Phoneme as a language unit

[ж] - [?] man - sportsman

[?] - [?] some - wholesome

[? ] - [?] combine - combine

[ei] - [?] operation - operative

[зu] - [?] post - postpone

The alternated sounds are allophones of one and the same phoneme as they are derivatives of the same lexical units, the same morphemes. Thus the neutral sounds in the examples above are the neutralized allophones of the non-reduced vowels of full formation; so [?] in sportsman is an allophone of the [ж] phoneme as in man; [?] in photography is an allophone of the [зu] phoneme as in photograph.

The modifications of vowels in a speech chain are traced in the following directions: they are either quantitative or qualitative or both. These changes of vowels in a speech continuum are determined by a number of factors such as the position of the vowel in the word, accentual structure, tempo of speech, rhythm, etc.

The decrease of the vowel quantity or in other words the shortening of the vowel length is known as a quantitative modification of vowels, which may be illustrated as follows:

1.The shortening of the vowel length occurs in unstressed positions, e.g. blackboard, sorrow (reduction). In these cases reduction affects both the length of the unstressed vowels and their quality.

Form words often demonstrate quantitative reduction in unstressed positions: e.g. Is >he or ?she to blame? - [hi:], but: At >last he has ?come - [hi].

2. The length of a vowel depends on its position in a word. It varies in different phonetic environments. English vowels are said to have positional length, e.g. knee - need- neat (accommodation). The vowel [i:] is the longest in the final position, it is obviously shorter before the lenis voiced consonant [d], and it is the shortest before the fortis voiceless consonant [t].

Qualitative modification of most vowels occurs in unstressed positions. Unstressed vowels lose their "color", their quality, which is illustrated by the examples below:

1. In unstressed syllables vowels of full value are usually subjected to qualitative changes, e.g. man - sportsman, conduct - conduct.

In such cases the quality of the vowel is reduced to the neutral sound [?].

Nearly one sound in five is either [?] or the unstressed [i]. This high frequency of [?] is the result of the rhythmic pattern: if unstressed syllables are given only a short duration, the vowel in them which might be otherwise full is reduced.

It is common knowledge that English rhythm prefers a pattern in which stressed syllables alternate with unstressed ones. The effect of this can be seen even in single words, where a shift of stress is often accompanied by a change of vowel quality; a full vowel becomes [?], and [?] becomes a full vowel.

Compare: analyse - analysis.

2. Slight degree of nasalization marks vowels preceded or followed by the nasal consonants [n], [m], e.g. never, no, then, men (accommodation).

The realization of reduction as well as assimilation and accommodation is connected with the style of speech. In rapid colloquial speech reduction may result in vowel elision, the complete omission of the unstressed vowel, which is also known as zero reduction.

Zero reduction is likely to occur in a sequence of unstressed syllables, e.g. history, factory, literature, territory. It often occurs in initial unstressed syllables preceding the stressed one, e.g. correct, believe, suppose, perhaps.

The example below illustrates a stage-by-stage reduction (including zero reduction) of a phrase.

Has he done it? [hжz hi? ,d?n it] - [h?z hI ,d?n it] - [?z i ,d?n it] - [z i ,d?n it]

3. Sound Alternations: the sound variations in words, their derivatives and grammatical forms of words are known as sound alternations. It is perfectly obvious that sound alternations are caused by assimilation, accommodation and reduction in speech. Alternations of consonants are mainly due to contextual assimilations: the dark [і] in spell alternates with the clear [l] in spelling. Vowel alternations are the result of the reduction in unstressed positions: combine ['k?mbain] (n) - combine [k?m'bain] (v) where [?] in the stressed syllable of the noun alternates with the neutral sound in the unstressed syllable of the verb. Some sound alternations are traced to the phonetic changes in earlier periods of the language development and are known as historical.

Sound alternations are also widely spread on the synchronical level in the presentday English and are known as contextual. In connection with contextual sound alternations there arises a problem of phonemic identification of alternated sounds. The functioning of sounds in different grammatical forms and derivatives of words seems very complicated and flexible. The study of the relationship between phonemes and morphemes is called morphophonemics.

The interrelation of phonology and morphology in linguistic investigations is also known as morphophonology or morphonology which is actually the phonology of morphemes. Morphonology studies the way in which sounds can alternate as different realizations of one and the same morpheme. A morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning. We would all agree that such words as windy, dusty, sunny consist of two morphemes. Similarly, demonstration, alternation have two component morphemes.

The meanings of wind, dust, sun as well as of demonstrate, situate are obvious. But what function the morphemes -y and -ion perform. On the basis of the examples, it appears that the function of -y is to convert a noun into an adjective. Similarly -ion converts a verb into a noun. These morphemes have a grammatical meaning whose main purpose is to convert one part of speech into another. Each set of data below exemplifies a sound alternation in one and the same morpheme of two different parts of speech: malice - malicious, active - activity, 'abstract - abs'tract etc.

We are interested now in the sound in its weak position. Vowels are said to be in their strong position when they are in stressed syllables and in the weak position when they are in the unstressed ones. Consonants may well be said to be in their strong position before vowels and in the intervocalic position; they are in weak positions when they are word final or precede other consonants.

There may be different solutions to the problem of phoneme identification in weak position of alternated words. The question arises whether the sound [?] in the words ac'tivity and con'trast is a neutral phoneme or it is an allophone of the [a] or [o] phonemes (as in 'active, 'contrast,) which loses some of its distinctive features in the unstressed position.

The difference is quite essential as in the first case the neutral sound is identified as an independent neutral phoneme, in the second - it is a neutralized allophone of the [a] or [o] phonemes of the corresponding alternated words.

The loss of one or more distinctive features of a phoneme in the weak position is called phonemic neutralization. In English, the voicing opposition is neutralized after the initial [s]. We are well aware of the fact that the phonemes [t] and [d], for example, contrast in most environments: initially (tick --Dick), finally (bid - bit); after nasals (bend - bent), after [l] (cold - colt). But after [s] no contrast between [t], [d] is possible, nor there is a contrast between [p], [b] and [k], [g] in this environment. The voicing contrast is neutralized after initial [s].

1.3.2 General characteristics of consonant phonemes

In the English consonant system the following 24 consonant phonemes are distinguished: [p, b, t, d, k, g, f, v, s, z, h, m, n, w, j, r, l, ?, t?, d?, ?, ?].The quality of the consonants depends on several aspects:

1) work of the vocal cords;

2) what cavity is used as a resonator;

3) the force of the articulation and some other factors.

There are few ways of classifying English consonants. According to V.A.Vassilyev primary importance should be given to the type of obstruction and the manner of production of noise [19].

On this ground he distinguishes two large classes of consonants:

1. occlusive, in the production of which a complete obstruction is formed;

2. constrictive, in the production of which an incomplete obstruction is formed.

The phonological relevance of this feature could be exemplified in the following oppositions:

[ti] - [si] tea - sea (occlusive - constrictive)

[si:d] - [si:z] seed - seas (occlusive - constrictive)

[pul] - [ful] pull - full (occlusive --constrictive)

[b?ut] - [v?ut] boat - vote (occlusive --constrictive)

Each of the two classes is subdivided into noise consonants and sonorants. The division is based on the factor of prevailing either noise or tone component in the auditory characteristic of a sound. In their turn noise consonants are divided into plosive consonants (or stops) and affricates.

Another point of view is shared by M.A. Sokolova, K.P. Gintovt,

G.S. Tikhonova, R.M. Tikhonova [19]. They suggest that the first and basic principle of classification should be the degree of noise. Such consideration leads to dividing English consonants into two general kinds: noise consonants and sonorants.

Sonorants are sounds that differ greatly from all other consonants of the language.

This is largely due to the fact that in their production the air passage between the two organs of speech is fairly wide, that is much wider than in the production of noise consonants.

As a result, the auditory effect is tone, not noise. This peculiarity of articulation makes sonorants sound more like vowels than consonants. On this ground some of the British phoneticians refer some of these consonants to the class of semivowels, [r], [j], [w], for example. Acoustically sonorants are opposed to all other consonants because they are characterized by sharply defined formant structure and the total energy of most of them is very high. However, on functional grounds, according to their position in the syllable, [r], [j], [w] are included in the consonantal category, but from the point of view of their phonetic description they are more perfectly treated as vowel glides.

The place of articulation is another characteristic of English consonants which should be considered from the phonological point of view. The place of articulation is determined by the active organ of speech against the point of articulation. According to this principle the English consonants are classed into: labial, lingual, glottal. The class of labial consonants is subdivided into:

a) bilabial;

b) labio-dental; and among the class of lingual consonants three subclasses are distinguished. They are:

a) forelingual;

b) mediolingual;

c) backlingual;

The importance of this characteristic as phonologically relevant could be proved by means of a simple example. In the system of English consonants there could be found oppositions based on the active organ of speech and the place of obstruction:

[pжn] -- [tжn] pan - tan (bilabial - forelingual)

[wai] - [lai] why - lie (bilabial - forelingual)

[weil] - [jeil] weil - yale (bilabial - mediolingual)

[pik] - [kik] pick - kick (bilabial - backlingual)

[les] - [jes] less - yes (forelingual - mediolingual)

[dei] - [gei] day - gay (forelingual - backlingual)

[sai] - [hai] sigh - high (forelingual - glottal)

[fi:t] - [si:t] feet - seat (labio-dental - forelingual)

Our next point should be made in connection, with another sound property, that is voiced -- voiceless characteristic which depends on the work of the vocal cords. It has long been believed that from the articulatory point of view the distinction between such pairs of consonants as [p, b], [t, d], [k, g], [s, z], [f, v], is based on the absence or presence of vibrations of the vocal cords, or on the absence or presence of voice or tone component. However, there is also energy difference. All voiced consonants are weak (lenis) and all voiceless consonants are strong (fortis).

According to the position of the soft palate consonants can be oral and nasal. There are relatively few consonantal types in English which require the lowered position of the soft palate. They are the nasal occlusive sonorants [m], [n] and [?]. They differ from oral plosives in that the soft palate is lowered allowing the escape of air into the nasal cavity. It is a well-known fact that no differences of meaning in English can be attributed to the presence or absence of nasalization. It is for this reason that it cannot be a phonologically relevant feature of English consonants, so it is an indispensable concomitant feature of English nasal consonants.

Another problem of a phonological character in the English consonantal system is the problem of affricates that is their phonological status and their number.

Language in everyday use is not conducted in terms of isolated, separate units; it is performed in connected sequences of larger units, in words, phrases and longer utterances. Consonants are modified according to the place of articulation. Assimilation takes place when a sound changes its character in order to become more like a neighboring sound.

The characteristic which can vary in this way is nearly always the place of articulation, and the sounds concerned are commonly those which involve a complete closure at some point in the mouth that is plosives and nasals which may be illustrated as follows:

1. The dental [t], [d], followed by the interdental [и], [р] sounds (partial regressive assimilation when the influence goes backwards from a "latter" sound to an "earlier" one), e.g. "eigth","at the", "breadth", "said that";

2. The post-alveolar [t], [d] under the influence of the post-alveolar [r] (partial regressive assimilation), e.g. "free", "true", "that right word", "dry", "dream", "the third room".

3. The post-alveolar [s], [z] (complete regressive assimilation), e.g. horse-shoe, this shop , does she;

4. The affricative [t + j], [d + j] combinations (incomplete regressive assimilation), e.g. graduate, congratulate, did you, could you, what do you say.

The manner of articulation is also changed as a result of assimilation, which includes:

1. Loss of plosion: in the sequence of two plosive consonants the former loses its plosion: glad to see you, great trouble, and old clock (partial regressive assimilations).

2. Nasal plosion: in the sequence of a plosive followed by a nasal sonorant the manner of articulation of the plosive sound and the work of the soft palate are involved, which results in the nasal character of plosion release: sudden, nor now, at night, let me see (partial regressive assimilations).

3. Lateral plosion: in the sequence of a plosive followed by the lateral sonorant [l] the noise production of the plosive stop is changed into that of the lateral stop: settle, table, at last (partial regressive assimilations). It is obvious that in each of the occasions one characteristic feature of the phoneme is lost.

The voicing value of a consonant may also change through assimilation. This type of assimilation affects the work of the vocal cords and the force of articulation. In the particular voiced lenis sounds become voiceless fortis when followed by another voiceless sound, e.g.:

1. Fortis voiceless/lenis voiced type of assimilation is best manifested by the regressive assimilation in such words as newspaper (news [z] + paper); goosebeny (goose [s] + berry). In casual informal speech voicing assimilation is often met, e.g. have to do it, five past two. The sounds which assimilate their voicing are usually, as the examples show, voiced lenis fricatives assimilated to the initial voiceless fortis consonant of the following word. Grammatical items, in particular, are most affected: [z] of has, is, does changes to [s], and [v] of of, have becomes [f], e.g. She's five. Of course. She has fine eyes. You've spoiled it. Does Pete like it?

2. The weak forms of the verbs is and has are also assimilated to the final voiceless fortis consonants of the preceding word thus the assimilation is functioning in the progressive direction, e.g. Your aunt's coming. What's your name? (partial progressive assimilation).

3. English sonorants [m, n, r, 1, j, w] preceded by the fortis voiceless consonants [p, t, k, s] are partially devoiced, e.g. smart, snake, tray, quick, twins, play, pride (partial progressive assimilation).

Lip position may be affected by the accommodation, the interchange of consonant + vowel type.

Labialisation of consonants is traced under the influence of the neighboring back vowels (accommodation), e.g. pool, moon, rude, soon, who, cool, etc. It is possible to speak about the spread lip position of consonants followed or preceded by front vowels [i:], [i], e.g. tea - beat; meet - team; feat - leaf, keep - leak; sit - miss (accommodation). The position of the soft palate is also involved in the accommodation.

Slight nasalization as the result of prolonged lowering of the soft palate is sometimes traced in vowels under the influence of the neighboring sonant [m] and [n], e.g. and, morning, men, come in (accommodation).

Elision or complete loss of sounds, both vowels and consonants, is observed in the structure of English words. It is typical of rapid colloquial speech and marks the following sounds:

1. Loss of [h] in personal and possessive pronouns he, his, her, him and the forms of the auxiliary verb have, has, had is widespread, e.g. What has he done?

2. [1] tends to be lost when preceded by [a:], e.g. always, already, all right.

3. Alveolar plosives are often elided in case the cluster is followed by another consonant, e.g. next day, just one, mashed potatoes. If a vowel follows, the consonant remains, e.g. first of all, passed in time. Whole syllables may be elided in rapid speech: library ['laibri], literary ['litri].

Examples of historical elision are also known. They are initial consonants in write, know, knight, the medial consonant [t] in fasten, listen, whistle, castle.

While the elision is a very common process in connected speech, we also occasionally find sounds being inserted. When a word which ends in a vowel is followed by another word beginning with a vowel, the so-called intrusive "r" is sometimes pronounced between the vowels, e.g. Asia and Africa, the idea of it [рi:ai'di?r ?vit] ma and pa ['mа:r ?nd 'pa:]. The so-called linking "r," is a common example of insertion, e.g. clearer, a teacher of English. When the word-final vowel is a diphthong which glides to [i] such as [ai], [ei] the palatal sonorant [j] tends to be inserted, e.g. saying ['seiji?]; trying ['traii?].

In case of the [U]-gliding diphthongs [?u], [au] the bilabial sonorant [w] is sometimes inserted, e.g. going ['g?uwi?], allowing [?'lauwi?].

The process of inserting the sonorants [r], [j] or [w] may seem to contradict the tendency towards the economy of articulatory efforts. The explanation for it lies in the fact that it is apparently easier from the articulatory point of view to insert those sounds than to leave them out.

The insertion of a consonant-like sound, namely a sonorant, interrupts the sequence of two vowels (VV) to make it a more optional syllable type: consonant + vowel (CV). Thus, insertion occurs in connected speech in order to facilitate the process of articulation for the speaker, and not as a way of providing extra information for the listener.

The ability to produce English with an English-like pattern of stress and rhythm involves stress-timing (= the placement of stress only on selected syllables), which in turn requires speakers to take shortcuts in how they pronounce words.

Natural sounding pronunciation in conversational English is achieved through blends, overlapping, reduction and omissions of sounds to accommodate its stresstimed rhythmic pattern, i.e. to squeeze syllables between stressed elements and facilitate their articulation so that the regular timing can be maintained.

Such processes are called co-articulatory/adjustment phenomena and they comprise:

(1) change of consonant or vowel quality;

(2) loss of consonant or vowels, and even

(3) loss of entire syllables;

I must go = vowel change and consonant loss;

memory = vowel and syllable loss;

did you = consonant blending and vowel change;

actually = consonant blending, vowel and syllable loss.

Syllables or words which are articulated precisely are those high in information

content, while those which are weakened, shortened or dropped are predictable and can be guessed from the context.

English consonants have been remarkably stable over time, and have undergone few changes in the last 1500 years. On the other hand, English vowels have been quite unstable. Not surprisingly, then, the main differences between modern dialects almost always involve vowels.

Around the late 14th century, English began to undergo the Great Vowel Shift, in which the high long vowels [i] and [u] in words like price and mouth became diphthongized, first to [??] and [??] (where they remain today in some environments in some accents such as Canadian English) and later to their modern values [a?] and [a?]. This is not unique to English, as this also happened in Dutch (first shift only, but in dialects and other non-standard varieties frequently both) and German (both shifts) [20].

The other long vowels became higher:

[e] became [i] (for example meet).

[a] became [e] (later diphthongized to [e?] (for example name).

[o] became [u] (for example goose).

[?] became [o] (later diphthongized to [??] (RP) and [o?] (GA), for example bone).

Later developments complicate the picture: whereas in Geoffrey Chaucer's time food, good, and blood all had the vowel [o] and in William Shakespeare's time they all had the vowel [u], in modern pronunciation good has shortened its vowel to [?] and blood has shortened and lowered its vowel to [?] in most accents.

Speaking of English consonants it must be said that there are some problems of phonological character in the English consonantal system; it is the problem of affricates - their phonological status and their number. The question is: what kind of facts a phonological theory has to explain.

1) Are the English [t?, d?] sounds monophonemic entities or biphonemic combinations (sequences, clusters)?

2) If they are monophonemic, how many phonemes of the same kind exist in English, or, in other words, can such clusters as [tr, dr] and [tи, dр] be considered affricates?

To define it is not an easy matter. One thing is clear: these sounds are complexes because articulatory we can distinguish two elements. Considering phonemic duality of affricates, it is necessary to analyze the relation of affricates to other consonant phonemes to be able to define their status in the system. The problem of affricates is a point of considerable controversy among phoneticians. According to Russian specialists in English phonetics, there are two affricates in English: [t?, d?]. D. Jones points out there are six of them: [t?, d? ], [ts, dz], and [tr, dr]. A.C. Gimson increases their number adding two more affricates: [tи, tр]. Russian phoneticians look at English affricates through the eyes of a phoneme theory, according to which a phoneme has three aspects: articulatory, acoustic and functional, the latter being the most significant one. As to British phoneticians, their primary concern is the articulatory-acoustic unity of these complexes [21]. Before looking at these complexes from a functional point of view it is necessary to define their articulatory indivisibility. According to N.S. Trubetzkoy's point of view a sound complex may be considered monophonemic if: a) its elements belong to the same syllable; b) it is produced by one articulatory effort; c) its duration should not exceed normal duration of elements. Let's apply these criteria to the sound complexes [22].

1.Syllabic indivisibility

butcher [but? -?] lightship [lait-?ip]

mattress [mжtr-is] footrest [fut-rest]

curtsey [kз:-tsi] out-set [aut-set]

eighth [eitи] whitethorn [wait-иo:n]

In the words in the left column the sounds [t?], [tr], [ts], [tи] belong to one syllable and cannot be divided into two elements by a syllable dividing line.

2. Articulatory indivisibility. Special instrumental analysis shows that all the sound complexes are homogeneous and produced by one articulatory effort.

3. Duration. With G.P. Torsuyev we could state that length of sounds depends on the position in the phonetic context, therefore it cannot serve a reliable basis in phonological analysis. He writes that the length of English [t?] in the words chair and match is different; [t?] in match is considerably longer than |t| in mat and may be even longer than [?] in mash. This does not prove, however, that [t?] is biphonemic [23].

According to morphological criterion a sound complex is considered to be monophonemic if a morpheme boundary cannot pass within it because it is generally assumed that a phoneme is morphologically indivisible. If we consider [t?], [d?] from this point of view we could be secure to grant them a monophonemic status, since they are indispensable. As to [ts], [dz] and [tи], [dр] complexes their last elements are separate morphemes [s], [z], [и], [р] so these elements are easily singled out by the native speaker in any kind of phonetic context. These complexes do not correspond to the phonological models of the English language and cannot exist in the system of phonemes. The case with [tr], [dr] complexes is still more difficult.

By way of conclusion we could say that the two approaches have been adopted towards this phenomenon are as follows: the finding that there are eight affricates in English [t?], [d?], [tr], [dr], [ts], [dz], [tр], [dи] is consistent with articulatory and acoustic point of view, because in this respect the entities are indivisible. This is the way the British phoneticians see the situation.

On the other hand, Russian phoneticians are consistent in looking at the phenomenon from the morphological and the phonological point of view which allows them to define [t?], [d?] as monophonemic units and [tr], [dr], [ts], [dz], [tр], [dи] as biphonemic complexes. However, this point of view reveals the possibility of ignoring the articulatory and acoustic indivisibility.

1.4 Main trends in the phoneme theory

1.4.1 Phonological schools

As it has been already mentioned the term” phoneme” appeared in the linguistic literature of the 19th century in the works of the French linguist F. de Saussure. According to him a phoneme is defined as a total sum of acoustic impressions and articulatory movements. The linguistic aspect is lacking in this definition. He ignores the sense differentiating function of the phoneme (his phisiologysm) and draws a line between language and speech, considering it as a system of signs, expressing ideas. His conceptions greatly influenced a great number of linguists and schools.

The phoneme theory came into being in Russia. Its originator was Prof. B. de Courtenay, the founder of the Kazan linguistic school. His work on the phoneme theory may be roughly subdivided into two periods.

Firstly, he considered a phoneme to be a component of a morpheme. He stated that one and the same morpheme was always represented by the same combination of sounds. He centered his attention mainly on the phenomenon of phonetic and historical alternations.

Secondly, he abandoned this conception in the 90th of the XIX century and began to search for a unit not bound by the limits of a morpheme. He defined a phoneme as an idea of a sound which appears in the mind of a speaker before the sound is uttered. A speech sound is an invention of the scientists. What really exists is the perception of a sound, the complex perception of the articulatory movements, muscular sensation and acoustic impressions.

This complex perception is a phoneme. This theory was developed by Prof.Shcherba, Krushevsky and by other Russian and foreign linguists. According to Shcherba sounds must be studied not only from the acoustic points of view, but as sounds capable of distinguishing one word of a language from other words of the same language. They fulfill a communicative function in speech. According to Shcherba, a phoneme is realized in speech in concrete sound combinations, which he calls allophones. The most typical, which may be pronounced in isolation, represent a speech element, opposed to other sounds. It is “tipichniy ottenok” [24].

The number of phonemes in a given language is defined by the principal members. In English there are 44 phonemes, in Russian - 36. Phonemic variants are very important, because they may develop into new phonemes or they may stop functioning the theory of the phoneme was then further developed by Shcherba's disciples. A phoneme is understood as a historical category. It functions in a language at a certain stage of its development. It may be characterized as a unit of different aspects: its material and objective aspects. It really exists in a language. It is a concrete sound, characterized by definite formation and definite acoustic qualities. It exists independently in the speech of all the members of the community; it does not depend on the will of an individual, it is obligatory for all, as it is a product of the historical development of a given collective body.

Thus, it is a social phenomenon. The phoneme has two main functions:

a) to serve as a material integument of words and morphemes;

b) to differentiate the meaning of words, their grammatical forms and morphemes.

The phoneme is the result of generalization. It is a dialectical unit of the general and the particular. It is realized in speech in concrete sound combinations as allophones, being at the same time something typical and general when opposed to other phonemes in speech.

The theory of the phoneme is being developed into two main directions in our country: the Moscow linguistic school, the Leningrad linguistic school. There are many different linguistic schools of the phoneme abroad: the Prague phonological school, the London phonological school, the American phonological school and the Copenhagen phonological school.

The phoneme theory was first formulated at the end of the 19^th century. Its founder was Prof. I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay. Though his theory lacks consistency and there are some drawbacks in it is initiated the development of the phoneme theory in Russia as well as abroad. The opinions on the nature of the phoneme and the definition of the phoneme differ among scientists in our country and abroad.

The conceptions of the phoneme nowadays are numerous and varied. Nevertheless, they may be grouped and classified because some phonological conceptions have a number of features in common.

The various phonological schools chiefly differ in their solution to the two main problems of phonology:

1) the definition of the inventory of the phonemes of a given language and

2) the definition of the phonemic status of speech sounds in unstressed positions.

The phoneme theory in the Russia is developing in two directions. Hence, two phonological schools are distinguished here: the Moscow School and the Leningrad School.

To the Moscow School belong R.I. Avanessov, A.A. Reformatsky, P.S. Kuznetsov, N.F. Yakovlev, V.N. Sidorov and their supporters. They have developed Baudouin's morphological conception of the early period. They investigate the phoneme mostly on the basis of the Russian language.

To the Leningrad School belong L.V. Shcherba and his followers (L.R. Zinder, O.I. Dikushina, M.I. Matusevitch, V.A. Vassilyev, G.P. Torsuyev and others). They investigate the problem on the basis of foreign languages.

Prof. L.V. Shcherba has adopted and developed I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay's psychological conception of the late period. Continuing the work of his teacher L.V. Shcherba has created a truly materialistic phoneme theory and was the first to advance the idea of the distinctive function of the phoneme.

The representatives of the Moscow phonological school consider that the same speech sound may belong to different phonemes. For instance, the following pairs of words are pronounced identically:

лук - луг сидеть - седеть

рос - роз серп - серб

рот - род пять - пядь

кос - коз рок - рог

бок - бог бачок - бочок

вот - вод предать - придать

(The voiced consonants in final position are devoiced; the vowels in unstressed position are reduced.)

According to the Moscow School the [к] sound of the word “лук” is an allophone of the [к] phoneme, whereas the [к] sound in the word “луг” is an allophone of the [г] phoneme. Consequently, the [Л] sound of the word “бачок” is an allophone of the [a] phoneme, but the [Л] sound of the word “бочок” is an allophone of the [o] phoneme.

According to the Moscow School the neutral vowel sound in “progressive” [pr?'gresiv] belongs to the English [ou] phoneme because [ou] occurs in a stressed position in “progress” ['prougres]. The neutral vowel sound in “activity” [?k'tiviti] belongs to the English [?e]phoneme because [?e] occurs in a stressed position in “act” [?ekt]. The neutral vowel sound in “gooseberry” [guzb?ri/ belongs to the /e/ phoneme, because /e/ occurs in a stressed position in “berry” [beri]. Consequently, the [z] sound in the word “gooseberry” [guzb?ri] belongs to the [s] phoneme, because [s] is used in a strong position in “goose” [gu:s]. But the [s] sound in the word “newspaper” ['nju:speip?] belongs to the [z] phoneme because [z] is used in a strong position in “news” [nju:z].

The representatives of the Leningrad phonological school consider that the [к] sound of the words “лук” and “луг” are allophones of the [к] phoneme. The neutral sounds of the words “бочок” and “бачок” are allophones of the neutral vowel phoneme [Л].

According to the Leningrad School the neutral vowel sounds in the words “progressive” ['prougresiv],“activity” [?k'tiviti], “gooseberry” [guzb?ri], etc. belong to the neutral phoneme [?]. Consequently, the [s] sounds in the words “goose” [gu:s] and “newspaper” ['nju:speip?] belong to the [s] phoneme, whereas the [z] sounds in the words “gooseberry” [guzb?ri] and “news” [nju:z] belong to the /z/ phoneme.

The Leningrad School analyses and investigates sounds as real speech units, which is of great practical value in the process of teaching a foreign language to students.

There is a third phonological school which is known as the Prague Linguistic Circle. To this school belong N.S. Trubetzkoy, R. Jacobson, H. Martinet and others. The originator of it was N.S. Trubetzkoy. He became acquainted with Baudouin's phoneme theory when he was studying at Moscow University. He admits that his own theory is a development of Baudouin de Courtenay and Shcherba's phnoneme systems.

One of the main points of his theory is that of archiphonemes. According to N.S. Trubetzkoy the archiphoneme is a combination of distinctive features common to two phonemes. For instance, the speech sounds [к] and [г] (in the words “лук” and “луг” and «кот», «год») differ only by the work of the vocal cords but possess the following identical features: (1) plosive, (2) backlingual. These two common features are called relevant and they constitute the archiphoneme to which both [к] and [г] belong. It is neither voiced nor voiceless and is designated by the capital letter [К]. According to N.S. Trubetzkoy, a speech sound is a combination of all the features, both relevant and irrelevant, while the archiphoneme is a combination of only relevant features [25].

The London phonological school is represented by Prof. D. Jones of London University. In his monograph “The phoneme: its Nature and Use” he says that the phoneme theory was first introduced to him in 1911 by L.V. Shcherba of Leningrad. D. Jones' own definition of the phoneme is a follows: “… a phoneme is a family of sounds in a given language which are related in character and are used in such a way that no one member ever occurs in the same phonetic context as any other member” [26].

In this and other definitions of the phoneme he does not mention the distinctive function of the phoneme but he tells about it in his later works.

In his work “the Phoneme: its Nature and Use” D. Jones develops the so-called “atomistic” conception of the phoneme. According to it he breaks up the phonemes into atoms which are different features of the phonemes, such as quality, length, tone, etc. Such distinctive features exist independently from each other. Jones' atomistic theory is criticized because one distinctive feature cannot exist apart from all the others. For example, length by itself is an abstraction, while a long name is a reality [26].

The American phonological school is headed by Leonard Bloomfield and Edward Sapir. Here also belong W. F. Twaddel, Ch. F. Hockett and others.

Bloomfield's definition of the phoneme runs as follows: “…a minimum unit of distinctive sound-features…” [27].

W.F. Twaddel defines it as “an abstractional fiction”. The representatives of the American phonological school tend more and more to develop an abstractional view of the phoneme [27]. Ch. F. Hockett says that language may be compared to any system of codes, such as the Morse code or the waving flags code [27]. The Copenhagen Trend is known as structuralism. Their treatment of the phoneme is mathematical. They consider the phoneme in mathematical ratios and compare the language with a system of signs. Their approach is synchronical as well.

1.4.2 Methods of phonological analysis

The aim of the phonological analysis is, firstly, to determine which differences of sounds are phonemic (i.e. relevant for the differentiation of the phonemes) and which are non-phonemic and, secondly, to find the inventory of the phonemes of this or that language.

A number of principles have been established for ascertaining the phonemic structure of a language. For an unknown language the procedure of identifying the phonemes of a language as the smallest language units has several stages. The first step is to determine the minimum recurrent segments segmentation of speech continuum) and to record them graphically by means of allophonic transcription. To do this an analyst gathers a number of sound sequences with different meanings and compares them. For example, the comparison of [stik] and [sti:k] reveals the segments (sounds) [i] and [i:], comparison of [stik] and [spik] reveals the segments [st] and [sp] and the further comparison of these two with [tIk] and [taek], [sik] and [si:k] splits these segments into smaller segments [s], [t], [p]. If we try to divide them further there is no comparison that allows us to divide [s] or [t] or [p] into two, and we have therefore arrived at the minimal segments. From what we have shown it follows that it is possible to single out the minimal segments opposing them to one another in the same phonetic context or, in other words, in sequences which differ in one element only.

The next step in the procedure is the arranging of sounds into functionally similar groups. We do not know yet what sounds are contrastive in this language and what sounds are merely allophones of one and the same phoneme. There are two most widely used methods of finding it out. They are the distributional method and the semantic method. The distributional method is mainly used by phoneticians of "structuralist" persuasions [28].

These phoneticians consider it to group all the sounds pronounced by native speakers into phonemes according to the two laws of phonemic and allophonic distribution.

These laws were discovered long ago and are as follows:

1. Allophones of different phonemes occur in the same phonetic context.

2. Allophones of the same phoneme never occur in the same phonetic context.

The fact is that the sounds of a language combine according to a certain pattern characteristic of this language. Phonemic opposability depends on the way the phonemes are distributed in their occurrence. That means that in any language certain sounds do not occur in certain positions.

If more or less different sounds occur in the same phonetic context they should be allophones of different phonemes. In this case their distribution is contrastive.

If more or less similar speech sounds occur in different positions and never occur in the same phonetic context they are allophones of one and the same phoneme. In this case their distribution is complementary.

Still there are cases when two sounds are in complementary distribution but are not referred to the same phoneme.

This is the case with the English [h] and [n]. The [h] occurs only initially or before a vowel while [n] occurs only medially or finally after a vowel and never occurs initially. In such case the method of distribution is modified by addition of the criterion of phonetic similarity/ dissimilarity. The decisions are not made purely on distributional grounds. Articulatory features are taken into account as well.

So far we have considered cases when the distribution of sounds was either contrastive or complementary. There is, however, a third possibility, namely, that the sounds both occur in a language but the speakers are inconsistent in the way they use them. In such cases we must take them as free variants of a single phoneme. We could explain it on the basis of "dialect" or on the basis of sociolinguistics. It could be that one variant is a "prestige" form which the speaker uses when he is constantly "monitoring" what he says while the other variant of pronunciation is found in casual or less formal speech.

The semantic method is applied for phonological analysis of both unknown languages and languages already described. In case of the latter it is used to determine the phonemic status of sounds which are not easily identified from phonological point of view. The method is based on a phonemic rule that phonemes can distinguish words and morphemes when opposed to one another. The semantic method of identifying the phonemes of a language attaches great significance to meaning.

It consists in systematic substitution of the sound for another in order to ascertain in which cases where the phonetic context remains the same such substitution leads to a change of meaning. It is with the help of an informant that the change of meaning is stated. This procedure is called the commutation test.

It consists in finding minimal pairs of words and their grammatical forms. For example, an analyst arrives at the sequence [pin]. He substitutes the sound [p] for the sound [b] or [s], [d], [w]. The substitution leads to the change of meaning, cf.: pin, bin, sin, din, win. This would be a strong evidence that [p], [b], [s], [d], [w] can be regarded as allophones of different phonemes.

To establish the phonemic structure of a language it is necessary to establish the whole system of oppositions. All the sounds should be opposed in word-initial, word-medial and word-final positions. There are three kinds of oppositions. If members of the opposition differ in one feature the opposition is said to be single, e.g. pen - ben. Common features are: occlusive - occlusive, labial - labial. Differentiating features are: fortis - lenis. If two distinctive features are marked, the opposition is said to be double, e.g. pen - den. Common features are: occlusive - occlusive. Differentiating features are are: labial - lingual, fortis voiceless - lenis voiced.

If three distinctive features are marked the opposition is said to be triple, e.g. pen - then. Differentiating features are: occlusive - constrictive, labial - dental, fortis voiceless - lenis voiced.

Phonemes are the linguistically contrastive or significant sounds (or sets of sounds) of a language. Such a contrast is usually demonstrated by the existence of minimal pairs or contrast in identical environment. Minimal pairs are pairs of words which vary only by the identity of the segment (another word for a single speech sound) at a single location in the word (eg. [mжt] and [kжt]). If two segments contrast in identical environment then they must belong to different phonemes. A paradigm of minimal phonological contrasts is a set of words differing only by one speech sound. In most languages it is rare to find a paradigm that contrasts a complete class of phonemes (eg. all vowels, all consonants, all stops etc.). The English stop consonants could be defined by the following set of minimally contrasting words:

1) [pin] vs [bin] vs [tin] vs [din] vs [kin].

Only [?] does not occur in this paradigm and at least one minimal pair must be found with each of the other 5 stops to prove conclusively that it is not a variant form of one of them.

2) [?жn] vs [pжn] vs [bжn] vs [tжn] vs [dжn].

Again, only five stops belong to this paradigm. A single minimal pair contrasting [?] and [k] is required now to fully demonstrate the set of English stop consonants.

3) [?ein] vs [kein].

Sometimes it is not possible to find a minimal pair which would support the contrastiveness of two phonemes and it is necessary to resort to examples of contrast in analogous environment (C.A.E.). C.A.E. is almost a minimal pair, however the pair of words differs by more than just the pair of sounds in question. Preferably, the other points of variation in the pair of words are as remote as possible (and certainly never adjacent and preferably not in the same syllable) from the environment of the pairs of sounds being tested. eg. [?] vs [?] in English are usually supported by examples of pairs such as "pressure" [pre??] vs "treasure" [tre??], where only the initial consonants differ and are sufficiently remote from the opposition being examined to be considered unlikely to have any conditioning effect on the selection of phones. The only true minimal pairs for these two sounds in English involve at least one word (often a proper noun) that has been borrowed from another language (eg. "confucian" [k?nfj???n] vs "confusion" [k?nfj???n], and "aleutian" [?l???n] vs "allusion" [?l???n]). A syntagmatic analysis of a speech sound, on the other hand, identifies a unit's identity within a language. In other words, it indicates all of the locations or contexts within the words of a particular language where the sound can be found [29].

Allophones are the linguistically non-significant variants of each phoneme. In other words a phoneme may be realized by more than one speech sound and the selection of each variant is usually conditioned by the phonetic environment of the phoneme. Occasionally allophone selection is not conditioned but may vary from person to person and occasion to occasion (i.e. free variation). A phoneme is a set of allophones or individual non-contrastive speech segments. Allophones are sounds, whilst a phoneme is a set of such sounds.

Allophones are usually relatively similar sounds which are in mutually exclusive or complementary distribution (C.D.). The C.D. of two phones means that the two phones can never be found in the same environment (i.e. the same environment in the senses of position in the word and the identity of adjacent phonemes). If two sounds are phonetically similar and they are in C.D. then they can be assumed to be allophones of the same phoneme.

E.g.: in many languages voiced and voiceless stops with the same place of articulation do not contrast linguistically but are rather two phonetic realizations of a single phoneme (i.e. /p/=[p,b],/t/=[t,d], and /k/=[k,?]). In other words, voicing is not contrastive (at least for stops) and the selection of the appropriate allophone is in some contexts fully conditioned by phonetic context (e.g. word medially and depending upon the voicing of adjacent consonants), and is in some contexts either partially conditioned or even completely unconditioned (e.g. word initially, where in some dialects of a language the voiceless allophone is preferred, in others the voiced allophone is preferred, and in others the choice of allophone is a matter of individual choice).

Some French speakers choose to use the alveolar trill [r] when in the village and the more prestigious uvular trill [r] when in Paris. Such a choice is made for sociological reasons.

Allophones must be phonetically similar to each other. In analysis, this means you can assume that highly dissimilar sounds are separate phonemes (even if they are in complementary distribution). For this reason no attempt is made to find minimal pairs which contrast vowels with consonants. Exactly what can be considered phonetically similar may vary somewhat from language family to language family and so the notion of phonetic similarity can seem to be quite unclear at times. vowel english allophone phoneme