Phonological rule
Encyclopedia
A phonological rule is a formal way of expressing a systematic phonological or morphophonological process or diachronic
sound change
in language
. Phonological rules are commonly used in generative phonology
as a notation to capture sound-related operations and computations the human brain performs when producing
or comprehending spoken language. They may use phonetic notation or distinctive features or both.
John Goldsmith
(1995) defines phonological rules as mappings between two different levels of sound representation—in this case, the abstract or underlying level and the surface level—and Bruce Hayes (2009) describes them as "generalizations" about the different ways a sound can be pronounced in different environments. That is to say, phonological rules describe how a speaker goes from the abstract representation stored in their brain, to the actual sound they articulate when they speak. In general, phonological rules start with the underlying representation
of a sound (the phoneme
that is stored in the speaker's mind) and yield the final surface form, or what the speaker actually pronounces. For example, the English plural
-s may be pronounced as [s
] (in "cats"), [z
] (in "cabs"), or as [əz] (in "buses"); these forms are all stored mentally as the same -s, but the surface pronunciations are derived through a phonological rule.
s of American English
, speakers have a process known as intervocalic alveolar flapping
that changes the consonants /t/
and /d/
into a quick flap consonant
([ɾ
] in words such as "butter" ([ˈbʌɾɹ]) and "notable" ([ˈnoʊɾəbl]).See International Phonetic Alphabet
for information about how to read these transcriptions. The stop consonants /t/ and /d/ only become a flap in between two vowel
s, where the first vowel is stressed
and the second is stressless
. It is common to represent phonological rules using formal rewrite rule
s in the most general way possible. Thus, the intervocalic alveolar flapping described above can be formalized as
Taken together and read from left to right, this notation of the rule for intervocalic alveolar flapping states that any alveolar stop consonant (/t/ or /d/) becomes a tap ([ɾ]) in the environment where it is preceded by a stressed vowel and followed by an unstressed one.
Phonological rules are often written using distinctive feature
s, which are (supposedlySome phonologists have questioned the "naturalness" or "innateness" of distinctive features. See, for example, ) natural characteristics that describe the acoustic
and articulatory
makeup of a sound; by selecting a particular bundle, or "matrix," of features, it is possible to represent a group of sounds that form a natural class
and pattern together in phonological rules. For example, in the rule above, rather than writing /t/ and /d/ separately, phonologists may write the features that they have in common, thus capturing the whole set of sounds that are stop consonants and are pronounced by placing the tongue against the alveolar ridge. In the most commonly used feature system, the features to represent these sounds would be [+delayed release, +anterior, -distributed], which describe the manner of articulation
and the position and shape of the tongue when pronouncing these two sounds. But rules are not always written using features; in some cases, especially when the rule applies only to a single sound, rules are written using the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet
.
Diachronic
Diachronic or Diachronous,from the Greek word Διαχρονικός , is a term for something happening over time. It is used in several fields of research.*Diachronic linguistics : see Historical linguistics...
sound change
Sound change
Sound change includes any processes of language change that affect pronunciation or sound system structures...
in language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
. Phonological rules are commonly used in generative phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
as a notation to capture sound-related operations and computations the human brain performs when producing
Language production
In psycholinguistics, language production is the production of spoken or written language. It describes all of the stages between having a concept, and translating that concept into linguistic form...
or comprehending spoken language. They may use phonetic notation or distinctive features or both.
John Goldsmith
John Goldsmith
John Anton Goldsmith is the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, with appointments in Linguistics and Computer Science. He was educated at Swarthmore College, where he obtained his B.A. in 1972, and at MIT, where he completed his Ph.D. in Linguistics...
(1995) defines phonological rules as mappings between two different levels of sound representation—in this case, the abstract or underlying level and the surface level—and Bruce Hayes (2009) describes them as "generalizations" about the different ways a sound can be pronounced in different environments. That is to say, phonological rules describe how a speaker goes from the abstract representation stored in their brain, to the actual sound they articulate when they speak. In general, phonological rules start with the underlying representation
Underlying representation
In some models of phonology as well as morphophonology, the underlying representation or underlying form of a word or morpheme is the abstract form the word or morpheme is postulated to have before any phonological rules have applied to it. If more rules apply to the same form, they can apply...
of a sound (the phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
that is stored in the speaker's mind) and yield the final surface form, or what the speaker actually pronounces. For example, the English plural
English plural
In the English language, nouns are inflected for grammatical number —that is, singular or plural. This article discusses the variety of ways in which English plurals are formed for nouns...
-s may be pronounced as [s
Voiceless alveolar fricative
The voiceless alveolar sibilant is a common consonant sound in spoken languages. It is the sound in English words such as sea and pass, and is represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as . It has a characteristic high-pitched, highly perceptible hissing sound...
] (in "cats"), [z
Voiced alveolar fricative
The voiced alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described....
] (in "cabs"), or as [əz] (in "buses"); these forms are all stored mentally as the same -s, but the surface pronunciations are derived through a phonological rule.
Example
In most dialectDialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s of American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
, speakers have a process known as intervocalic alveolar flapping
Intervocalic alveolar flapping
Intervocalic alveolar flapping is a phonological process found in many dialects of English, especially North American English and Australian English, by which either or both prevocalic and surface as the alveolar tap after sonorants other than , , and .*after vowel: butter*after r:...
that changes the consonants /t/
Voiceless alveolar plosive
The voiceless alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t...
and /d/
Voiced alveolar plosive
The voiced alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d.-Features:Features of the voiced...
into a quick flap consonant
Flap consonant
In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...
([ɾ
Alveolar tap
The alveolar flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar flaps is .-Definition:...
] in words such as "butter" ([ˈbʌɾɹ]) and "notable" ([ˈnoʊɾəbl]).See International Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
for information about how to read these transcriptions. The stop consonants /t/ and /d/ only become a flap in between two vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s, where the first vowel is stressed
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
and the second is stressless
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
. It is common to represent phonological rules using formal rewrite rule
Rewrite rule
In linguistics, a rewrite rule for natural language in generative grammar is a rule of the form A → X where A is a syntactic category label, such as noun phrase or sentence, and X is a sequence of such labels and/or morphemes, expressing the fact that A can be replaced by X in generating the...
s in the most general way possible. Thus, the intervocalic alveolar flapping described above can be formalized as
Format and notation
The rule given above for intervocalic alveolar flapping describes what sound is changed, what the sound changes to, and where the change happens (in other words, what the environment is that triggers the change). The illustration below presents the same rule, with each of its parts labelled and described.
|
Taken together and read from left to right, this notation of the rule for intervocalic alveolar flapping states that any alveolar stop consonant (/t/ or /d/) becomes a tap ([ɾ]) in the environment where it is preceded by a stressed vowel and followed by an unstressed one.
Phonological rules are often written using distinctive feature
Distinctive feature
In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonological structure that may be analyzed in phonological theory.Distinctive features are grouped into categories according to the natural classes of segments they describe: major class features, laryngeal features, manner features,...
s, which are (supposedlySome phonologists have questioned the "naturalness" or "innateness" of distinctive features. See, for example, ) natural characteristics that describe the acoustic
Acoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...
and articulatory
Articulatory phonetics
The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics. In studying articulation, phoneticians explain how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of different physiological structures....
makeup of a sound; by selecting a particular bundle, or "matrix," of features, it is possible to represent a group of sounds that form a natural class
Natural class
In phonology, a natural class is a set of sounds in a language that share certain phonetic features. The sound system of every language includes several natural classes, each distinguished from other classes by certain features. A given natural class is described using the minimum number of...
and pattern together in phonological rules. For example, in the rule above, rather than writing /t/ and /d/ separately, phonologists may write the features that they have in common, thus capturing the whole set of sounds that are stop consonants and are pronounced by placing the tongue against the alveolar ridge. In the most commonly used feature system, the features to represent these sounds would be [+delayed release, +anterior, -distributed], which describe the manner of articulation
Manner of articulation
In linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound. Often the concept is only used for the production of consonants, even though the movement of the articulars will also greatly alter the resonant properties of the...
and the position and shape of the tongue when pronouncing these two sounds. But rules are not always written using features; in some cases, especially when the rule applies only to a single sound, rules are written using the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
.
Characteristics
Hayes (2009) lists the following characteristics that all phonological rules have in common:- Language specificity: A phonological rule that is present in one languageLanguageLanguage may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
may not be present in other languages, or even in all dialects of a given language. - Productivity: Phonological rules apply even to new words. For example, if an English speaker is asked to pronounce the plural of the nonsense wordNonsense wordA nonsense word, unlike a sememe, may have no definition. If it can be pronounced according to a language's phonotactics, it is a logatome. Nonsense words are used in literature for poetic or humorous effect. Proper names of real or fictional entities are sometimes nonsense words.-See...
"wug" (i.e. "wugs"), they pronounce the final s as [z], not [s], even though they have never used the word before. (This kind of test is called the wug testWug testThe wug test is an experiment in linguistics, created by Jean Berko Gleason in 1958. It was designed as a way to investigate the acquisition of the plural and other inflectional morphemes in English-speaking children....
.) - Untaught and unconscious: Speakers apply these rules without being aware of it, and they acquire the rules early in life without any explicit teaching.
- Intuitive: The rules give speakers intuitions about what words are "well-formed" or "acceptable"; if a speaker hears a word that does not conform to the language's phonological rules, the word will sound foreign or ill-formed.
Types
Phonological rules can be roughly divided into four types:- AssimilationAssimilation (linguistics)Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been...
: When a sound changes one of its features to be more similar to an adjacent sound. This is the kind of rule that occurs in the English plural rule described above—the -s becomes voiced or voiceless depending on whether or not the preceding consonant is voiced. - DissimilationDissimilationIn phonology, particularly within historical linguistics, dissimilation is a phenomenon whereby similar consonant or vowel sounds in a word become less similar...
: When a sound changes one of its features to become less similar to an adjacent sound, usually to make the two sounds more distinguishable. This type of rule is often seen among people speaking a language that is not their native language, where the sound contrasts may be difficult. - InsertionEpenthesisIn phonology, epenthesis is the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence, for the addition of a consonant, and anaptyxis for the addition of a vowel....
: When an extra sound is added between two others. This also occurs in the English plural rule: when the plural morphemeMorphemeIn linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
-s is added to "bus," "bus-s" would be unpronouncable, so a short vowel (the schwaSchwaIn linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
, [ə]) is inserted between the two [s]s. - DeletionElisionElision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
: When a sound, such as a stressless syllable or a weak consonant, is not pronounced; for example, most American English speakers do not pronounce the [d] in "handbag".