Foreign accents and borrowed words
• Borrowed words– often pronounced according to phonological
rules of borrowing language
• Foreign accents– result from application of native language
phonology to target language phonology– especially if language learned as adult
Spanish loans into English
Spanish in English
[pres] Padres [phdez]
[t] taco [th]
[burito] burrito [bio]
[sndyeo] San Diego [sndiego]
[r] = alveolar trill
[] = voiced velar fricative
[] = retroflex approximant; [] = alveolar tap
Writing phonological rules
• A common format /A/ B / C ___ D
A = phoneme(s) which undergo the ruleB = aspect of pronunciation changed (allophone
created)/ = in the context of___ = location of phoneme in contextC, D = conditioning elements of the context
• = ‘A becomes or adds B when preceded by C and followed by D’
Examples of phonological rules
• Mohawk Voicing– /p t k/ [b d g] / ___ V (V = vowel)
• English Aspiration– /p t k/ [ph th kh] / syllable[___
(syllable[ = when syllable initial)
• Beware: sounds transcribed with diacritic symbols are not always the predictable allophones
More on allophones
• Allophones of a phoneme must be phonetically similar; e.g. [p], [ph] as allophones of /p/ in English
English [], [h]
• [] = velar nasal• English [], [h] are in
complementary distribution – [h] / ___ V
– [] / V ___
[hd] [d]
[hs] [s]
*[dh] *[d]
* = unattested, ungrammatical, does not occur
English [], [h]
• Why not /h/ [] / ___ #
or // [h] / # ___ ?
• Phonological rules typically add or change single aspects of pronunciation
• Either rule would be too complex
Some types of phonological rules
• Assimilation: sound becomes more similar to the context– e.g. Mohawk Voicing
/p t k/ [b d g] / ___ V
• Dissimilation
• Deletion
• Epenthesis
Dissmilation• A sound becomes less similar to another sound• Laryngeal contrasts in Hindi.
– [] = voiced retroflex stop– [] = voiceless retroflex stop
• [l] ‘branch’• [l] ‘postpone’• [hl] ‘wood shop’• [l] ‘shield’ 5 = retroflex
Dissimilation
• Sanskrit. [b] = voiced aspirated labial stop
/budyte:/ [budyte:] 'is awake'
/bubo:d/ [bubo:d] 'was awake'
/bo:dsyati/ [bo:tsyati] 'will be awake'
Dissimilation
Grassman's Law (Sanskrit, Indo-European):
• Voiced aspirated stops/affricates are deaspirated before another voiced aspirated stop/affricate.
• C C / ___ ... C
Deletion
• Cree. Algonquian (BC-Ontario, Canada)
/pi:simw/ [pi:sim] ‘sun’
cf. /pi:simwak/ [pi:simwak] ‘suns’
• /w/ Ø / C ___ #
Epenthesis
• = insertion
• Sahaptin [] epenthesis
• Sahaptin vowel inventory
front central back
high i i: u u:
low :
Sahaptin consonant inventorylabial alveolar palatal velar labio-
velaruvular labio-
uvularglottal
stops p p’ t t’ k k’ kw kw’ q q’ qw qw’
affricates sibilant ts ts’ c c’
lateral t t’
fricatives central s š x xw w h
lateral
nasals m n
lateral l
glides w y
Articulation of an ejective stop0. Vocal folds close, producing []
0. Back of tongue raises to velum, producing [k]
[k] vs. [k’]
[kúpi] 'coffee'
[k’úsi] 'horse'
[k:s] 'train'
[k’sk’s] 'small'
[k’] = velar ejective (stop)
[q] vs. [q’]
[qyí] 'shoe'
[q’í]‘single layer tule mat’
[q] = voiceless uvular stop
[q’] = uvular ejective uvular
velar
Consonant classes
obstruents p p’ t t’ k k’ kw kw’ q q’ qw qw’
ts ts’ c c’
t t’
s š x xw w h
sonorants m n
l
w y
Sahaptin [] epenthesis in clusters
• obstruent + obstruent– /pti:t/ [pti:t] ‘damp’
• obstruent + sonorant– /tmš/ [tmš] ‘chokecherry’
• sonorant + obstruent– /mti:t/ [mtí:t] ‘humid’
• sonorant + sonorant– /mli:š/ [mlí:š] ‘tongue’
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