Lecture slides unit 1, intro. to phonetics and phonology

1. IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE MOST
BENIFICENT,
THE MOST MERCIFUL

2. َ‫ص‬ ‫ا‬َ‫م‬َ‫ك‬ ٍ‫د‬َّ‫م‬َ‫ح‬ُ‫م‬ ِّ‫ل‬‫آ‬ ‫ى‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫و‬ ٍ‫د‬َّ‫م‬َ‫ح‬ُ‫م‬ ‫ى‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬ ِّ‫ل‬َ‫ص‬ َّ‫م‬ُ‫ه‬َّ‫الل‬ِّ‫ل‬‫آ‬ ‫ى‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫و‬ َ‫م‬‫ي‬ِّ‫ه‬‫ا‬َ‫ر‬ْ‫ب‬ِّ‫إ‬ ‫ى‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬ َ‫ت‬ْ‫ي‬َّ‫ل‬
ُ‫م‬ ‫ى‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬ َ‫ك‬ ِّ‫ار‬َ‫ب‬ َّ‫م‬ُ‫ه‬َّ‫الل‬ ،ٌ‫د‬‫ي‬ ِّ‫ج‬َ‫م‬ ٌ‫د‬‫ي‬ِّ‫م‬َ‫ح‬ َ‫ك‬َّ‫ن‬ِّ‫إ‬ ،َ‫م‬‫ي‬ِّ‫ه‬‫ا‬َ‫ر‬ْ‫ب‬ِّ‫إ‬َ‫ت‬ْ‫ك‬َ‫ار‬َ‫ب‬ ‫ا‬َ‫م‬َ‫ك‬ ٍ‫د‬َّ‫م‬َ‫ح‬ُ‫م‬ ِّ‫ل‬‫آ‬ ‫ى‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫و‬ ٍ‫د‬َّ‫م‬َ‫ح‬
ِّ‫ج‬َ‫م‬ ٌ‫د‬‫ي‬ِّ‫م‬َ‫ح‬ َ‫ك‬َّ‫ن‬ِّ‫إ‬ ،َ‫م‬‫ي‬ِّ‫ه‬‫ا‬َ‫ر‬ْ‫ب‬ِّ‫إ‬ ِّ‫ل‬‫آ‬ ‫ى‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬َ‫و‬ َ‫م‬‫ي‬ِّ‫ه‬‫ا‬َ‫ر‬ْ‫ب‬ِّ‫إ‬ ‫ى‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬ٌ‫د‬‫ي‬
O Allah, bestow Your favor on Muhammad (‫)ﷺ‬ and on the family of Muhammad (‫)ﷺ‬ as
You have bestowed Your favor on Ibrahim (alayhi s-salām)and on the family of Ibrahim
(alayhi s-salām). You are Praiseworthy, Most Glorious.
O Allah, bless Muhammad (‫)ﷺ‬ and the family of Muhammad (‫)ﷺ‬ as You have blessed
Ibrahim (alayhi s-salām) and the family of Ibrahim (alayhi s-salām). You are
Praiseworthy, the Most Glorious.

3. SARDAR BAHADUR KHAN WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY
QUETTA
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

4. Important Note for my Students:
All of your course-planners, video-lectures, audio-lectures, slides, and
additional readings, have been uploaded on SBKWU’s official LMS website,
as well as on Course Instructor’s website mentioned below:
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understand. If you face any problem or need any clarification, feel free to
contact your Course Instructor at: https://erudition.page.tl/Contact-your-
teacher.htm
In order to pursue details of your other courses, please contact your (other)
concerned teachers.
(Note: Slides may not provide a comprehensive view of the topics, (as slides
essentially include the main outlines of the important themes) students are
hence required to download complete video lectures as prepared and uploaded
by your course instructor , (explaining the outlines as mentioned in these
slides) so as to ensure a better learning.
Regards
Course Instructor

5. SARDAR BAHADUR KHAN WOMEN’S
UNIVERSITY QUETTA
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
JUNE 2020
COURSE TITLE: Phonetics and Phonology
CLASS: BS 2ND SEMESTER
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
The course aims to build on the background knowledge of
phonological description & theory in order to explain the theories
& the principles regulating the use of sounds in spoken language;
train students in the skill of transcribing spoken languages
particularly English; & examine cross- linguistic similarities &
variation in speech sounds.

7. Outline of Unit 1:
Course-Title: PHONETICS & PHONOLOGY
Class: BS 2nd
Definition: Phonetics
Definition: Phonology
Definitions: Phoneme (Vowels & Consonants)
Allophones
Minimal Pairs
Phonotactics
Review & Question-Answer Session

8. PHONETICS
Pronunciation /fəˈnɛtɪks/
Etymology: Greek: phōnein ‘speak’.
Phonetics deals with production, transmission and
reception of all human speech sounds.
Phonetics is divided into three branches:
Articulatory phonetics is concerned with the
production of speech sounds.
Acoustic phonetics deals with the transmission and
physical properties of speech sounds (as sound
waves in the air)
Auditory phonetics (or perceptual phonetics) is the
study of perception of speech sounds ( via the ear).

9. PHONOLOGY
Etymology: Greek phōnḗ, "voice, sound
Pronunciation: /fəˈnɒlədʒi/
Phonology deals with the ways speech sounds are
organized in a particular language. Phonology is
essentially the description of the systems and
patterns of speech sounds in a language. It is, in
effect, based on a theory of what every speaker of a
language unconsciously knows about the sound
patterns of that language. Because of this
theoretical status, phonology is concerned with the
abstract or mental aspect of the sounds in language
rather than with the actual physical articulation of
speech sounds.

10. PHONEME
Phoneme refers to any of the perceptually distinct
units of sound in a specified language that
distinguish one word from another, for
example p, b, d, and t in the English
words pad, pat, bad, and bat. Phonetic
transcriptions are done using the square brackets,
[ ] while (phonemic transcriptions adopt the slash /
/. The term phoneme is usually restricted to vowels
and consonants.

11. Vowels are sounds that are produced without any
obstruction to the flow of air as it passes from the
larynx through the vocal tract ; consonants, on the
other hand, are the speech sounds that are
produced with a closure or a narrowing in the oral
tract, which causes an obstruction or a friction to
the flow of air as it passes through the vocal tract.

12. ALLOPHONES
While the phoneme is the abstract unit or sound
type (‘in the mind’), there are many different
versions of that sound type regularly produced in
actual speech (‘in the mouth’).We can describe
those different versions as phones. Phones are
phonetic units and appear in square brackets.
When we have a group of several phones, all of
which are versions of one phoneme, we add the
prefix ‘allo (=one of a closely related set) and refer
to them as allophones of that phoneme.

13. For example, the [t] sound in the word tar is
normally pronounced with a stronger puff of air
than is present in the [t] sound in the word star. If
you put the back of your hand in front of your
mouth as you say tar, then star, you should be able
to feel some physical evidence of aspiration (the
puff of air) accompanying the [t] sound at the
beginning of tar (but not in star). This aspirated
version is represented more precisely as a phone
[th].

14. Similarly, [D] another phone. In the pronunciation
of a word like eighth (/etθ/), the influence of the
final dental [θ] sound causes a dental articulation of
the [t] sound. This can be represented more
precisely as [t ]. That’s yet another phone. There
are even more variations of this sound which, like
[th], [D], and [t ], can be represented in a more
precise
wayinadetailed,ornarrowphonetictranscription.Bec
ausethesevariationsare all part of one set of phones,
they are typically referred to as allophones of the
phoneme /t/.

15. MINIMAL PAIRS
Phonemic distinctions in a language can be tested
via pairs and sets of words. When two words such
as pat and bat are identical in form except for a
contrast in one phoneme, occurring in the same
position, the two words are described as a minimal
pair. More accurately, they would be classified as a
minimal pair in the phonology of English. (Arabic,
for example, does not have this contrast between
/p/ and /b/.) Other examples of English minimal
pairs are fan–van, bet–bat, site–side.

16. Such pairs have traditionally been used in the
teaching of English as a second/ foreign language to
help students develop the ability to understand the
contrast in meaning based on the minimal sound
contrast. When a group of words can be
differentiated, each one from the others, by
changing one phoneme (always in the same position
in the word), then we have a minimal set. For
example, one minimal set based on vowel of English
could include feat, fit, fat, fate, fought, foot, and
another minimal set based on consonant could have
big, pig, rig, fig, dig, wig.

17. Phonotactics
This type of exercise involving minimal sets also
allows us to see that there are definite patterns in
the types of sound combinations permitted in a
language.
In English, the minimal set we have just listed
does not include forms such as lig or vig.
According to the dictionary, these are not English
words, but they could be viewed as possible
English words. That is, our phonological
knowledge of the pattern of sounds in English
words would allow us to treat these forms as

18. acceptable if, at some future time, they came into
use; such kinds of words hence represent
‘accidental’ gaps in the vocabulary of English. It is,
however, no accident that forms such
as[fsig]or[rnig]do not exist or are unlikely ever to
exist. They have been formed without obeying some
constraints on the sequence or position of English
phonemes. Such constraints are called the
phonotactics (i.e. permitted arrangements of
sounds) in a language and are obviously part of
every speaker’s phonological knowledge.

19. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Roach, P. (2009). English Phonetics and Phonology
A Practical Course. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Yule, G. (2006). The Study of Language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.