LINGUIST List 10.1770

Mon Nov 22 1999

Sum: Re: 10.1702 What are Allophones

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  • Martin Salzmann, Re: 10.1702 What are Allophones

    Message 1: Re: 10.1702 What are Allophones

    Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1999 23:20:10 +0100
    From: Martin Salzmann <Salzmann.Mgmx.ch>
    Subject: Re: 10.1702 What are Allophones


    For Query LINGUIST list 10.1702: What exactly are allophones

    Dear all

    I've received a lot of insightful responses, corrections and references concerning my question on the nature of allophones. My thanks go to the following linguistis whose replies I post below:

    Bob Knippen <knippenunix.tamu.edu> John Thiels JFThielsaol.com Joseph Davis <jsphdvsyahoo.com> Javier Sim�n Casas <jasimonposta.unizar.es Francisco Dubert <fgdubertusc.es> Alain Th�riault <theriaalMAGELLAN.UMontreal.CA Cori Kropf <cor9999aol.com> j.mukherjeeuni-bonn.de John A. Goldsmith" <ja-goldsmithuchicago.edu> Lena Pigrova (LenaKP3912.spb.edu) Corey Miller <coreymNuance.COM> Joaquim Brand�o de Carvalho <jbrandaoext.jussieu.fr> Peter Menzel <peter.menzelfnac.net> Andreas Gather <ac.gathert-online.de (Gather)> Geoffrey S. Nathan" <geoffnsiu.edu> Natasha Warner <Natasha.Warnermpi.nl> R�my Viredaz <remy.viredazspan.ch>

    I do not re-post my question since it would make my summary excessively long; those interested in the topic who didn't see my query may contact me so I can send it to them, or look it up on the web in issue LINGUIST list 10.1702.

    Thanks again!

    Martin Salzmann Salzmann.Mgmx.ch or: salzmann.mswissonline.ch

    now the summary (slightly edited to save space): =============================================================

    I'm not an expert in phonology, but I do teach it, and the story I usually tell my students is that there are 3 levels: the phoneme, the allophone, and the phone. I have, in fact, seen this perspective taken in several textbooks. A phone is a physical event, an allophone is a category of physical events, and a phoneme is a category of allophones. In fact, I don't see any way around looking at it this way. Of course, a phone is really still an abstraction, because speech is not segmented.

    This does bring up deeper questions about the distinction between phonetics and phonology, which I have never seen resolved to my satisfaction. However, one could, if one wanted to gloss over things, give the problem of how phones are categorized into allophones to phonetics (the search for acoustic cues to segment identities is part of this task) and give the problem of how allophones are grouped into phonemes to phonology. Such a division would only convince beginning students, of course, but it is a sort of ideal that almost reflects reality.

    As for the distinction between complementary distribution and coarticulation, I think that you've confused the taxonomy a bit. Coarticulation is merely one process that leads to complementary distribution. That is, the two /k/ allophones in English are an example of complementary distribution. The source of this distribution is coarticulation affects. Furthermore, coarticulation affects of this sort are not a physiological inevitability, as you point out.

    The book you refer to may be trying to make a distinction between the minor, though predictable, differences in pronunciation between different occurences of the *same allophone*, and the larger differences recognized as allophonic variation (differences which distinguish allophones *from each other*). If so, coarticulation is not the word to use to describe the minor differences. I have never heard a term for this notion, because there is clearly a gradient. Whether we recognize two physical occurences as two occurences of the same allophone, or as occurrences of different allophones is not a question that I think has a definite answer. That is, the border between phonetics and phonology is not clearly defined. Perhaps work in phonetics will one day make things clearer.

    Regards,

    Bob Knippen Dept. of English Texas A&M University ===============================================================

    As far as I know, pure Saussurean theory does not address phonological variation at this point; the theory of phonemes which led to distinctive feature theory came from Boas and Sapir (cf. Boas's paper "On Alternating Sounds" and Sapir's paper "The Sound System of Language")--that Jakobson was influenced by Boas is clear in his writing on Boas (to be found in his collected writings). Boas explained that the sounds of American languages were not random, that there was a system; Sapir realized that the sounds of the language were organized systematically with respect to one another and that phonemes were therefore psychologically real for speakers in a way that simple phones are not; that is, one can physically make sounds not present in one's own language but it is difficult to place them into one's own speech system; also, it is difficult for most speakers to hear allophonic variation in their own language. If I were to put it into structuralist terms, then, the rule for deriving allophones which stand in complementary distribution would be a part of langue, that is the language system at the type level. One could make a case for this in Saussurean terms by referring to the concepts of linearity and relative motivation (that is, the relationship of phonemes to each other is determined by pure difference (i.e. distinctive features), but the presence of a phoneme in a syntagm is realized in parole through the syntagmatic rules through which a phoneme, standing next to other phonemes in a linear relation, is realized in speech--however, this is NOT what Saussure argues. For Saussure, the relation between type-level langue and token-level parole production is problematic--he does not give a cogent theory of speech production and the relationship of langue to the ideal speech community [masse parlante] is particularly problematic. The theory of the phoneme which later developed into generative phonology did not develop with Saussure; rather recognition of a phonemic system as psychologically real for speakers came through Sapir in the 1920s, after Saussure's time; Jakobson united this idea of a phonological system with the Saussurean idea of value as produced through negative difference, creating with Halle the theory of generative phonology (different still from articulatory phonetics--although the connection of the phonological system with the body as realized in phonetic utterances is important for some theorists).

    In short, YOUR argumentation is not faulty; rather the problem is with the lack of interface between type and token in Saussurean theory--this problem runs throughout in terms of language change but also in terms of the relation between phonetic realizations of rule-based behavior, such as one sees in phonology. This is a problem with roots in Western semiotic thinking since Aristotle and Plato. But in generative phonology, the insight into distinctive features of the phonological system did come from the Saussurean concept of value; that is that nothing has value except in terms of how it is different from other possibilities within a syntagm. However, that view has been critiqued in terms of the lexicon (Jakobson: Six lectures de son et sens) but it appears to have validity for the phonological system at the level of speaker awareness of the system (that is, what speakers recognize as phonemes and where they have trouble distinguishing complementary distribution in their hearing). More cognitively-based approaches, such as the current Optimality Theory, appear to critique this view but are not as approachable in terms of speaker awareness--whether they are valid as representations of actual cognitive phenomena is a current or future debate, I'm sure.

    John Thiels Ph.D. student Department of Anthropology Brandeis University Waltham, MA ================================================================ Interesting posting on Linguist. The skepticism you exhibit towards the accepted distinction appeals to me. I'd say you're on the right track when you suggest that the original distinction between "phoneme" and "allophone" is flawed. As you point, out every realization is unique, so how can there be classes, allophones? Without going into detail, I'd just suggest you look at two works for a different view of the task of phonology:

    William Diver. "Theory" in _Meaning as Explanation: Advances in Linguistic Sign Theory._ Ellen Contini-Morava & Barbara Sussman Goldberg (eds.). Mouton de Gruyter, 1995.

    Yishai Tobin. _Phonology as Human Behavior._ Duke University Press. Recent date.

    Joseph Davis City College of New York ================================================================ Hola Martin: en primer lugar, mis excusas por no contestarte en ingl�s ya que no s� escribirlo; espero que puedas comprender el espa�ol. De todos modos, mi nota es muy breve. Te voy a dar una referencia bibliogr�fica que a m� me ha servido de mucho en mis clases sobre estos temas. Se trata de un trabajo de Coseriu: Coseriu, Eugenio (1962): "Forma y Sustancia en los Sonidos del Lenguaje", en Teor�a del lenguaje y ling��stica general. Cinco Estudios. Madrid, Gredos. Lo puedes encontrar tambi�n en Revista de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias, 12, 143-217. Tambi�n aparece en una edici�n independiente en Montevideo en 1954. Espero que me hayas entendido y que te sirva de ayuda. Un saludo, Javier

    Javier Sim�n Casas Departamento de Ling��stica General e Hisp�nica Universidad de Zaragoza SPAIN ================================================================ Dear Martin. I think that the problems you present are very common.

    Jonh Laver (1994) distinguishes between the linguistic sound (the material sound, what you hear) and the phone. de Saussure also (1916) speaks about an "acoustic image" (psicological) and the sound (physical) and says that the acoustic image and the sound mustn't be confounded. The phono is abstract.

    Coseriu (1952/1973) thinks that the sound is in the 'parole'; the phone is in the 'norm'; and the phoneme is in the 'system'. I think that this way of classifying sounds in structural phonology is better than saying that phones are in 'parole' and phonemes in 'langue'.

    Francisco Dubert Garc�a Departamento de Filolox�a Galega Universidade de Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela Espa�a e-mail: fgdubertusc.es ========================================================== Hi Your question on Linguist left me somewhat puzzled. I was under the impression that allophones were purely in the domaine of phonology and co-articulation under the domaine of phonetics. Allophones and co-articulation being both context motivated but the first one at the phonological level (i.e. how a certain pheneme has to be realised under specific phonological environment) and co-articulation at the phonetic level (i.e. how certain allophones are realised under specific phonetic, or articulatory, environment). In your message, you ask wether there are 3 levels of phonological realisation instead of the usual 2. This somewhat gave me food for thought and digestion kept me awake for a little time. Maybe there is a language

    specific phonetics? i.e. the fine tuning of surface realisation will have an effect on the surrounding segments, effect that may not be universal. In Montreal French, there is a phenomena of affrication of dental stops when followed by front high vowel, /i,y/. In European French, this phenomena is not present, at least one does not hear it. When a sonograme analysis is

    run on both dialects, affrication is present in both, though at different "strength". Laurent Santerre, deceased phonetician at Universite de Montreal, once told me that it would be a perception problem since accousticaly both dialects affricate their dental stops in that environment. The specific aperture of Montreal French will reinforce the

    level of affrication, making it more audible for speakers of that dialect. He noticed the same distinction in the diphtongisation of long vowels in

    both dialects. The velar-palatal difference between the 2 realisatons of /k/ in

    English is, as you mentioned, considered as a co-articulation phenomena while in Turkish it is considered as a dictinctive feature. I would be inclined to think, from the affrication example in French, that in both languages there is a co-articualtion phenomena of palatalisation in front of front vowels and of velarisation in front of back vowels in both languages. The difference being distinctive in Turkish, it is not perceived but would show on a sonograme. The dinstinctiveness of the feature would

    (and this is completly conjectural) weaken the perception of the co-articulation as the aperture of European French vowels weakens the perception, or stength, of affrication of dental stops. Now, should there be 3 levels (2 abstract and one concrete) of sound production? I would say yes. Phonology (phonemes and allophones) being abstract objects, one being the output of the other, and co-articulation being the acoustic output of allophones. This is a somewhat risky proposition since allophones have nearly always been tought as the

    actual surface realisation of phonemes, but, as you wrote, no speaker ever produce the exact same realisation of a phoneme. It was argued that the differences were trivial and that they should not be taken into account since they do not influence the perception, i.e. thay pass through the percptual filters of speakers of a given language. On the other hand, the phonology of a language is nothing more than the statistical average of the phonology of the same language native speakers, I would say that the relation between allophones and co-articulation motivated difference in actual surface realisation is the same as the difference between the phonology of a language and the individual phonology of the speakers. One is and average to be expected >from any individual speaker and the other being the actual individual realisation of the said phonology. Allophones are the average, expected realisation of a phoneme in the language while co-articulation is the actualindividual realistion. To comme back to the palatal-velar influence in the realisation of /k/ in English versus the dinstictiveness of those features un Turkish, I would say that both [k+velar] and [k+pal] in English sould be considered as allophones as far as perception is concerned while they are phonemes in Turkish. As far as acoustics is concerned, I would say that they are subject to the co-articulation phenomena (if it is demonstrated that the sonogrames in both English ant Turkish show palatalisation in a similar context.)

    Yours

    Alain Theriault Ph.D. candidate Universite de Montreal ================================================================ I am a linguistics and speech pathology student. I don't have a "professional" opinion on your problem, but I've certainly thought about this a lot. I'm afraid that after studying phonetics, the only conclusion I can make is that phonologists just don't consider the reality of speech enough. They came up with a system of phonemes and allophones where one is supposed to be abstract and the other "real," but as you said there are tons of allophones, not just a few. For example, an acoustic phonetician (can't

    remember which) suggested there might be over 100 allophones of /s/ in English alone. These depend on context of course, which raises your problem about coarticulation. I don't see any difference between comp distribution and coarticulation. If coarticulation is language specific, which you show with the Turkish example, then it has to be allophonic variation. I think the reason allophones came about was maybe an attempt to account for the realities of speech, but it certainly doesn't come anywhere close to doing this. In terms of teaching, I'm not sure there is a problem though. If you teach coarticulation as being a phonological process, it follows naturally that allophones are involved. Maybe any sort of assimilation, dissimilation, deletion, etc. is a type of language specific coarticulation - after all, speech is just one long string of coarticulated sounds.

    Cori Kropf cor9999aol.com ================================================================= Dear Martin,

    Phonemes and allophones can be clearly distinguished by taking into account two criteria: distribution and functional contrast, cf. John Lyons (1981): Language and Linguistics, Cambridge: CUP, pp. 85ff. That is to say, allophones are phonetically similar (whatever this may be, though) realizations of the abstract unit of a phoneme, technically in the same way as allomorphs and word-forms are concrete realizations of abstract morphemes and lexemes respectively. With regard to phonology, phonemes can be identified on the basis of the aforesaid two criteria. If phonetically similar sounds don't occur in the same context (complementary distribution: e.g. light [l] vs. dark [l]), they can be referred to as two allophones of one phoneme: there is no minimal pair in existence, in which the distinction between these two allophones leads to a functional contrast (in meaning). On the other hand, if - even phonetically similar - sounds occur in the same context and are able to create a functional contrast, i.e. fulfill a distinctive function (e.g. voiced /b/ vs. voiceless /p/ in /bit/ vs. /pit/), these sounds are two different phonemes in the language-system under issue. However, I think, your problem lies within the concept of phonetic similarity. For example, [t] and the regional variant of a glottal stop in words such as <butter> can as well be regarded as two allophones in free variation, because they don't fulfill a distinctive function, but it goes without saying that the two lack phonetic similarity since both place and manner of articulation differ. Nevertheless, phonemes can always be identified by the criterion of functional contrast, whereas allophones as realizations of phonemes can always be found either in complementary distribution or in free variation without functional contrast. I guess the best way is to ignore, to a certain extent, the traditional belief that allophones must be phonetically similar. Concentrating on this criterion, my students in the foundation courses also tend to be confused.

    Yours sincerely

    J. Mukherjee

    Englisches Seminar der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universit�t Bonn Regina-Pacis-Weg 5 D - 53113 Bonn ++49-228-735727 j.mukherjeeuni-bonn.de ====================================================================== In my opinion, most of the answer to your question involves a meta-rumination, a meta-reflection, on what a theory of phonology (like a theory of many laboratory-based sciences) is, rather than a position particular to one brand or another of structuralist or generative phonology -- though it may be hard to untangle what is particular to (say) Hockett-ian structuralist phonology and what is Hockett's meta-rumination about how science works.

    Every science has to deal with the fact that there's a smooth (hence infinite) range of laboratory descriptions of the events that are being observed. But due to several kinds of restrictions, both theoretical and practical (and the line there is often hard to draw), we limit our "representation" of the data -- for example, we limit it to N significant digits; we often say we do that due to limitations of the equipment being used to conduct observations.

    We -- still not just linguists, but anybody doing laboratory science -- go another step frequently, and collapse into larger categories observations that we know are different (that we measure as different), based on explicit or implicit theoretical assumptions. This gives us a more symbolic representation of the observations. And this gets us to what a linguist might call the narrowest phonetic representation. Some linguists, both contemporary but also from earlier periods in the century, would begin to feel uncomfortable at this point, and say that as far as speakers are concerned, there is no justification for assuming that this level of representation

    corresponds to anything in the head; most linguists would shrug and say, oh probably it does, and we can't get anywhere without making that assumption.

    This question is not one of levels, at least not of linguistic levels; it's part of the meta-reflections we share with other sciences. Linguistic levels are specifically theory-internal, and in all cases that I"m aware of, deal with alternative symbolic representations.

    A lot of phoneticians are uncomfortable with any symbolic system, any representational system at all, which leaves us rather high and dry when trying to work out a way to interface with phonologists' theories. At the other end of the spectrum is SPE's theory of phonetics, designed specifically to meet the needs of phonologists, not phoneticians.

    Questions of allophony are by their very nature questions of phonology, and phoneticians can say nothing about them until there is at least some kind of working agreement about how phonetics and phonology interact, and divide up responsibilities. On the other hand, terms like coarticulation

    are fundamentally phonetic in nature, and have no particular status in phonology (except as convenient labels).

    No-one, I think, is attracted by the notion that phonetics is universal and phonology is language-particular -- all recognize that there is univeral and particular in both. I myself think that the notion of phonetically-motivated, or articulatorily-motivated, is unpalatable and unappealing, and often vacuous, but I'm probably in a minority on that.

    This just touches the surface, but maybe this is helpful. Best, John Goldsmith ===================================================================== Dear Mr Salzmann! I saw your posting about allophones at the Linguist List. If my reply would be of any help to you, I'll be very glad. The problem is seen from the point of view of the phonological school which taught me - St-Petersburg school of phonology.

    Allophone does not belong to parole, but to langue. Phoneme and allophone are both abstractions, they are correlative as general and particular. There cannot be an infinite number of allophones. The number of allophones for each phoneme of a certain language is limited. The number of phones is infinite. There are certainly three levels: phone - allophone - phoneme. I think that phoneme belongs to phonology, and allophone - to phonetics.

    I don't see how coarticulation and complementary distribution can be opposed, they are too different phenomena. But we can say that coarticulation causes a type of compl. distribution, forming combinative allophones (there are two types of allophones: caused by position and by combination - i.e. coarticulation). And both phenomena that you show (key/car and back/front vowel- palatal/velar consonant) can be called complementary distributed allophones, caused by coarticulation.

    - - Lena Pigrova (LenaKP3912.spb.edu) ==================================================================== Dear Martin,

    I appreciated your discussion of the problems of the notion of allophony. I addressed some of these problems in my thesis, Pronunciation modeling in speech synthesis. Traditionally, people have ascribed symbols to certain allophones in certain languages. For example, it is common to use a flap symbol in "phonetic" (as opposed to phonological) transcriptions of American English. However, it becomes clear that symbols are most appropriate for phonological analyses, and their usefulness for allophony is questionable. In chapter 4, I describe an experiment comparing gradient and discrete aspects of postlexical variation. You can download my thesis from http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~coreym/diss.html.

    Corey Miller Nuance Communications coreymnuance.com ===================================================================== Bonjour,

    1. >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 confess I don't see where the problem lies here. Allophones are, strictly speaking, the realizations of phonemes. As such, and as you underlined it for /a:/, their number, for one given phoneme, is virtually infinite, even in the case of 'complementary distribution'. One might speak about 'major classes' of allophones (e.g. +asp. and -asp. plosives in English) ; I guess, however, that this would be an artefact, partly due to the use of

    IPA symbols, and that phonetic data reveal a gradient, rather than discrete categories, within allophonic variation.

    2. >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.

    In fact, the three-way contrast established by classical generative phonology is not similar to the one you suggest, for two reasons. Firstly, the URs are morpho-phonemes, not phonemes in the structuralist sense. For example, the /k/ of electriC and the /s/ of electriCity are distinct phonemes but two 'reflexes' of the same UR in SPE-based frameworks. Secondly, there is not a specific level in generative phonology corresponding to the phonemic level of earlier theories. Rather, generative phonology could be said to posit a n-way contrast according to the number (n) of rules that apply to a given UR.

    3. >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?

    Well, I always told my students that 'complementary distribution' and 'coarticulation' (generally) represent the same phenomena but a different point of view. On pure phonological grounds, you speak about 'complementary distribution' ; this is a mere statement of distributional facts. Now, if you want to 'explain' such distributions on phonetic grounds, the notion of 'coarticulation' is generally unavoidable (as is the case for <key> and <car> as well as for the palatal allophone of German /k/). Note that this (too simple) distinction between 'phonetics' and 'phonology' is only valid within a linear framework. In autosegmental models, for example, coarticulation is directly represented insofar as the palatality of the [k] in <key> can be viewed as belonging to the phoneme /i/, which will be linked to two slots. In this theory, 'complementary distribution' explicitly appears as a segmental *effect* of coarticulation.

    Best regards.

    Joaquim Brandao de Carvalho jbrandaoidf.ext.jussieu.fr Departement de linguistique Faculte des Sciences Humaines et Sociales - Sorbonne Universite Rene Descartes - Paris V

    ==================================================================== Hello Martin,

    your query raises a real interesting point; namely, that of the level(s) of abstraction of our linguistic (and generally "scientific") description. The IPA, I guess, tried to distinguish between langue and parole with respect to the phonological system, and perhaps were not aware that their "allophones" are as much of an abstraction as are their phonemes, albeit on a different level/nature. I remember discussions back when I was a grad student at UCLA (i.e., among others with Peter Ladefoged and Vicki Fromkin) about this question of "abstraction" in the IPA alphabet. (Note the label!) They

    were also called "phonetic symbols"; IOW, at some level, at least, we were quite aware of our "abstraction". This may be another case of a method (technique) of analysis (data handling), once accepted for convenience acquires the status of "fact", and is no longer questioned by the peoople in the discipline.

    With all the work that's been done on categorical perception, one can understand the IPA's abstractions and the need for them.

    Regards, Peter ==================================================================== Lieber Martin Salzmann,

    zu Ihrer Linguist-List-Anfrage kurz folgendes:

    ad 1) Das von Ihnen dargestellte Problem scheint mir in der Tat immer dann zu bestehen, wenn man die Begriffe 'Phonem' und 'Allophon' vor dem Hintergrund des Saussureschen Begriffspaars 'Langue' - 'Parole' zu beschreiben versucht - insofern ist dieses Problem durchaus real und zeigt eine Unzul�nglichkeit der 'Langue-Parole'-Dichotomie. In der deutschsprachigen Romanistik hat ein Vorschlag von E. Coseriu viel Beachtung gefunden, der die Saussure'sche Dichotomie zu einer Trias 'System - (usuelle) Norm - Rede (parole)' erweitert hat (etwa E. Coseriu, Sprachkompetenz, T�bingen: Francke 1988). Ihre 'abstrakten Allophone' lie�en sich in diesem Rahmen der Ebene der Norm, die konkreten Realisierungen der Ebene der Rede (Parole) zuordnen. Wenn in einf�hrenden linguistischen Darstellungen Allophone einfach der Ebene der 'Parole' zugeordnet werden, begreift man Allophone offensichtlich (implizit) als 'Types' und l��t ihre Realisierung als 'tokens' au�er acht - ob dies nun durch eine zuvor gegebene Definition des Begriffs der 'Parole' gedeckt ist oder nicht. Im Bereich der Morphologie stellen sich im �brigen ganz �hnliche und dar�ber hinaus noch weitere Probleme, wenn Morpheme der Langue und Allomorphe der Parole zugewiesen werden. Ich habe damit verbundene Probleme einmal in einem einf�hrenden Kurs thematisiert, was bei den Studierenden zu ernormen Konfusionen gef�hrt hat. Ich er�rterte seitdem die Begriffe der strukturalistischen Phonologie und Morphologie in der Regel ohne expliziten Bezug auf das Begriffspaar 'Langue - Parole'.

    ad 2): Mit Ihrer Einsch�tzung der generativen Phonologie stimme ich vollkommen �berein. Das Problem stellt sich hier nicht.

    ad 3): Diese Problem scheint mir nicht ganz einfach zu l�sen. Ich wei� nicht genau, was Spencer (1996) zu engl. /k/ in <key> und <car> schreibt (ich habe das Buch leider nicht bei mir zu Hause, sondern in meinem B�ro in der Uni und kann deshalb dort auch nicht noch einmal nachschlagen). Letztendlich handelt es sich sowohl bei dem engl. Beispiel wie bei dem von Ihnen angef�hrten klass. dt. Lehrbuch-Beispiel um ein Assimilationsph�nomen. Die Frage, die sich stellt (und die m�glicherweise durchaus kontrovers zu beantworten ist), ist, ob beide Ph�nomene den gleichen Stellenwert habe. Die Realisierung des dt. Phonems /x/ als velarer oder als palataler Frikativ ist auf jeden Fall Bestandteil sprachspezifischer phonologischer Regeln des Standardhochdeutschen. Ich w�rde hier in keinem Falle von physiologischer Notwendigkeit oder Unvermeidbarkeit sprechen. Der engl. Fall - entsprechendes gilt mutatis mutandis auch f�r das Deutsche, die romanischen Sprachen und sicherlich zahlreiche weitere Sprachen - ist m�glicherweise generellerer Natur, so da� man hier schon eher von physiologischer Koartikulation sprechen und dementsprechend das Ph�nomen unter 'low level phonetic rules' (und nicht mehr phonologische Regeln) subsumieren k�nnte - �hnlich etwa der (akustisch nachweisbaren) phonetischen Nasalierung von Vokalen im Kontext von Nasalkonsonanten (wie in dt. <Mann> oder engl. <man>), im Unterschied zu allophonischer Nasalierung, wie z.B. im Portugiesischen oder unter abstrakten Analysen von NV auch im Franzs�ischen). Es gibt jedoch Arbeiten, in denen die unterschiedlichen Realisierungen von /k/ vor vorderen und hinteren Vokalen als (komplement�r distribuierte) Allophone

    aufgefa�t und damit wohl der phonologischen Komponente der Grammatik zugewiesen werden. In der Tat k�nnen solche Ausgangslagen zu Phonologisierungen und

    Restrukturierungen lexikalischer Repr�sentationen f�hren: cf. etwa lat. /k/ vor vorderen Vokalen, das im Italienischen, Spanischen usw. zu einer palatalen Affrikate wird, w�hrend lat. /k/ vor hinteren Vokalen als velarer Verschlu�laut erhalten bleibt. Weitere Entwicklungen haben dann dazu gef�hrt, da� /k/ und /tsch/ (Pardon, keine phonetische Zeichen in diesem Editor!) Minimalpaare bilden (cf. it. <chi> /ki/ 'wer' und <ci> /tschi/ 'dort'). Frage also: Sind unterschiedliche Realisierungen von /k/ in den o.g. englischen Beispielen oder in dt. <Kirche> und <Kugel> in der heutigen Synchronie das Resultat phonologischer oder phonetischer Regeln? Spielt der artikulatorische/auditive/akustische Abstand zwischen den Realisierungen f�r die Entscheidung der Frage eine Rolle (Ist /k/ vor vorderem Vokal noch velar oder bereits ein palataler Okklusiv, i.e. [c]?). Ist die Frage �berhaupt "objektiv" zu beantworten? Gibt es Entscheidungskriterien?

    Andreas Gather

    Dr. Andreas Gather Ruhr-Universit�t Bochum Romanisches Seminar GB 8/133 Universit�tsstr. 150 D-44780 Bochum Email: andreas.gatherruhr-uni-bochum.de ODER ac.gathert-online.de ===================================================================== You have raised a number of interesting questions in your posting, and I

    thought I'd give you my thoughts on the matter.

    First, I'm not sure all structuralists would have accepted your claim that phonemes are part of langue and allophones part of parole. Of course, there was considerable variation among structuralists--first of all, between American and European, second, in Europe between Britain and the

    continent (i.e. between say, Jones and Trubetzkoy) and in the US between

    the Sapirians and the Bloofieldians. For Sapir allophones were probably

    part of parole, while phonemes were mental percepts (similar to what Baudouin thought), but for Bloomfield the langue/parole distinction was meaningless and phonemes were just classifications of sounds into boxes. Current generative theory (at least some of it) would distinguish between phonological rules and phonetic implementation rules, although they normally allow for language-specific instances of the latter as well.

    The German case you bring up is interesting because it is claimed, at least for Standard German that the alternation is actually not automatic after

    all--certain morpheme boundaries block it. A typical example is the contrast `tauchen' : `Pfauchen', which supposedly has a velar in the former and a palatal in the latter. I could dig up some references to this issue if you're interested.

    There's much more that could be said about these questions--Steven Anderson deals with some of it in his history of phonological theory, and others,

    myself included, have other opinions. I'd be glad to discuss it further if you're interested.

    Geoff Nathan

    Geoffrey S. Nathan Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Carbondale, IL, 62901-4517 Phone: (618) 453-3421 (Office) (618) 549-0106 (Home) geoffnsiu.edu

    ===================================================================== Hello,

    A topic which I often hear mentioned in the recent Laboratory Phonology literature (or at conferences) is whether there is any difference between non-contrastive phonetic differences which are traditionally considered allophonic alternations and non-contrastive phonetic differences which are usually not mentioned at all or relegated to "phonetic implementation." This seems to be the same topic you are bringing up.

    First, as you point out, a distinction of variation which is physiologically necessary vs. not doesn't seem very useful. Kingston and Diehl (Language, 1994) argue that much obviously phonetic variation is language specific, and therefore learned rather than physiologically caused. (They also cite various references on this.)

    I'm not sure classic generative phonology deals with this problem any better than structuralism does. It seems obvious that structuralism would also require some sort of "phonetic implementation" (whatever that is), although we know now that that can't be universal. But in generative phonology, how do we decide what's worthy of being part of the phonology

    and what's (language specific) phonetic implementation? As you point out, physiological necessity isn't a good criterion. Whether the difference can be distinctive in some other language probably isn't a good criterion either, since a wide variety of differences are distinctive in _some_ language, and this has nothing to do with the system of the language being analyzed. (For example, English /u/ is similar to a front rounded vowel

    in the environment /tut/ because the alveolars raise the F2. /u/ vs. /y/ is distinctive in many languages. But if this means that English /u/ has an allophone [y], then the vowel /u/ must have quite a variety of allophones, conditioned by place of the preceding and following consonant.) Whether the variation is language specific or not doesn't seem to be a good criterion either.

    In the end, there are examples of clearly phonetic variation in language, which may be language specific. However, these same types of variation may be phonologized in a given language, so one often finds similar processes which look more or less phonological. Some current work in OT

    seems to put all such variation (and perhaps all variation of any sort) into the grammar. I think it's an open question as to whether a distinction between "real" allophonic variation and "lower-level phonetic" variation is useful, and how such a distinction should be included in phonological theory.

    Natasha Warner

    _______________________________________________________________________________

    Natasha Warner Ph.: 31-(0)24-3521372 Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics FAX: 31-(0)24-3521213 PB 310 Email: Natasha.Warnermpi.nl NL-6500 AH Nijmegen the Netherlands ===================================================================== Dear Martin,

    Allophone does seem to have been an ill-defined notion.

    A Greek native speaker once told me he had never realized that palatal chi and velar chi were different sounds until he had read it in a Greek language course for foreigners. I am tempted to conclude that realizations of the same phoneme are labeled as different allophones when they sound different to a linguist who's not a native speaker. That's an exaggerated conclusion, but guess

    there's some truth in it. By the way, the Modern Greek chi does not only have a front and a back realization (before front and back vowel respectively), but also intermediate realizations (before various consonants - there's a paper by Mirambel on this). I think the existence of such intermediaries can be a criterion on where we have one or two phonemes. However, there might be the contrary example of the velar and palatal fricatives in Standard High German, which can be argued to be one and the same phoneme

    (though the word "Frauchen" makes the issue controversial).

    In a search for a definition, one should return to the writings of those

    who first introduced the notion. It doesn't seem to be Trubetzkoy. The notion is used by Martinet but I don't know if he's the first. I confess

    I don't know if it is used by e.g. Jakobson or Chomsky. Insofar as I remember, Martinet did not provide a definition but proceeded with examples. With such an approach, it is possible to pick up just two realizations of one phoneme (among the infinity of realizations) and to say: these two sounds are not different phonemes, they are allophones of one another (= realizations of the same phoneme).

    Of course the examples (languages, phonemes and phones) are so selected as to be cases of sizeable phonetic differences. This is perhaps a human-science approach, as opposed to the exact-science approach which wants proper definitions as you have thems in mathematics. So to speak, only when the phonetic difference is real big does one bother to take the word "allophone" from its shelf. Insofar as I remember (again), the word "allophones" does not refer to all differences that are possible in "parole", but only to such phonetic

    variations that are determined by the phonological context (i.e. ignoring svariations due to regional or social background, speech situation, and chance).

    Suggestions: Theoretical definition: allophone is a synonym of realization (more exactly: two phones are allophones of one another = they are realizations of the same phoneme). That might not be a very useful notion, i.e. the word realization and phone are enough to do the job. Practical definition, used for language teaching: only those allophonic differences are considered that are useful for a good pronunciation of the language. That will be an ad-hoc choice determined by the native language of the pupils as much as by the target language itself. Thus, that would not be an objective (subject-independent) notion, i.e. not a scientific one. These two suggestions are not real definitions but only pointers.

    Another brand of linguistic research favours subjects such as "The meaning of soma in Aristoteles" or "The use of virtus by Vergil" (fictitious examples). Perhaps the search of a definition of "allophones" would be more like "The use and phraseology of "allophone" by Martinet and his disciples" than like "What is an allophone?"...

    Remy Viredaz, Geneva ====================================================================