Applied English Phonology, Second Edition ( PDFDrive )

PHONOLOGY 35
There is no magic formula for arriving at an airtight conclusion for phonetic
similarity. However, the following can provide some useful guidelines as to
what constitutes a suspicious pair (or group) of sounds that might prove to be
the allophones of the same phoneme:
Obstruents
• Voiced–voiceless pairs with same place and manner of articulation (e.g.
[p–b], [s–z], [tS–dZ]).
• Pairs of sounds with same voicing and manner of articulation, and rather close
places of articulation (e.g. [s–S], [f–T]).
• Pairs of sounds with same voicing and place of articulation but different
manner of articulation (e.g. [t–tS], [k–x], [p–F]).
Sonorant consonants
• All nasals (especially the ones that are close in place of articulation).
• All liquids (within laterals, within non-laterals, and across these two
subgroups).
• Glides [j] and [w] and high vowels [i] and [u] respectively. Glides may
also have a relationship with the fricatives of the same or similar places of
articulation.
The common theme in all the examples above is that there are more phonetic
features that unite them than features that divide them. For example, [s] is a
voiceless, alveolar fricative, and [S] is a voiceless, palato-alveolar fricative. In
other words, both sounds are voiceless and fricatives. The only feature in which
they differ is the place of articulation.
Having reviewed the relevant concepts regarding contrastive and complementary
distribution, we can now go back and re-examine the phonetic
differences that were easily perceived or overlooked by speakers of certain
languages. For example, the difference between the dental and alveolar nasals,
[6] and [n], is overlooked by speakers of English, but noticed immediately by
speakers of Malayalam. In the case of [d] and [D], the situation was different
for speakers of English: while the difference is easily perceived by speakers
of English, the same phonetic distinction is overlooked by speakers of
Spanish. The reasons for different reactions to the same phonetic differences
lie in the way these differences are employed in different languages. While [n–6]
are in complementary distribution in English and the difference is allophonic,
the same sounds are in contrastive distribution and belong to separate
phonemes in Malayalam. In English [d–D] is contrastive, but it is allophonic
in Spanish. There seems to be little doubt that contrastiveness plays a major
role in the perception of language users. When two sounds are allophones
of the same phoneme, a speaker of the language will feel that they are the
same sound.
To sum up what has been reviewed so far, we can state that two or more
phonetically similar sounds may have a different phonemic (functional) status
in different languages. Their status is determined solely by their distribution