The English Language english language

Phonetics and Phonology

In fact, the situation is a bit more intricate that this. Because nasals are
voiced, we should expect a vowel before them to be lengthened relative to
the same vowel before a voiceless sound. And, indeed, this is what we find.
Listen to the vowels in cat, cad, and can. You should notice that the first
vowel is unlengthened, []; the second one is lengthened, [:]; and the
third one is both lengthened (in fact, probably even more than the second
one) and nasalized, [~:].

Exercise

1. What sounds are presented by the bolded letter(s) in the following
   words? Provide an allophonic (narrow) transcription.
   mad, b ack, spill, cat, tang


2. Try your hand at distinguishing allophones of phonemes. Using the
   discussion above as a guide, see if you can describe the phonetic dif-
   ferences between the allophones of the designated phoneme in the
   example words.
   a. /k/: kin, skin
   b. /E/: bet, Ben
   c. /e/: rate, raid
   d. //: bat, bad
   e. /l/: lead, pull
   f. /k/: cool, keel

phonological rules

As we saw above, a phonological rule is a general statement about the
distribution of a phoneme’s allophones, e.g., those of /t/. There are several
types of phonological rules to represent the several patterns of distribution
of sounds in a language.
The rule for the [th] allophone of /t/ can be seen as adding extra breathi-
ness after the release of a voiceless stop. This rule adds the aspiration feature
to the consonant. Such rules are referred to as feature addition rules.

Exercise
Listen carefully to the sounds represented by the bolded letters in each
of the following pairs of words: steal, teal; spin, pin; skate, Kate.
What phonetic difference can you hear between the [t] of steal and the