LIN 1300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Minimal Pair, Phoneme, English Prefix

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Linguistics
• Course: LIN 1300
• Professor: Kathleen Brannen

Document Summary

What is phonology? the study of how sounds are organized in a language the study of sound patterns found in a language. The function of phonological elements in a language. Phonological features (place, manner, voicing) the phonology of a language is an abstract system: the unconscious knowledge that speakers have about the sound patterns and organization in their language. Speakers are able to extract regularities and patterns from the physical speech stream (which is continuous and variable) there are certain characteristics of phonological systems that are common to all languages of the world (phonological universals) Phonemes have a contrastive function in a language. E. g. /ij/ and / / are both phonemes in english because they can change the meaning of word. We know this through applying the commutation test peat/pete vs. pit /pijt/vs. This means that /ij/ and / / are contrastive sounds in english. E. g. / / and / / are also phonemes in english.