Phoneme

The study of phoneme goes back to N.V. Krushevsky’s idea of a word distinctive unit (фонема – словоразличающая единица звуковой системы языка) in the sound system of a language. (A phoneme as a word distinctive unit.)

It gains importance with I.A. Baudoin de Courtenay’s (BDC) phonological conception. This Russian scholars founded the first phoneme theory wave viewed phonemes as functional units and consider them to be only perceptions of the articulatory movements and of the muscular sensations connected with them together with the resulting acoustic impression, all of which react in mind simultaneously (фонема – психический эквивалент звука). And speech sound are imperfect realization of these ideal cyclical images (A phoneme as an ideal cyclical image) BDC was an adherent to a so called psychological school of thought in linguistic.

Almost at the same time Ferdinand de Saussure (FDS), a Swiss linguist, the first exponent of the phoneme theory in Western Europe originated this conception. A phoneme is the sum of acoustic impressions and articulatory movements (фонема как сумма акустических впечатлений и артикуляционных движений).

Одному и тому же звуку соответствует одна и та же артикуляция. Акустический такт B = артикуляционный такт B¹. Первичные единицы получаемые при расчленении речевой цепочки состоят из В и В¹ их называют фонемами то есть совокупностью слышимой единицы и произносимой единицы из коих одна обусловлена другой.

This conception is entirely abstraction with no regard for the material aspect and the recognitive function of the phoneme. To FDS the phoneme is regarded as a disembodied unit of language (бестелесный). He believes that the expression plane of language is to be studied without any resource to phonetic practices.

Roman Jacobson a representative of so-called Copenhagen trend use phoneme as algebraic, for example: he treats phoneme in terms of an algebra of language operating with unnamed entities (A phoneme as an algebraic unit)

L.V. Scherba (Leningrad) worked out a materialistic theory of phoneme. He was the first who defined the phoneme as a real independent distinctive unit (is capable of expressing a meaning by itself) which manifests itself in the form of its allophone (алафон – позиционный вариант фонемы)

Количество разнообразных звуков объединяется в небольшое число звуковых типов, способных дифференцировать слова и их формы, то есть служить целям человеческого общения. Эти звуковые типы и есть отдельные звуки речи, которые называются фонемами. Реально произносимые звуки есть оттенки фонем. A phoneme as a distinctive unit and an allophone as its realization.

N.S. Trubetskoy (Prague) defines the phoneme as a unity of phonologically relevant features, an abstraction. For him the phoneme was a functional concept that is the smallest distinctive unit operating within the network of structural relationships which constituted the sound system of a language. The phoneme was a concept which kept words apart making phonological oppositions. A phoneme is realized as various sound features standing in clear opposition to other features. (A phoneme as a set of distinctive features)

L. Bloomfield defines the phoneme as a minimum unit of distinctive sound features, an abstractional fiction. Bloomfield talks about phoneme been lumps or bundles of features of sounds. These features may be articulatory, acoustic or sound combination (a phoneme as a bundle of distinctive features).

The phoneme idea is very much more physical in this approach than in that offered by Trubitskoy.

D. Jones defines the phoneme as a family of sounds consisting of an important sound of the language (generally the most frequently used member of the family) together with other related sounds which take its place in particular sound sequences or under particular conditions of length or stress or intonation. According to him it is possible to group the sounds of a language into phonemes even without knowing the meaning of words. The ‘l’ phoneme for example would be said to consist of its various allophones, dark [l] and clear [l] (a phoneme as a family of related sounds)

Луг Лук

Уз Ус

Серб Серп

According to the Leningrad school of phonology, a phoneme is a sum of acoustic features treated independently and capable of differentiating meanings. In the words ‘луг, уз, Серб’ the terminal sounds are devoiced and fully coincide with the terminal sounds in the words ‘лук, ус, серп’.They suggest to consider [к с п] in the words луг, уз, Серб and [к с п] in ‘лук, ус, серп’ to belong to [к с п] phonemes.

[к] is occlusive, plosive

[] constrictive, fricative

Representations of Moscow phonological school consider that a phoneme is dependent as it is a part of morpheme.

[г з б] sound in ‘луг, уз, Серб’ being devorced are allophones of the [г з б] phonemes because they coincide with their principle variants in their strong position. Луг-луга, уз-узы, серб – сербы and лук-луки, ус- усЫ, серп – серпЫ.

That is they suggest suspicious phonemes through their allomorphs in their strong position on the basis of morphological criteria.

So, a phonological analysis is very much a single process but involving considerations of both phonetic detail and abstract relationship.

The actual speech sounds pronounced by the speaker are variants or allophones of phoneme. Speech sounds which have one or more articulatory and therefore acoustic features in common and at the same time differ from each other in some degree are said to belong to one and the same phoneme, it means that they are variants of one and the same phoneme, if they, when pronounced one instead of the other are incapable of differentiating words of the grammatical forms of one and the same phoneme.

19/10/09

Lecture 6.

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