LIGN 101 - Phonology III

### Have some beautiful art

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# Phonology: The Sound Patterns of Language are really, really awesome

### Will Styler - LIGN 101
              
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### Today's Plan

- Signed language Phonology

- Syllables are fun

- Phonotactics

- Phonology Q/A

- Language Background

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## Signed Language Phonology

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### Phonology isn't just for spoken languages

- Signed languages have phonology too!

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### Signed languages have parameters

- Handshape

- Orientation

- Movement

- Location

- Expression

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### All of these parameters can participate in rules and natural classes

- They act just like phonetic features (e.g. velar, voiced, stop, fricative)

- Assimilation/Dissimilation/Epenthesis/Deletion of gestures

- Similar approaches to rule-writing can describe the process

- Feature -> Variant / [context]_

- The *exact same* principles and approaches apply

- Minimal pairs are also a thing!

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### MOTHER - FATHER

<small>ASL GIFs courtesy of Dr. Bill Vicars at <a href="http://www.lifeprint.com">http://www.lifeprint.com</a> </small>

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### WHITE - LIKE

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### PAPER - CHEESE

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### There is one big difference!

- Parameters in sign are often Simultaneous

- Spoken language is mostly sequential, with sequences of sounds

- Signed language involves many simultaneous parameters affecting one another

- This leads to interesting dimensionality in interactions

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### Signed language is language

- Damnit

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# Syllables

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### Syllables seem to be pretty important in some languages

- English is among them.

- English speakers have an intuitive sense of syllables

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### Let's try

- Under

- /ʌn.dəɹ/

- Decoagulate

- /di.kow.æg.ju.lejt/

- Antipenultimate

- /æn.ti.pɛ.nʌl.tɪm.ɪt/

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### Linguists break the syllable into three parts

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### Linguists break the syllable into three parts

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### Let's look at some syllables

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### Phonological rules will often reference syllables

- English /l/ becomes [ɫ] in the coda position

- /ɛ/ is illegal in words without a coda in English

- Spanish will often re-syllabify words to turn codas into onsets

- "Van a gritar a las olas" ('They will yell at the waves')

- **So, they're good to think about!**

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### In the word 'star', the coda is...

A) /st/

B) /a/

C) /ɹ/

D) /aɹ/

E) /taɹ/

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### In the word 'star', the coda is...

A) /st/

B) /a/

C) <correct>/ɹ/</correct>

D) /aɹ/

E) /taɹ/

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### English Aspiration

- We've been ignoring this all quarter

- But there's more to /t/ than [t]

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.tg td{font-family:Arial, sans-serif;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;border-color:black;}
.tg th{font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-weight:normal;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;border-color:black;}
.tg .tg-xldj{border-color:inherit;text-align:left}
.tg .tg-0pky{border-color:inherit;text-align:left;vertical-align:top}
</style>
<table class="tg">
  <tr>
    <th class="tg-xldj">wʌt</th>
    <th class="tg-0pky">skɪn<br></th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tg-0pky">tʰaɹ</td>
    <td class="tg-0pky">spun<br></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tg-0pky">pʰat<br></td>
    <td class="tg-0pky">spat</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tg-0pky">ɹɛntʰɪŋ<br></td>
    <td class="tg-0pky">ɹɪstaɹt<br></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tg-0pky">kʰjubə</td>
    <td class="tg-0pky">pʰakʰɪt</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tg-0pky">staɹ<br></td>
    <td class="tg-0pky">spɪnstə˞</td>
  </tr>
  </table>
</center>

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### /t/ is aspirated at the start of a syllable!

- ... not just in the onset!

- So are /p/ and /k/

- Those sounds share a feature!

- They're a *natural class*

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### The English [d] is the same sound as the Spanish [t]

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### Different languages have different syllable structures

- This is an important element of...

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# Phonotactics

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### Phonotactics

The study of what sounds and combinations of sounds are 'legal' in a language

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### Every language has a set of phonemes which are used

- This is called a language's **Phonemic Inventory**

- Sometimes 'phonological inventory'

- Every language has one.

- ... and you can find it [at PHOIBLE](https://phoible.org/)
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### Pirahã

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### Hawaiian

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### Mandarin

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### Urdu

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### Malayalam

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### A language's phonological inventory is important!

- It tells you which phonemes are legal to use

- It tells you what the 'options' are when there are alternations

- It will play a big role in your analysis

- It really complicates word borrowings!

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### Hawaiian is an Indigenous language of Hawai'i

Video is from [OiwiTV's ʻĀhaʻi ʻŌlelo Ola: ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi: A Brief History](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_sw5Q4ZyNc&t=76s)

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### Hawaiian has an atypically small number of consonants

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### How do speakers of Hawaiian borrow words from English?

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### Let's look at some English-to-Hawaiian Borrowings

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### Iniseka

* Insect

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### Elepani

* Elephant

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### hipa

* Sheep

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### kaioke

* Coyote

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### Kanakalu

* Kangaroo

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### Lakuna

* Raccoon

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### Nupepa

* Newspaper

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### Mokokaikala

* Motorcycle

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### Kakalina

* Gasoline

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### Kelepona

* Telephone

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### Kolokalaiwa

* Screwdriver

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### But languages also differ in terms of the combinations they allow

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### Phonotactic Constraints dictate what combinations are 'legal'

- Some sounds can't happen at the start or end of words

- Some sound combinations can't happen

- Some syllable structures are favored or prevented

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### English has some weird phonotactic constraints

* End a word with a pronounced /h/ ("Bah")

* Say the /ŋ/ in "ring" at the start of a word. ("Ngöndro")

* End a word with the vowel in "bet" or "book". ("Saké")

* English has "s", "k", "v", but say "Moskva"

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### So do other languages

- ... and these come into play when we're borrowing words

- Languages adapt words to fit their phonotactic constraints when borrowing.

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### Japanese requires all syllables to be CV

- This means that borrowing from English (which has no such constraint) is complicated

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<lang>Japanese</lang><br><ldata>Japonic - Japan</ldata>

‘Merry Christmas' - merii kurisumasu

<small>([Image and Sound Credit](http://japanese.about.com/library/blqow33.htm))</small>
 
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## Some languages allow more complexity in syllables

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### English

- 'Sixths' [sɪksθs]

- CVCCCC

- 'Strengths'  [stɹɛŋkθs]

- CCCVCCCC

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### Russian

- ‘Glance’ - взгляд  (/vzglʲat/)
    
    - CCCCVC syllable

- ‘Of Construction’ - строительств (/strʌˈʲitʲɛlʲstf/)

- CCCVCVCVCCCC

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### Czech

- Strč prst skrz krk - ‘Stick your finger down your throat’

- CCCC CCCC CCCC CCC

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### English

- 'Able' [ejbl̩]

- V CC
    
- 'Fun and games' [fʌn n̩ gejmz]

- CVC C CVCC

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### This is just scratching the surface of phonology

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### LIGNering Questions in Phonology?

Phonology, phoneme, allophone, complimentary Distribution, Contrastive Distribution, Phonological rule, Natural Class, Minimal Pair, Insertion/Epenthesis, Deletion, Phonotactic Constraint, Syllable, Onset, Coda, Nucleus, Rhyme/Rime

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### LIGN 111 is where you'll go for more of this!

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### A person's 'accent' is often guided by the phonology of the languages in their language background

- Wait, what is that?

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## Language Background

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### Let's think about language background a bit more

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### "L1" vs. "L2" shorthand

- L1 is a 'native' language which you've learned well, generally as a child or young adult

- L2 is an 'acquired' language which you didn't grow up speaking, but have acquired later on

- Many levels of fluency are possible

- 'Heritage Speakers' have learned a language informally through exposure at home or from relatives, but may never have learned in school or spoken extensively outside the home

- Many levels of fluency are possible

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### The 'Native Speaker' problem

- What exactly is a 'native speaker' of a language?

- Where does this leave bilinguals?

- What about people who learned English as L2, but have used it more than their L1 in their lifetimes?

- What about heritage speakers?

- [See Cheng et al. 2022 for more discussion of this issue](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.715843/full)

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### More useful ways to think about language background

- Which language(s) did you learn first?

- Which language(s) do you use most often?

- Which language(s) do you feel conversationally fluent in?

- Which language(s) do you have grammatical intuitions in?

- Which language(s) would you prefer to use in a given context?

- Which language(s) do you identify with, or feel an allegiance towards?

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### Language background is complicated

- Every person has a rich language background

- This is important to consider as we do linguistic work

- ... and trying to compact it down to one dimension or 'term' isn't a great plan!

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### Next time

- We'll dive into how words work

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<huge>Thank you!</huge>