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Unit 10: Phonemes: Detailed Study

language. The units that form a system, can be replaced by other units to produce different utterances, Notes
while the relations between the different units present in an utterance consitute a structure. For instance,
the English word sack/sack has one syllable, which is made up of sequence of three phonemes /s/,
/ae/ and /k/. The phoneme /s/ can be replaced by other phonemes /b/,/p/,/ t/dz/./h/,/l/ to
give us different words back, pack, tack, jack, hack, lack. All these items that can be replaced by
another at a particular place in a structure are in paradigmatic relationship and form a system.
Similarly, /ae/ forms a system with other phonemes /i/,/i:/,/e/,/ei/ that can be used as substitutes
to give us other words sick, seek, seck, sake, /k/ also forms a system with the /t/,/d/,/p/,/m/ŋ/
that give us the words sat, sad, sap, sam, sang.
The units of phonological analysis have a hierarchy, so that a unit of higher ranks consists of a
sequence of one or more occurrences of the next lower rank. For example, in English one or more
phonemes make up a syllable; one or more syllables make up a foot (which is the unit of rhythm); one
or more feet make up a tone group (which is the unit of intonation); one or more tone groups make
up a sentence. Examples of these phonological units are given here:
1. Phoneme: /k/,/b/,/t/,/d/,/i/,/e/, etc.
2. syllable: back/bæk/ago/ igou/button b ^ -tn,/etc.
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3. foot: The cur/few tolls/the knell/of part/ing day/. Here we have five feet. (/A slanting bar/
represents a foot boundary)
4. tone group: // If the “bride a, grees // the ‘marriage is in’ January./ /. (// represents tone group
boundary; ‘represents rising tone, and ‘falling tone,’ accent (strong or stressed syllable.)
5. Sentence: For example, the sentence given above has two tone groups.
10.4.2 Prosodic Analysis

Prosodic analysis is another aspect of phonology. It is concerned with phonological features ‘that
extend beyond a phonematic unit in a structure’. Features like aspiration, nasalization, labialization,
retroflexion and palatalisation often relate to sequences of more than one phonematic unit. The study
of supra-segmental features like stress, rhythm, intonation, etc. also forms a part of prosodic analysis.
Examples of a few prosodic features are given below:
1. aspiration: The English word clay /klei/ has an aspirated /k/ in the form of [kh], but the aspiration
affects the following /l/also and devoices it to [ o]. It can therefore be described as /h/ prosody.
1
2. nasalization: The English word sing /siŋ/ has incidental nasalization of the vowel /i/ under the
influence of the nasal consonant after it. Nasalization can therefore be described as a prosody in
this kind of syllable.
3. lip-rounding: The English word quiet /kwait/ has lip-rounding for /k/ also under the influence
of the following /w/. We have here an example of /w/—prosody.
4. retroflexion: The Hindi word gUMk has retroflexion extending to both the nasal and the following
plosive sounds. We can call it an example of the prosody of retroflexion.
5. palatalization: The English word key /ki:/ has a palatal instead of a velar /k/ under the influence
of the following /i:/. This can be described as /i/—prosody.
6. accent: Accent on a particular syllable in a word can be taken as a prosody. For example, the
English word ago/ ’gou/ has the accent on the second syllable.
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7. sentence stress, rhythm and intonation are also prosodic features.
10.4.3 Phonemics

Another approach to phonology is based on phonemics, according to which the discovery of the
phonemes (the minimal distinctive sound-units) of a language is done by forming minimal pairs (by
replacement of one phoneme by another which can bring about a change of meaning). Each phoneme,
however, may have slightly different phonetic realizations, called allophones, in different
environments. Most phonological theories are based on phonemics.

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