CHAPTER OUTLINE

In this chapter you will learn: the way that sound differences are used to distinguish words; how similar, noncontrastive sounds can be grouped into phonemes; how sounds form patterns in a language; how to look for patterns in samples of phonetic data; about the grouping of sounds into syllables; differences between languages in permitted sound groupings; about widespread phonological processes in languages; about phonological features and phonological rules.

KEY TERMS

1. Allophone

2. Alternation

3. Assimilation

4. Coda

5. Contrast

6. Distribution

7. Elision

8. Environment

9. Feature

10. Lenition

11. Minimal pair

12. Onset

13. Phoneme

14. Phonological process

15. Rhyme

16. Rule

Contrast

Imagine a language where all word-initial consonants are voiceless and all consonants elsewhere in a word are voiced. This would mean that in this language a word like [pidag] is possible, but one like [bitak] is impossible. The voicing of a consonant in this language is completely determined by some aspect of the environment of the consonant, in this case the position within a word. It is impossible for this language to use the phonetic distinction between voiced consonants and voiceless ones to distinguish one word from another, even though the language has voiced and voiceless pairs of consonants. We can say that in this language there is no voicing contrast or, equivalently, that voicing of consonants is not contrastive in this language.

In English and in many other languages, voicing is contrastive for consonants. We can demonstrate this with a pair of words like fussy [fʌsi] and fuzzy [fʌzi] in English or a pair in French like choux [∫u] ‘cabbage’ and joue [зu] ‘play’.