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• Introduction
• Classification
• English Phonology
• Other Topics

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phonology

introduction

Phonology is one of the most researched fields of linguistics and therefore it is fairly easy to find information on it. Phonology as a field deals with the patterns of sounds. Phonetics on the other hand is the production of speech sounds themselves. Therefore, you must learn the Phonetics of the language before you can study its Phonology.

Phonology is very heavily involved - and predictably so - with the International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA. Learning IPA is crucial to studying Phonology and to studying linguistics itself, as you'll come across IPA symbols everywhere! And though a lot of the symbols resemble English letters, many of them are not pronounced the same way as they are in English.

classification

In Phonology, classifying the different sounds is very important because it's what distinguishes them from each other. There are many different ways of distinguishing the way sounds are produced. One of these is referred to as Areas of Articulation. This is how we pronounce the sounds in our mouth using our lips, tongues, teeth, throats, and noses. To simplify this, we'll only be focusing on the areas of articulation for English sounds.

Labial refers to lips. Example: b, p
Labio-dental refers to lips and teeth. Examples: f, v
Interdental refers to tongue between the teeth. Examples: "th"
Alveolar is the hard ridge behind your two front teeth. Examples: t, d
Alveo-palatal is the place between the alveolar ridge and the palate, or roof of the mouth. Example: "sh"
Palatal is the roof of the mouth. Examples: "yuh"
Velar is the soft palate at the back of your mouth. Examples: k, g
Glottal is your throat, specifically the space between your focal folds. Examples: "uh-oh" (more on that below)

You can see examples of these areas of articulation below in the English Consonant chart.

Another classification that is listed on the chart below is the sound category. This only occurs with consonants, not with vowels. The main categories in English are as follows:

Stops are sounds that stop the flow of air. Examples: p, t, k
Fricatives are sounds that are formed when you make a constriction in your mouth and force air through it. Try pronouncing an "s" and hold it. When you do that, you're forcing air through your closed teeth.
Affricates are hybrids of stops and fricatives - they start as a stop and end as a fricative. Examples: "ch"
Nasals sound is produced when the airflow goes through the nose instead of the mouth. Examples: m, n
Liquids are a bit of a strange category. They occur when air is allow to pass around sides of the tongue. Examples: r, l
Glides are also called semivowels and are sounds that are similar to vowels, but function as consonants. Examples: y, w

Another important part of sound classification is voicing. This is important for consonants, which often have voiced and voiceless varieties. Compare English "s" to "z." "S" is voiceless while "z" is voiced. The same goes for "p" and "b", "t" and "d", and "k" and "g."

english phonology

If you study the Phonetics and Phonology of English, you'll find that a lot of the letters in English produce different sounds depending on the word. This is especially true for the vowels. For anyone who has taken a Spanish class, pronouncing the vowels in Spanish is extremely easy compared to guessing which sounds the vowels make in English.

The English language has a 26 letter alphabet. We all know this by heart - A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Of these, we have 5 vowels - A, E, I, O, U - while the rest are consonants. However, just because our alphabet has 26 letters does not mean that English has 26 sounds or phonemes. A phoneme is a unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another. English has roughly 38 phonemes. It is important to note, however, that this is a rough estimate, as phonemes can vary between accents and dialects. Some accents or dialects can have more or less phonemes than another.

Source: Lieber, Rochelle, Introducing Morphology, p.xii.
(w) is classified as labio-velar

Now, you're probably wondering what all of those weird symbols up there are (like the ʃ and ʒ). Well, they are the IPA symbols for the sounds that you make in English. Some of the letters up there are familiar and are pronounced pretty much the same as they are in English. These include p, t, k, b, d, g, h, s, z, m, n, l, and w. However, some of the letters up there are unfamiliar and some are not pronounced as they are in English. These letters are: ʔ, θ, ð, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ, ŋ, ɹ, and j.

The ʔ is called the "glottal stop." You say it in English when you say the phrase "uh-oh!" The pause between the two words is a glottal stop. The sound is also common in a variety of accents, particularly Cockney accents.

The θ is called the "voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative" (say that five times fast) and it is represented by the Greek letter theta. Its sound is the sound you just made in pronouncing "theta." It's the "th" sound at the beginning of the word. This is a very common sound in English and is actually relatively uncommon in the world's languages.

The ð is called the "voiced dental fricative." It is represented by the Old English and Icelandic letter eth. It is also the "th" sound in English, but it's the voiced version of "th" - so the one you use when you say "the" or "they", or "that." This sound is also relatively uncommon in the world's language.

The ʃ is called the "voiceless postalveolar fricative." It is represented by the letter "esh." In English, it is frequently spelled "sh" as in "ship."

The ʒ is called the "voiced postalveolar fricative" and is therefore the voiced counterpart to ʃ. In English, there is no specific spelling for this sound, but it can be heard in words like "vision" and "measure."

The tʃ is an affricate and as such, has two sounds, a stop (t) and a fricative (ʃ). This sound is usually written as a "ch" as in "chain."

The dʒ is also an affricate and is the voiced version of tʃ. It is commonly represented in English by the letter "j" and the hard pronounciation of "g." You can hear it in words like "justice" and "Germany."

The ŋ is called the "velar nasal." In English, this is represented by the "ng" spelling, such as "sing."

The ɹ is the "postalveolar approximant." It is the English "r." The reason that this symbol is upside down is because the "regular" English r represents the trilled r that occurs in Spanish (and other languages) in IPA.

The j is the "palatal approximant." It is not pronounced as an English "j," as that sound is represented by dʒ. In IPA, the "j" is called the yod and is pronounced like an English "y" as in "yes."

Source: Lieber, Rochelle, Introducing Morphology, p.xii.

Vowels are a bit more tricky to classify and to identify, especially because vowels are more effective by dialects and accents.

A good way to identify the different vowels sounds is to show a chart of similar words to compare the sounds. I have constructed one here:

Source: Peterson, David J, The Art of Language Invention, p. 41 and my own native knowledge.

Pushing aside the fact that "mot" isn't an actual word, this is a good comparison chart to see the differences between vowel sounds. However, as I mentioned above with accents, some of the vowel sounds are not as distinguishable. For my particular accent, which is Midwestern, both the ʌ and ə sounds and o and ɔ sounds are pronounced the same way. The o and ɔ sound merger has a name called the "cot-caught merger." For me personally, I cannot hear the difference between the ʌ and ə sounds either.

In addition to these main vowel sounds, English also has what are called diphthongs, which are two vowel sounds that glide together. The main examples of this are "ai" as in "light," "ei" as in "lady" and "oi" as in "loin."

Other Topics

Phonology and Phonetics have even more topics of discussion, including Syllable Structure, Phonological Rules, Tone, Intonation, and Stress, among other things. Feel free to research these topics at your own leisure if the study of sounds strikes your fancy!