Query Details
| Query Subject: |
What exactly are allophones?
|
|
| Author: | Martin Salzmann | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Phonology
|
|
| Query: |
Dear all,
I'm currently trying to teach the basics of phonology to my students beginning with the classical distinction between phonemes and (allo-)phones. Now to my great surprise, I've encountered a problem that has never come to my attention before: In the classical structuralist sense, phonemes belong to the domain of "langue", i.e. the phonological system, while (allo)phones belong to the domain of "parole", they are the actual phonetic realizations of a phoneme. No problem so far. A phoneme like /i:/ (any other vocalic phoneme could serve as example as well) in English is realized as [i:] - but this phonetic notation is of course an abstraction since every [i:] that is uttered is somewhat different - so we'd have to say that there is an infinite number of allophones of the phoneme /a/. Usually one only says that there is one allophone - probably because all the realizations are considered in some way similar. But what about complementarily distributed allophones? Take for instance the English voiceless plosives which depending on the environment are realized either as aspirated or non aspirated. These are called allophones but they are again an abstraction, each of the allophones, e.g. [p +asp] and [p -asp] can be realized in an infinite number of different ways. Now what should be called an allophone? If the term were restricted to the actual phonetic realization (as in classical structuralism), we'd have to find a new term for the "abstract allophones" So do we end up with tree levels instead of two? Or to put the question differently: Which phenomena belong to phonology, which to phonetics? Since complementary distribution is an abstract regular pattern not solely due to physiological necessity, i'd have to belong to the domain of phonology in my opinion. But is there a possibility to express this in classical structural phonology or is the theory just simply flawed or is my argumentation faulty? I believe, the picture would be different in generative phonology. If I'm not completely mistaken, the three-way contrast indicated above is in fact represented by the classical derivational model: There are the URs (roughly comparable with the phonemes) and the surface representations. As far as I can tell, these surface representations are not phonetic entities, but still feature bundles (different from the URs only in being fully specified and possibly having undergone some rules). This is how the are in the phonological component (probably corresponding to what I called "abstract allophones" above). What in the classical structuralist sense is called a phone, conceived as a physical entity, would then be the result of the interaction of the phonological component with the sensory system. There is a third problem for which I've been unable to find a satisfying solution. Quite often, a distinction is made between complementary distribution and Coarticulation, the distinguishing factor being physiological (in)evitability. In a major textbook like Spencer Phonology (1996), the different pronunciations of /k/ in <key> and <car>, the first palatal, the second velar, are considered an instance of coarticulation because of a physiological inevitability. Now this inevitability is more properly called a physiological inevitability of the native speakers of English since the two sounds can be contrastive in a number of languages, for instance Turkish. But if there is no universal physiological necessity to pronounce the sounds this way, couldn't one regard the two realizations as complementarily distributed allophones or surface representations? In German phonology, when speaking of complementary distribution, the example always adduced is the distribution of the voiceless velar and palatal fricatives; There occurrence depends on the value for the feature [back] of the preceding vowel (i.e. velar after a back vowel, palatal after a front vowel). For a native speaker of standard high German, this distribution is about as physiologically inevitable as the key/car distribution for a native speaker of English, but no one has ever spoken of coarticulation in this case. What might be the reasons? Am I just simply wrong? Represent these examples truly different phenomena? I'm not very sure about all of this and would appreciate your help very much. I'd be grateful for corrections, clarifications and suggestions of any kind or perhaps also reports of a similar teaching experience. Thanks in advance Martin Salzmann Please respond to Salzmann.M@gmx.ch or alternatively: salzmann.m@swissonline.ch |
|
| LL Issue: | 10.1702 | |
| Date posted: | 09-Nov-1999 | |
|
Back |
||
|
|
||
|
Sums main page
|
||
|
About LINGUIST
|
Contact Us
|
Report Broken Link
While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents. |
|
