9 Phoneme, Syllable and Word Accent
Prof. Banibrata Mahanta
- Learning Outcomes
- Introduction
- Phoneme
- Phone
- Phoneme
- Allophone
- Minimal Pair
- Principles for Phonemic Analysis
- Syllable
- Introduction
- Syllable Structure
- Types of Syllables
- Consonant Clusters
- Word Accent
- Introduction
- What is Word Accent
- Types of Word Accent
- Word Accent in English
Learning outcome:
After going through this module, the student will be able to understand the concepts of phoneme, syllable, and word accent. Each concept is dealt with in detail, with the help of examples from English, and is augmented with a list of exercises, suggested reading and internet resources which aim to supplement as well as build on the ideas discussed in this module.
Introduction:
You must, by now, be aware of the role of sound in human language. In Language and Linguistics: An Introduction John Lyons says:
Although language-systems are, to a very considerable extent, independent of the medium in which they are manifest, the natural or primary medium of human language is sound. For this reason, the study of sound is of more central importance in linguistics than in the study of writing, of gestures, or of any other language-medium, whether actual or potential. But it is not sound as such, and not the full range of sound, that is of concern to the linguist. He [sic] is interested in the sounds that are produced by the human speech-organs in so far as these sounds have a role in language.
Lyons makes a few important points here:
- By and large, language-systems are independent of the medium in which they are manifest.
- The natural or primary medium of human language is sound.
- Therefore, the study of sound is more important in linguistics than any other language-medium.
- But this does not mean that we study all the sounds that humans are capable of producing. The linguist is interested in only those sounds produced by human speech-organs which have a role in language.
By this time, you are already familiar with the various levels of linguistic analysis – phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. You know that phonology deals with the patterning of speech sounds in a language.
We have already discussed what we mean by speech sounds. What do we mean by patterning? Look at the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears given below and see how much of it you can understand:
Uans appona taim tri berres; mamma berre, papa berre, e beibi berre. Live inne contri nire forresta. NAISE AUS. No mugheggia. Uanna dei papa, mamma, e beibi go bice, orie e furghetta locche di dorra.
Bai ene bai commese Goldilocchese. Sci garra natingha tu du batte meiche troble. Sci puscia olle fudde daon di maute ; no live cromma. Den sci gos appesterrese enne slipse in olle beddse. (Bob Belviso qtd. in Yule 43)
While the spellings of the words are different from how they are usually spelt, it is our knowledge of how sounds combine – our phonological knowledge – that we bring in to play here to understand what is written. You can see what I mean from the translation that follows:
Once upon a time was three bears; mama bear, papa bear, and baby bear. Live in the country near the forest.
NICE HOUSE. No mortgage. One day papa, mama, and baby go beach, only they forget to lock the door.
By and by comes Goldilocks. She got nothing to do but make trouble. She push all the food down the mouth; no leave a crumb. Then she goes upstairs and sleeps in all the beds.
Human beings are capable of producing many different speech sounds. However, not all the sounds that humans can produce are present in any language. Every language uses a selection of some sounds from among the possible sounds that can be produced. From the previous modules, you know that English (R. P.) uses a selection of 44 sounds.
Phoneme
Phones
Phones are the sounds in a language. Number of phones in a language is the total number of sounds that are allowed by a language in its inventory. Languages have two levels of representations:
1. Orthographic, which is the written form
2. Phonetic, which is the spoken form
The phonetic representation is the representation of sounds (phones) of a language. The relationship between the two representations is not always direct or one to one. For example, a single orthography (letter) may be realized as two or more different sounds (and hence leading to two or more phones for the same):
Example 1.
The letter s is realized in four different ways in the following examples:
1. /s/ as in slow, sin
2. /z/ as in dogs, busy
3. /∫/ as in sure, sugar
4. /ʒ/ as in pleasure, vision
The letter c is realized in two different ways in the following examples:
1. /k/ as in cat, cow
2. /s/ as in facade, cell
1. n as in need, now
2. nn as in funny, running
3. gn as in gnaw, sign
4. kn as in knife, know
5. pn as in pneumonia, pneumatic
The voiceless labiodental fricative /f/ is realized in spelling as
1. f as in fan, fire
2. ff as in offer, affair
3. ough as in cough, rough
4. ph as in photo, graph
Thus it is clear that phonetic representations are independent of the written representations, and hence phones need to be looked at in isolation to the latter.
Phoneme
A phoneme is a minimal distinctive unit of sound. The word “minimal” connotes that the sound cannot be subdivided into smaller units. The word “distinctive” means that each phoneme is distinct from the other in a native speaker’s mind, and helps the speaker/listener distinguish one word from the other.
/t/ sound in tar, star, writer, eighth
/b/ sound in bar, dub, rubber
Phonemes are the broader level representations of a group of sounds that are supposed to be varying because of their phonological distributions. In this sense a phoneme is supposed to be the ‘underlying form’ for the various ‘surface forms’ that feature in a language. So while the surface forms are what a speaker/hearer really encounters, phonemes are their abstract identities. This will become clearer in the sections below.
Allophone
The various surface manifestations of a phoneme are known as allophones of that phoneme. For example, the phoneme /p/ in English is realized in more than one way:
/p/ as in pin
/p/ as in tap
It is evident that the same phoneme /p/ in English is realized differently in these two different words. The sound in the beginning of a syllable is usually aspirated and is represented as [pʰ] in phonetic representation. The other allophone that is also the underlying form (phonemic form) of the two sounds is [p], is differently realized. The different realizations are contingent to different phonetic environments. Allophones of an individual phoneme have mutually exclusive phonetic environments. It is because of the environment that an individual allophone is supposed to sound different from (or same as) its ‘underlying form’ or from other allophones of its family. Thus allophones are said to be in complementary distribution. Please keep in mind that a complementary distribution should not be mistaken for ‘optional distribution’ as such a case would lead to a free-variation rather than an allophonic variation. Phonemes, on the other hand, are in contrastive distribution and usually have phonetically overlapping environments. Another thing to note would be that the underlying form (phonemic) for a group of sounds is always one of the sounds that are represented on the surface. Allophones of a phoneme, in addition to having a mutually exclusive phonetic environment, should also have some phonetic resemblance. Two sounds which are too dissimilar phonetically cannot form the allophones of a single phoneme. Also, sounds that are recognized as allophones in one language because of their complementary distribution might be recognized as two distinct phonemes in another language. For example, in Hindi, the two sounds [p] and [pʰ] are separate phonemes. We shall talk about this in detail in the next section.
Minimal Pair
A minimal pair is a pair of words that are alike except for one phonological unit, and carry distinct meanings. Thus the pair /tar/ and /bar/ are minimal pairs as they differ only in their initial consonants and have distinct meanings. Minimal pairs are used to find two phones that are phonemically distinct in a language. As in the above example, the substitution of /t/ with /b/ brings about a difference in meaning to the minimal pair they create, so /t/ and /b/ are two separate phonemes in this language. We can see why [p] and [pʰ] are separate phonemes in Hindi. We have seen that [p] and [pʰ] are allophones in English. In the previous section we have also said that [p] and [pʰ] are separate phonemes in Hindi. Why? This is because we can form a minimal pair [pəl] “moment” and [pʰəl] “fruit” using the two sounds in Hindi.
Principles for Phonemic Analysis
Two important principles utilized for forming the inventory of a language and for putting two sounds as one under a single phoneme or as two under different phonemes have already been discussed in the sections on phoneme and allophone. They are the principle of contrastive distribution and the principal of complementary distribution. Let us discuss them in detail.
1. Principle of Contrastive Distribution
This principle employs minimal pairs to find different phonemes in a language. A contrast in meaning would give separate phonemes of the language. In case we don’t get a contrast from a pair that looks just like a minimal pair, we would call it a case of free variation.
2. Principle of Complementary Distribution
Two sounds that occur in different phonetic environments and never appear to be in the same environment as the other, i.e. when the environment in which one sound appears is exclusive of the one in which the other one appears, the sounds are said to be in complementary distribution. Sounds in complementary distribution are taken as allomorphs of the same phoneme if they show a certain affinity on the phonetic level.
Syllable
Introduction
When we describe phonemes, we see discrete units of sounds and not a continuous flow of sound segments like the way language naturally exists. This continuity is not random in a language and sounds are organized in the formation of bigger structures such as words. That is to say, when we pronounce a word like potato, the sound [pʰ] is not realized freely. It can only be articulated as a string of sounds [pʰ + ə] in this case. These larger organised sequence of sounds that are produced as a unit while speaking are called syllables. Since syllables contain more than one segment of sounds, these are identified as the suprasegmental features of the language. Divisons of syllables are intuitive to native speakers, and they know where one syllable ends and the other begins.
Example
plant /plɑ:nt/
plantain /plɑ:n-tɪn/ photograph /fəʊ-tə-grɑ:f/
Syllables are usually marked with hyphens. The first word, plant, contains one syllable. It is monosyllabic; plantain has two syllables and is therefore termed disyllabic; the word photograph has three syllables and is termed trisyllabic.
1. The phonetic approach (which may be based either on the prominence theory or the pulse theory)
According to the prominence theory, some sounds in an utterance are more prominent than others. In the word similarity /sɪmɪlærətɪ/ for example, the peaks of prominence are marked by the vowel sounds /ɪ, ɪ, æ, ə, ɪ/. Since the number of peaks of prominence decide the number of syllables, the word has five syllables. The pulse theory (or chest pulse theory) focuses on muscular activities and lung movements in the process of speech. It has been experimentally observed that the number of chest pulses, accompanied by increase in air pressure, can determine the number of syllables produced. Both these theories have their limitations. The sonority theory is another approach to explain the syllable.
Syllable Structure
Syllables are made up of consonant and vowel sounds. While a vowel sound is the nucleus of the syllable, consonant sounds usually serve the peripheral positions. A syllable can be divided into two parts, onset and rhyme, where rhyme is further divided into nucleus and coda. Onsets are the initial positions in a syllable taken by consonant(s). They act as the releasing factor. Rhyme has the nucleus as its first position, which is filled in by a vowel, and then one or several consonants may take the coda position. A syllable may not have onset or coda or both. Sometimes, syllables take consonant sounds in their nuclear position. Such consonants are called syllabic consonants. A syllable cannot have more than one vowel. When two vowel sounds come together, they are realised as a single vowel sound known as dipthong. Diagramatically, the division may be represented as follows:
Syllables which end in vowel sounds and have no coda are known as open syllables. Syllables are termed close if the coda position is fulfilled.
Types of Syllables
Using the symbols V for vowel sounds and C for consonant sounds, let us look at the various types of syllables that can occur in English:
1. V
air /eə/
a /ə/, /eɪ/
2. VC
am /æm/
eat /ɪ:t/
3. CV
tea /tɪ:/
no /nəʊ/
4. CVC
cut /kʌt/
king /kɪŋ/
5. CCV
clay /kleɪ/
cry /kraɪ/
6. CCCV
spray /spreɪ/
screw /skru:/
7. CCCVC
scream /skrɪ:m/
street /strɪ:t/
8. CCCVCC
screamed /skrɪ:md/
strange /streɪndʒ/
9. CCCVCCC
strands /strænds/
strengths /streŋθs/
10. VCCCC
pre-empts /empts/
11. CVCCCC
tempts /tempts/
texts /teksts/
12. CCVCCCC
twelfths /twelfvθs/
13. CCVCCC
brands /brænds/
trunks /trʌnks/
14. CCVCC
crates /kreɪts/
snacks /snæks/
15. CVCC
tents /tent/
rains /reɪns/
16. VCC
and /ænd/
ask /a:sk/
Consider the following examples:
mutton /mʌ-tn/
rhythm /rɪ-δm/
In both these words, the second syllable is marked CV although the final sound in both words is a consonant. As stated earlier, in some syllables the consonant functions as the nucleus of the syllable. Such consonants are known as syllabic consonants.
Consonant Clusters
In English, it is possible to have up to three consonants at the beginning of the syllable and up to four consonants after the nucleus. The sequence of consonants occuring together at the beginning of the syllable or at the end of the syllable are known as consonant clusters. This can be represented as follows: (CCC) V (CCCC)
Word Accent
Introduction
Accent is taken from a Latin word accentus that can mean tone, intensity or signal. The word ‘accent’ as used in modern English has broader connotations and can be utilized for more than one linguistic feature. In our daily life, we use the term ‘accent’ to refer to the way a speaker speaks a language. And that is how we refer to the term ‘accent’ in a social/sociolinguistic domain. However, when we talk about the term ‘accent’ as in ‘word accent’ we are concerned about the general feature of a language that has to do with the relative prominence/emphasis/intensity of various components of speech. It is in this sense the term ‘accent’ shall be used in the discussion that follows. Accent is the intensity or prominence given to a certain syllable within a word, or certain words within a phrase or a sentence. Thus accent can be lexical (within the word) or prosodic (within the sentence).
What is Word Accent
Word accent or word stress or lexical stress is the prominence that is given to a certain syllable within a word by providing it a greater intensity that can result in features such as increased loudness. A syllable that shows relative prominence is said to be stressed, accented or tonic, while the other syllables that are relatively less prominent in speech are unstressed, accented or atonic. One should keep in mind that the use of the word “tonic” is different from the “tone” that is a phonemic distinction in many languages.
Types of Word Accent
Word accent can have its types. Languages can have a fixed word accent, variable word accent, or a regular word accent. In languages that have a fixed word accent, the position of the accented syllable is fixed. As for instance, a language with a penultimate word stress will almost always have its penultimate syllable as stressed (Polish), and same way there will be languages that will have their stress on the first syllable only (Icelandic). Other languages that have a variable word accent, like English, have a less predictable stress system, and factors like etymology, morphology and grammar of the word decide which syllable would be accented. Such variations in the position of stress can bring a contrast to the meaning of a word. Thus stress can be phonemic in such languages.
Example
permit, permit (n, v)
insight, incite
Some other languages have neither a fixed word accent, nor do they show a variable word accent. Such languages have words where the stress is marked with some simple rules. These rules are highly predicable in nature, and so these languages are supposed to have a regular word accent (Latin, for example).
Languages might show stress in their writing system as well. Some languages like Spanish use diacritics to mark the accent.
Word accent in English
Languages with variable word accent, like English, show a random position of stress. Stress in English is not fixed – it is not tied to any particular syllable. The position of stress is mostly learnt by the speaker. There are rules depending on the type and constituents of the words, but not without exception. There are various words where native speakers have different opinions about which syllable should be accented, e.g. TeleVIsion, TELivision Some languages have only one level of stress. Some others have more than one level of stress. When languages allow more than one stress, we can see two stressed syllables in a word, primary and secondary. Primary stress is on the most prominent and intensified syllable; secondary stress is attributed to the syllable whose intensity is more than the other syllables but lower than the one with the primary stress. Linguists like Chomsky and Halle have described four levels of stress in English, but there is no consensus on this issue among other linguists. In fact, the case for English being analyzed using only one level of stress is well argued by many linguists.
There are some analyses that have showed that some languages might be seen as lacking the stress entirely, such as French and Mandarin.
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Reference
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