TOPIC 2: PHONEMES AND ALLOPHONES

Question: Why would most (all?) English speakers say that lips, slip, spill, Pils, and lisp
comprise the same sounds in different orders?
Answer: Although the physical SOUNDS differ from word to word, the words do
comprise the same set of PHONEMES.
phoneme: (first try at a definition) a basic sound unit of a language
allophone(s): the phonetic variant(s) of a phoneme
phonological rules: generalized statements defining the conditions for the appearance of
the particular phonetic realizations (allophones) of an underlying phonemic form
Some formal conventions
/ /: Slant brackets enclose phonemic (underlying) forms, e.g. /pls/ Pils
[ ]: Square brackets enclose phonetic forms, e.g. [ps] Pils ([] =dark l)
X Y / __Z: X is realized as Y in the environment before Z
X Y / Z___: X is realized as Y in the environment after Z
Recipe for phonemic analysis
ASSEMBLE A FULLY REPRESENTATIVE DATA SET, ACCURATELY TRANSCRIBED.

a. Do phonetic charts for consonants and vowels.

b. Collect local environments for the sounds being investigated.
c. Look for patterns in environmentsdo particular sounds appear exclusively in certain
environments?
d. If the answer to (c) is yes, state the environment in the most general way possible.
Often one allophone will most easily be stated as elsewhere.
e. Set up an underlying form for the phoneme (usually the elsewhere allophone), and
write phonological rules (A B / P ___ Q) deriving the other allophones. Write the
rules in as general a form as possible, leaving out unnecessary material.
f. See whether the pattern worked out in (e) can be generalized to other sets of sounds.
For example, a rule that aspirates all the voiceless stops is more general than a rule
that just aspirates /t/.

12

Linguistics 120A

2. Phonemes and Allophones

13

Example 1: English velars

The English phoneme /k/ can be described as having (at least) three allophones: a
neutral velar allophone, which we can symbolize as [k], a backed allophone, which be
can symbolize as [k] and a raised or fronted allophone, which we can symbolize as [k].
Submit the following words to the recipe above
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

keen
kin
Kate
kettle
catch

[
[
[
[
[

]
]
]
]
]

6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

cool
could
coal
cut
cod

[
[
[
[
[

]
]
]
]
]

11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.

creep
clean
crone
clone
crop
clod

[
[
[
[
[
[

]
]
]
]
]
]

Thinking like a phonologist: What additional questions does our analysis raise?
- Can the analysis be extended to a larger class of segments than just /k/?
- We have only looked at /k/ in / [word ___ (C) V. What happens in
/ C___V
/ V___ ]word
/ V___V (in particular, if the vowels conflict, which one wins?)
Some other issues of phonology that this data set illustrates:
-

HOW DO WE KNOW THAT THERE IS ANYTHING TO LOOK FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

The messiness of dealing with real life data.

The idealized nature of phonological rules vs. precise phonetic descriptions.
The usually local nature of phonological rules.
The phonetic naturalness of phonological processes.
A tendency for anticipation of following environments to be stronger than
perseverance of preceding environments.

Example 2: Papago (Focus: [t, t, d, d)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

[bidim]
[tapan]
[hido]
[tkid]
[gatwid]
[tuku]
[dagp]
[toha]
[duki]
[wmt]
[dk]

turn around
split
cook
vaccinate
shoot
become black
press with hand
become white
rain (noun)
help, marry
taste

12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.

[hwgid]
[tiha]
[toi]
[wiut]
[tata]
[kitud]
[dodom]
[tatam]
[dwd]
[tgig]
[tiwia]

smell
hire
become hot
swing
feet
build a house for
copulate
touch
soil, earth
name, reputation
settle, establish residence

Linguistics 120A

2. Phonemes and Allophones

14

The Vowel System of Papago

front
i, i

high

central
unrounded
,

back
rounded
u, u
o, o

mid
a, a

low
The Consonants1
voiceless stops
voiced stops

labial
p

alveolar
t

palato-alveolar

voiced affricates

d
s

voiceless fricatives
m

palatal

velar
k

voiceless affricates

nasals

retroflex

liquids
w

glides

The Data Sorted by Immediate Context (numbers index the word used, from data set above)
t
2,16,19 [word ___a
8,14 [word ___o
15 u___ ]word
5 a___w
16,19 a___a
10 m ___ ]word
16,19 [word ___a

t
13 [word ___i

d
3 i___o

d
1 i___i

4 [word ___
6 [word ___u

4,5,12 i___ ]word

17 u___ ]word

9 [word ___u
11 [word ___

17 i___u
21 [word ___

7 [word ___a

20 [word ___

22 [word ___i

glottal

18 [word ___o
18 o___o
20 ___ ]word

Data and analysis assembled by Bruce Hayes, based on Saxton, Dean, Lucille Saxton, and Susie Enos
(1983) Dictionary: Papago/Pima-English, English-Papago/Pima, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Linguistics 120A

2. Phonemes and Allophones

15

Left Contexts Only: No Pattern

t
[word ___
15 u___

2,8,14,16,20

[word ___
17 i___

4,6,13,21,22

5 a___
16,19 a___
10 m___

d
3,4,5,12 i___
15 u___

1 i___
9 [word ___

7,11,18 [word ___

18 o___
20 ___

20 [word ___

Right Contexts Only

t
2,16,19 ___a
8,14 ___o
10,15 ___ ]word
5 ___w
16,19 ___a

13 ___i
4 ___
6,17 ___u
u ___
v ___i

d
3,18 ___ o
4,5,12, ___ ]word
15, 20
7 ___ a
18 ___ o

1 ___i
9 ___u
20 ___
11 ___

There is a simple and coherent generalization (the kind that phonologies tend to favor).
The palato-alveolar affricates occur before high vowels, and the alveolar stops
occur elsewhere.
Few Data
Especially for [d]. But among the values of a precisely formulated phonological
analysis are (1) that it suggests areas where you should look for further data and (2) that it
makes predictions that can be tested by such data.
Formalizing to Achieve Generality
Assume underlying /t,d/: these are what you get if no rule perturbs the basic
pattern.
State rule as simply as possible, leaving out whatever is not needed
A heuristic: look at every single feature and ask whether the rule works without
it?

Linguistics 120A

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16

Features in Rules
Segments are actually clusters of features, i.e. a segment is the sum of its
phonological properties.
Rules change only the features explicitly mentioned, and all features not
mentioned by a rule remain unaltered.
Unaltered features in Papago: voicing, nonnasality, others...
It is good to give rules names for easy reference
Alveolar Palatalization
stop

alveolar

affricate

palato-alveolar / ___

[alveolar] elsewhere

vowel
high

Illustrative Derivations
Choice of forms: Enough to make the operation of the system clear.
Underlying forms: This will be the base form whose features have not been
changed by rules.
Put altered sounds in the appropriate place when a rule applies, and long hyphen
to show that a rule is inapplicable.
Slant brackets surround underlying forms, square brackets surround surface
forms. Omit brackets in intermediate forms.
split

vaccinate press

turn around

Underlying forms:

/tapan/

/tkid/

/dagp/

/bidim/

Alveolar Palatalization:

----------

tkid

----------

bidim

Surface forms:

[tapam]

[tkid]

[dagp]

[bidim]

The Why of Alveolar Palatalization (from Bruce Hayess lecture notes)

I know two other languages that affricate before high vowels. Examples:
Japanese, Quebec French.
High vowels have a narrow air channel, and when a /t/ is released into a high
vowel, the burst is noisy (say [ti], [ta] to yourself to check). Affrication is
conjectured to be an exaggeration of this natural effect, perhaps for the purpose of
rendering the /t/ more audibly distinct from quieter stops like /p,k/.
I dont know why affrication in Papago changes the place of articulation
conceivably this is an influence from Spanish and English, since virtually all
Papago speakers are bilingual in one of these languages.2
2

Data from http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/, which lists most of the worlds languages with their locations
and number of speakers.

Linguistics 120A

2. Phonemes and Allophones

17

RETURN TO A DEFINITION OF THE PHONEME

Definition #1: Phonemes as sounds (from above)
phoneme: a basic sound unit of a language
Conveys the idea that a phoneme is an abstraction away from a particular pronunciation,
but it the definition is rather vague and doesn't really tell us anything about the
phonological system, the grammar of sound.
Definition #2: Phonemes defined as sets of sounds
phoneme: a unit of phonological contrast
contrast: Sounds are in contrast if they can distinguish words. The clearest way to
demonstrate that sounds are in contrast is to locate a minimal pair of words; the clearest
way to demonstrate that sounds are not in contrast is to demonstrate that they are in
complementary distribution.
minimal pair (or minimal set): words differing from each other by only a single sound
(or, more correctly, by only a single phonological contrastpairs may differ minimally
in features such as stress or tone)
A minimal 20-tuplet for English consonants (19-tuplet if you pronounce wail and
whale identically)
[p] pail

[t] tail

[t]

[k] kale

[b] bail

[d] dale

[d] jail

[g] gale

[z] Zale

[]

[f] fail

[]

[v] veil

[] theyll

[m] male

[s] sale
[n] nail

[] shale

[h] hail

[]

[l]

[] rail
[w] wail

[j] Yale

[] whale

SOUNDS THAT ARE NOT IN CONTRAST

complementary distribution: two sounds, X and Y, are in complementary distribution

if X could never appear in an environment where Y could occur and vice versa
Examples that we have seen:

English light vs. dark ls

English aspirated vs. unaspirated stops
English velars (three kinds of k)
Papago alveolar stops vs. alveopalatal fricatives
(in Hayes textbook) Maasai voiceless stops vs. voiced
stops vs. voiced fricatives

Linguistics 120A

2. Phonemes and Allophones

18

free variation, for example, English aspirated vs. unreleased stops in final position
THE LANGUAGE SPECIFIC NATURE OF CONTRAST AND COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION

(and, as a consequence, of phonological systems)

One languages allophonic variants may be another languages phonemes. Likewise,
languages may differ in allophonic variants of comparable phonemes. Examples:

light vs. dark l: cf. Russian [vona] fleece vs. [volnaja] license
aspirated vs. unaspirated stops: cf. Thai pa jungle, pa operate, ba shoulder
alveolar stops vs. alveopalatal affricates: cf. English top vs. chop
Spanish has no aspirated stops and only one kind of l
Wolof has no alveopalatal sounds at all, either in contrast or in complementary
distribution with alveolars

Question: English [p] and [t] are in complementary distribution. Are they therefore
allophones of the same phoneme?
Definition #3: Phonemes defined by derivational relations
phoneme: a member of the set of basic phonological units that are put into
correspondence with a set of phonetic realizations by rule
Allophones in a theory with derivations
Allophones are the set of sounds that are put into correspondence with a single
phoneme.
The elsewhere allophone, if there is one, is the one that emerges after environmentspecific rules have applied.
Advantages over the sets of sounds definition:
Defining phonemes in terms of contrast between phonemes and the relationship of
complementary distribution does not directly capture the systematic nature of
sound relations, e.g. it seems almost an accident that voiceless stops, as a group, all
have an aspirated allophone in word initial position
This definition avoids methodological problems that rely on establishing contrast
through minimal pairs and complementary distribution: (1) some languages
have few if any true minimal pairs, and (2) many sounds are in complementary
distribution that we would not want to say are allophones of one phoneme (English
/h, or even English [th] vs. [p])

Linguistics 120A

2. Phonemes and Allophones

19

Discussion Problems
NGAMO VOICELESS LABIALS AND LARYNGEALS
Ngamo is a Chadic language spoken in northeastern Nigeria.3 You can see a video on the
course website of a speaker, Isa Adamu Gashinge, saying most of the data items here.
NR in the right-hand column indicates that no recording is available for that item.
(a) Consonants and vowels of Ngamo: We wont consider the entire phonological system
of Ngamo here. We point out just the significant information for this set of data. Ngamo
has the following sounds whose distribution looks suspicious:
[p, , h, h]
The vowels of Ngamo are /i, i, e, e, u, u, o, o, a, a/. Because short vowels
are more common than long vowels, the data here does not illustrate long and short
counterparts for all vowels.
VOWELS:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

la
lapk
ninnuk
km gumpl
hojko jins
hpjok jns
anko i
pnuk ku
tu
p
opko bz
honko bz
nto wsi
arit
hpti
no b
no b
hu
dmpo
tansu

answer
he answered
he arose
baobab leaves
he broke an egg
he broke up eggs
he caught a goat
he caught lots of goats
day after tomorrow
digging
he dug a well
they dug wells
she fanned a fire
fingernail
flour
they didnt follow
he didnt follow (here)
following
forehead
they went out

NR

NR

3
There are two major dialects of Ngamo: Gudi and Yaya. Data here are from the Yaya dialect. Data for
this problem comes from field research supported by the US National Science Foundation, awards
BCS-0111289 and BCS-0553222, Russell G. Schuh, Principal Investigator.

Linguistics 120A
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.

2. Phonemes and Allophones

ptansu
et
garh
la
hwe
lipr
li
hjk
hti
hndo
hm
etr
h
hakm
huj

they kept going out

going out
guest
half
jujube
needle
pond
squirrel
sun
thigh
water
white
wood
yawning
proper name

20

NR
NR
NR
NR

NR

NR

(b) Distribution table: Make a distribution table of the local environments for the
suspicious sounds. SUGGESTION: Include both preceding and following environments
in your table. You can first scan just the preceding environments, then just the following
environments for generalizations. You can ignore tones in making up the table.
2
4

[p]
a__k
m__u

1
3

[]
a__a
#__i

[h]
#__o

15

[h]
#__a

(c, d) Seeking distributional patterns: Try to find systematic patterns for each of the
target sounds. It will be easier to look first at all the preceding environments, then all the
following.
(e) Underlying forms and rules: For the sounds that are in complementary distribution,
propose an underlying form for the phoneme and rules to derive the phonetic forms seen
in the data.

Linguistics 120A

2. Phonemes and Allophones

21

CANTONESE4
Transcription is IPA. Like all Chinese languages, Cantonese is a tone language. Tones
are shown by tone letters following the words. The vertical stroke represents the pitch
range of the speakers normal speaking voice. The horizontal line represents the tone as a
relative pitch or pitch change within that range. For example, [] = a tone with level pitch
at the top of the speaking range, [] = a tone rising from a mid-level pitch to the highest
pitch, etc.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
4

kok
tn
p
tsa
tsk
tk
y
tse
kat
pin
lt
t
ti
ts
so
kt
jim
tsa
tn
kok
p
ts
s
tt
tsa
lk
pun
kin
sm
si

accurate
allow
apple
bad
bamboo
bird
book
car
card
change, become different
chestnut
Cheung (proper name)
Chinese characters
clear
comb
cough
dye
elbow
enter
feel
flat
flush
food for cooking a meal
go out
grab
green
half
healthy
heart
history

37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.

tin
si
si
tsan
kun
tsa
k
tut
h
lk
t y
t y or
si
k
sa
tyn
tin
pin
yt
yn
t it
t n
sam
tap
si
t i
tap
fu
si
sk

mad
market
matter
meal
observe
orange
pass
pay for train w. debit card
permanent
pick up
pig
place
poem
poor
sand
short
sky
slice
snow
sour
stanza of poem
stupid
three
take (bus, etc.)
time, period of time
time, occasion
tower
trousers
try
uncle

The starting point of the data was a 120A paper by Marissa Tse. Additional data come from Stephen
Matthews and Virginia Yip, Cantonese; A Comprehensive Grammar, Routledge, 1994, Virginia Yip and
Stephen Matthews, Basic Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook, Routledge, 2000, Keith S.T. Tong and
Gregory James, Colloquial Cantonese, Routledge, 1994, and Kwan Choi Wah et al., English-Cantonese
Dictionary, The Chinese University Press, 1991. A very useful online dictionary is at
http://humanum. arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can.

Linguistics 120A
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.

h
tsk
tsan
wut
t
mk

2. Phonemes and Allophones

Hong (proper name)
quick
real
live
long
look for

67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.

ha
t k
tsk
se
tso
j

22
walk
wear
weave
finished
wrong
yield

Analyzing the data:

1. Aspiration: Is aspiration vs. non-aspiration of stops and affricates distinctive?
One approach to answering this would be to set up a complete distribution table for each
of the aspirated and unaspirated consonants. However, a short cut would be to simply
scan the data for MINIMAL PAIRS, which would immediately demonstrate CONTRAST.
2. Vowels: What are the vowel phonemes?
Step 1: Scan through the data and make a list of all the vowels that you find. Then
arrange them in a standard vowel chart this will help identify sets of vowels which look
suspicious in terms of whether or not they contrast.
Step 2:

Make a distribution table to see whether distributional patterns show

can be grouped as allophones
of environments: preceding,
following, and tone. Just to get an idea before painstakingly filling out all these
environments for all the vowels, take a pair of suspicious vowels, e.g. [i, ] and quickly
scan through the data for preceding environment, following environment, and tone. If
one of these looks more promising than the others, concentrate on that one.
COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION, i.e whether certain vowels
of a single phoneme. SUGGESTION: There are three kinds

3. Coronal obstruent phonemes: What are the coronal obstruent phonemes? (coronal
sounds = dentals, alveolars, alveopalatals; obstruents = stops, affricates, fricatives)
Step 1: List all the coronal obstruents in the data.
Step 2: Make a distributional table for each of the coronals.
4. Tones: How many contrastive tones does Cantonese have?
By far the easiest way to determine this is to find minimal pairs distinguished only by
tone. Even if you could not find a full set of words distinguished only by tone, you could
probably find enough pairs that, when added up, would show all the contrasts. Try find
one set of words that are distinguished only by the tones that appear in the data.

Lango: The Hayes textbook has a dataset for phonemic analysis on page 44.