According to Bloomfield phonology is the organization of sounds into pattern. With a purpose to communicate, languages organize their material, the vocal noises into organized sound patterns. It is the study of this formal organization of language that known as phonology.
What is sound? How and where is it produced from ? How is it received by the ears? How and Why is one sound different from the other. Questions like these are the subject matter of phonology.
Difference between phonetics and Phonology: -
The difference between phonetics and phonology is that of generality and particularity. Phonetics the science of speech sounds, their production and reception. It has no reference to any particular language. Phonology is the study of vocal sounds and sound changes in a particular language. Phonetics can be compared to the world while phonology is country. Phonetics is one and the same for all the languages of he world. But the phonology of he one language will differ from the phonology of the other. Phonology selects material from the total resources available in the world. For example the members of a society make selection of sounds and organize them into characteristic patterns. This selection of sounds and their arrangement into pattern are the subject matter of phonology. According to Mr. Robins, “Phonetics is concerned with working or functioning of speech sounds in a particular language. Thus phonology is in fact functional phonetics”
The Phoneme Theory:-
Different language selects different sounds out of the total inventory of sounds that can possibly be articulated by man and that different languages organize the selected sounds in different ways. The selection and organization sound in a particular language constitute the phonology of that language.
Every language has a large number of vowel and consonant sound forming the sound system of that language. These sounds can be grouped into a limited number of destructive sound units and these sounds units are the phonemes of that language. Let us illustrate this phoneme theory with a few examples.
In English aspirated and unaspirated voiceless plosives occur. Aspirated means sound of ‘h’ or a consonant ‘h’. The word ‘hour’ is pronounced without an initial aspirate. The initial ‘’h’ in ‘hour’ is not aspirated. There are aspirated plosives like (Ph), (th), (kh) (dh) (gh). There are (kh) and (k) in /kin/ and /skin/ respectively. But the aspirated and unaspirated plosives do not occur in the same phonetic environment in English. The substitution of (p), for [t] or [k] will change the meaning of certain words in English. In the word ‘spy’ [p] occurs after [s]. if we substitute [t] for [p] we get a new word ‘spy’ which is another word in English. Similarly if we substitute [k] for [p] again a different word. Therefore in English [ph] and [p] and [p] can be grouped into one family and this family is called a phoneme.
The words deed, feed, seed, need and weed all have three sounds each. The medial vowels represented by ‘ee’ is the same in all these words and he final consonant [d] is the same in all he words. All these words differ from each other in the initial consonant. The substitution of (d) in /deed/ by [f], [s], [n] or [w] gives us a different word each time and therefore in Enlgish the consonants listed above belong to different phonemes.
In the set, beat, bit, bet, bat, brought, boot, but, boat and bout the initial and final consonants are the same. All the words begin with the voiced bilabial plosive (b) and end with the voiceless alveolar plosive [t]. these words differ from each toher in the medial vowel sounds represented respectively by the letters ea, I, e, a, ou, oo, u, I, ou, and oa. If any one of thse sounds representd by the leters given above, therefore beolong to differ from each other in one sound only. Mean/neat/, seat/feet/ constitute a minimal pair in Enlgish and they difer from each other in the initial consonant. But pin and spin do constitue a minimal pari since spine since spin has an additional sound. Ten and dip do not constitue a min
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