LIGN 111 - Will Styler

### Homework 1 is due Friday

Submit online under 'Quizzes'-> Homework 1 Online Submission by Midnight, or in class on paper.

Will's Wednesday office hours are cancelled 1/23 and 1/30.  Alternate times will be announced.

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# How to be Naturally Classy

### Will Styler - LIGN 111

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### Last week, we looked at English Plurals and Past Tense

- We found that some words patterned with one affix

- Some used a different one

- The final sound seemed to be causing this to happen

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### Plural Patterns in our data

- [z] for /j g d ɹ n w b m l i aj v u oʊ/

- [s] for /t p k f θ/

- [ɪz] for /tʃ dʒ s ʃ z/

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### A few reasons why listing sounds is no good

- Lists are *inefficient*

- Lists treat these phenomena as *unmotivated*

- Lists *disguise relationships* among sounds

- Lists aren't *graceful*

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### Relationships among speech sounds are real

- Phonology is not just algebra with symbols

- Your IPA chart is not just an arbitrary scattering of sounds

- Phonetic motivation for changes is often based on geography

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### Relationships can be described in many ways

- ... but the easiest way to start thinking is in terms of...

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# Natural Classes!

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### Let's play a game!

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### One of these sounds is not like the other...

## /t/ /k/ /p/ /s/

- /s/ is the only fricative, all the rest are voiceless stops

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## /m/ /n/ /ŋ/ /b/

- /b/ is the only oral sound, all the rest are nasal sounds

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## /b/ /a/ /ŋ/ /i/ /s/

- /s/ is the only voiceless sound, all the rest are voiced sounds

- /n/ is the only nasal sound, all the rest are oral

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## /l/ /s/ /ŋ/ /j/ /i/

- /i/ is the only vowel, all the rest are consonants

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## /i/ /ɪ/ /ɛ/ /æ/ /ɔ/

- /ɔ/ is the only back vowel, all the rest are front vowels

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## /t/ /n/ /s/ /z/ /k/

- /k/ is the only non-alveolar sound

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## /p/ /t/ /k/ /b/

- /b/ is the only voiced stop

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## Natural Class

A set of speech sounds in a given language that is able to be uniquely, completely, and succinctly described in terms of the shared phonetic (“natural”) properties of its members.
    
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### Natural Class Examples

- Voiceless stops (English & Spanish): [p, t, k]

- Voiced fricatives (English): [v, ð, z, ʒ]

- Voiced fricatives (Spanish): [β, ð, ɣ]

- Front vowels (English): [iː, ɪ, eɪ, ɛ, æ]

- Front vowels (Spanish): [i, e]

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### Natural Classes need to be properly scoped

- [p t k] are described by many natural classes

- Phones, Consonants, Voiceless Sounds, Obstruents, Stops, Voiceless stops
    
- A rule that applies to [p t k] might not apply to all consonants or stops

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### Your Natural Class Descriptions should describe...

- **All** the sounds it's intended to describe

- **Only** the sounds it's intended to describe

- These two things make them **technically correct**

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### You've got a rule

- [uː, ʊ, oʊ, ɔː] are changing into something else

- Vowels?

- Back vowels?

- Rounded Vowels?

- Rounded Vowels is the technically correct class

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### Be correct, but also be succinct!

- Your natural class description should only include necessary properties

- [p t k] in English are 'voiceless stops'

- We don't need "Voiceless Stop Consonants"

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### Keep the language in mind!

- Natural class correctness depends on the language you're working in

- In English, [p t k] are the voiceless stops

- In Bari, [p t ɟ k] are the voiceless stops

- It would be incorrect to talk about [p t k] using 'voiceless stops' as a class

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### Often, natural classes are based on IPA-like descriptions

- "Stop Consonants"

- "High Vowels"

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### There are other Non-IPA terms you'll hear too

- "Liquids" describes [l] [ɹ] in English

- "Sibilants" describes [s] [z] [ʃ] [tʃ] [dʒ] [ʒ]

- "Sonorant" describes Nasals, Approximants, Vowels, Taps, Trills

- "Obstruent" describes Stops, Affricates, Fricatives

- These sounds share characteristics which aren't a single place/manner/voicing type

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### Let's look at some English Natural Classes

- (With thanks to Eric Bakovic for these great slides)

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### Phonological Rules *typically* involve natural classes

- Natural classes can be the 'targets' of rules

- [p t k] are aspirated in English
    
- Natural classes can 'trigger' rules

- [tʃ dʒ s ʃ z] trigger the [ɪz] plural
    
- Very often, rules will act on groups of sounds which share features

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### Unnatural Classes should provoke caution

- Rules seldom depend on weird groupings

- If your analysis starts with "This alternation is triggered by one of [p d h i w n]...", be careful.

- If you cannot reframe your analysis in terms of natural classes, think twice.

- It's not impossible, though.

- Often due to unbalanced phonemic inventories!
    
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### Lakota

- Indigenous lg. of the Great Plains, Siouan, ~2,100 speakers

- [p] becomes [b] before sonorants

- [k] becomes [g] before sonorants

- [t] never occurs before sonorants

- (Turns out this is why Lakota is Lakota, not Dakota or Nakota!)

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### Let's Practice a bit more!

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<img class="r-stretch wide" src="phonology/natcls_guessing_4.jpg" alt="$txt">

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### Natural classes are a first step

- They let us move beyond lists

- They let us write single rules, rather than sets of rules

- They start us on the road to features

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### For Next Time

- We'll start to play with some alternations!

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<huge>Thank you!</huge>