Phonemes Theory

the same sound.
How do we know two sounds are

the same or different?

[kh]
Initial

/k/

[ko]
after s

[k]
elsewhere

another in pronunciation.

Key terms:
Phone
Phoneme
allophone

This organization is explained in phonological rules

and rules of sound patterns

Abstractions = phoneme

/p/, /t/, /k/
/i/,

/æ/

Inventory of sounds and how they are realized.

the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful

contrasts between utterances. (Wikipedia)

Segment: "any discrete unit that can be identified, either physically or auditorily, in the stream of speech."

1. separate and individual,

such as consonants and vowels,

2. occur in a distinct temporal order

multiple segments
vowels, consonants
supra-segmental
tone,stress, length,intonation
secondary articulations
nasalization
vowel harmony
Marginal segments
onomatopoeic words, interjections, loan words

Source: Wikipedia

words(e.g.“cat”/kaet/vs.“bat”/baet/).

Phonemes identify minimal pairs in a language.

The set of phonemes

in a language subject to interpretation; most languages have 20 to 40 phonemes.

The phoneme cannot therefore be acoustically defined. The phoneme is instead a feature of language structure.

the phoneme

how does one identify phonemes
Issues

is a physical reality
“count for practical purposes as if they

were one and the same.” JONES (1967: 258)

2) it is a psychological notion
a mental or psychological reality
the phoneme is a constant acoustic and auditory image (Sommerfelt); a thought sound (Beni); a sound idea (Trubetzkoy); a psychological equivalent of an empirical sound (UÓaszyn);
In modern terms:
phoneme is some sort of mental representation

TWADDELL criticized this mental phenomenon

made of? How are they represented?
what position specific phoneme takes

in the
given phonemic system.
Which phoneme is in the opposition to a specific phoneme

Sapir (1925, 1933) Sapir’s “point in the pattern.”
phoneme as a set of contrastively underspecified features
underspecified, in the sense that it consists only of contrastive properties and other features are omitted
This notion further corresponded to the theory of Distinctive feature
⇒ this underspecification theory has been proposed under generative phonology under the name Modified Contrastive Specification

the phoneme (Trubetzkoy)

those properties which are common to all variants

of a phoneme
Each phoneme has a definable phonemic content only because the system of distinctive oppositions shows a definite order or structure.

analysis
whether a sound is a
single phoneme (/ts/,/nd/, or /oe/)

a sequence of phonemes (/t-s/, /n-d/, or /s-j/).

Minimal pair
Differ in one phonological element (phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme )
complementary distribution
Contrastive distribution
Free variation
Mutation methods

is a collection of sounds (a fictitious unit )

Mentalist: Chomsky

( realistic view)
the phoneme is the mental category that corresponds to a coherent set of sounds in a language

American structuralist tradition:
a phoneme is defined according to its allophones and environments

generative tradition:
a phoneme is defined as a set of distinctive features.

minimum unit of distinctive sound feature” (p. 77).
non-mentalistic unit

He

identifies “primary” (segmental sounds) and “secondary” (stress and tone) phonemes according to their function in language (primary: syllable forming; secondary: structuring larger units).

Phonemes are defined by their participation in structural sets.
(syllabic, open-syllable, closed syllable, non-syllabic, initial,
medial, final, initial cluster, final cluster, etc.)

[⊓]
Velarization [ɫ]
Voicelessness [˚]
Vowel lengthening [׃]
Vowel nasalization [~]

able to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of sound that

can differentiate meaning.

Separating the spoken word "cat" into three distinct phonemes,
/k/, /æ/, and /t/, requires phonemic awareness skill. 

Phonemic Awareness

positions in word (e.g. bat, ball, bell, pal)

Segmenting
Pronounce each phoneme

in order as it occurs in word (bat >> b-a-t)

Blending
Combine phonemes to make a word (hear sh-ip and say ship)

Manipulating
Add or delete sounds in word to make new word
(add a “t” to an” and say ant; replace the sound “d” in sad with a “t” and say sat)

Common Types of Phonemic Awareness