Phoneme or Allophone?

Work through a phonological analysis one step at a time. Pick a data set, follow the five steps, and test your own rule against the data.

Analysis workbench

Practice mode (hide answers)

Reference

Reading a phonological rule

Click each part of the rule.

Read it aloud: “/d/ becomes [ð] between vowels.” General shape: /X/ → [Y] / A __ B, “X becomes Y after A and before B.”

Symbols

/ /: Underlying phoneme (abstract)
[ ]: Surface allophone (what is pronounced)
→: becomes
/: in the environment of
: where the changing sound sits
#: word boundary: #__ word-initial, __# word-final
V, C: any vowel, any consonant

Generalize with natural classes

If several sounds change in the same way and in the same environment, write one rule for the whole class using features.

/b/ → [β] / V V

/d/ → [ð] / V V

/ɡ/ → [ɣ] / V V

+stop+voice → +fricative / V V

Spanish spirantization. On the right of the arrow, list only the feature that changes.

Features in the environment

Natural classes can also describe the environment. English past tense -ed is voiceless after a voiceless sound: [wɔkt] ‘walked’, but [pleɪd] ‘played’.

/d/ → −voice / −voice

Choose the allophone with the wider distribution as the underlying form. Then the rule only needs to describe the special case.

Practice: translate between prose and rules

Prose to rule[k] becomes [x] between vowels.

/k/ → [x] / V V

Prose to rule[z] becomes [s] at the end of a word.

/z/ → [s] / #

Prose to rule[a] is nasalized before a nasal consonant.

/a/ → [ã] / +nasal

Rule to prose/t/ → [ɾ] / V __ V

/t/ becomes a flap [ɾ] between vowels, as in English [foɾəɡɹæf] ‘photograph’.

Rule to prose/p/ → [pʰ] / # __

/p/ is aspirated at the start of a word, as in English [pʰat] ‘pot’ but [spat] ‘spot’.

Rule to prose/n/ → [ŋ] / __ [+velar]

/n/ becomes [ŋ] before a velar consonant, as in [ɪŋkəɹɛkt] ‘incorrect’.