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Re: Phonology and Morphology

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Thursday, December 20, 2007, 4:09
Matthew Haupt wrote:

> Now, morphology. Lets keep explanations, and this morphology, simple. The > morphology should include how consonants, vowels, semi-vowels, diphthongs > and clusters can or cannot be ordered within a word. C= p, t, k, f, th, s, > sh, m, n, r, l. V= i, e, a, u, o (but pronounced the way I spelled them > above). S= ... hmm, we didn't specify any semi-vowels in our phonology did > we? Let's say that r is a consonant but ALSO a semi-vowel. S= r. As for > diphthongs, in some morphologies, you might be limited as to which vowels > can be put next to which others, but to keep things simple and neat, we'll > just say any of our vowels can be paired to form a diphthong; D= V1V2 > (subscript added to show that a diphthong is not two of the same vowel). > Now, what types of clusters do we want? I'm going to say that we are having > only ending clusters in this morphology, but we'll make them moderately > complex for fun: K=[L][N][F]P. The brackets mean there may or may not be one > of the indicated phoneme, and L means liquid, N means nasal, F means > fricative, and P means plosive. So an ending cluster will have a plosive and > something else.
I think this is actually part of the phonology -- specifically, "phonotactics" is the word for which combinations of phonemes are allowed in a language. Where morphology begins is when you start combining morphemes into words. There's also the idea of "morphophonology", which is how sounds change when different morphemes are combined. The English past-tense morpheme "-ed" has different pronunciations depending on the final sound of the verb root: /Id/ after /d/ or /t/, /d/ after vowels and voiced consonants other than /d/, and /t/ after voiceless consonants other than /t/.

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Mr Veoler <veoler@...>