Phonemic and Phonetic Symbols

 Phonetic symbols are  While phonemic

always enclosed in symbols are
brackets [ ] as in enclosed in
 [pʰɪn ] slashes / / as in/p/
 Aspiration
 When a stop consonant is released, it is
often accompanied by a puff of air
which imparts a “breathy” quality to the
sound
 When accompanied by a strong puff of
air , the sound is said to be aspirated.
» [ʰ ] is the symbol which indicates a
stop is aspirated
 Diacritic Mark

A diacritic mark such as [ ʰ] tells us

additional phonetic information
showing us variations in the
phonemes called allophones
 Allophones product of
environment
 Allophones of a phoneme are always
influenced by the
environment(surrounding sounds)
 [st- ɪ k ] is unaspirated
 [t ʰ ɪp ] is aspirated
 [tʰ] represents a voiceless apico
alveolar stop
 The diacritic [ʰ] adds additional information
 It is aspirated
 It is released with a strong puff of air
Two stages in production of stop
consonant
 Air pressure builds up behind a closure
in the vocal tract
 The confined air is released
 Unreleased Stop
 If the organs of articulation are allowed
to relax during the final stage, the
confined air will not be released sharply.
 It is still a stop because we have
complete closure, but there is no
released pop.
 [=] indicates that a stop is
unreleased
 In the word [stap=] the air stream is
dammed up behind the lips but not
released
 Production of unreleased final
stop
 Pronounce the word but as if you were
going to continue speaking,then thought
the better of it. “But”--(uh oh I’m wrong
again
 Your tongue should remain in contact
with the alveolar ridge after you have
ceased to speak
 Released final stop
 To produce a released final stop
pronounce the word but in the final
context:
 “We are gathered here today for a great
cause, but...ladies and gentlemen, we
must not forget..
 There is no closure after the but
 Position of Occurence
 Refers to where a sound may occur in
the word
 It is conditioned by its
environment(surrounding sounds)
 Because only an unaspirated stop
occurs after [s] we say that this stop is
conditioned by its environment.
 Speech sounds infinitely varied
 10 consecutive repetitions of [tʰ] would
result in 10 slightly different sounds
 A transcription which attempted to
represent as many of these phonetic
differences as possible would be narrow
 Even the narrowest of phonetic
transcriptions is only a crude
approximation of the speech sounds
 Non-Functional Difference

 A non-functional difference is not

sufficient to change the meaning of an
utterance
 [stap ʰ] and [stap-] do not alter the meaning
of the two utterances
 Functional Difference
 To determine whether the difference is
functional, we must pronounce them in
the same environment
 When the substitution of one sound for
another sound in the same environment
results in a change of meaning,we say
the difference between the two sounds
is functional
Environment for “p” and “b” the
same in this pair of words?
 pan:nab  tap:tab
 Functional Difference
 When the substitution of one sound for
another sound in the same
environment results in a change of
meaning, we say that the difference
between the two sounds is functional
 Sue:Zoo /su/ /zu/
Phonetic and Phonemic Contrasts
 Voicing is phonemic  Aspiration is
and functional in phonetic and non-
English functional in English
 Sue /su/ and zoo  [stapʰ] [stap-] does
/zu/ results in a not result in a
contrast in meaning meaning contrast
 /s/ and /z/ contrast
in the same
environment
 Position of Occurence
 Position of occurence refers to a
phoneme’s position in the word
 Word initial refers to the front of the word /p/
in /pɪn/ pin occurs in the word initial position
 /p/ occurs in the word medial position in
keeper /kiper/
 /p/ occurs in word final position in /tap/
 Position of occurence for stops
 Aspirated stops [pʰɪn] occur in word initial
positions
 Unaspirated stops occur in word medial
positions [sp-ɪl]
 Unreleased stops [stap=] occur in word final
position
 Neither un-aspirated nor un-released
stops occur in word initial position
 Mutually exclusive sounds
 The environments in which [t ʰ] and [t-]
occur are mutually exclusive
 They can never contrast with one
another
 When two sounds can never contrast in
the same environment we say they are
in complementary distribution
Complementary Distribution

When the environments of two

sounds are mutually exclusive
 Mutually Exclusive

Where one symbol occurs a

phonetic contrast cannot
possibly occur
 Sounds in complementary
distribution never contrast
 /s/ and/z/ do contrast in the same
environment
 They are not in complementary
distribution
 [pʰ] and [p-] do not contrast in the same
environment
 They are mutually exclusive and in
complementary distribution
 Non-functional variants
 We call sounds which occur in the same
environment, but do not contrast as
non-functional variants
 Sounds in complementary distribution
do not contrast in the same environment
 Non-functional variations occur in the
same environment
 Examples of non-functional
variants
 The aspirated [pit ʰ] and [pit-] do not contrast
in the same environment
 One sound may be substituted for
another in the same environment without
causing a change in meaning
 The term free-variation is traditionally
used where we use the term non-
functional variation
 Distribution of Speech Sound
 Refers to the sum of the positionsof
occurence for a sound
 Aspirated stops occur in both word
initial and word final positions but not in
word medial positions.
 Phonetic Similarity
 Two sounds are phonetically similar
when they share either the same point
or same manner of articulation
 [p] [t] [k] all share the same manner of
articulation
 [t] [s] [l] all share the same point of
articulation
 One position of occurence
 The intervocalic tap [ ^ ] occurs between
two vowel sounds
 The medial t in butter [ t^ ] is limited to
one position of occurence
 Identify the following positions
of occurence
 word initial and final  [t ʰ] aspirated apico
 word medial and alveolar stop
final  [ t-] unaspirated apico
 word final only alveolar stop
 word medial only  [t=] unreleased apico-
alveolar stop
 [ t^ ] intervocalic tap