An Introduction to English Phonology April McMahon Edinburgh Textbooks on the English Language General Editor Heinz Giegerich, Professor of English Linguistics (University of Edinburgh) Editorial Board Laurie Bauer (University of Wellington) Derek Britton (University of Edinburgh) Olga Fischer (University of Amsterdam) Norman Macleod (University of Edinburgh) Donka Minkova (UCLA) Katie Wales (University of Leeds) Anthony Warner (University of York) An Introduction to English Syntax Jim Miller An Introduction to English Phonology April McMahon An Introduction to English Morphology Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy An Introduction to English Phonology Contents To colleagues ix 1 Sounds, spellings and symbols 1 1.1 Phonetics and phonology 1 1.2 Variation 4 1.3 The International Phonetic Alphabet 5 Recommendations for reading 11 2 The phoneme: the same but different 12 2.1 Variation and when to ignore it 12 2.2 Conditioned variation in written language 13 2.3 The phoneme 14 2.4 Some further examples 17 2.5 The reality of the phoneme 19 Exercises 21 Recommendations for reading 22 3 Describing English consonants 23 3.1 What’s inside a phonetic symbol? 23 3.2 Consonant classification 23 3.3 The anatomy of a consonant 24 Exercises 34 Recommendations for reading 35 4 Defining distributions: consonant allophones 36 4.1 Phonemes revisited 36 4.2 Making generalisations 36 4.3 Making statements more precise 38 4.4 A more economical feature system 40 4.5 Natural classes 46 4.6 A warning note on phonological rules 47 01 pages i-x prelims 18/10/01 1:14 pm Page v Exercises 50 Recommendations for reading 51 5 Criteria for contrast: the phoneme system 52 5.1 Minimal pairs and beyond 52 5.2 Phonetic similarity and defective distributions 53 5.3 Free variation 56 5.4 Neutralisation 58 5.5 Phonology and morphology 60 5.6 Rules and constraints 62 5.7 The phoneme system 63 Exercises 65 Recommendations for reading 66 6 Describing vowels 67 6.1 Vowels versus consonants 67 6.2 The anatomy of a vowel 69 6.3 Vowel classification 74 Exercises 77 Recommendations for reading 78 7 Vowel phonemes 79 7.1 The same but different again 79 7.2 Establishing vowel contrasts 79 7.3 Vowel features and allophonic rules 85 7.4 Phonetic similarity and defective distribution 87 7.5 Free variation, neutralisation and morphophonemics 88 Exercises 91 Recommendations for reading 91 8 Variation between accents 92 8.1 The importance of accent 92 8.2 Systemic differences 94 8.3 Realisational differences 99 8.4 Distributional differences 101 Exercises 102 Recommendations for reading 103 9 Syllables 104 9.1 Phonology above the segment 104 9.2 The syllable 104 9.3 Constituents of the syllable 105 vi AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH PHONOLOGY 01 pages i-x prelims 18/10/01 1:14 pm Page vi 9.4 The grammar of syllables: patterns of acceptability 106 9.5 Justifying the constituents 109 Exercises 115 Recommendations for reading 116 10 The word and above 117 10.1 Phonological units above the syllable 117 10.2 Stress 118 10.3 The foot 124 10.4 Segmental phonology of the phrase and word 128 Exercises 131 Recommendations for reading 132 Discussion of the exercises 133 References 143 Index 145