Allophones are variant forms of pronunciation of a phoneme that occur because of the phonological environment.

Phonological rules describe the regular changes that phonemes undergo in certain environments.

The phonological environment is a description of the other sounds that surround a particular sound.

The other surrounding sounds are described in the same ways we have already learned in discussing phonetics: voicing, place, and manner of articulation.

By studying many examples of words with the phoneme /p/ and the phoneme /t/, linguists have discovered the key to what makes native speakers aspirate the /p/ in pay or the /t/ in taffy.

We can do the same analysis:

• We can put the phoneme /p/ in as many different environments as possible.
• We can place /p/ at the beginning of a word, in the middle of a word, and at the end of a word.
• We can have native speakers say the words, and note if there is aspiration or not.

Activity: Environment for Aspiration

Beginning:

• Peat, pit, pay, pet, pat, pot, pore, put, poodle

Middle:

• Reaper, zipper, caper, leper, dapper, copper, roper, upper, super

End

• Reap, zip, ape, hep, cap, hop, hope, whoop, scoop

Further analysis of the the aspiration in the middle of words would leads to the conclusion that it also correlates with stress on the syllable.

Aspirating the /p/ helps give prominence to the syllable and to create the stress.

Aspiration is a phonological process that we use in English to alter the sound of /p/ and other voiceless stops.

Alterations are often made in order to make the words easier for the speaker to articulate, or for the listener to hear, and as a result, are considered more efficient.

So aspiration is a process of adding an extra puff of air to a sound.

Assimilation is what we notice with the word train. Repeat train out loud a few times. Notice the movement and position of your tongue and lips.

• The lip rounding of /ɹ/ is usually included in the pronunciation of the /t/ before it.
• This is anticipatory assimilation because a speaker assimilates the next sound and makes the one just before it similar to the following one.

The opposite can happen too, where a speaker carries one feature of one sound over to the next sound in the word.

• This is called perseveratory assimilation.
• One example is the word please. For some speakers, the voiceless feature of [p] perseveres longer, carrying over to the /l/ and making it voiceless, too.

Nasalization

Nasalization is a particular kind of anticipatory assimilation. Nasalization occurs when an upcoming nasal affects the sound, usually a vowel, just before it. In English we anticipate nasals, usually vowels.

Dissimilation

Dissimilation happens when a sound segment is changed to make it less like an adjacent segment.

• In the English words fifth and sixth, the last two sounds are both fricatives: [fɪfθ] and [sɪksθ].
• Fifth ends with a voiceless labiodental fricative followed by a voiceless interdental fricative.
• Sixth ends with a voiceless alveopalatal fricative followed by a voiceless interdental fricative.
• Some native speakers of English change the final sound segment from a fricative to a stop, saying [fɪft] instead of [fɪfθ] and [sɪkst] instead of [sɪksθ].

Deletion

In deletion a sound segment is removed from a word.

• Some speakers of English delete the final /ɹ/ on words like dinner and the medial /ə/ in family.
• The final /b/ on some words is deleted after an /m/, but remains when there is a following syllable. Examples:
  • crumb-crumble
  • bomb-bombard

Sometimes deletion is the end result over time of either assimilation or dissimilation. If a sound is made more like an adjacent sound, it might eventually simply become that sound. If a sound is made so different from another sound, it might be removed altogether since no sound at all is the most different from having a sound!

Vowel Reduction

Sometimes a sound doesn’t disappear completely. It might simply be reduced. In the process of vowel reduction a vowel segment is articulated with a more centralized tongue positionthan normal.

• The word maintain is pronounced [men 'ten]
• But the related word maintenance is pronounced ['men tən əns]
• When the stress shifted, the vowel /e/ was reduced to a central vowel, schwa [ə].

Epenthesis

In the process of epenthesis a sound segment is added.

• When children are pleading with their parents, they often say [pə liz] instead of [pɫiz] for the word please, adding an extra vowel between the /p/ and /l/.

Metathesis

Metathesis occurs when sound segments are reordered.

• Some English speakers say [aks] instead of [ask].

Flapping

The process of flapping changes a stop (or trill) to a flap

• In English /t/ becomes /ɾ/ between two vowels, like in water [waɾəɹ].
• In Spanish, the trill /r/ becomes a flap in the name Maria.

This pronunciation change, [nu.kjə.ləɹ] instead of [nu.kli.əɹ], contains three different processes:

• Metathesis of the /l/ and /i/
• Epenthesis of palatal glide [j]
• Reduction of [i] to [ə]

It is necessary to teach the phonological processes of English as well as the phonemes. Some are harder than others.

Try to separate problems with phonemes from problems with phonological processes as you diagnose pronunciation problems: one relates directly to meaning, the other to accent.

Accent doesn’t show proficiency or a lack or proficientcy, just how “young” they were when they learned the language.

The kinds of lessons for processes and phonemes will be similar:

• You will explain and demonstrate the sound and how to produce it.
• When teaching a process, watch for students using it all the time instead of in certain situations.
• For example, when teaching flapping of /t/ the key is that it happens between vowels, not just in the middle of words.
  • We use a flap for water [waɾəɹ], but not for button, where we usually use a glottal stop instead [bʌʔn].