Phonology: encoding words

- Words are signs which have:

- an internal and external word structure build in the world of mind.

- definitions, examples, models which give semantic meanings to a word in the shared world.

- a pronounciation and orthography which give distinguishing features to the shared world.

- A phoneme is 'the smallest word-distinguishing segment.

- A syllable is 'the smallest-distinguishing arrangement of phonemes' within a word.
Example:
               busdriver→ --  
                    


  - The basic  English syllable structure is: CCCVVCCC C= consonant, V= vowel

- Every word has a transition network in which every phoneme has its correct position. If you change the position of the phoneme or exchange it with a different phoneme you'll get a different word.

transition network:   
               

              s→t→r→i:→m   if you exchange /t/ with /k/    s→k→r→i:→m    
    

- To help learners of languages to encode words the International Phonetic Association invented the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

- The IPA chart describes were you have to locate your tongue in the mouth, if it's a plosive, fricative...  Click here to see a PDF copy of the Chart.

so in the end you can read a phonemic transcription in a dictionary and pronounce a word correctly.