standing alone.

Because of phonological process relates to phoneme, Richard and

Schmidt (2002:21) says that the different allophones of a phoneme are
perceptibly different but similar to each other, do not change the meaning of a
word, and occur in different phonetic environments that can be stated in term
of phonological rules. It means that a sound when it stands alone is different
from the sound within the word and phrase.

Based on those definitions above, it shows that phonological process

is a process of changing a phoneme sound when it is in certain circumstance.
It is different from the phoneme in isolation. Phonological process is also said
as allophonic process because it represent phone from each phoneme based
on its surroundings or realization of an element in a sound system of
language. Phonological process consists of some phonological rules that
governed the pronunciation of a sound.

b. Formalizing of Phonological Rules

Formalizing of phonological process is how to express phonological
process in rule. It means this is the formula how phonological process
happens. A phoneme will change to allophonic realization based on this
formula. This rule makes easier to memorize the theory. This term is similar
with what Erlinda (2010:84) means by allophonic rules. Allophonic rules
concerns with the rules that link an abstract phoneme to its allophonic
realizations. As scientific study of language, it is needed because it expresses
realizations of phoneme formally by rule. She forms the rule as:

/t/  [tj] / _____j

(input) (output) (Conditioning factor)

This formula means that a phoneme will have other realizations from its
original sounds if affected by context or conditioning factor.

Besides that, Hayes (2009:28) divides formalizing a phonological

process into two rules. Firstly is expressing environment. It symbolizes with
slash (/), as in / _____It is to be read as environment before theta or before
theta. Secondly is underlying the representation and derivations. It represents
with [______] symbol.

Based on those separated rules, it can be concluded that formula is written as

in this example:

/t/  [t] / _____] Word.

It can be read, as phoneme /t/ will change to /t/ if it is in the initial sound.

In addition, Clark (1995:94) describes phonological rule as

conditioned variants of phoneme. He formulates the phonemic analysis with
the simple formula. One of the exampkes is for nasalization as follow:

/a/ [a] before a nasal consonant

[a] elsewhere.
 It means that a become nasal if followed by nasal consonant, and it
pronounced normally in everywhere except before consonant.

According to those formulas above, it can be said that the formal rule of
phonological process can be described as a phoneme will change to some
allophone if it followed or precede by certain sounds. Simply describe, the
formalizing of phonological process can be written as:

1. /phoneme/ /allophone/ __________

2. /phoneme/ __________/allophone/

3. /phoneme/ __________/allophone/__________

c. Kinds of Phonological process

According to Erlinda (2010:87) there are five kinds of phonological process
or allophonic rules, they are:
1) Aspiration
According to Yule (2010:43), aspiration means pronouncing with
a stronger puff of air than is present. It means that sound has more
puff of compared with its original sound which is alveolar. Alveolar
sound consists of seven sounds that is [t], [s], [d], [z], [n], [l], and [r].
Therefore, to feel the difference between aspirated and not aspirated,
one can put a hand in front of the mouth.
Then, Fasold (2006:44) has another term to say aspiration. They
are lenition and fortition. Lenition means sounds become softer or
weaker for example stops sound like [p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [g], change
to fricative or forming a nearly complete stop of the airstream when
produce it. However, fortition is sounds become louder or stronger. It
seems when produce the sound, the power of pronouncing the sound
is stronger.
Richard and Smith (2002:34) states that aspiration concerns with
a puff of air (a period of voicelessness) after the release of an
articulation. Their statement says that there is a puff of air when
 producing sound which actually not aspirated to be aspirated in certain
circumstance.
In addition, Erlinda (2010:87) says that a sound aspiration is
represented more precisely as [t]. the sound can be aspirated when
they are in initial position of a words like in ten, top, and so on, occurs
in syllable initially as in attack, and indicated syllable boundary or the
first sound in a syllable such in tautology. Lastly, Tench (2010:61)
states that the brief delay is known as aspiration. The brief delay of
pronouncing a sound in certain circumstance will make that sound
aspirated.
According to all definition above, it can be concludes that
aspiration process happens when there is a strong puff of air in
pronouncing a sound. It can be in stop sound in certain position like in
the initial syllable, first sound in a word and so on.
2) Assimilation
The next type of phonological process is assimilation. Native
speaker in casual or rapid speech mostly use assimilation to make
pronunciation simple and easy for them.
According to Frawley (2003:320) assimilation is phonological
process in which a segment change to resemble its neighbors closely.
Besides that, Jones (1972:217) defines assimilation as the process of
replacing a sound by another sound under the influence of a third
sound, which is near to it in the word or sentence. These are two
statement means that assimilation relates to neighbor sound or word in
surrounding.
Next, Fasold (2006:44) points out that assimilation happens when
two sounds that are different become more alike. In addition, Tench
(2011:88) says assimilation happens when an adjustment is made to
accommodate an actual phonetic feature in the immediate
environment and result the phoneme more similar to its environment.
Assimilation relates to the realization of the phoneme in
surrounding as states by Yule (1996:59) assimilation happens when
two phonemes occur in sequence and some aspect of one phoneme is
taken or copied by the other. This has a purpose to ease of articulation
in everyday talk, for example: you and me certainly say [yuenmi].
Then, Roach (1991:124) highlights that assimilation happens
when a phoneme belonging to neighboring word, varies in extent
according to rate and style. It is more likely to be found in rapid,
casual speech and less likely in slow or careful speech.
Based on the experts’ opinion above, it can be conclude that
assimilation concerns with the changing of sound from the original
sound because of effect of neighboring sounds. As the result of the
process, a certain sounds will be similar with the other sound before
or after that sound. It mostly happens in casual or rapid speech in
order to ease to the pronouncing.
As states by Erlinda (2010:88) assimilation as a modification of a
sound in other to make it more similar to some other sounds in its
neighborhood, she divides assimilation into six kinds of assimilation,
that can describe in those kinds of process:
a) Palatalization
Palatalization happens when a phoneme is affected by
palatal sound. In addition, ielanguage.com says that palatalization
means sound becomes palatal when adjacent to a front vowel.
This conditions are divided into two. First is when a velar
consonant is followed by front vowel. The effect of the fronting is
that velar consonant is made partly in the palatal region.
For example:
Key [ki:] car [ko] [ko:ki:].

Second condition is when alveolar consonant is at the end

of word and followed by another word which begin with an aveo-
palatal consonant as in:
his shoes [hiz su:z] [hi3suz]
b) Labialization
It refers to the position of the lips during the articulation of
a sound. According to Richard and Schmidt (2002:282)
labialization happens in which lip rounding is to a sound as in /w/.
Then, Tench (2011:65) also describes labialization as rounding of
 consonant because followed by back vowel. It means labialization
is a way of pronouncing a sound or sounds (consonant and vowels
by using one or both lips). As same as above statement,
labialization according to Richard and Schmidt (2002:282) is
secondary articulation in which lip rounding added to sound.
Based on that statement, labialization makes the
articulation of non-rounded sound becomes rounded because the
effect of labiodentals sounds around it. When the articulation of
back rounded vowels, the lips are rounded. It is represented by
(w) like in:
Pool [pwh:u:]
Two [twh:u:]
[p] is not labiodental sounds, but sound [u] makes it change to be
rounded.
c) Voice assimilation
The third type assimilation is voice assimilation. Roach
(1991:125) says voice assimilation concerns with voiced and
voiceless. Voice assimilation crosses word boundaries, morpheme
boundaries or within the morpheme. Voice assimilation is a kind
of changing a sound becomes more like its neighbors by agrreing
voice. It happens in two conditions:
Regular plural ending in English as in:
Pets [Pets]
Bells [Belz]
And Third Singular Person Tense Suffix-S Like In This Example:
Talks [to:ks]
Needs [ni:dz]
d) Place of articulation assimilation
According to Roach (1991:124) it refers to where a final
consonant with alveolar place of articulation is followed by an
initial consonant that is not alveolar. Besides that, Erlinda
(2010:92) says place of articulation here refers to the place of
articulation of nasal that called homorganic nasal assimilation.
For exampke:
/-in/+ appropriate [in.epreu.pri.et)
Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that
place of articulation assimilation happens because the difficulties
 on saying alveolar sound meet with not alveolar, and to make it
easy, the sound change become nasal sound.
e) Manner of articulation assimilation
Roach (1991:125) defines assimilation of manner is much
less noticeable and it is only in the most rapid and casual speech.
in this case where a final plosive become a fricative or nasal. in
addition, McCully (2009:220) the manner of articulation of a
given segment is a concise statement of how that segment is
pronounced, particularly with respect to the manner of
modification to the airstream.
This kind of process happens when negative prefix
assimilation the manner of articulation liquid such /l/ or /r/.
For example:
/in/+legal illegal
f) Nasalization
Tench (2011:79) states that vowels adjacent to nasal
consonant catch something of their nasal quality. He adds that this
nasalization of the vowel is more or less automatic and would not
necessarily be transcribe. Then, according to Jones (1972:217)
nasalization happens when sounds, other than plosive and nasal
consonant, are pronounced with simultaneous lowering of the soft
palate. It means an oral segment acquires nasality from a
neighboring segment. Nasalization occurs when the velum is
lowered during the production of segment which is not normally
nasal, like in this example:
Congress [‘kangres] [kangres]
3) Fusion
According to Erlinda (2010:93) fusion happens when two segment
assimilation to each other. The outcome of this assimilation is a third
distinct segment which combines properties of the two assimilation
segments.
Besides that, Fasold (2006:44) has different term of fusion,
metathesis and replication. Metathesis means switching the other of
sounds. Then, reduplication means copying. Sometimes, copy parts of
words to convey pejorative.
 According to the explanation above, fusion is a process that
happens when a sound assimilate or combine each other and resulted
another pronunciation. It is used mostly in slang and rapid speech. For
example, want to become wanna.
4) Elision
Elision is concerned with the deletion of a segment normally
present in the stream. Yule (1996:59) gives definition that elision is an
committed in the pronunciation. It means the segment in the
environment, even preceding or following, will be disappeared.
For example in word friendship can be said [‘frensip]
Fasold (2006:44) points out that elision is opposite of insertion,
instead of breaking up a sequence of consonant which vowels, a
language may choose to delete one of consonant like in pneumonia.
In addition, Tench (2011:95) is an adjustment to a sound but its
complete removal. Then, Jones (2016:44) defines elision as the
disappearance of a sound, where a sound existed in an earlier from of
a word was committed in a later form. Richard and Schmidt
(2002:176) states that the leaving out of a sounds in speech, like in
rapid speech in English.
Based on the experts’ saying above, it can be conclude that elision
is removing a segment or s sound when it is around the others. It
makes easy to pronounce a word. Elision makes a sound will not be
pronounced as in friendship pronounced as [‘frensip], the sound [d] is
not pronounced.
5) Insertion (epenthesis)
Epenthesis means the addition of one or more sounds to a word,
Fasold (2006:44) states it is called epenthesis which when vowels are
inserted to break up strings of consonant. It is especially to the interior
of a word. It arises for some reasons, to follow consonant cluster and
to make pronunciation easier. Tench (2011:99) also says that insertion
is a process of simplification; consider the addition of a sound as
another way of simplifying pronunciation. It means that there is
another segment to be inserted. In some dialect of English schwa [e]
instead between two consonant like in word film (Erlinda, 2010:94).
 Based on that explanation, it can be seen that insertion or
epenthesis is opposite of elision.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Erlinda, R. (2010). Linguistics for English Language Teaching:

Sounds, Words, and Sentences. Batusangkar, STAIN Batusangkar
press.