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  • So let’s talk about last week’s episode. This is our first two-parter, so you might

  • want to go back to our one on phonemes before you jump into this one. Phonemes are

  • the basic sounds of language, the building blocks we use when we want to make our words. With

  • phonemes, we know how much variation we can take before we move into a different sound. But not

  • all variation is random; sometimes, we can predict it, and know what changes we can expect

  • see in the world. I’m Moti Lieberman, and this is the Ling Space.

  • So let’s start off with the mystery that we introduced at the end of last episode. When an English

  • speaker hears a sentence likeLet’s scoop this goop,” they hear the /k/ inscoop

  • and the /g/ ingoopas different sounds. But if we just take a second here and listen

  • to them by themselves without the s, the /k/ and /g/ actually sound the same: “goop”,

  • goop”. Why does it sound so different when you stick the s in there? Why’s our

  • brain taking in the same sound, but then interpreting it as two different phonemes, /k/ and /g/?

  • Before we can answer that, we have to go back to talk again about variation. Some of the variation

  • that we have in speech is just because were not perfect robots that do the same thing

  • every time - our tongues don’t just click into place. But some of it is rule-driven -

  • a given phoneme will show up differently depending on what it’s pronounced near.

  • So /t/ will be pronounced like [tʰ] at the beginning of a stressed syllable, like

  • in [tʰim], but as a flat [t] if it’s not quite at the beginning, like in [stɑɹt],

  • or a flappy sound like [ɾ] if it's between a stressed and unstressed vowel, like in [bʌɾɚ].

  • And that’s not even the end of itthere are a lot more varieties of /t/. Each of these

  • versions of /t/ that comes up in some given environment is known as an allophone of /t/.

  • Now, youve probably never noticed this variation before; in fact, you might

  • even be having trouble hearing the difference between these sounds now that were talking about them.

  • That’s totally normal! Like we mentioned last week, humans are really bad at telling

  • the difference between two sounds that are part of the same category - think about that experiment

  • we mentioned last time, telling us that our brains can't even tell the difference between

  • one version of [ta] and another, slightly different version of [ta]; it’s only if the difference tips over into another

  • category, like [da], that it matters.

  • And the point is all these allophones are part of the same category! All those different

  • [t]'s are just different flavors of the same underlying /t/ phoneme. They never cause

  • the meaning to change in English - saying [stʰoɹm] instead of [stoɹm] might sound

  • a bit weird, but you don't think, well, I just heard some word I've never heard

  • before in my life. I wonder what it means. You just think, hey, Moti said storm funny. Haha!

  • Knowing which allophone should show up in what environment is important

  • for a lot of linguistic research. So linguists use what’s known as a distribution statement

  • to easily tell at a glance what the underlying phoneme is. It also tells you what variation we can find,

  • depending on what youre pronouncing the sound near. So let’s look at /t/. Were going

  • to need some non-English symbols here for now, but don’t worry - well cover them

  • in a future episode. If we have this /t/ here, that means it’s the phoneme, the mother

  • that controls all the little sounds below.

  • And underneath, we draw little lines that go to the different allophones, and say when

  • those show up: [tʰ] when it’s at the start of a stressed syllable,

  • [ɾ] when it’s between a stressed and an unstressed vowel, etc. We could fill in all those other

  • rules that lead to the allophones of the big mother phoneme /t/ below, too. And after

  • we list all of the other possibilities that are dependent on context, we also need to

  • remember to add another sound that’s the same as the phoneme itself, so, another [t].

  • That’s what you put in whenever the other rules don't apply; it shows up elsewhere, where the other

  • allophones fear to tread. Finding the allophone with the elsewhere distribution shows

  • us what the basic underlying phoneme is. So that’s how we know we need the /t/ up

  • top there.

  • Oh, and here’s a weird fact about phonemes, by the way. Phonemes are totally just a thing

  • that exists inside your head. By definition, anything you ever hear is always, always

  • just an allophone, like, even if there isn't any variation. Like with /s/ in English, there’s only one allophone, [s].

  • So you get a sort of stupid rule - whenever there’s an /s/, you pronounce it

  • like [s] - but you still do it. It's a totally unconscious process. Phonemes are just little

  • abstract categories that exist in your mind. They say, this range of sound waves should be interpreted

  • this way when you want to take these sounds and turn them into language.

  • But phonemes only exist in your mind, like little mental unicorns. What escapes out into

  • the world from your mouth and bangs into other people's eardrums are always the allophones that are

  • produced from a given phoneme.

  • That means when we hear someone talking to us, we have to take the sounds that we hear and turn them

  • back into the mental categories that matter for words. We have to take the allophones that we hear

  • and quickly turn them back into the phonemes that they came from. Let’s go back to our mysterious

  • sentence: “Let’s scoop this goop.” Inscoop”, the phoneme for the second sound

  • is a /k/. But when you slice off the [s] and listen again, it totally sounds like a [g].

  • This is because [g] is an allophone of /k/, that appears after an [s]. That’s a rule that happens

  • all over English. But because it happens all the time, our brains know that that really should be a

  • /k/ there. The [g] which is an allophone of /k/ never gets confused for the [g] that's its

  • own phoneme, like ingoop”. That's because the /k/ version is completely predictable from

  • the sounds around it. And that’s what allophony is: totally predictable patterns

  • of sound variation, that people basically don’t notice and that don’t change the

  • meaning of words.

  • And same as phonemes, the allophones that a language has can be really different, too. Like, say,

  • [l] and [ɹ] do exist in Korean, contrary to what you might have heard; it's just they're

  • both allophones of the same phoneme /l/. English has aspiration, that puff of air that comes at the beginning

  • of a word likeport”, but French doesn’t – in French, the [p] inportand in

  • sportare the same. Or in Japanese, you don’t get [t] before [i] natively, only

  • in front of other vowels. Instead, you get [tʃi]. And so my name gets changed to [motʃi]

  • by a lot of older Japanese speakers. Which means rice cake. I’m not a rice cake!

  • So every language carves up the space differently. The same sounds can mean a lot or nothing

  • at all depending on what language background youre from. Speakers of different languages follow different

  • rules, and hear different sounds. Your whole experience of speech sounds is different depending

  • on what your native language is. Phonemes and the rules that turns them into allophones

  • define how you hear and understand your linguistic world. So at least now, youve been introduced to

  • your acoustic overlords.

  • Weve reached the end of the Ling Space for this week, but if you rode the mental

  • unicorns all the way to the end, you learned that a lot of the variation that we hear in speech

  • isn’t just random, but is instead covered by rules; that allophones are the sounds that get produced

  • by applying those rules to phonemes; that we don’t ever hear the phonemes themselves, but instead just

  • the allophones; and just like different languages have different phonemes, they all

  • have different rules for making allophones.

  • The Ling Space is written and produced by me, Moti Lieberman. It’s directed by Adèle-Elise

  • Prévost, our production assistant is Georges Coulombe, and our music and sound design is by

  • Shane Turner. Our educational consultants are Level-Up Learning Solutions, and our graphics

  • team is AtelierMuse. Were down in the comments below, or you can bring the discussion over

  • to our website, where we have some extra material about this topic. Check us out on Twitter, Facebook and

  • Tumblr, and if you want to keep expanding your own personal Ling Space, please subscribe.

  • And well see you next Wednesday. Arrivederci!

So let’s talk about last week’s episode. This is our first two-parter, so you might

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