Phonemes are minimal distinctive units in the sound system of a language
allophones (音位变体)
Allophones are the phonetic variants and realizations of a particular phoneme
phones (单音)
The smallest identifiable phonetic unit found in a stream of speech is called a phone.
minimal pair (最小对立体)
Minimal pair means words which differ from each other only by one sound.
contrastive distribution (对比分布)
If two or more sounds can occur in the same environment and the substitution of one sound for another brings about a change of meaning, they are said to be in contrastive distribution.
complementary distribution (互补分布)
If two or more sounds never appear in the same environment ,then they are said to be in complementary distribution
free variation (自由变异)
When two sounds can appear in the same environment and the substitution of one for the other does not cause any change in meaning, then they are said to be in free variation.
distinctive features (区别性特征)
A distinctive feature is a feature which distinguishes one phoneme from another.
suprasegmental features (超切分特征)
The distinctive (phonological) features which apply to groups larger than the single segment are known as suprasegmental features.
tone languages (声调语言)
Tone languages are those which use pitch to contrast meaning at word level.
intonation languages (语调语言)
Intonation languages are those which use pitch to distinguish meaning at phrase level or sentence level.
juncture (连音)
Juncture refers to the phonetic boundary features which may demarcate grammatical units.
重点
What are the differences between English phonetics and English phonology
Phonetics is the study of the production, perception, and physical properties of speech sounds, while phonology attempts to account for how they are combined, organized, and convey meaning in particular languages.
Phonetics is the study of the actual sounds while phonology is concerned with a more abstract description of speech sounds and tries to describe the regularities of sound patterns.
How can we decide a minimal pair or a minimal set
The two forms are different in meaning
The two forms are different in one sound segment
The different sounds occur in the same position of the two strings.
Use examples to explain the three types of distribution
Contrastive distribution. Sounds [m] in met and [n] in net are in contrastive distribution because substituting [m] for [n] will result in a change of meaning.
Complementary distribution. The aspirated plosive [ph] and the unaspirated plosive [p] are in complementary distribution because the former occurs either initially in a word or initially in a stressed syllable while the latter never occurs in such environments
Free variation. In English, the word “direct” may be pronounce in two ways: /di’rekt/ and /dia’rekt/, and the two different sounds /i/ and /ai/ can be said to be in free variation
What’s the difference between segmental features and suprasegmental features What are the suprasegmental features in English
1) Distinctive features, which are used to distinguish one phoneme from another and thus have effect on one sound segment, are referred to as segmental features.
2) The distinctive (phonological) features which apply to groups larger than the single segment are known as suprasegmental features.
3) Suprasegmental features may have effect on more than one sound segment. They may apply to a string of several sounds.