English Phonology

and the Art of

Speaking
Pierrene Joyce Ysabelle R. Piero
MAED-ELT

ALLOPHONES
audibly distinct variants of a phoneme

Allophone

Allophone

Allophones are the linguistically non-significant

variants of each phoneme.

Occasionally
allophone
selection
is
not
conditioned but may vary form person to person
and occasion to occasion (free variation)

Allophone

Allophones are usually relatively similar sounds

which
are
in
mutually
exclusive
or
complementary distribution (C.D.)

The C.D. of two phones means that the two

phones can never be found in the same
environment

If two sounds are phonetically similar and they are

in C.D. then they can be assumed to be
allophones of the same phoneme.
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Allophone

Many allophones are possible for any

phoneme of a language, depending on
individual people's pronunciation, but the
main allophones of any particular language
are conditioned by their relationship to the
surrounding sounds.

Allophone

Substituting one allophone for another

allophone of the same phoneme doesn't
lead to a different word, just a different
pronunciation of the same word.

For this reason, allophones are said to be

noncontrastive.

Features of
Allophones

The allophones of a phoneme form a set of sounds

that:
1.

do not change the meaning of a word;

2.

are all very similar to one another; and

3.

occur in phonetic contexts different from one

another--for example, syllable initial as opposed
to syllable final.
(Peter Ladefoged and Keith Johnson, A Course in Phonetics, 6th ed. Wadsworth, 2011)

Phonetic Context/
Environment

The pronunciation of a phoneme is often

determined by the other sounds around it.

The nearby sounds around a phoneme are

called the environment of that phoneme.

E.g. in the word [pt], [p__t] is the environment

for the [].

Example

/l/
Read the following:
listen
please
clue
muddle
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/m/

/n/

Two different phonemes?

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/m/

/n/

meet

neat

/mit/

/nit/

12

/mit/

/nit/

meet

neat

meet

neat

/m/

/n/

13

/m/

&

/n/

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Phonemes

can have different pronunciations in English

Example:

Kite
Sky
Take note of the /k/ sound.
15

/k/
kh
k

kite
sky

16

phoneme

[kh]
/k/
[k]

allophones
17

Another example

[Inpt]

/n/ =

input

[Impt]

Allophones [n] and [m] of the

phoneme /n/
18

/k/
Allophone

Environment

[k]

sk {sky, scan, skirt}

[kh]

#k {can, keep, cool}

is the distribution of phones in their respective phonetic

environments such that one never appears in the same phonetic
context as the other.

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Complementary
Distribution

pill

spill

till

still

kill

skill

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Complementary
Distribution

Aspirated and unaspirated allophones

examples of complementary distribution

are

In English [p] and [ph] are allophones of the

phoneme /p/ and they occur in complementary
distribution
[ph] always occurs when it is a syllable
onset and followed by a stressed vowel
[p] occurs in all other situations
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Real-life analogy of
complementary
distribution

22

Just as allophones are different forms of the

same phoneme, Clark Kent and Superman are
different realizations of the same person.
/p/

/Superman/

[Clark Kent] [Superman]

[ph]

[p]

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Elements in Complementary
Distribution but are not
Allophones

[h] and [] are in complementary distribution

[h] occurs at the beginning of the syllable
[] occurs only at the end

they have so little in common in phonetic terms,

thus are considered separate phonemes

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/n/
Allophone
[n]

Environment
same environment

[m]
[Inpt] ~ [Impt]

is an alternative pronunciation of a word (or of a phoneme in a

word) that doesn't affect the word's meaning
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Free Variation

The choice of one allophone rather than another

may depend on such factors as:
communicative situation;
language variety; and
social class.

We owe the vast majority of allophones in free

variation to idiolects or simply to chance, and
that the number of such allophones is virtually
infinite.
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Free Variation

Sounds that are in free variation occur in

the same context, and thus are not
predictable, but the difference between the
two sounds does not change one word
into another.

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Free Variation

Consider the word stop.

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Allophones of the
English Language

phoneme

allophone

29

The phoneme /l/ is light before a

vowel, otherwise dark

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The lateral - l
lip
yellow
mill
miller
milk
people
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Does it follow k or p
in a stressed syllable?

Is it followed
by a vowel?

clay
play

lay
yellow

mill
milk

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Allophones of the
English Language

phoneme

allophone

/ /
[ ][ ]
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top

stop

little

[thap]
[kI/n]

[stap]

[lIRl]|

/t/

phoneme

allophones [th]

kitten

[t]

[R]

[/]

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data

Distinguish Allophones
from Phonemes
No

List the
environments
of the sounds

The sounds are in

complementary distribution
and are allophones of the
same phoneme

same environment?

Yes
Yes

No
same meaning?

The sounds are

in free variation
and are allophones
of the same phoneme

Minimal Pair:
Pair
The sounds are
different phonemes
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36

WORD STRESS

37

Suprasegmentals

Segmental
refers to phonemes and allophones and their
attributes

Supra- or extra-segmental
Elements that transcend or extends across
segmental boundaries

38

Suprasegmentals

refers to a phonological property of more than one sound

segment

are often regarded as the 'musical' aspect of speech

are important in marking all kinds of meanings, in

particular speaker's attitudes or stances to what they are
saying, and in marking out how one utterance relates to
another

forms and functions are less tangible than those of

consonants and vowels
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Suprasegmentals
supra-segmental elements include :

syllables: they are supra-segmental units formed of

phonemes and characterized as units by the presence of
the vowel

stress: it is a supra-segmental feature characterising the

units which we intuitively recognise as words.

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Stress

As a linguistic feature, it concerns the

prominence given a syllable of an
utterance relative to the other syllables in
the utterance.

This prominence may be marked by higher

intensity (loudness), increased fundamental
frequency (pitch) length, etc. occasioned by
some organs of speech.
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Types/kinds of Stress

Syllabic stress
Primary, secondary and tertiary stress

Lexical stress
e.g. noun-verb distinction for record

Emphatic stress
Highlight a word in a phrase/ sentence
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English Language vs Other

Languages

English is a stressed-timed language.

Stressed syllables occur at regular intervals
throughout regular speech.
Unstressed syllables occur in between.
Stressed and unstressed syllables take up
different lengths of time

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English Language vs Other Languages

French and Spanish - syllable-timed language;

every syllable takes up the same amount of time

Japanese - mora-timed language; each vowel of

a consonant-vowel pairing or a vowel-vowel
cluster takes up the same amount of time

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Word and Stress

Accidental Gap Sentence
An accidental gap is a non-existing word which is expected to exist
given the hypothesized morphological rules of a particular
language.

Usually the notion of stress is related to the notion

of word and there is one stressed syllable per
word.
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46

Effects of Stress on
Words

the notion of word as it is usually understood is not

always absolutely compatible with the notion of stress

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Effects of Stress on
Words

In the realisation (utterance) of a sentence,

functional words
such as articles,
prepositions, auxiliaries, conjunctions etc.
do not receive stress as lexical words do.

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Effects of Stress on
Words

In polysyllabic lexical words, there is

one and only one prominent syllable,
where the primary stress is realised.
There can also be a so-called
secondary stress in long words.

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Stress and
Oppositions

placement of stress affects the quality of the

nucleus of the syllable

The position in which the stress is placed in this

group of words is phonemic. That is, it is
significant in terms of its function and meaning.
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Contrastive Stress

A stress-timed language has an additional

characteristic. It can, and does in several cases,
distinguish words by stress alone.

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Weak Forms

Function words often have both a weak and a

strong form. They usually appear in their weak form
when unstressed. They can appear in their strong
form without a stress, but if they are stressed, they
necessarily appear in the string form.
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Compounds

Compound words are single words that can be

analysed into two lexical words, both of which
exist independently as English words and hence
bear their own stress.

Examples:
White House
typewriter
car-ferry

when these words are

brought together, one of
them loses its stress.

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Level Stress

Apart from differences in stress among the syllables of a

word, English has a phenomenon known as level stress.
By this is meant that two syllables in a word are equally
stressed.

Level stress can contrast with cases of primary stress.

Usually the latter is found with phrases which have
become compounds.

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Prosodic Stress

Prosodic stress, or sentence stress, refers to stress

patterns that apply at a higher level than the individual
word namely within a prosodic unit.

Prosodic stress is also often used pragmatically to

emphasize (focus attention on) particular words or the
ideas associated with them. Doing this can change or
clarify the meaning of a sentence

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Example

I didn't take the test yesterday.

I didn't take the test yesterday.

I didn't take the test yesterday.

I didn't take the test yesterday.

I didn't take the test yesterday.

I didn't take the test yesterday.

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General Guide on
Use of Stress

Generally all English words of more than one

syllable can be said to have stress at a particular
place when the word is heard in isolation.

Words of one syllable are generally known to

show stress if they are nouns, full verbs,
adjectives or adverbs.

Interrogative pronouns are generally heard as

stressed.
Example: What are you doing?
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General Guide on
Use of Stress

Demonstrative pronouns are generally heard as

stressed.
Example: This is the teacher.

Relative pronouns are generally heard as

stressed if each is preceded by a preposition.
Example: The overhead bridge under which
the beggar lives.

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Specific Words and their

Accentual Patterns

Words of one syllable (monosyllabic

words) are generally given accentuation if they are
open class items, i.e. if they are:
nouns such as John, house, peace, tree, pen;
or they are full verbs such as sweep, dance,
eat, read, sing;
or they are adjectives such as good, bad, prim,
clean, poor;
or they are adverbs such as there, here, past,
well, very.
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Specific Words and their

Accentual Patterns

All other monosyllabic words are

generally observed to be unaccented and
therefore heard as unstressed. For example:
pronouns such as: I, we, he, you, she
specific and nonspecific modifiers
(articles) such as: the, a, an
conjunctions such as: and, or.
Prepositions such as: in, on, at, from by.

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Word stress rules

Stress on 1st syllable:

Most two-syllable nouns, such as label, format,

interest, pity, treaty, purchase

Most two-syllable adjectives, such as lucky,

grateful, handsome, fearful, active, skittish

Compound nouns, such as blackboard, sidewalk,

streetlight, shoelace, backhand, headset
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Word stress rules

Stress on 2nd syllable or last syllable of a twosyllable word:

Most two-syllable verbs, such as invent, reply,

decide, persuade, divulge, conduct, implore

Compound adjectives, such as run-down, closecut, high-strung, pumped-up, dim-witted, ill-fitting

Compound and two-word (phrasal) verbs, such as

withdraw, undo, pass out, give up
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Word stress rules

Stress on penultimate syllable (2nd to the

last)

With words (adjectives) ending in ic, such

as syllabic, epidemic, intrinsic, autocratic,
historic

With words (nouns) ending in sion or

tion, such as distribution, decision, intuition,
prevention
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Word stress rules

Stress on ante-penultimate syllable (3rd to

the last)

With words (nouns) ending cy, -ty, -phy,

-gy,
such
as
democracy,
entity,
photography, energy

With words (adjectives) ending in cal,

such as medical, surgical, practical

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Word stress rules

Stress on first syllable in compound

nouns - hair brush, hay fever, pot holder,
wind tunnel

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References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTCx2hCxvHQ

http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/a/Free-Variation-phonetics.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_distribution

http://clas.mq.edu.au/speech/phonetics/phonology/phoneme/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allophone

http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/allophoneterm.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_(linguistics)

http://www.eslfocus.com/articles/phonology_syllable_stress-491.html
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