It's a branch of linguistics, which studies how sounds are put together and used to convey meaning (表达意义 )in communication.
Phonetics and Phonology
Speech sounds（都在研究语音）
Phonetic is a general nature of speech sounds in all languages and focuses on production.
Phonology focuses on pattern in a language. （强调与其他音的关系）
Difference
Pronunciation is different (whether there is a puff of air when producing the sound in phonetic )
The patterns are different: [ p= ]appears after /s/ in phonology.
Phone, phoneme, and allophone
Phones（音素）are all the speech sounds produced during linguistic communication.
Phoneme（音位）: Some phones which can distinguish meaning are called phonemes.
Allophones(音体变位）:some phones which can't distinguish meaning and belong to the same phonemes are called allophones.
e.g. the /p/ sound in speak and peak. The /p/ in the first word is unaspirated不送气的, it is transcribed as [ p= ]; the /p/ in the second word is aspirated送气的, and is transcribed as [ ph ].
Minimal pair（最小对立体）
Minimal pairs: When two different words are identical In every way, except for one sound which occurs in the same position in the strings, the two words are said to form a minimal pair.
Contrastive distribution:If two sounds can occur in the same phonetic environment and distinguish meaning, they are said to be in contrastive distribution. 属于对立分布的音子一定是音位
Complementary distribution:if two sounds can't occur in the same phonetic environment and can't distinguish meaning, they are said to be in complementary distribution.音位变体属于互补分布
Some phonological rules
Sequential rules(序列规则):Rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language are called sequential rules.
/s/+/p/or/t/or/k/+/l/or/r/or/w/or/j/
Assimilation rule 同化规则
definition: The assimilation rule assimilates one sound to another by "copying" a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones similar.
/g/→∅/_____C[+nasal]#
Delete a [g] when it occurs before a final nasal consonants.
Suprasegment syllable
The structure of a syllable
Syllable
On set(consonants )
Rhyme
Nucleus （vowels） 注:/l/, /n/, /m/可为元音
Coda(consonants )
A syllable that has no coda is called an open syllable.
A syllable that has coda is called a closed syllable.
English syllable: (((C)C)C)V((((C)C)C)C)
Chinese syllable: (C)V(C)
Suprasegmental（超音段） features
Definition: suprasegmental features are the phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments(语音片段).
The principal suprasegmentals are stress重音, tone 声调and intonation语调.
Stress is the degree of force used in producing a syllable [']. (Word and sentence stress)
Function of stress(distinguishing meaning:)
A shift of stress may change the part of speech and distinguish a noun phrase , a gerund phrase, PP phrase or a compound noun.
Any element in a sentence can be stressed!
English is a stress language.
Tone are pitch variations(level, rise, fall-rise, rise-fall, fall)
Chinese is a tone language.
Function: distinguishing meaning.
Intonation is the pitch, stress and sound length tied to sentence.
Fall tone (statement)
Rising tone (question)
Fall-rise tone (implied message)
Rise-fall tone
Function: conveying different meanings.
