Questions tagged [allophones]
The allophones tag has no usage guidance, but it has a tag wiki.
56 questions
0
votes
1
answer
72
views
Is it possible for allophonemes to be "conditional"?
What I mean by this, since I'm not sure if this even has a name, is if, say for example a language or dialect had allophony between something like /bʱ/ and /b/ in most words, but considered them ...
2
votes
2
answers
138
views
Schwa vowel in indonesian
I am starting to study indonesian, and every manual/grammar that I consulted so far (and even the teacher of our course and some youtubers who teach the language) insist that indonesian has five ...
user45075
2
votes
0
answers
139
views
What is the distribution of the French uvular trill vs uvular fricative?
In French, the most common realizations of the phoneme /r/ are [ʀ] (uvular trill) and [ʁ] (voiced uvular fricative). I am able to consistently distinguish them and produce either, and I'm interested ...
- 173
1
vote
1
answer
355
views
Determining the number of phonemes from set of phones
For this exercise, I'm to determine the number of phonemes from a set of phones and then write their allophonic rules for each phoneme
phones: [b], [ɣ], [β], [l], [t], [d], [g]
However, I think I'm ...
- 29
3
votes
1
answer
349
views
Might tones affect vowel quality?
Is there any language that has tone-based allophonic variation? For example, /e/ and /o/ might become [ɛ] and [ɔ] ─ literally being lowered ─ with low tone. Or since back vowels are inherently lower ...
- 395
16
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Should orthographies represent phonemes or phones?
I am currently working with Salvadoran Nawat, an endangered language that has never had a standardized orthography due to being primarily oral. As part of the revitalization process, we need to ...
- 161
2
votes
0
answers
63
views
L-epenthesis/allophony in unexplained circumstances in American English
I've been having trouble articulating this question, so I'm sorry if it's poorly worded.
I'm a teenage English speaker from Chicago. I've recently noticed a seemingly odd allophonic possibility in ...
- 724
-1
votes
2
answers
2k
views
What are near-minimal pairs
What are near-minimal pairs? How are they different from minimal pairs? Can Allophones occur in near-minimal pairs?
- 11
2
votes
1
answer
135
views
Why are intervocalic coronal plosives apparently so unstable in English?
There are a plethora of words in the English language in which the phonemes /t/ and /d/ appear between two vowels, whether they be in adjacent syllables in the same word or in different words as a ...
- 724
2
votes
2
answers
160
views
Is it attested for /m/ to have an allophone [x]?
The phoneme is identified as /m/, and the main allophone is a standard [m].
The places of articulation of [m] and [x] are very far away, and the manners of articulation are very different. They seem ...
- 283
0
votes
2
answers
173
views
Is it useful to render French /i y u/ and /j ɥ w/ as allophones?
Because /i y u/ behave so differently to the other French vowels /ɛ ɑ œ ɔ/, which all have tense and nasal variants, while also being symmetrical to the semivowels /j ɥ w/, it is attractive to render ...
- 75
2
votes
2
answers
128
views
How do native speakers of languages in which vowels reduce to schwa in unstressed syllables perceive the said schwa?
Do they perceive it as an allophone of the vowel that is reduce to a schwa? so for example if /i/ is reduced to schwa would it still be perceived as /i/ by a native speaker of that language? or would ...
0
votes
2
answers
390
views
Devoicing vs voiceless fricative
I was reading a session in the book Introducing Phonetics and Phonology (by Davenport and Hannahs, 4th ed.) about the articulatory variation in pronouncing the phoneme [w] when it follows voiceless ...
- 175
1
vote
0
answers
85
views
Is /ɑ/ of Standard Georgian realized as [ə]?
On page 263 of this PDF on Standard Georgian, it shows a narrow transcription of the North Wind and the Sun as narrated by a native speaker of the Georgian language.
In that transcription, the ...
2
votes
0
answers
83
views
Plosives with trilled release or allophones of /u/?
I've been looking at contexts where [ʙ] arises and I stumbled on the Namuyi wikipedium. This presents a really interesting phonology, with phonemic /pʙ/, /tʙ/, /bʙ/, and /dʙ/. Now I don't generally ...
0
votes
1
answer
473
views
Morphophonemic rules in phonology
I am wondering how the two phonological terms "morphonemic rules" and "morphophonemic rules" can be distinguished?
A morpheme might have different presentations (i.e. ...
- 103
4
votes
1
answer
1k
views
What symbol, if any, signifies an audible nasal emission in the IPA?
I'm making a conlang and would like to include the consonant clusters /hm/ /hn/ /hɳ/ and /hŋ/ with /h/ realized as an audible nasal emission.
I don't have to worry about how these clusters would be ...
- 8,780
1
vote
2
answers
165
views
Differentiating phonemes in foreign languages for adults
I've heard that past a certain critical period for language acquisition, our brain loses some neural connections and thereby the ability to differentiate phonemes not occurring in our maternal ...
- 111
0
votes
1
answer
1k
views
How to find allophones and phonemes in a foreign language?
I have problems with finding allophones and phonemes in foreign languages.
My paper says this: Consider the phones [e], [æ] and [ɛ] in the Russian data. Are they allophones of a single phoneme, or do ...
- 11
1
vote
1
answer
346
views
What is the dividing line between phonetics and phonology? [duplicate]
From my understanding, Phonetics is the study of physical aspect of sounds, including how sounds are produced (articulatory phonetics), how they are perceived (auditory phonetics) and the physics ...
- 309
4
votes
1
answer
291
views
Phonemes with complementing allophones
Assume the following example:
In its phoneme set, language X has the vowel /e/ which corresponds to the phone [e], except when followed by /r/, in which case it is realized as the phone [æ].
At the ...
1
vote
4
answers
620
views
What is it called when a person pronounces the letter t in the word "metal" as something more similar to a d sound?
What is it called when a person pronounces the letter t in the word "metal" as something more similar to a d sound? And what is it called when a person stresses the t in the word "metal" to be more ...
-2
votes
2
answers
980
views
Phonemes or allophones?
In our coursebook, introducing phonology by David Odden, one of the exercise questions asks us to decide if the obstruents of Thai are phonemes or allophones.
My teacher says they are allophones but ...
- 194
8
votes
0
answers
220
views
Historical pronunciation of Hindi यह and वह
The Hindi 3rd person singular proximal and distal pronouns यह and वह are commonly pronounced [jeː] and [ʋoː], in contrast to the [hyper-correct?] pronunciations [jəɦ(ə)] and [ʋəɦ(ə)] one might expect ...
- 3,132
9
votes
2
answers
519
views
Did Classical Hebrew and/or Aramaic have allophonic continuant length?
It's well-known that Classical Hebrew had phonemic length distinctions in the stops, since geminated stops didn't turn into fricatives: compare רַב raβ "rabbi" against רַבִּי rabbī "my rabbi".
But I'...
- 69.5k
1
vote
3
answers
934
views
Is the distinction between phoneme and allophone useful in language learning?
IPA purpose seems straightforward to me: map all the known ways to produce sounds using the mouth to symbols and, for a specific language standard/dialect, map the possible sounds of it to these ...
- 321
0
votes
3
answers
258
views
Do these vowel sounds "slip" in languages such as Spanish and Hebrew?
As far as I can tell based on recordings of languages such as Spanish and Hebrew, the phonemes /e i o u/ or /ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ/ tend to "slip" freely between being [e i o u] and being [ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ]. Is this true, ...
1
vote
4
answers
318
views
Are there other aspirated phones in English?
It is known that English has a set of aspirated consonants, the allophones [pʰ], [tʰ] and [kʰ] of /p/, /t/, /k/, respectively. Are there other consonants with aspirated allophones? In which cases do ...
- 1,456
2
votes
5
answers
823
views
Why are allophones called variants of a phoneme?
I initially thought that it was because allophones happened in the physical world in place of phonemes, that couldn't, but that proved to be wrong when I read this:
"The segment [pʰ] is an allophonic ...
3
votes
2
answers
530
views
Does assimilation of voice produce different phonemes, or just allophones?
During assimilation of voice, voiced consonants become voiceless and vice versa: s - z, d - t, etc.
cats ([ts])
dogs ([ɡz])
missed ([st])
whizzed ([zd])
Are these sound pairs different phonemes, or ...
- 899
1
vote
1
answer
185
views
Is the phoneme /a/ in Castilian Spanish pronounced differently in "pan" than in "papa"?
I was taught that the vowels in Spanish are always pronounced the same in contrast to the English language. For this reason, I always pronounced /a/ in "pan" as the same as /a/ in "papa"—this is very ...
- 165
2
votes
2
answers
444
views
Vowel Deletion and Allophone variation in Japanese High Vowel Clusters?
I seem to have heard from films, shows and other japanese programs that there is a kind of vowel deletion in certain contexts which triggers a consonant change which might be allophonic.
This paper ...
- 143
2
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Are there any minimal pairs for German lax/tense vowels?
As we know, most German vowels have a 'tense' (or long) pronunciation and a 'lax' (or short) pronunciation.
Most of the time, which pronunciation should be used can be determined by the context that ...
user19661
2
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Deducing a rule out of set of examples
Consider the following Spanish words, written in IPA (with their English translation):
And the same question for middle position and final position
My answer is:
Initial position: Looking at the ...
- 31
6
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Why do so many languages have both an alveolar "light L" [l] and a velarized "dark L" [ɫ] allophone?
Various dialects in all three of English, Portuguese, and Dutch have accents that contain velarized L allophones, which are sometimes known as “dark L’s”, at the syllable coda.
Why is this?
There are ...
- 121
2
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Are there any minimal pairs between [ɨ] and [i] in Russian phonology?
I have been studying about Russian phonology and its phonemes and I wanted to ask a question: are there any minimal pairs between [ɨ] and [i] or are they just allophonic variations of the phoneme /i/?
- 21
1
vote
1
answer
801
views
can two phonemes of two different allophone appear in one word?
if a phoneme appears twice in a english word, it will be pronounced as the same allophone both times; ie, two different phoneme of two different allophones of the same phoneme cannot be used in a ...
- 11
1
vote
1
answer
99
views
Are there any fricatives pronounced behind the tonsils?
I have noticed that I have the ability, like all, to force air out of the little places behind the tonsils, and I was curious if this is an actual articulation? I don't know what part of the mouth, or ...
- 1,003
3
votes
2
answers
561
views
What are the arguments against Wells’s syllabification of English?
In Syllabification and Allophony John Wells argues for a view of English syllabification based on phonetic processes within the pronunciation of words. He mentions elsewhere that it is unorthodox, but ...
6
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Calabrian/Sicilian and unstressed e/o
I sorta-kinda was "taught" that Sicilian turns all unstressed "e"s to "i"s and "o"s to "u"s.
Then I got to know a couple Calabrian songs whose dialect seemed almost Sicilian, so I extended that ...
- 507
26
votes
8
answers
8k
views
American English : are [ə] and [ʌ] different phonemes? (schwa vs. chevron)
What case can be made for considering whether [ə] and [ʌ] are different phonemes or not in American English? Please note the focus is on standard American English. EDIT: i.e.: on General American.
...
- 563
2
votes
5
answers
643
views
Phonemic Transcription Ambiguity?
I recently learned the the flap [ɾ] letter is part of both the /t/ and /d/ phonemes. A common example is writer /ˈraɪtər/ and rider /ˈraɪdər/. If they're both pronounced [raɪɾər], then shouldn't the ...
- 131
7
votes
2
answers
2k
views
How do allophones become distinct phonemes?
The title pretty much sums up my question, but to elaborate, how do allophones of phonemes become their own distinct phonemes?
For example: in Old English, /θ/ became /ð/ between vowels, but in ...
- 173
0
votes
1
answer
493
views
The difference/realtionship between allophones and diaphonemes
I'm trying to understand the difference/relationship between the concepts "allophone" and "diaphoneme." The Wikipedia article for allophone says this:
For example, [pʰ] (as in pin) and [p] (as in ...
- 355
1
vote
1
answer
493
views
Allophones of an archiphoneme
In the short article on this webpage, the author provides an explanation of nasal variation in Spanish which makes use of an archiphoneme /N/. I put the relevant excerpt below. My question about this ...
- 2,711
11
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Why don't minimal pairs like "быть" and "бить" prove that /ɨ/ and /i/ are separate phonemes in Russian?
In analyses of Russian, there's a dispute about whether the vowels /ɨ/ and /i/ (typically represented in the orthography as "ы" and "и", respectively) are separate phonemes, or if [...
- 1,412
3
votes
2
answers
1k
views
When is variation in the realisation of a phoneme allophonic variation?
The acoustic characteristics of the realisation of a given phoneme may vary depending on phonological context. For example, [v] may have a higher Zero Crossing Rate if it follows a consonant than if ...
- 4,289
0
votes
2
answers
770
views
Is there a comprehensive list of all (or many) phonological rules (specifically allophonic) of the English language available anywhere online?
It would be very helpful to have for a programming project I'm working on involving grapheme-to-phoneme translation. I've been able to find many rules for phonemes but not too many for allophones.
- 111
0
votes
2
answers
330
views
How to transcribe allophones of /ɒ/ in Boston English
In contemporary Boston speech and probably also in Maine it seems to me that the realization of /ɒ/ is widely much less constricted, and in some realizations allophonically more fronted/centralized ...
- 101
0
votes
2
answers
6k
views
Are [s] and [z] allophones of the same phoneme in Spanish? What is the rule that predicts the distribution?
What is the rule that predicts the distribution?
- 9