Phonemes and symbols
English Phonetics and Phonology
A practical course
Peter Roach
The phoneme
When we speak, we produce a continuous stream of sounds.
In studying speech we divide this stream into small pieces
that we call segments. The word ‘man’ is pronounced with a
first segment m, a second segment æ, and a third segment n.
The phoneme
It is not always easy to decide on the number of segments.
To give a simple example, in the word ‘mine’ the first
segment is m and the last is n, as in the word ‘man’ discussed
above. But should we regard the aɪ in the middle as one
segment or two?
The phoneme
We can divide speech up into segments, and we can find
great variety in the way these segments are made. But just
as there is an abstract alphabet as the basis of our writing, so
there is an abstract set of units as the basis of our speech.
These units are called phonemes, and the complete set of
these units is called the phonemic system of the language.
The phoneme
We find cases where it makes little difference which of two
possible ways we choose to pronounce a sound. For
example, the b at the beginning of a word such as ‘bad’ will
usually be pronounced with practically no voicing.
Sometimes, though, a speaker may produce the b with full
voicing, perhaps in speaking very emphatically.
The phoneme
If this is done, the sound is still identified as the phoneme b,
even though we can hear that it is different in some way. We
have in this example two different ways of making b – two
different realisations of the phoneme. One can be
substituted for the other without changing the meaning.
The phoneme
We also find cases in speech similar to the writing example
of capital ‘A’ and little ‘a’ (one can only occur where the other
cannot). For example, we find that the realization of t in the
word ‘tea’ is aspirated. In the word ‘eat’, the realisation of t is
unaspirated.
The phoneme
The aspirated and unaspirated realisations are both
recognized as t by English speakers despite their differences.
But the aspirated realisation will never be found in the place
where the unaspirated realisation is appropriate, and vice
versa. When we find this strict separation of places where
particular realisations can occur, we say that the realisations
are in complementary distribution.
The phoneme
One more technical term needs to be introduced: when we
talk about different realisations of phonemes, we sometimes
call these realisations allophones. In the last example, we
were studying the aspirated and unaspirated allophones of
the phoneme t.
Symbols and transcription
You have now seen a number of symbols of several different
sorts. Basically the symbols are for one of two purposes:
either they are symbols for phonemes (phonemic symbols)
or they are phonetic symbols.
Symbols and transcription
We will look first at phonemic symbols. The most important
point to remember is the rather obvious-seeming fact that
the number of phonemic symbols must be exactly the same
as the number of phonemes we decide exist in the language.
It is rather like typing on a keyboard - there is a fixed number
of keys that you can press.
Symbols and transcription
However, some of our phonemic symbols consist of two
characters; for example, we usually treat tʃ (as in ‘chip’ tʃɪp) as
one phoneme, so tʃ is a phonemic symbol consisting of two
characters (t and ʃ).
Symbols and transcription
One of the traditional exercises in pronunciation teaching by
phonetic methods is that of phonemic transcription, where
every speech sound must be identified as one of the
phonemes and written with the appropriate symbol.
Symbols and transcription
There are two different kinds of transcription exercise: in
one, transcription from dictation, the student must listen
to a person, or a recording, and write down what they hear;
in the other, transcription from a written text, the student
is given a passage written in orthography and must use
phonemic symbols to represent how she or he thinks it
would be pronounced by a speaker of a particular accent.
Symbols and transcription
In a phonemic transcription, then, only the phonemic symbols
may be used; this has the advantage that it is comparatively
quick and easy to learn to use it. The disadvantage is that as
you continue to learn more about phonetics you become able
to hear a lot of sound differences that you were not aware of
before, and students at this stage find it frustrating not to be
able to write down more detailed information.
Symbols and transcription
Phoneticians use a much larger set of symbols when they are
trying to represent sounds more accurately. The best known
set of symbols is that of the International Phonetic
Association’s alphabet (the letters IPA are used to refer to
the Association and also to its alphabet).
Symbols and transcription
Symbols and transcription
It is important to note that in addition to the many symbols
on the chart there are a lot of diacritics – marks which
modify the symbol in some way.
Symbols and transcription
It would not be possible in this course to teach you to use all these
symbols and diacritics, but someone who did know them all could write a
transcription that was much more accurate in phonetic detail, and
contained much more information than a phonemic transcription. Such a
transcription would be called a phonetic transcription; a phonetic
transcription containing a lot of information about the exact quality of the
sounds would be called a narrow phonetic transcription, while one
which only included a little more information than a phonemic
transcription would be called a broad phonetic transcription.
Symbols and transcription
A widely-used convention is to enclose symbols within
brackets that show whether they are phonemic or phonetic:
when symbols are used to represent precise phonetic
values, rather than phonemes, they are often enclosed in
square brackets [ ], as we have done already with cardinal
vowels; in many phonetics books, phonemic symbols are
enclosed within slant brackets / /.
Phonology
Chapters 2–4 were mainly concerned with matters of phonetics –
the comparatively straightforward business of describing the
sounds that we use in speaking.
When we talk about how phonemes function in language, and the
relationships among the different phonemes – when, in other
words, we study the abstract side of the sounds of language, we
are studying a related but different subject that we call
phonology.
Phonology
Phoneme sequences and syllable structure
In every language we find that there are restrictions on the
sequences of phonemes that are used. For example, no English
word begins with the consonant sequence zbf and no word ends
with the sequence æh. In phonology we try to analyse what the
restrictions and regularities are in a particular language, and it is
usually found helpful to do this by studying the syllables of the
language.
Phonology
Suprasegmental phonology
Many significant sound contrasts are not the result of differences
between phonemes. For example, stress is important: when the
word ‘import’ is pronounced with the first syllable sounding
stronger than the second, English speakers hear it as a noun,
whereas when the second syllable is stronger the word is heard as
a verb.
Phonology
Suprasegmental phonology
Intonation is also important: if the word ‘right’ is said with the
pitch of the voice rising, it is likely to be heard as a question or as
an invitation to a speaker to continue, while falling pitch is more
likely to be heard as confirmation or agreement.
Phonology
Suprasegmental phonology
These examples show sound contrasts that extend over several
segments (phonemes), and such contrasts are called
suprasegmental. We will look at a number of other aspects of
suprasegmental phonology later in the course.
Written exercises
Written exercises
Thank you!