Phonology

Phonology studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). Whereas phonetics is aboutthe physical production and perception of the sounds of speech, phonologydescribes the way sounds function within a given language or across languages.
An important part of phonology is studying which sounds are distinctive units within a language. In English, for example, /p/ and /b/ are distinctive units of sound, they are phonemes (sound of a language as represented or imagined without reference to its position in a word or phrase). A phoneme could be thought of as a family of related phones, called allophones. An allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. A phone is a sound that has a definite shape as a sound wave, while a phoneme is a basic group of sounds that can distinguish words (i.e. changing one phoneme in a word can produce another word); speakers of a particular
language perceive a phoneme as a single distinctive sound in that language.

A common test to determine whether two phones are allophones or separate phonemes relies on finding so-called minimal pairs: pairs of words that differ only in one phone, and have a distinct meaning. They are used to demonstrate that two phones constitute two separate phonemes in the language. As an example for English vowels, the pair "let" + "lit" proves that the phones [ɛ] (in let) and [ɪ] (in lit) do in fact represent distinct phonemes /ɛ/ and /ɪ/. An example for English consonants is the minimal pair of "pat" + "bat". In fact, this pair differs in voice onset time of the initial consonant as the configuration of the mouth is same for [p] and [b]. The exact number of phonemes in English depends on the speaker and the method of determining phoneme vs. allophone, but estimates typically range from 40 to 45.

In addition to the minimal meaningful sounds (the phonemes), phonology studies how sounds alternate, and topics such as syllable structure, stress, accent, and intonation.


1. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
The International Phonetic Alphabet is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association as a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language.The IPA is used by foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech pathologists and therapists, singers, actors, lexicographers, artificial language enthusiasts (conlangers), and translators.

The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech that are distinctive in spoken language: phonemes, intonation, and the separation of words and syllables.
IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two basic types, letters and diacritics.

IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two basic types, letters and diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter ‹ t › may be transcribed in IPA with a single letter, [t], or with a letter plus diacritics, [t̺ʰ], depending on how precise one wishes to be.[4] Occasionally letters or diacritics are added, removed, or modified by the International Phonetic Association. As of 2008, there are 107 letters, 52 diacritics, and four prosodic marks in the IPA.

1.1 Letterforms
The letters chosen for the IPA are meant to harmonize with the Latin alphabet.[note 4] For this reason, most letters are either Latin or Greek, or modifications thereof. However, there are letters that are neither: for example, the letter denoting the glottal stop, ‹ʔ›, has the form of a "gelded" question mark, and derives originally from an apostrophe.[note 5] In fact, there are a few letters, such as that of the voiced pharyngeal fricative, ‹ʕ›, which, though modified to fit the Latin alphabet, were inspired by other writing systems (in this case, the Arabic letter ﻉ‎, `ain).

The IPA letters for click consonants were ‹ʘ›, ‹ʇ›, ‹ʗ›, and ‹ʖ›, all of which were derived either from existing IPA letters, or from Latin and Greek letters. However, except for ‹ʘ›, none of these letters was widely used among Khoisanists or Bantuists, and as a result they were replaced by the more widespread symbols ‹ʘ›, ‹ǀ›, ‹ǃ›, ‹ǂ›, and ‹ǁ› at the IPA Kiel Convention in 1989. Although the IPA diacritics are fully featural, there is little systemicity in the letter forms. A retroflex articulation is consistently indicated with a right-swinging tail, as in ‹ɖ ʂ ɳ›, and implosion by a top hook, ‹ɓ ɗ ɠ›, but other pseudo-featural elements are due to haphazard derivation and coincidence. For example, all nasal consonants but uvular ‹ɴ› are based on the form ‹n›: ‹m ɱ n ɲ ɳ ŋ›. However, the similarity between ‹m› and ‹n› is a historical accident, ‹ɲ› and ‹ŋ› are derived from ligatures of gn and ng, and ‹ɱ› is an ad hoc imitation of ‹ŋ›. In none of these is the form consistent with other letters that share these places of articulation.

1.2 Symbols and sounds
The International Phonetic Alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, using as few non-Latin forms as possible.[5] The Association created the IPA so that the sound values of most consonant letters taken from the Latin alphabet would correspond to "international usage".[5] Hence, the letters ‹b›, ‹d›, ‹f›, (hard) ‹ɡ›, (non-silent) ‹h›, (unaspirated) ‹k›, ‹l›, ‹m›, ‹n›, (unaspirated) ‹p›, (voiceless) ‹s›, (unaspirated) ‹t›, ‹v›, ‹w›, and ‹z› have the values used in English; and the vowel letters from the Latin alphabet (‹a›, ‹e›, ‹i›, ‹o›, ‹u›) correspond to the sound values of Latin: [i] is like the vowel in machine, [u] is as in rule, etc. Other letters may differ from English, but are used with these values in other European languages, such as ‹j›, ‹r›, and ‹y›.

This inventory was extended by using capital or cursive forms, diacritics, and rotation. There are also several derived or taken from the Greek alphabet, though the sound values may differ. For example, ‹ʋ› is a vowel in Greek, but an only indirectly related consonant in the IPA. Three of these (‹β›, ‹θ› and ‹χ›) are used unmodified in form; for others (including ‹ɣ›, ‹ɛ›, ‹ɸ›, and ‹ʋ›) subtly different glyph shapes have been devised, which may be encoded in Unicode separately from their "parent" letters.

The sound values of modified Latin letters can often be derived from those of the original letters. For example, letters with a rightward-facing hook at the bottom represent retroflex consonants; and small capital letters usually represent uvular consonants. Apart from the fact that certain kinds of modification to the shape of a letter generally correspond to certain kinds of modification to the sound represented, there is no way to deduce the sound represented by a symbol from its shape (unlike, for example, in Visible Speech).

Beyond the letters themselves, there are a variety of secondary symbols which aid in transcription. Diacritic marks can be combined with IPA letters to transcribe modified phonetic values or secondary articulations. There are also special symbols for suprasegmental features such as stress and tone that are often employed.

1.3 Brackets and phonemes
There are two principal types of brackets used to set off IPA transcriptions:
- /square brackets/ are used for phonetic details of the pronunciation, possibly including details that may not be used for distinguishing words in the language being transcribed, but which the author nonetheless wishes to document.
- /slashes/ are used to mark off phonemes, all of which are distinctive in the language, without any extraneous detail.
For example, while the /p/ sounds of pin and spin are pronounced slightly differently in English (and this difference would be meaningful in some languages), the difference is not meaningful in English. Thus phonemically the words are /pɪn/ and /spɪn/, with the same /p/ phoneme. However, to capture the difference between them (the allophones of /p/), they can be transcribed phonetically as [pʰɪn] and [spɪn].

1.4 Phonetic Transcription
Although the IPA offers over a hundred and sixty symbols for transcribing speech, only a relatively small subset of these will be used to transcribe any one language. It is possible to transcribe speech with various levels of precision. A precise phonetic transcription, in which sounds are described in a great deal of detail, is known as a narrow transcription. A coarser transcription which ignores some of this detail is called a broad transcription. Both are relative terms, and both are generally enclosed in square brackets.
For example, the English word little may be transcribed broadly using the IPA as [ˈlɪtəl], and this broad (imprecise) transcription is an accurate (approximately correct) description of many pronunciations. A more narrow transcription may focus on individual or dialectical details: [ˈɫɪɾɫ] in General American, [ˈlɪʔo] in Cockney, or [ˈɫɪːɫ] in Southern US English.



Phonetic transcriptions of the word international in two English dialects. The square brackets indicate that the differences between these dialects are not necessarily sufficient to distinguish different words in English


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ergntBoeAHM


1.5 Consonants

Non-pulmonic consonants
Clicks ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ
Implosives ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ
Ejectives pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ
tsʼ tɬʼ tʃʼ kxʼ kʼ

Affricates p̪f ts dz tʃ dʒ tɕ dʑ ʈʂ ɖʐ
tɬ dɮ cç ɟʝ

Co-articulated consonants
Fricatives ɕ ʑ ɧ
Approximants ʍ w ɥ ɫ
Stops k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m

Pulmonic consonants

A pulmonic consonant is a consonant made by obstructing the glottis (the space between the vocal cords) or oral cavity (the mouth) and either simultaneously or subsequently letting out air from the lungs. Pulmonic consonants make up the majority of consonants in the IPA, as well as in human language. All consonants in the English language fall into this category.

The pulmonic consonant table, which includes most consonants, is arranged in rows that designate manner of articulation, meaning how the consonant is produced, and columns that designate place of articulation, meaning where in the vocal tract the consonant is produced. The main chart includes only consonants with a single place of articulation.

Co-articulated consonants
Co-articulated consonants are sounds that involve two simultaneous places of articulation (are pronounced using two parts of the vocal tract). In English, the [w] in "went" is a coarticulated consonant, because it is pronounced by rounding the lips and raising the back of the tongue. Other languages, such as French and Swedish, have different coarticulated consonants.

Affricates and double articulated consonants
Affricates and doubly articulated stops are represented by two letters joined by a tie bar, either above or below the letters. The six most common affricates are optionally represented by ligatures, though this is no longer official IPA usage,[1] because a great number of ligatures would be required to represent all affricates this way. Alternatively, a superscript notation for a consonant release is sometimes used to transcribe affricates, for example tˢ for t͡s, paralleling kˣ ~ k͡x. The letters for the palatal plosives c and ɟ, are often used as a convenience for t͡ʃ and d͡ʒ or similar affricates, even in official IPA publications, so they must be interpreted with care.

Vowels
The IPA defines a vowel as a sound which occurs at a syllable center. Below is a chart depicting the vowels of the IPA. The IPA maps the vowels according to the position of the tongue.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlSeYt6PN6s&feature=related


The vertical axis of the chart is mapped by vowel height. Vowels pronounced with the tongue lowered are at the bottom, and vowels pronounced with the tongue raised are at the top. For example, [ɑ] (said as the "a" in "palm") is at the bottom because the tongue is lowered in this position. However, [i] (said as the vowel in "meet") is at the top because the sound is said with the tongue raised to the roof of the mouth.

In a similar fashion, the horizontal axis of the chart is determined by vowel backness. Vowels with the tongue moved towards the front of the mouth (such as [ɛ], the vowel in "met") are to the left in the chart, while those in which it is moved to the back (such as [ʌ], the vowel in "but") are placed to the right in the chart.

Tongue positions of cardinal front vowels with highest point indicated. The position of the highest point is used to determine vowel height and backness

Tongue positions of cardinal front vowels with highest point indicated. The position of the highest point is used to determine vowel height and backness

Tongue positions for vowel sounds