Phonemics

The study of basic sound units (phonemes)

• phone = the smallest sound of a language
  
  
• phonemes are sounds that make a difference for meaning in a language

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• phone = “sound”
  • telephone
  • megaphone
    
    
• sounds in language follow a pattern
  • Tzotzil : Tzeltal
  • Bangu : Ngbatu
  • click sounds: !Kung
  • ? in Anishinabe (Chippewa)
    
    
• some languages have only a few basic sounds
  • e.g., Hawaiian
    
    
• others have many more
  • e.g., Kwakiutl
    
    
• rarely are there more than 45 or 50 phonemes
  
  
• no language uses all of the possible phonemes
  
  
• sounds are conventionally divided into vowels and consonants
  
  
• there are classes of sounds
  • stopped
  • nazalized
  • continued (syllabate)
  • trilled
    
    
• “minimal pair”
  • two “utterances” (words) that differ in only one sound
    
    
    • pit / bit
      unvoiced / voiced
      
      
    • these / those
      unvoiced / voiced

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