Word Phonology in a Systemic Functional Linguistic Framework - Phonological Studies in English, German, Welsh and Tera (Nigeria) - Paul Tench

Word Phonology in a Systemic Functional Linguistic Framework - Phonological Studies in English, German, Welsh and Tera (Nigeria) - Paul Tench

Phonology of Basic Forms of Words in English

Word Phonology in a Systemic Functional Linguistic Framework - Phonological Studies in English, German, Welsh and Tera (Nigeria) - Paul Tench

Paul Tench [+-]
Cardiff University (retired)
Paul Tench was formerly Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University, Wales. He retired in 2007 after more than 40 years in full-time academic life and is now active as a Research Associate at Cardiff. His main teaching responsibilities were in phonetics, the phonology of English, applied linguistics in language teaching and introductions to Systemic-Functional Linguistics. His research focussed mainly on the description of British English intonation, which resulted in The Roles of Intonation in English Discourse (1990), the Intonation Systems of English (1996) and Transcribing the Sound of English (2011) and many journal articles. His first major publication was Pronunciation Skills (1981). Since retirement he has devoted time to exploring system networks at the level of word phonology, and to working with minority language groups in devising orthographies for hitherto unwritten languages in Nigeria and Zambia. His publications can be viewed in http://www.paultenchdocs.co.uk/.

Description

In this chapter we begin with one accent of English – Southern England Standard Pronunciation (SESP) – although the principles of description will apply to any accent. We will confine our attention to the phonology of monomorphemic words in citation form as an initial introduction to features of Systemic Phonology and to the basic design of system network displays. System in word phonology is not like system in lexicogrammar or intonation, as sets of options from which a speaker chooses to create meaning; system at the rank of word (and also, largely, at the rank of groups/phrases) is rather the specifications of what the speakers of a language recognize as having been established in their language to represent its words. Moreover, as we have maintained, the primary function in phonology is to serve lexicogrammar by providing each distinct unit with their uniquely distinctive shapes. However, as we have noted previously, we have to concede that in the historical development of the language, phonological shapes that were once distinctive and unique may no longer be so, and ‘accidentally’ become homophones; another example is English right, write, rite, wright, which were, in Early Modern English phonology, distinct: /rɪçt/, /ʋritǝ/, /ritǝ/, /ʋrɪçt/ (see e.g. Gimson 2014: 66–73); all eventually became SESP /raɪt/ through various historical processes. Nevertheless, apart from such historical accidents, the primary function of phonology is to provide a distinctive shape to all the discrete units of the lexicogrammar. Every word in citation form must be represented by one foot, apart from the few instances indicated in 1.4. This is why in this presentation of Systemic Phonology the specifications of types of foot comes first, rather than the bottom-up approach from consonant and vowels segments. As we stated in 1.5, a full description of the phonology of words of any language would ideally include statements about the structures of the foot and its range of prosodic shapes, the permissible number of syllables (‘syllabic count’), the permissible kinds of structure in a syllable, the inventory of phonemes at the nucleus of the syllable and at the margins, permissible combinations of phonemes and specific allophonic details.

Notify A Colleague

Citation

Tench, Paul. Phonology of Basic Forms of Words in English. Word Phonology in a Systemic Functional Linguistic Framework - Phonological Studies in English, German, Welsh and Tera (Nigeria). Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 33-54 Oct 2024. ISBN 9781800503212. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=44116. Date accessed: 03 Nov 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.44116. Oct 2024

Dublin Core Metadata