INTRODUCTION
Interface between phonetics and phonology refers to the relationship between the two levels of language studies. One of the characteristics or designed features of human language is its duality. This feature makes it possible for one to study human language from any if its strata. Every language can be studied from the level of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics, among others. Each language level is related to each other and the level of relationship depends on how beneficial is one level to the other. It is this level of relationship we want to find out between Phonetics and Phonology in this unit.
3.1 INTERFACE BETWEEN PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
The dual nature of human languages makes it possible for languages to be broken down into various units so that it is possible to be learnt. Language can be studied at different linguistic levels such as the Phonetics (sounds), Phonology (structuring of sounds), Morphology (words), Syntax (sentence) and Semantics (meaning),
Pragmatics (level larger than meaning- meaning in context). In linguistics the study of sounds is in phonetics and phonology. The words are studied in morphology (and lexis) while sentences are studied under syntax (or grammar). All these help in the development of the complex nature of human languages.
Phonetics and phonology are so closely related that they can hardly be separated. However, they are studied at different levels of linguistic analysis, because they constitute different levels of language structure. As earlier said, the dual nature of human language makes this a reality.
Phonetics as a level of language study deals with the physical realization of sounds as produced by the organs of speech. It deals with the study and analysis of the speech sounds of languages in terms of articulation, transmission and perception. Thus, phonetics has three major components, which are acoustic phonetics (the physics or instrumental production of sounds), articulatory phonetics (production of sounds with the speech organs), and auditory phonetics (perception of sounds with the ears). Details deriving from these branches (of phonetics) facilitate the development of writing systems, that is, orthographies. Without phonetics, it will be extremely difficult to study phonology as it produces the basic raw materials or building blocks for phonology to build on.
Human beings produce a whole lot of sounds ranging from the non-linguistics (belching, grunting, and hissing) to the linguistics (consonants and vowels; stress and tones/tunes). Out of all the sounds produced some of them are not linguistically relevant. So, phonetics deals with the production of the relevant sounds for speech in human languages.
These sounds in phonetics do not belong to any particular language, they are universal sounds. Phonetics basically deals with all possible speech sounds by human beings, the useful and the seemingly useless sounds. Human beings can produce even the novelty sounds, which nobody had ever produced or heard.
These phonetic and non-phonetic segments which are universal sounds constitute the raw material for phonology to build on. Without some output from phonetics there will be no input for phonology. It is where phonetics leaves off that phonology starts. N It is enough to say that there would not have been any phonology if there was no Phonetics.
Phonology is a branch of linguistics that deals with useful sounds of a specific language. It studies the ways sounds of a language are organized into systems. At the phonetics level a wide range of sounds, which are not phonemic, are produced; only a very small number of these sounds are contrastive or significant for meaning (i.e. phonemic). It is these significant speech sounds that phonology is concerned about.
Adetugbo (1992:103) says, “phonology takes phonetic facts…but goes further to study speech sounds as constituting a system in any language” Among the possible sounds capable of being produced by human beings, only a minute number of them can be combined to bring about meaningful utterances in a language. Atolagbe (2000:11) defines phonology as the sound system of a language, the speech sounds that are combined into meaningful and acceptable patterns for communication purposes, in a specific language.
Phonology is particular to a language. Several languages may share the same or similar sound segments, but structure these sounds differently to suit the system of that language; for example English and Yoruba have the sound /p/. This sound is structured differently by each language based on phonological rules of each language (grammar is basically rule governed). Thus, we have Yoruba phonology, Igbo phonology, Hausa phonology and English phonology.
After phonetics has produced the useful and the “useless’’ sounds it stops its work. It is here that phonology comes in to pick and select the sounds and the non-sounds from the phonetic sound repertoire. Remember, we have said that ‘Phonology is specific to a particular language’. No two languages share exactly the same rules in their organization of sounds. So, each language after selecting the sounds that are useful to it now structures these sounds to suit the rules of that language. It builds on the raw material produced at the phonetic level.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Phonetics is the science of language that deals with the study and analysis of the speech sounds of languages in terms of articulation, transmission and perception, while Phonology is a branch of linguistics that deals with useful sounds of a specific language. It studies the ways sounds of a language are organized into systems. The two are closely related in that without one the other cannot exist. They are used in language development, mostly in the development of a language orthography, transcription and establishment of contrastive units in languages.
5.0 SUMMARY
Interface between phonetics and phonology refers to the relationship between the two levels of language studies. There is a very close relationship between Phonetics and Phonology. Phonetics is the minimum level in language in the hierarchy of language analysis. It is general in that no language can lay claims to it. It contains the useful and the seemingly useless sounds of languages. It is these useful and useless sounds of the language that constitute the raw materials which Phonology needs to build on. Thus, Phonology is a branch of linguistics that deals with useful sounds of a specific language. It studies the ways sounds of a language are organized into systems.
The relationship between Phonetics and Phonology is that in the hierarchy of language studies, Phonetics comes first and it is followed by Phonology. Secondly, Phonetics produces the raw materials which phonology builds on. Without Phonetics there will be no phonology, phonology cannot be studied without phonetics.
6.0 TUTOR MARKED ASSIGNMENT
1. Phonetics produces the raw material which Phonology builds on. Discuss.
2. In your opinion, can phonetics be studied without phonology?
3. What is the level of relationship between Phonetics and Phonology?
4. Phonetics is general while Phonology is specific. Discuss these claims with corpus or data.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
Adetugbo, A.A. (1993) English Phonetics: A Course Text. Lagos: University of Lagos Press.
Atolagbe,A.A. (2000) Elementary Phonological Analysis: A Course Text for Tertiary Schools. Lagos: Jehovah Shammah Printers.
Clark,C. and C. Yallop (1990) An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology. USA: Basil Blackwell Ltd.
Ogbulogo, C (2001) The Phonology of English. In The English
Compendium. Vols.3 & 4 (Eds.) Fakoya, A. and S. Ogunpitan. Lagos: Dept. of English Lagos State University.
Oyebade, F. (1998) A Course in Phonology. Ilorin: Shebiotimo Publications
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