Neutralization of Phonemes

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 546.

It sometimes happens that a sound may be assigned to either of two phonemes with equal validity. In English examples of this kind are to be found in the plosive series. The main contrastive feature between the pairs «pine / bin», «team»/»deem», «come»/»gum» resides in the presence of aspi­ration in [p, t, k] and its absence in [b, d, g], presence or absence of voice being usually irrelevant in this initial, accented position, where [b, d, g] are largely or totally devoiced. When [p, t, k] follow an initial [s], however, they are realized with no aspiration even when stressed. Thus, in the case of such words as «spin», «steam», «scum», we have three plosive phonemes which lack the aspiration often characteristic of (p, t, k], but which do not have the voice which sometimes accompanies [b, d, g ]. Since [p, t, k] are never opposed to [b, d, g] following [s] in this position, the words might, therefore, be transcribed phonemicaliy either as [spin], [sti:m], [skлm] or as [sbin], [sdi:m], [sgлm] without ambiguity. (Experimental investigations suggest that perceptually and, to some extent, acoustically [p, t, k] following [s] have more in common with initial [b, d, g] than with initial [p, t, k]).

Another case concerns the allophones of [m] and [n] before [f] or [v] in words like ‘symphony' or ‘infant'. The nasal consonant in each case is likely to be [m] in rapid speech, i.e. a labio-dental sound anticipating the labio-dental [f]. Here again, [m] and [n] are not opposed, so that the sound could be allocated to either the [m] or the [n] phoneme. In practice, since in a slow pronunciation the [m] sound would tend to be used in ‘symphony' and [n] in ‘infant', a phonemic differentiation is usually made.

Gimson A.C. An Introdction to the Pronunciation of English. London, 1980, pp 47-55