# phonetics vs. phonology



## eli7

What is the difference between phonetics and phonology? If we want to define these two concepts, what should it be?


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## arsham

Phonetics is the study of the sound system of a language as is, i.e. the physics and acoustics of the phonemes while phonology deals with the evolution of sounds over time, their patterns in a language and their reconstruction in the case of dead languages. Wikipedia has a good article on it. You can start there!


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## Hulalessar

Phonetics is the study of the sounds used in human speech.

Phonology is the study of those sounds as used in language.


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## eli7

I'm not convinced!


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## berndf

eli7 said:


> I'm not convinced!


Hulalessar's answer accurately reflects the definition of the terms in linguistics. I can't see how this can be a matter of conviction. It is a matter of definition.


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## Dan2

Hulalessar's definition may be the official one, but I think the average person who hasn't already been exposed to these terms may find it difficult to apply.  Based on my own observations as to how people use these terms, I'd say something like:

Phonetics deals with the physically observable aspects of speech sounds (position of mouth, tongue, etc.; acoustic characteristics). (arsham has said something similar.)

Phonology deals with the non-directly-observable aspects of speech sounds (their organization in the native  speaker's mind; the unconscious rules speakers seem to follow in producing the physically-observable sounds).

Are there major problems with this view?


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## eli7

Dan2 said:


> Hulalessar's definition may be the official one, but I think the average person who hasn't already been exposed to these terms may find it difficult to apply. Based on my own observations as to how people use these terms, I'd say something like:
> 
> Phonetics deals with the physically observable aspects of speech sounds (position of mouth, tongue, etc.; acoustic characteristics). (arsham has said something similar.)
> 
> Phonology deals with the non-directly-observable aspects of speech sounds (their organization in the native speaker's mind; the unconscious rules speakers seem to follow in producing the physically-observable sounds).
> 
> Are there major problems with this view?


No, that's quite clear now. Thank you. So can I say that "phonetics" is the same with "articulatory phonetics" and refers to how sounds are produced?


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## Perseas

eli7 said:


> So can I say that "phonetics" is the same with "articulatory phonetics" and refers to how sounds are produced?



"Articulatory phonetics" in oral language is a subfield of "phonetics". The other areas of study are the "acoustic phonetics" and the "auditory phonetics":


> _Articulatory phonetics_: the study of the production of speech sounds by the articulatory and vocal tract by the speaker
> _Acoustic phonetics_: the study of the physical transmission of speech sounds from the speaker to the listener
> _Auditory phonetics_: the study of the reception and perception of speech sounds by the listener


 Source: Wikipedia


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## Outsider

Phonetics concerns the physical features of spoken sounds: how they are produced, how they can be measured, and so on. Phonology concerns the rules followed by the sounds in a particular language; something like a grammar of sounds. When we speak, there is always some variation in the way we produce a sound: between languages, between dialects in a language, between people, or even within the same person. If you wish to describe the "exact" sound produced in a given instance, phonetics is what you need. But sometimes different sounds are similar enough to be perceived as equivalent in a given language: they are regarded as variants of the same phoneme. What makes two sounds be identified, or distinguished? This varies with the language (and possibly with dialect, and so on). Phonology studies the phonemes of a language and their properties. Often, in a given language, there are restrictions on where a sound can occur. For example, in natural English there are no words starting with a velar nasal (the sound spelled with "ng" in the word "sing"), even though this is perfectly common in other languages, like Tagalog. This is also a topic that concerns phonology.

In less technical language, I would say that "phonetics" and "phonology" are sometimes used as synonyms (the former replacing the latter, especially).


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## eli7

Thak you Outsider. It's very helpful


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## Alxmrphi

Phonetics is not language specific.
Phonology is language specific.

If you're talking about production or interpretation of sounds and it's not tied to any specific language, then you're in the world of phonetics.
If you're talking about something specific to a language (such as not being able to have [ps] sequences in a syllable onset in English) then it's phonology.

I don't mean to post to 'correct' anyone else, it's just I remember being stuck with learning this definition and all sorts of differently phrased answers really helped me get my head around it so that's why I posted . You can sort of compare it to letters, imagine studying alphabets, or let's say 'symbols', there are many different symbols in the world, taken from Greek, Latin, Arabic, Japanese etc. If you take a jumble of them and put them in a bag you're in a very big world of looking at the wide range of possibilities that words can be written, you could (metaphorically) put your hand in the bag and pull out a *ű*, *ф*,* k* and a *æ*. This is what phonetics is like, it doesn't care what language it is, it's just looking at all the possibilities that are humanly possible. When you start looking at alphabets you start slicing them together and picking out ordered systems and describing which ones exist in a language and how they interact (this is just how phonology works).


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## CapnPrep

Alxmrphi said:


> Phonetics is not language specific.
> Phonology is language specific.


I disagree quite strongly with both of these statements. Phonetics is usually highly language specific (look up previous threads about VOT, for example), although it can also be approached from a more general perspective. And while you can study the phonology of an individual language, much work in phonology strives for cross-linguistic or universal validity.


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## Alxmrphi

CapnPrep said:


> I disagree quite strongly with both of these statements. Phonetics is usually highly language specific (look up previous threads about VOT, for example), although it can also be approached from a more general perspective. And while you can study the phonology of an individual language, much work in phonology strives for cross-linguistic or universal validity.


Every one of the lectures in my Linguistics department would join me in absolutely rejecting that statement.
We can talk about the VOT levels and all sorts of phonetic detail about language, but it's phonetics in the sense of surface phonology.
I also am quite taken aback that you are rejecting my claim that phonology is language specific by quoting the goals of cross-linguistic analysis, of course that's going to look at multiple languages, that's almost so obvious I don't think any linguist would actually feel the need to say that.

Moreover, even if there is more to the claim for an actual working linguist, the mere idea you would disagree with this to explain the difference to a complete newcomer to the field is just... I mean taking into account when introducing things you often have a small statement that's used to put across the basic idea, and every book I've ever looked at has expressed the thought in pretty much the same way. I know you often find things in other people's posts and disagree with them to fight the opposite corner, but this is a bit extreme.

If I'm analysing a spectogram and looking at vowel formants produced and inferring what vowel was produced, that's acoustic phonetics. It's not language specific at all.
If I'm looking at allomorphic relationships I obviously can't be talking about all languages, I'm talking about a specific one, and that's phonological analysis. 
Taking Odden's "Introducing Phonology" book as an example, he says:



> Making a principled separation between phonetics and phonology is difficult – just as it is difficult to make a principled separation between physics and chemistry, or sociology and anthropology. A common characterization of the difference between phonetics and phonology is that phonetics deals with “actual” physical sounds as they are manifested in human speech, and concentrates on acoustic waveforms, formant values, measurements of duration measured in milliseconds, of amplitude and frequency, or in the physical principles underlying the production of sounds, which involves the study of resonances and the study of the muscles and other articulatory structures used to produce physical sounds. On the other hand, phonology, it is said, is an abstract cognitive system dealing with rules in a mental grammar: principles of subconscious “thought” as they relate to language.



Talking about phonetics is talking about how anyone produces a sound in human speech. It doesn't matter what language the speaker speaks, if someone in Uganda says [t] and someone in Alaska says [t], we describe the process in the same way if it's the same sound. Language has no part in an articulatory description as such. This is non-language specific (articulatory) phonetics, and the same goes for auditory and acoustic analyses of the same nature. If you have a process whereby classes of alveolar nasals assimilate before other labials, then unless you're describing a universal human tendency that happens in all languages you are stating what happens in a specific language and are therefore describing one language's phonological system. This understanding is so basic and so core to every new student being introduced into linguistics.

The boundary is a bit blurry at times between the two disciplines, and we can talk about fantastically complicated examples to that effect, but is that any help to the person that came here asking to know the basic difference between them? No.


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## arsham

Phonetics could be either language specific or universal but phonology is always language specific. You cannot study the evolution of phonemes or their occurence patterns in a universal way. In those cases, you have to focus on one language! so in phonology you have to pick up a specific language.


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## Alxmrphi

If we're studying VOT and let's say we're making a comparison between Thai and English, we can look at the issue phonetically and phonologically. So arsham, you are right in saying phonetics can be applied to languages specifically, I didn't mean to ever exclude that. You can have a Thai speaker make three distinctions between VOT whereby we have voicing during the hold phase, voicing on release and significant VOT. These are all phonological differences in Thai and you can find minimal triplets that no ordinary speaker has a problem with in regard to regular principled interpretations of what phoneme was produced. That is very difficult for an English speaker to start noticing if learning a language such as Thai, the phonological system doesn't allow for the English speaker to naturally pick up on the differentiation as easily as another Thai speaker. The organisation of the "sound grammar" is specific to Thai and to English, and this is dependent on a specific language. The elements we use to measure what is ACTUALLY going on are phonetic in nature, and it's not tied into any organisational structure, what we're looking at. The physical productions are not language specific, because phonetics isn't tied to specific languages (but is used to describe all sounds in all languages so can be used anywhere). The interpretation (i.e. Thai's 3-way distinction and English's 2-way distinction) is completely individual-based and is tied to the language of the speaker and the description of salient and interpretable differences is talking of a phonological system.

Another example can be seen with bilabials between English and Korean.

English: /p/ = [p] [ph]
Korean: /p/ /ph/

Phonetically (not language specific) what is measured is whether there is any aspiration or not, not tied to a mental grammar.
If we play the sound:

_[phul]_ and _[pul]
_
The English speaker hears one word repeated twice, the word 'pull'.
The Korean speaker hears two different words, the word for 'fire' and then the word for 'grass'.

This is then a description of the phonology, not phonetics.
You can pull phonetics in anywhere to describe all languages, only when it comes to phonology do you talk of a specific system in a specific language, or the regular interpretations a specific person understands when processing phonetic information into the mental phonological system to try to make sense of it.


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## Dan2

Hi Alex - I'm chuckling: I saw your original post several hours ago but didn't have time to reply.  I'm glad I didn't; this way CapmPrep* has taken the brunt of your wrath, and now that you've had time to take a few deep breaths and calm down, perhaps I can make a comment or two without having to don a flame-retardant suit.

---
*I know, it's CapnPrep, but for "some reason" I find myself saying CapmPrep...



Alxmrphi said:


> Phonetics is not language specific.
> Phonology is language specific.


I was gonna say: I think this is an interesting way of looking at things, and I can certainly see where you're coming from.  I wanted to suggest, tho, that someone who makes recordings of a large number of Americans (for ex.), calculates average formant frequencies for the various vowels, aspiration durations for /p,t,k/, etc., perhaps for the purpose of improving the quality of computer speech synthesis, would be said by most people to be engaged in phonetics, not phonology.

On the other hand, "All languages have abstract forms and ordered rules" (whether true or not) is clearly the claim of a phonologist, not a phonetician.  I've read your reply to the Cap on this point, and I still feel your "Phonology is language specific" is too strong a claim.

Finally,  you quote a passage from Odden; what Odden says seems very reasonable, but I don't see any support there whatsoever for your claim.


Alxmrphi said:


> Moreover, even if there is more to the claim for an actual working  linguist, the mere idea you would disagree with this to explain the  difference to a complete newcomer to the field is just...


(Is someone who debates the assignment of theta-roles a "complete newcomer"?...) I actually almost see this going in the opposite direction.  I think your definition is thought-provoking for people who think a lot about language and speech sounds. On the other hand, for a newcomer, I think it's important to know that to describe someone who's staring at waveforms and spectrograms, or inserting measuring devices into a speaker's vocal tract, as "doing phonology", as opposed to phonetics, simply because they're interested in values for a particular dialect, is quite unidiomatic usage, at least on this side of the Atlantic; as is calling someone a phonetician who's interested in a general way in how sound systems are organized in the mind.

(I actually still like the suggestion I made in post #6...)


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## Alxmrphi

Dan2 said:


> I wanted to suggest, tho, that someone who makes recordings of a large number of Americans (for ex.), calculates average formant frequencies for the various vowels, aspiration durations for /p,t,k/, etc., perhaps for the purpose of improving the quality of computer speech synthesis, would be said by most people to be engaged in phonetics, not phonology.



I'd be one of them.
That's the work of a phoneticist. I am curious where I implied otherwise.



Dan2 said:


> On the other hand, "All languages have abstract forms and ordered rules" (whether true or not) is clearly the claim of a phonologist, not a phonetician. I've read your reply to the Cap on this point, and I still feel your "Phonology is language specific" is too strong a claim.



I totally agree again that it's the claim of a phonologist.
If there is any talk of an organisation in which the sounds are linked, this can only be framed in reference to one or a group of related languages.

You could talk about a system that worked in a language family, but the details would be similar in that respect to be considered a unitary enough analysis to make a generalised claim.

Can you give me *any* example of a phonology that's not tied in some way to the organisation of a language system?
I think points are being misinterpreted here and I'm not sure it's 100% my fault (though I bet lousy wording on my part is surely playing a part somewhere).

Regarding my quoting Odden:


			
				ODDEN said:
			
		

> is that phonetics deals with “actual” physical sounds as they are manifested in human speech, and concentrates on acoustic waveforms, formant values, measurements of duration measured in milliseconds, of amplitude and frequency, or in the physical principles underlying the production of sounds, which involves the study of resonances and the study of the muscles and other articulatory structures used to produce physical sounds.


This is the description of phonetics, language independent, result/value dependent analysis.
No matter how much "interpreting" and organisation in mental representation there is, there's absolutely no way this actual real data changes. That's phonetics.


			
				ODDEN said:
			
		

> On the other hand, phonology, it is said, is an abstract cognitive system dealing with rules in a mental grammar: principles of subconscious “thought” as they relate to language.



An abstract system has to be organised in a certain way and needs specific data from a set of features in a language to be interpreted by a speaker as such.
Phonetics pays no heed to what a speaker thinks is going on, what the speaker thinks is completely irrelevant. Phonetics is interested in the actual production and results.
Phonology is interested in what the speaker can hear/interpret, and it's this cross-over between phonetically measured real results with same interpretations through the speaker's phonology that make the topic fascinating.



Dan2 said:


> (Is someone who debates the assignment of theta-roles a "complete newcomer"?...)


I didn't see that thread until after replying to this.



Dan2 said:


> On the other hand, for a newcomer, I think it's important to know that to describe someone who's staring at waveforms and spectrograms, or inserting measuring devices into a speaker's vocal tract, as "doing phonology", as opposed to phonetics, simply because they're interested in values for a particular dialect, is quite unidiomatic usage, at least on this side of the Atlantic; as is calling someone a phonetician who's interested in a general way in how sound systems are organized in the mind.


As would I, I've argued for the complete opposite interpretation.
If you think I've argued *for* this "unidiomatic usage" then I have utterly failed to express my point in the simplest terms possible, and feel slightly disheartened after putting in the effort to write it all out.

I just want to clarify another point. A phonetician can go and study all sorts of phonetic features of Italian speakers, but as long as we're not talking about a mental organisation that's systematic across a group of people in terms of the relations that phonemes and phonological rules, this is of course phonetics. This is not against the claim that phonetics is language independent. This data would be fringe data and interesting all the same, but it's physical and it's not mental, so it's not phonological.

Maybe that would have been a better thing to say, phonetics is physical while phonology is mental.
That way we wouldn't have run into the idea that saying phonetics isn't language specific doesn't mean it can't be used to systematically study speakers of a language.


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## berndf

CapnPrep, Dan,

I think Alex' statement


Alxmrphi said:


> Phonetics is not language specific.
> Phonology is language specific.


is right in the sense that phonetics analyses physical and physiological (concerning articulation and perception) properties of sounds which is intrinsically language-independent although you normally discuss only properties which have some relevance in some languages. Phonology discusses the function of phonetic properties in a language and is in this respect intrinsically language-specific although you can of course do comparative phonological studies across languages.


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## CapnPrep

Alxmrphi said:


> Dan2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I wanted to suggest, tho,   that someone who makes recordings of a large number of Americans (for   ex.), calculates average formant frequencies for the various vowels,   aspiration durations for /p,t,k/, etc., perhaps for the purpose of   improving the quality of computer speech synthesis, would be said by   most people to be engaged in phonetics, not phonology.
> 
> 
> 
> I'd be one of them.
> That's the work of a phoneticist. I am curious where I implied otherwise.
Click to expand...

Here's where:


Alxmrphi said:


> If you're talking about something specific to a language (such as not  being able to have [ps] sequences in a syllable onset in English [_or in Dan2's example, the properties of vowels and voiceless stops in American English_]) then  it's phonology.


It turns out that you didn't actually mean to exclude the possibility of language-specific phonetic studies, but I don't think anyone can be faulted for taking your explicit statements at face value.


Alxmrphi said:


> I think points are being misinterpreted here  and I'm not sure it's 100% my fault (though I bet lousy wording on my  part is surely playing a part somewhere).


You win that bet. I agree with much of what you have written in your subsequent messages, and in particular with berndf's summary of your position. But I don't see how anyone could reasonably be expected to understand any of that from your first message.


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## berndf

CapnPrep said:


> I agree with much of what you have written in your subsequent messages, and in particular with berndf's summary of your position. But I don't see how anyone could reasonably be expected to understand any of that from your first message.


I am glad we have resolved our differences.


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## Dan2

berndf said:


> I think Alex' statement
> 
> 
> Alxmrphi said:
> 
> 
> 
> Phonetics is not language specific.
> Phonology is language specific.
> 
> 
> 
> is right in the sense that phonetics analyses physical and physiological (concerning articulation and perception) properties of sounds which is intrinsically language-independent although you normally discuss only properties which have some relevance in some languages.
Click to expand...

And by the same token, phonology is concerned with the mental processes underlying sound production, which are intrinsically language-independent (speakers of all languages have the same mental structures with which to organize sound systems), "although you normally discuss only properties" (rules) "which have some relevance in some languages." I don't see a whole lot of difference.



Alxmrphi said:


> Maybe that would have been a better thing to say, phonetics is physical while phonology is mental.


Which is what I said back in post #6.


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> And by the same token, phonology is concerned with the mental processes underlying sound production


That is still phonetics. In phonology, we go a step further, we relate this to _function_ or _meaning_, we talk about rules or mental processes by which we identify information carrying objects like phonemes, stress, intonation, etc. And these things are language dependent.


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## CapnPrep

I think Dan2's point is that the universalist argument applies equally well to phonology as it does to phonetics. All humans share pretty much the same articulatory and auditory apparatus, but they also share pretty much the same mental/cognitive apparatus. If "phonetics is not language specific" because the same tools and concepts (e.g. spectrograms, frequencies, VOT, etc.) can be applied to all languages, then "phonology is not language specific" either, because the same methods and concepts can be used to study all languages (minimal pairs, allophonic alternation, phonemes, syllables, stress, …)

On the other hand, the argument that language specific data form the empirical basis for phonological analysis applies equally well to phonetic analysis. "Phonology is language specific" because the actual inventory of phonemes, the actual syllable structures, the actual stress patterns, the actual allophonic rules depend on the language in question. But the actual formant frequencies of vowels, the actual VOT of stops, the actual phonetic realization of /r/, etc. also depend on the language in question. In other words, "phonetics is language specific".

So I would agree with the following reformulation of Alxmrphi's pithy statements:

The concepts/methods used in phonetics are not language specific.
The phonology of a specific language is language specific.
But I would also agree if "phonetics" and "phonology" were switched around…


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## arsham

Based on what I know from phonology, you can never carry out phonological analyses in a universal way. For example if you're interested in historical linguistics and are trying to reconstruct the sound system of some dead language then it is obviously language specific the same thing is true of cognitive and mental relationships between sounds and thoughts. Notice that languages are also influenced by the culture that produces them and hence cognitive denotations of sounds could easily shift over time due to cultural reasons and that is entirely language specific!


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## berndf

CapnPrep said:


> On the other hand, the argument that language specific data form the empirical basis for phonological analysis applies equally well to phonetic analysis. "Phonology is language specific" because the actual inventory of phonemes, the actual syllable structures, the actual stress patterns, the actual allophonic rules depend on the language in question. But the actual formant frequencies of vowels, the actual VOT of stops, the actual phonetic realization of /r/, etc. also depend on the language in question. In other words, "phonetics is language specific".


Phonetics is the tool you use to formulate phonological rules. Just because you apply a tool to a certain work piece, the tool doesn't become work piece specific.

Phonetics defines the concept of VOT as such without defining phoneme separation. Statements likes these which explicitly state VOT ranges:
_/b/-/p/ separation in French and German: French: VOT<0 -> /b/, VOT>~0 -> /p/; German: VOT<~0 -> /b/, VOT>0 -> /p/ (VOT~0 := ABS(VOT)<30ms)
_​are phonological statements.


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## CapnPrep

berndf said:


> Phonetics defines the concept of VOT as such without defining phoneme separation. Statements likes these which explicitly state VOT ranges:_/b/-/p/ separation in French and German: French: VOT<0 -> /b/, VOT>~0 -> /p/; German: VOT<~0 -> /b/, VOT>0 -> /p/ (VOT~0 := ABS(VOT)<30ms)
> _​are phonological statements.


I wonder what everyone else's opinion about this is. I would say that these are primarily phonetic statements.

In any case, don't you mean * and [p] instead of /b/ and /p/? Because, for example, /b/ sometimes surfaces as [p] in German, and the phonemic distinction is usually said to be neutralized in surface phonology. Whether this [p] in German is phonetically distinct/distinguishable (whether through VOT or other phonetic cues) from [p] corresponding to /p/ is an empirical question for language-specific phonetic study.*


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## Dan2

CapnPrep said:


> I think Dan2's point is that the universalist  argument applies equally well to phonology as it does to phonetics.All humans share pretty much the same articulatory and auditory  apparatus, but they also share pretty much the same mental/cognitive  apparatus. If "phonetics is not language specific" because the same  tools and concepts (e.g. spectrograms, frequencies, VOT, etc.) can be  applied to all languages, then "phonology is not language specific"  either, because the same methods and concepts can be used to study all  languages (minimal pairs, allophonic alternation, phonemes, syllables,  stress, …)
> 
> On the other hand, the argument that language specific data form the  empirical basis for phonological analysis applies equally well to  phonetic analysis. "Phonology is language specific" because the actual  inventory of phonemes, the actual syllable structures, the actual stress  patterns, the actual allophonic rules depend on the language in  question. But the actual formant frequencies of vowels, the actual VOT  of stops, the actual phonetic realization of /r/, etc. also depend on  the language in question. In other words, "phonetics is language  specific".


That was _precisely _my point.  Thanks for restating it so clearly.



berndf said:


> Phonetics is the tool you use to  formulate  phonological rules.


I don't think I agree with "*the* tool" (but without more precision in the statement, I'll reserve judgment).


CapnPrep said:


> berndf said:
> 
> 
> 
> _/b/-/p/  separation in French and German:  French: VOT<0 -> /b/, VOT>~0  -> /p/; German: VOT<~0  -> /b/, VOT>0 -> /p/ (VOT~0 :=  ABS(VOT)<30ms)
> _are phonological statements.
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder what everyone else's opinion about this is. I would say that these are primarily phonetic statements.
Click to expand...

I too would say that these are primarily phonetic statements (but perhaps it's worth repeating what I said earlier, "at least on this side of the Atlantic").


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## berndf

CapnPrep said:


> I wonder what everyone else's opinion about this is. I would say that these are primarily phonetic statements.


Interesting. This makes me wonder too.



CapnPrep said:


> In any case, don't you mean * and [p] instead of /b/ and /p/? Because, for example, /b/ sometimes surfaces as [p] in German, and the phonemic distinction is usually said to be neutralized in surface phonology. Whether this [p] in German is phonetically distinct/distinguishable (whether through VOT or other phonetic cues) from [p] corresponding to /p/ is an empirical question for language-specific phonetic study.*


*What is meant was /b/=[p] and /p/=[pʰ]. I would, e.g., transcribe "Hub" phonemically as /huːp/ and phonetically as [huːpʰ]. This is of course oversimplified as there are some non-aspirated /p/s, like "Sport" = /ʃpɔʁt/ and [ʃpɔʁtʰ] (a syllable onset /ʃb/ doesn't exist).*


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## LilianaB

I think phonology can be purely theoretical sometimes, like in languages reconstruction. It deals with mental concepts rather than real sounds or their production what phonetics does.


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## duvija

Hi! somebody just told me about this link, (thanks Swift), and I'm really interested in this discussion. For what I've read (here), many people claim there is no clear cut between phonol. and phonet. (and I totally agree). Plus we can define them both as lang. specific, or both as universal. I'll try to re-read the messages, before I jump in, hooves and all.

(Is it possible to put an alert so when there is a thread with the word 'phonology' in it, it would appear in/on my screen?). The word 'phonetics' has been bastardized too much, and most of the times,  it's quite irrelevant


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## katilagaita

How would you explain / clarify  the differences of usage, meaning and function between _phonology _and _phonetics_, to advanced level EFL learners? This is a group of students who are training to teach English at secondary school level in their native countries. Given that in their teaching careers, it will be unlikely that they need ever fully explain the differences to one of their pupils, what level of understanding does the prospective teacher really need? Is there any type of concise explanation that could be presented to the trainee teachers? Or a practical exercise that highlights the differences, and draws the trainee to a clearer conclusion? All ideas and advice appreciated.


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## Hulalessar

Phonetics is the scientific study of the sounds of speech ("phones") as a physical phenomenon. It is concerned with matters such as the physical properties of phones, how they are produced and perceived and with describing and classifying them.

Phonology is the study of phones as used in language to convey meaning. With respect to any given language it sets out to describe the phones used in it by classifying them into phonemes and setting out rules about how the phonemes are organised. It extends to the study of prosodic features such as stress and intonation.

There is some overlap between the two and phonology, whilst not necessarily a branch of phonetics, is dependent on it. Phonetics can be considered a hard science, but phonology veers into social science because it depends on semantics which involves subjective judgements.

I think an important concept for _all _students of language to get to grips with is the phoneme. Once you understand what phonemes and allophones are you are a good way into understanding the difference between phonetics and phonology.


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