BBN-ANG-141 foundations of phonology
This course comprises twelve topics. Each topic has a link to slides (), notes (), and a Q&A section (). There is also a student question answered (), feel free to add to this section by asking witty questions (preferably by email).
schedule :: autumn 2025
- topic 0: about the course (2025-09-10)
[ 3 slides]
[ 739 words]
[ 2 questions]
- Some introduction to this course, you should begin here.
- topic 1: pronouncing consonants (2025-09-10)
[ 16 slides]
[ 3470 words]
[ 13 questions]
[ 1 comment]
- Branches of phonetics, the articulatory properties of consonants, IPA symbols.
- topic 2: pronouncing vowels (2025-09-17)
[ 19 slides]
[ 2460 words]
[ 15 questions]
- The articulatory (and a little about the acoustic) properties of vowels, the Jones vowel chart.
- topic 3: the consonant inventory of English (2025-09-24)
[ 17 slides]
[ 1732 words]
[ 14 questions]
- Complementary and overlapping distribution, free variation, phonemes and allophones, simplifying the consonant inventory of English.
- topic 4: the vowel inventory of British English (2025-10-01)
[ 15 slides]
[ 2183 words]
[ 9 questions]
- Englishes; vowels of current British English: short monophthongs, long monophthongs, diphthongs, their distribution, standard lexical sets and transcriptions throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
- topic 5: R influence on vowels (2025-10-08)
[ 15 slides]
[ 2551 words]
[ 11 questions]
- The distribution of /r/, the distribution of vowels before /r/ and historical /r/, broadening, breaking, smoothing, hiatus filling, pre-R mergers.
- topic 6: spelling vowels (2025-10-15)
[ 21 slides]
[ 2878 words]
[ 9 questions]
- Single vowel letters, vowel digraphs and their relations to checked, free, and R vowels, regular equivalences and uncommon ones.
- topic 7: graphic positions (2025-10-22)
[ 23 slides]
[ 2835 words]
[ 16 questions]
- Free and covered graphic positions and how they show if a vowel letter is pronounced, systemic and nonsytemic exceptions.
- topic 8: unstressed syllables, unstressed vowels (2025-11-05)
[ 18 slides]
[ 3351 words]
[ 15 questions]
- Vowel reduction, syllabic consonant formation, syncope, palatalization, the spelling of reduced vowels.
- topic 9: stress, accent, and intonation (2025-11-12)
[ 19 slides]
[ 5142 words]
[ 12 questions]
- Stress vs. accent, the tonic, stress and accent patters, accent clash, the meaning of tones.
- topic 10: phonotactics (2025-11-19)
[ 20 slides]
[ 4291 words]
[ 15 questions]
- Some phonotactic constraints of English: consonant clusters, constraints on vowels; historic changes, loanword adaptation.
- topic 11: other accents of English (2025-11-26)
[ 15 slides]
[ 2072 words]
[ 9 questions]
- Language variability, dialects and accents, some important features of some well known accents of English (“American”, “Scottish”, “Hunglish”).
- topic 12: the shape of things to come (2025-12-03)
[ 15 slides]
[ 1718 words]
[ 9 questions]
- Ongoing changes in current British English: TH-fronting, smoothing, the anticlockwise vowel shift, L-vocalization, GOOSE- and GOAT-fronting.