Basic Linguistics

[stonybonytony]

I'd like to take Rikker up on his challenge in the thread that turned into 'อ is a glottal stop not a silent vowel', and talk about basic linguistics, of which I currently know nothing.

Shall we start with the phoneme? As far as I can tell this is the smallest unit of written language (and the phone is the smallest unit of spoken language)?

How many are there - I'm thinking that in English the 26 letters must all be phonemes, as I can think of minimal pairs for them where changing one letter changes the meaning. eg 'bore' and 'core' so /b/ and /c/ are phonemes, 'as' and 'is' so /a/ and /i/ are phonemes etc - I've not done it for every letter but I expect I could.

There are also a small number of combined letters which to me appear to be phonemes, /ch/, /sh/, /th/, /ng/ that sort of thing (ship and chip minimal pair for instance - or is this pair only the change between /c/ and /s/)?

What about longer combinations - is ough a phoneme?

So what about thai - I guess the 76 basic consonants and vowels/vowel combinations are all phonemes? Are the three Ss ส ศ ษ all phonemes, are there minimal pairs for them? And I guess the small number of dipthong pairs like ปร are phonemes? Any more?

Am I on the right track here?

[Rikker]

Glad to see someone take up the challenge. A small disclaimer: I think we should be willing to sacrifice some technical accuracy for the sake of simplicity. I don't want to be splitting hairs, but I hope everyone (especially the older and wiser linguists) will join in and benefit from the discussion.

First off, the difference between a "phone" and a "phoneme".

They are both aspects of the spoken language. (Units of the written language have their own words: graph and grapheme, etc.) So try to divorce in your mind the spoken word from its written form, for now.

phone = any speech sound

phoneme = the smallest meaningful speech sound

Phonemes are actually an abstract concept -- they are the sounds speakers perceive, i.e. mentally differentiate, so a given phoneme can actually comprise several different similar phones. (The several variants of one phoneme are called allophones of that phoneme.)

That means every language has a different set of phonemes, or contrasting sounds.

Here's where IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) becomes important: writing tends to obscure differences and similarities in the spoken language. In English, the written words <cat> and <kat> are both pronounced with the phoneme /k/.

So English has a letter <c>, but no phoneme /c/. In the word <cat>, the phoneme is /k/. In <cereal>, the phoneme is /s/. The spelling just confuses the issue.

One more note: I'm using basic linguistics notation: [] for phonetic representation (how it's strictly pronounced), // for phonemic representation (the sounds important for meaning), and <> for orthographic representation (how it's spelled in the real world).

So let's look at the English phoneme /k/. It has (at least) two allophones: [k] and [kh] (also written [kʰ]). When we have the sound /k/ at the beginning of a word, it's pronounced with aspiration, a puff of air: [kh]. When it follows /s/, as in <skin>, <scald>, or <school>, it is pronounced with no puff of air: [k].

So we would say that in English, [kh] and [k] are allophones of the same phoneme. English speakers don't distinguish between the two, and if you said <skin> with an extra puff of air, it would sound a bit odd but wouldn't change the meaning of the word.

I think many of you probably know where this is going.

In Thai, these two sounds are their own separate phonemes: /k/ as in ไก่ and /kh/ as in ไข่. The words ไก่ and ไข่ are a minimal pair (two words that differ in just one sound or phone).

As for how many phonemes each language has, knowing the number is not particularly useful. I don't know how many English has, and it varies a lot by dialect.

The point is, since phonemes are abstract, speakers often don't have a clue how many there are (English has way more than five vowel phonemes, but only five vowel graphemes).

The 44 consonant graphemes have many redundancies: ข ฃ ค ฅ ฆ are all the same phoneme: /kh/. Same for ซ ศ ษ ส: /s/.

So for consonants in Thai, there are 21 phonemes:

/k kh ŋ c ch d t th n b p ph f m y r l w s h ʔ/

If grouped by phoneme, the corresponding consonants are:

<ก ขฃคฅฆ ง จ ฉชฌ ฎด ฏต ฐฑฒถทธ ณน บ ป ผพภ ฝฟ ม ญย ร ลฬ ว ซศษส หฮ อ>

The vowel phonemes are another story, but there's less redundancy in the writing of vowels. But I haven't counted the precise number of vowel phonemes (and it depends on whether you analyze things like -อย and เ-ว as distinct diphthongs (complex vowels) or a combination of สระออ+ย or สระเอ+ว).

Hopefully that clears up the questions above (even the ones I didn't address directly). I'll go ahead and wait for more specific questions now. For those whose heads are spinning... sorry. This is basic linguistics, but I might not be explaining it clearly.

[Lithobid]

And I thought I had free time!

LOL

ผูดเล่นๆ

น่าสนใจมาก!

[stonybonytony]

Hmmm, how confusing. The english letter <c> can be pronounced 2 ways, /k/ or /s/ so it's not a phoneme. But the phoneme /k/ can be pronounced 2 ways, [k] and [kh] but it's only one phoneme not 2. I'm sure this will all eventually make sense.

Are there a limited number of ways of producing an allophone from a phoneme - for instance for /k/ there is the aspirated and unaspirated version? Or does each phoneme just have its own unique set of allophones?

[Rikker]

A phoneme is language-specific, so each one is (theoretically) unique. It might have a single allophone or it might have 20.

So, yeah. The two sounds [k] and [kh] are one phoneme in English, but two in Thai. Best to just ignore the writing when possible. Likewise, English <sh> as in "shoe" or "shoot" is an allophone of /ch/ (ฉชฌ) in Thai. Some Thais pronounce ฉัน like the English word <shun>.

At the end of a syllable, Thais hear English <d> <t> <th> <s> <sh> <ch> and probably a few more as all one phoneme. Which explains why they might pronounce "very good" as "very goose", and then turn around and pronounce "I miss you" as "I mit you". It's just not built into Thai to distinguish those sounds (at the end of a syllable), so it can be tough.

(I don't want to jump in and use a bunch of strange IPA symbols, but it can get confusing just which sound we're talking about. If you're interested in learning more about IPA, maybe start with IPA for English, to learn the symbols for sounds you already know. There are many IPA symbols that are useful for other languages, but aren't relevant for Thai or English.)

Edited October 2, 2008 by Rikker

[Johpa]

I believe that a basic understanding of some introductory linguistics is a very helpful tool for many, actually for most of us who, as adults, embark on learning Thai, especially when it comes to correct pronunciation. Now I am the frist to admit that the linguistic sciences can be rather droll, OK, down right boring. But due to some quirks of the brain’s still mysterious wiring, most of us will not be able to detect some aspects of Thai phonology without being explicitly told that those aspects exist. I will begin with consonants and then later pull back to the larger picture, the difference between phonetics and phonemics, the etics vs emics distinction, implications which extend well beyond linguistics.

(All this is greatly simplified and can be expanded and further complexed ad nauseum)

Let’s keep this conversation to consonants. In their most basic form consonants have two primary physical aspects, a point of articulation and a manner of articulation. The point of articulation is the easiest to grasp. Some consonants are formed at the lips (labials) such as /p/. Some are formed on that little ridge behind your teeth such as /t/, the alveolars. Some are formed towards the read of mouth where the tissue gets softer towards the throat, the velars such as /k/. And in Thai we can get a little further back into the throat with one consonant formed at the glottis, that notorious glottal stop, represented by /อ/. Now look at the Thai alphabet and notice that the consonants are pretty much listed in order from back to front relative to point of articulation. This is not coincidence.

Now for each consonant at each point of articulation, the human body can also select from a number of manners of articulation. We can stop the airflow as we pronounce the airflow (p,t,k) or we can merely constrict the airflow and in effect hiss out a sound like a /s/, which happens to be known as a sibilant.. We can choose to use our vocal cords when articulating a sound and thus get voiced vs unvoiced consonants. The major difference between a /p/ and a /b/ is voicing.. And then we can choose to regulate the amount of aspiration, the breathiness so to speak, involved with a consonant, a feature that is not utilized in English to distinguish between consonants but is used in Thai and that will lead us back out to the bigger picture between etics and emics.

Any specific consonant can be utilized in a language's speech and thus it exists phonetically, it can be physically measured. However that sound may not be used to create a difference in meaning. In English we use both voiced and unvoiced consonants to distinguish between pairs of words: Kate/gate, time/dime, pat/bat. The primary difference between the initial consonants in these words pairs is voicing, the first word begins with an unvoiced consonant and the second word in the pair begins with a voiced consonant. The English language has selected voicing to be phonemic, to provide differences in meaning between two words.

Thai does the same thing with aspiration. The following pairs of consonants differ by the presence or absence of aspiration: ก/ข, ต/ถ/ผ. To every Thai the phonetic difference between these pairs is as great as the difference to every English speaker as the voiced/unvoiced consonants listed in the preceding paragraph. As a native English speaker, I do not readily hear the difference in the Thai pairs. But get this, those unaspirated consonants do exist in many everyday English words. Every time English inserts a /p/, /t/, or /k/ after an /s/, in words such as spot, stop, or Scott, why by golly it is as unaspirated as are the ก, ต, ป in Thai. But if you were to insert one of the Thai unaspirated consonants into English words like pot, top, or cot, the meaning of the word would not change. The sound, unaspirated unvoiced stops are not phonemic in English, they play no role in the creation of meaning. They exist phonetically in English, but not phonemically. And thus they are not represented in the English alphabet.

So one needs to recognize that the unaspirated consonants ก, ต, ป are as different from their aspirated counterparts ข, ถ, ผ as they are from their voiced counterparts ด or บ.

For most adult learners of Thai, we need to find someone who is willing to patiently model the sound for us. But the first step is to acknowledge that a difference exists that we are unlikely to hear in the beginning stages. I can't tell you how many ex-pats I have met who speak pretty darn good Thai, who have a wide vocabulary, and who can create fairly complex sentences, yet still grossly mispronounce the unaspirated consonant stops.

[Rikker]

Johpa, nice explanation.

[phaethon]

Hmmm, how confusing. The english letter <c> can be pronounced 2 ways, /k/ or /s/ so it's not a phoneme.

A phoneme is the smallest unit of a language that carries meaning, i.e. distinguishes one word from another.

In trying to persuade my students of the importance of learning the phonemic symbols in dictionaries I use <c> as an example with three pronunciations - /k/ as in cat, /s/ as in circle (/s/ and /k/ in that one!) and /ch/ as in cello (of Italian origin)

[excuse the use of non-phonemic symbols between the /s - you get the idea... ]

k and kh are different phonetically, but do not carry any difference in meaning (in English) so have only one phoneme - /k/

BTW, can anyone remind me of which BrE (vowel?) phoneme ,if any, is not used (or common) in AmE?

[meadish_sweetball]

One would be the vowel sound of RP British English 'love' which is represented in IPA by a symbol that looks like an upside down v. (Or you can choose to see it as an A without the vertical line).

To take the extremes, consider the difference in vowel quality when Hugh Grant and Isaac Hayes say 'love'.

(In older black and white movies though, from the 30s - 50s, American actors will have a vowel sound in this word that approaches RP British English).

[Johpa]

Upon request I am reiterating my post as this is a subject that is a bit complex and I am trying to simplify it for our limited needs of improving our spoken Thai. My keyboard does not have Thai letters so I have to copy and paste and although I tried to proofread my copy and pastings I might have erred as Thai fonts appear small on my screen, especially to this aging geezer's graduated bifocals.

The three common voiced stop consonants are the sounds represented by the English letters /g/ /d/ and /b/. Their unvoiced counterparts are /k/, /t/, and /p/. In English these unvoiced consonants are always aspirated in English when they begin a word and always unaspirated when following a /s/ in an initial consonant cluster as in 'skate' or 'sport'. The phonetic environment alone determines the manner of articulation, the aspiration, not the meaning of the word. Note that Thai does not allow an initial consonant cluster and forces the insertion of a short /a/ vowel, which we commonly hear when Thais speak English words like 'skate' as "sa-kate" or 'sport' as "sa-port". And if you listen closely you will hear that old bugaboo, the glottal stop after the inserted short /a/ vowel.

In Thai, these same unvoiced stop consonants can be either aspirated or unaspirated just as they can be either voiced or unvoiced. Thai allows this third contrast to determine meaning just as voicing is allowed to influence meaning in both English and Thai. Aspiration is thus phonemic in Thai but not phonemic in English and the result is that the brain of the average native English speaker will not detect the difference and will infer either an aspirated stop or a voiced stop but not an unaspirated unvoiced stop when it begins a word because that type of sound, an unaspirated unvoiced stop, is not allowed to begin a word in English. The same is true for the glottal stop, most of us just don't hear it and think of the /อ/ as a "silent" letter. (Things could be worse as I have been told that Korean consonants can have three levels of aspiration that are phonemic.)

In English we only need a single letter to represent either the aspirated or unaspirated sound of say /t/ as the phonetic environment alone will determine the manner of articulation. But we do need another letter to represent the voiced counterpart /d/ (the contrast between time/dime). The difference is phonemic in both English and Thai. But aspiration is not phonemic in English as it is in Thai and thus the Thai alphabet distinguishes between ก kai (chicken) / ข khai (egg). (I resort to my trusted AUA method of adding a /h/ after the aspirated stop to distinguish between the two when transliterating).

By the way, you can physically detect the differences without having to use an oscilloscope between aspirated and unaspirated stops by placing a sheet of paper in front of your mouth and noticing the difference of breathiness between the /p/ in "pot" and the /p/ in "spot".

Another example of phonetic vs phonemic in English is that most native speakers of English only think about the language consisting of a single /l/ sound when in fact the words 'laugh' and 'fall' use two very different phonetic consonants. The "back l" of 'fall' is captured to some extent in the spelling as it is usually a double 'll'. In English the "back l" is not phonemic as it is in Welsh and even though we spell the Welsh name 'Lloyd', we do not pronounce the name as it would be pronounced in Welsh. To a Welsh speaker the initial consonant sound in the words "Lloyd" as spoken in Welsh and "loiter" as spoken in English would be as different as the initial consonant sounds in the contrasting pair time/dime.

Why all these rules seem to exist and trying to make sense of them and then attempting to create a universal grammar is the holy grail of theoretical linguistics and attempting to follow those academic arguments is the universal cure for insomnia. But for our purposes of simply trying to learn to speak decent Thai, simply being made aware at this very simplified level is good enough, just one of many tools available.

[Johpa]

Hmmm, how confusing. The english letter <c> can be pronounced 2 ways, /k/ or /s/ so it's not a phoneme. But the phoneme /k/ can be pronounced 2 ways, [k] and [kh] but it's only one phoneme not 2. I'm sure this will all eventually make sense.

Are there a limited number of ways of producing an allophone from a phoneme - for instance for /k/ there is the aspirated and unaspirated version? Or does each phoneme just have its own unique set of allophones?

Best to avoid the letter "c" in these discussions. In a sense, there are no English letters per se as the English language uses the Roman alphabet devised for Latin, set against an Anglo-Saxon language. Due to the distance between the Romance languages and the Germanic languages, distant cousins, and the borrowing of Latin based words into English, a result of the Norman invasion of 1066, the letter "c" is used in English to represent a number of phonetic sounds and a number of morphemes as well. The Thai alphabet is far more phonetic than is the Roman alphabet as used in the English language. For a foreign student, learning to read English is a very frustrating endeavor.

An allophone is just another word for the issue coming from a slightly different direction where different phonetic sounds are collapsed into a single phoneme. The phone, the sound, the etic part of the equation has a physical reality. The phoneme, the emic, is not a physical construct but a mental construct. Some argue that your brain is pre-wired to create phonemes in order to facilitate language acquisition as a young child.

[stonybonytony]

Very interesting posts, especially the mention of the way the thai alphabet starts at the back of the throat and works forwards as you go through it.

So, can linguistics help me speak Thai better? I hope so - as above /t/ and /d/ are phonetic equivalents (phonemic? I'm not yet clear on the etic/emic distinction) the difference being that one is voiced and one is unvoiced (I spent a fair amount of time sitting around saying 't' 'd' and 'p' 'b' over and over trying to feel this difference, I am confirming my reputation as one strange farang).

In Thai I'd say ด daw dek and ท taw tahan are equivalent except for the voicing - but where does ต dtaw dtao fit in? It is sometimes written as dt and described as being somewhere between a /d/ and a /t/ sound, is it partially voiced, or is there another feature of it that distinguishes it?

[Rikker]

In Thai, /d/ /t/ and /th/ are all phonemes, corresponding to ด ต and ท (and other sound-alike consonants), because they are all contrasting (changing the sound creates a new meaningful word).

Aspiration is the missing feature you're looking for to describe the differences here.

The difference between /d/ ด and /t/ ต is voicing: ด is voiced, ต is voiceless (neither is aspirated).

The difference between /th/ ท and /t/ ต is aspiration: ท is aspirated, ต is unaspirated (neither is voiced).

The difference between /d/ ด and /th/ ท is two-fold: ด is voiced and unaspirated, while ท is voiceless and aspirated.

[Rikker]

Continuing from there, the same distinctions are true for the triplet:

/b/ บ (voiced, unaspirated),

/p/ ป (voiceless, unaspirated)

/ph/ พ (voiceless, aspirated)

Only the place of articulation changes (to the lips instead of behind the top teeth)

And the pair /k/ ก and /kh/ ข is similar to the ต/ท and ป/พ pairs -- again, only the place of articulation changes (to the back of the mouth). Note that this set isn't a triplet because there's no voiced /g/ sound in Thai, like English /g/ as in "go".

[stonybonytony]

It seems to me that the phoneme /k/ corresponding to ก gaw gai is more voiced the nearer the beginning of a work it is - ไก่ or เกาะ tend to sound like gai and goh to me with a /g/ whilst ภูเก็ต sounds still a bit more like pooget than pooket but not so much whilst ตก it sounds totally unvoiced, tok, like an English /k/.

Maybe I am just hearing it wrong, hearing things in English ie hearing the differences that are important in English not those important in Thai.

Is there an internet resource pronouncing the similar but different Thai phonemes and exaggerating the differences - I have spent some time making my Thai friends say ไท and ไต and similar pairs over and over whilst I try to hear the difference but I still find it very hard to hear, let alone speak, the difference. Because they do it naturally, and are not educated in linguistics, I don't think they are even aware of how they are pronouncing the letters differently, so find it hard to exaggerate the essential part.