Lecture 2

Conclusion

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Phonemes and their variants (allophones)

The relationship between the phoneme and its allophone

The aspects of the phoneme

The function of the phoneme

The notion of the Phoneme

The human speaking apparatus is capable of articulating a great number of various sounds. Some of the differences exist as physical facts are not always linguistic facts.

peak - speak

aspiration – no aspiration

The only important things for language are those which can be associated with meaning and be used for the purposes in communication.

We can differentiate and distinguish….

The opposition of different sound shapes is the basis of understanding…

Bead [ ] bed [ ]

Opposition the vowels [] [] [] []

We can see they are used as independent units for the purpose of word differentiation.

The consonants [n] [f] [t]-[d] [p]-[] are opposed in the following pair of words:

line-life,

There exist speech sounds which are the basis for the differentiation of the sound shapes of words and grammatical forms of one and the same word. We call it Phonemes.

The segmental Phoneme is the smallest language unit that exists in the speech of all the members of the given community as such speech sounds which are capable of distinguishing one word from another word of the same language.

The phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds opposable to the other phonemes of the same language to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and word.

During the first stage of the development of his phoneme theory he views the phoneme as a component of the morpheme and tried to analyze phonemes according to their functions in the morphemes.

He began to consider the phoneme as a general idea of a sound which arises in a person’s mind before s/he utters a sound.

Lev Scherba was the first to suggest the idea of the sense differentiating function of the phoneme.

Moreover he attached considerable importance to phonemic variants or allophones and stressed the one of the main reasons why variants are important is that they represent phonemes in actual speech.

Any phoneme only exists in the form of actually pronounced speech sounds which are its variants.

There was discovered that the representatives of any linguistic……

[leit] it is in the nearest to the cardinal phoneme; is in the final position; undergos the least possible influence.

[ten] is in the initial position before the front vowel [e]; slightly palatalized under its influence.

[trai] stands before post alveolar forelingual phoneme [r].

Each word contain the word [t]. each of these [t] sounds has its neighboring sounds and positions in the word. Due to these…….

[b ] plosive [t] becomes lateral under the influence of the lateral sonorant [l].

[tu:] the phoneme becomes labialized under the influence of the labial [u:].

From the acoustic point of view each of these [t]-sounds has it peculiarities and slightly differs from others. Each of them is articulated in its own way but from the point of view of phonology we perceive all these [t]-sound as one of the same [t]-phoneme because they do not change the meaning of the words.

Allophones (or variants) of a certain phoneme are speech sounds which are realizations of one and the same phoneme and which, therefore cannot distinguish words.

Allophones of a phoneme which never occur in identical positions are said to be in complementary distribution.

When a person whishes to pronounce a phoneme in isolation s/he usually pronounces the so-called principal/typical allophones.

Besides the principal allophone which preserves typical articulatory features of the phoneme there are subsidiary allophones which are subdivided into combinatory and positional.

Positional allophones are those which are used indefinite positions traditionally i.e. according to the orthopedic norms of the language rather than because of the influence of the neighboring sounds.

The variant sound that we actually utter and which are the individual representing the universal may be called phonemic variants.

All phonemic variants differ from each other in some respects but at the same time they shore certain common properties which in phonetics are called distinctive features.

Modern treatment of the phoneme

Vasilyev presents the phoneme as a dialectical unity of these aspects:

1. Material, real and objective
2. Abstractional or generalized
3. Functional

1. The materialiry of the phoneme is confirmed by its real existence in language.

The phoneme is concrete speech sound which possesses certain acoustic and articulatory properties.

The objectivity of the phoneme consists in the fact that it exists irrespective of the will of the individual.

2. The relationship between the phoneme and its variant is a vivid instance of the many-sides relation between what’s abstract and general on the one hand and what is concrete and specific, on the other.

3. It performs the principal function in speech:

• Constitutive – phonemes from the sound-shape of morphemes and words.
• Recognitive/Identificatory – phonemes help identify words.
• Distinctive –phonemes help differentiate the meaning of words and grammatical forms.

According to the Parashuk the distinctive functions is subdivided into:

ü The morpheme distinctive function

Dreamer – dream

ü The word distinctive

Pen-ten-Ben

ü The sentence distinctive

It was gold. – It was cold. – It was sold.

It depends on which hierarchically higher language units are differentiates.

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