Stress placement; phonemes vs. allophones

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Phonemes vs. allophones • So, a phoneme is a sound that distinguishes meaning in a language, whereas an allophone is a phonetic variant of a particular phoneme that does not affect meaning. So, how do languages differ, then? • Now, consider these words from Thai with aspirated and non‐aspirated voiceless stops: [paa] “forest” [p h aa] “to split” [tam] “to pound” [t h am] “to do” [kat] “to bite” [k h at] “to interrupt” • We know aspiration is allophonic in English, but is aspiration phonemic or allophonic in Thai? The phonemes of Classical Arabic ّمد [damm] ‘blood’ ّمض [dˁamm] ‘grouped/added’ راج [dʒa:r] ‘neighbor’ راد [da:r] ‘house’ رمق [qamar] ‘moon’ رمأ [ʔamara] ‘ordered’ بتك [kataba] ‘he wrote’ بتاك [ka:taba] ‘corresponded with’ 19 21 23 Minimal pairs • Phonemes are contrastive.They create words that differ in meaning. Allophones are not contrastive; the do not distinguish meaning. • But how do we know if two sounds are contrastive in a particular language? • Answer: Minimal pairs. • A minimal pair is two words with different meanings that are identical except for one sound that occurs in the same place in each word, e.g., seed [sid] and seat [sit] The phonemes of Classical Arabic • Now, consider these data, and draw conclusions about the phonemes of Classical Arabic. راث [θa:r] ‘revolted’ راز [za:r] ‘visited’ حنم [manaa] ‘granted’ عنم [manaʕa] ‘prevented’ ةحابس [siba:ah] ‘swimming’ ةحايس [sija:ah] ‘tourism’ نيت [ti:n] ‘figs’ نيط [tˁi:n] ‘mud’ Emphatic vowels: Phonemes or allophones? • Let’s for convenience use the symbol [A] and [A:] to mark [a] and [a:] when they are pronounced emphatically in Arabic. رئاط [tˁA:ˁʔir] ‘bird’ • Suppose that we pronounced that word as [tˁa:ʔir] instead, i.e., without spreading the emphatic feature to the vowel. Would that lead to a difference in meaning? • Actually, it does not. That means that emphatic vowels are not phonemes in Arabic; they are allophones. They are non‐contrastive, and we can actually predict where the occur in the language. 20 22 24 3/12/2012 4
Is there a [p] phoneme in Arabic? • Arabic speakers may also pronounce تبتك as [katapt]. Does that make [p] a phoneme of Arabic? [l] vs. […]: Phonemes or allophones? • Now, let’s revisit the pronunciation of ﷲ again. • After [i:] or [i], the laam is pronounced as [l]. After [u:], [u], [a:], or [a], it is velarized […]: ﷲ مسب ِ [bismi-l-la:h] ﷲ َءاش نإ [ʔin-ʃa:ʔa-…‐…A:h] ﷲ ُدمحأ [ʔamadu-…‐…A:h] • Do you think [l] and […] are phonemes or allophones in Classical Arabic? Interdentals • Egyptian Arabic and most other sedantary dialects lost the interdentals [θ], [D], and [Dˁ]. • [θ] has generally merged with [t] in most contexts and occasionally with [s] in contexts that have MSA‐flavor to them. ةثلاث [tala:tah] جلث [talɡ] لاثم [masalan] ةيوناث [sanawijjah] • [D] has merged with the [z] in Egyptian: ركاذ [za:kir] يكذ [zaki:] • Words with Classical Arabic [Dˁ] are either pronounced with [dˁ] or with a new phoneme [zˁ] رھظ [dˁuhr] ملاظ [zˁa:lim] ‘unjust person’ 25 27 29 Emphatic [r] • When [r] is followed by a low vowel, it’s typically pronounced emphatically: يأر [rAʔj] *[raʔj] عبار [rA:biʕ] *[ra:biʕ] ةحار [rA:ah] *[ra:ah] Dialectal variation • Arabic dialects differ from Classical Arabic and from each other in their phonemic inventory. • The differences may not be too many, but they are salient enough to be able to identify speakers of certain dialects. • Let’s look at examples. The [qa:f] • Egyptian retained the [k] but backed the [q] into a glottal stop. بلق [ʔalb] ‘heart’ ميدق [ʔadi:m] • In Southern Egyptian, however, the [q] is pronounced as [g], as in the Bedouin dialects cited by Holes: بلق [ɡalb] ‘heart’ ميدق [ɡadi:m] • The [q] also became [k] in some Arabic dialects, particularly in rural areas. • In some dialects, the [k] became a voiceless alveo‐ palatal affricate [tʃ]: بلك [tʃalb]. 26 28 30 3/12/2012 5
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Stress placement; phonemes vs. allophones

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