Marcin Kilarski Polish-English contrastive grammar

Phon & Phon

During our first class we are going to cover sections 1 and 2.

1. Vowels

ENGLISH

front

central

back

unrounded

round

high

i! "

u! #

mid

e

$! %

&!

low

æ

'

(!

) (BE) )! (AE)

POLISH

front (unrounded)

central

back (rounded)

oral

i

*

u

high

nasal

[+]

[*,,]

[u!]

oral

-

"

mid

nasal

(-,)

("!)

oral

a

low

nasal

[a!]

> Polish allophonic variants appear in square brackets (diagram from Prof. Sobkowiak’s

Fonetyka angielska w pigu!ce

)

> Polish can be described as a consonantal language, as consonants constitute more than 70% of its phoneme inventory;
English can be described as either vocalic or consonantal, depending on the adopted phoneme inventory – for details see

Grzegorz Krynicki’s handout

.

a) number of vowels
> 6 in Polish vs. 12 in English (excluding Polish nasals and English diphthongs)
> compare the ten-vowel system in 16

th

century Polish: /a,

#, ", o, u, i, e, $, $!, "!/)

b) quantity
> as a phonemic distinction in English; the contrast involves both quantity and quality, with a possible exception of the
mid-central pair;

1

Marcin Kilarski Polish-English contrastive grammar

> lacking in Modern Polish but present in Old Polish
> present in other Slavonic languages, e.g., Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian

c) nasal vowels
> oral/nasal contrasts in Polish as opposed to a slight degree of nasalisation in English
> nasal allophones [",

%!, u!, a!] (instynkt, symfonia, kunszt, tramwaj)

> alternatively, Polish nasal vowels can be treated as sequences of vowel+consonant, e.g., /

k-mpa/ k!pa, /dr"g-(w,)/

drog!, /

r-&ka/ r!ka, /z"mp/ z"b, /k"w,sci/ k"ski, /v"&xaK/ w"cha#; /&/ is then treated as a separate phoneme and not an

allophone of /n/

d) diphthongs
> 8 English diphthongs (see the diagram in

Fonetyka angielska w pigu!ce

)

> Polish diphthongs in loanwords (Eu-ropa, au-tor); phonetically comparable sequences of vowel+glide in Polish, e.g.,
maj, daj; notice however that they are split by a syllable boundary (ma-ja), or by a morpheme boundary (da-j)
> present in other Slavonic languages, e.g., Czech and Slovak

e) individual contrasts
> /

*/ is here treated as a separate phoneme; alternatively, it can be treated as an allophone of /!/ after a hard consonant;

/

*/ can also be treated as a centralized front vowel

> lack of mid-central vowel in Polish (in Slavonic Bulgarian and Slovenian have vowels comparable to /

'/)

> note the differences between BE and AE back vowels (/

#(/ in BE, AE start, but also in AE bother; /)/ in BE bother;

/

"(/ in BE, AE north, but also BE law; /)(/ in AE law); cf. pairs like pot, rod; all, saw

> rhotic/non-rhotic dialects of English; r-colouring with vowel followed by /r/
> /

*/ ~ /A:/ pairs in AE and BE before /f, s, +, n/

2. Consonants

ENGLISH

bilabial

labio-

dental

apico-

dental

alveolar

post-alveolar

palato-

alveolar

palatal

velar

glottal

plosive

p b

,-.

/-0

(

1)

affricate

(

,2-.2)

. /

fricative

f v

+-3

4-5

6 7

8

nasal

m

9

&

liquid

:

;-<-2

approxi-

mant

w

=

POLISH

bilabial

labio-dental

dental

alveolar

alveolo-

palatal /pre-

palatal

palatal/

post-palatal

velar

plosive

p b

t d

c 0-

k g

affricate

1 2

. /

3 4

fricative

f v

s z

6 7

5 6

x

nasal

m

n

7

(

&)

liquid

l r

approxi-

mant

w

j

> see also the diagram in

Fonetyka angielska w pigu!ce

a) hard vs. soft consonants in Polish
> soft (palatalized, zmi!kczone) variants of labials /

"#$%#$&#$'#$(/ (e.g., pisk, bi#, miasto, film, wierzba) and of velars

/

)#$*/ (e.g., Polsk!, drog! (without nasalization)) can be alternatively treated as separate phonemes

2

Marcin Kilarski Polish-English contrastive grammar

b) Polish and English fricatives and affricates
> complex opposition in the fricative and affricate series, between the alveolars and alveolo-palatals: /]/ vs. /K/, /}/ vs.
/{/, /

6/ vs. />/, /7/ vs. /?/; based on the articulation with the tip of the tongue (in the alveolars) and the middle of the

tongue (in the alveolo-palatals)
> E palato-alveolars vs. P alveolars /], },

6, 7/: in E front of tongue produces a channel along front part of hard palate

c) geminates in Polish
> not treated as separate phonemes because in contrastive pairs they occur across morpheme boundaries, e.g., panna vs.
pana, lekki vs. leki
> occasionally in proper nouns, e.g., Lepper, Korwin-Mikke

d) interdentals
> lack of interdental fricatives /

+, ð/ in Polish; the fricatives become substituted with either labiodental fricatives

(/

'#$(/), dental or alveolar fricatives (/+#$,/) or dentalized stops (/-#$./); speakers do not choose one type of change over

another consistently, and choose to change place in one articulation and manner in another

e) dentals vs. alveolars
> contrast between Polish dentals /

-#$.#$+#$,#$// and their English alveolar equivalents, e.g., P /t !/ vs. E /t/

> in Polish alveolar allophones appear next to other alveolars, e.g., trzaska#

f) complex allophonic and dialectal variation of /r/ in both languages
> in English realized with degrees of retroflexion and voice; as a frictionless continuant [

;], flap [@], alveolar trill [r],

uvular trill [

A] or uvular fricative [B];

> in Polish realized as a trill, flap (in fast speech), devoiced [r

C] (wiatr, krwawy) or palatalised [rD] (Maria)

g) other
> the velar nasal /#/ may be regarded as an allophone or a separate phoneme, in an analysis where the nasal vowels /

$!, "!/

are treated as sequences of vowel and nasal

3. Voice assimilations

> please read the following sections from the book by Sobkowiak: Polish voicing and devoicing (49-57) and English
voicing (57-59); nasalisation (163-166) and vowel reduction (166-170)

> restricted presence of progressive assimilations in Polish (examples in Nagórko, p. 53)

a) Polish regressive devoicing
> applies to voiced obstruents, e.g., [

%0)] Bóg, Bug and sonorants, e.g., []as"pismC] czasopism

> occurs word finally (as final devoicing), e.g., [

%0)], and before a voiceless segment, e.g., [)102$'+)!] królewski;

analogously, in Polglish (P/E) it occurs in E in [

%*)+] bags (in the two final segments) and [.E'-3F2] dove-tail

> FD is common to Slavonic (except Serbian, Croatian and Ukrainian) and also some Germanic languages, e.g.,
German and Dutch
> using generative notation it can be described in the following way:

[+obstr] $ [–voiced] / __ #

[-voiced]

b) voice in obstruent clusters
> in English obstruent clusters do not have to agree in voicing, e.g., [

%**"4F"] bagpipe

> in Polish clusters must agree in voicing; in Polglish voice assimilation levels out the voice quality either by way of
regressive devoicing, e.g., [

%*)"4F"] bagpipe, or regressive voicing, e.g., [24F(%'G-] lifeboat

3

Marcin Kilarski Polish-English contrastive grammar

4

c) Polish regressive voicing across morpheme boundaries
> before voiced obstruents, e.g., [

%14.,">!] brat Zosi

> before vowels and sonorants in Kraków/Pozna% speech (wymowa krakowsko-pozna$ska), e.g., [

%14.$2!] brat Eli

d) English progressive voicing
> e.g., in 3

rd

person sg. -s and pl. -s (loves, bags)

4. Other assimilations

> Polish assimilation of dentals to the following alveolar, e.g., trzaska#
> Polish nasal assimilation of vowels and diphthongs, e.g., Polglish [

+FH&%'2] symbol, empty, jump, complex

> Polish nasal palatal assimilation of E [

/], e.g., in Pol. trening, Nil and Polglish (P/E) university, monitor

> Polish anterior palatalisation of /

-#$.#$+#$,#$//, e.g., bat vs bacik, wagon vs. wagonik

Anterior palatalisation: {

-$.$+$,$/} $ { K { C Z ? } / __ + syll

– back

+ nasal

+ high

+ high

Nasal palatal assimilation:

+ coronal $ + anterior / __ + sonor

+ anterior

– back

5. Stress in Polish

> falls on the penultimate (next to the last) syllable
> non-penultimate stress occurs in loanwords, e.g., 'muzyka, uni'wersytet, 'prezydent; past tense and conditional
(agglutinative) verb forms, e.g., 'byli%my, 'widzia&bym; numerals, e.g., 'siedemset
> final stress in abbreviations, e.g., PeKa'eS, U'Wu (Uniwersytet Warszawski)
> words with non-penultimate stress are given penultimate stress by analogy, e.g., fi'zyka, matema'tyka, mu'zyka;
czte'rysta, zaplanowa'li%cie, cf. hypercorrection in bi'blioteka

6. Phonotactic restrictions

> restrictions on the possible sequences of segments
> Polish: clusters of up to six consonants in fast speech, e.g., [

(+-$&"(,%1"I"/%] wst!p wzbroniony

> English: clusters of up to three initial consonants: fricative+stop+nasal in split, spray
> illegal sequences are reduced – either by loss of one of the segments or by insertion of a schwa (we assume that other
segments are pronounced in line with Polish): P [

"-4)] ptak > E [-4)], ["''-4)]; P [-]$'] Tczew > E []$'], [-'']$']

7. Dialectal differences

> labiovelar /

5/ vs. velarized lateral /8/: /8/ is gradually lost and appears in “wymowa kresowa”, except before i, j

> voiceless /

x/ and voiced /9/: in standard Polish the voiced fricative [V] may appear as an allophone before a voiced

segment, e.g., klechda, Bohdan (cf. the equivalent contrast in OE dohtor vs. dagas); the two fricatives are distinguished
as two phonemes in eastern and southern Polish
> presence of voicing assimilation across word boundary in Kraków/Pozna% speech (cf. above)
> ‘mazurzenie’ – lack of alveolars, e.g., /T

4+/ czas, /6$sT$/ jeszcze, /,4%4/ 'aba

8. References

Nagórko, A. 2002. Zarys gramatyki polskiej. Warszawa: PWN.
Rubach, J. 1984. “Applied contrastive linguistics - In search of a framework”, in: K. Sajavaara (ed.). Cross-language

analysis and second language acquisition 1. 141-156.

Sobkowiak, W. 1996. English phonetics for Poles. Pozna%: Bene Nati.
Sobkowiak, W. Fonetyka angielska w pigu&ce 2.0 (

http://elex.amu.edu.pl/ifa/pigulka

)

updated 1 April 2007