Phoneme as a language unit

Sounds can be phonetically similar from both articulatory and auditory points of view and for this reason one often finds a pair of sounds that vary greatly in their place of articulation but are sufficiently similar auditorily to be considered phonetically similar (e.g. [h] and [з] are voiceless fricatives which are distant in terms of glottal and palatal places of articulation, but which nevertheless are sufficiently similar auditorily to be allophones of a single phoneme in some languages such as Japanese).

In English, [h] and [?] are in complementary distribution. The sound [h] only ever occurs at the beginning of a syllable (head, heart, enhance, perhaps) whilst [?] only ever occurs at the end of a syllable (sing, singer, finger). They are, however, so dissimilar that no one regards them as allophones of the one phoneme. They vary in place and manner of articulation, as well as voicing. Further the places of articulation (velar versus glottal) are quite remote from each other and [h] is oral whilst [?] is nasal.

Phonetic similarity is therefore based on the notion of shared features. Such judgments of similarity will vary from language to language and there are no universal criteria of similarity. Although it is implied above that the notion of "phonetic similarity" is in some way less linguistically abstract (more phonetic) than the notion of complementary distribution, it is, nevertheless, a quite abstract concept. There are no obvious and consistent acoustic, auditory or articulatory criteria for phonetic similarity. Further, since a notion of similarity implies a continuum the following question must be asked of two phones in complementary distribution.

There are many examples of very similar phones which are perceived by native speakers to belong to separate phonemes. In English, for example, a word terminal voiceless stop may be either released and aspirated or unreleased. The homorganic voiced stop may also be released or unreleased. Often the unreleased voiced and voiceless stops may actually be identical in every way except that the preceding vowel is lengthened before the phonologically voiced stop. In terms of phonetic similarity, the two unreleased stops may actually be identical and yet be perceived by native speakers to belong to different phonemes.

1.5 Phonemes in sign languages

Phonemes are conventionally placed between slashes in transcription, whereas speech sounds (phones) are placed between square brackets. Thus [p??] represents a sequence of three phonemes [p], [?], [?] (the word push in standard English), while [p???] represents the phonetic sequence of sounds [p?] (aspirated "p"), [?], [?] (the usual pronunciation of push).(Another similar convention is the use of angle brackets to enclose the units of orthography, namely graphemes; for example, ?f? represents the written letter (grapheme) f.)

The symbols used for particular phonemes are often taken from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the same set of symbols that are most commonly used for phones. (For computer typing purposes, systems such as X-SAMPA and Kirshenbaum exist to represent IPA symbols in plain text.) However descriptions of particular languages may use different conventional symbols to represent the phonemes of those languages. For languages whose writing systems employ the phonemic principle, ordinary letters may be used to denote phonemes, although this approach is often hampered by the complexity of the relationship between orthography and pronunciation.

A phoneme is a sound or a group of different sounds perceived to have the same function by speakers of the language or dialect in question. An example is the English phoneme [k], which occurs in words such as cat, kit, school, skill. Although most native speakers do not notice this, in most English dialects the "c/k" sounds in these words are not identical: in cat and kit the sound is aspirated, while in school and skill it is unaspirated. The words therefore contain different speech sounds, or phones, transcribed [k?] for the aspirated form, [k] for the unaspirated one. These different sounds are nonetheless considered to belong to the same phoneme, because if a speaker used one instead of the other, the meaning of the word would not change: using the aspirated form [k?] in skill might sound odd, but the word would still be recognized. By contrast, some other sounds would cause a change in meaning if substituted: for example, substitution of the sound [t] would produce the different word still, and that sound must therefore be considered to represent a different phoneme (the phoneme [t]).

The above shows that in English, [k] and [k?] are allophones of a single phoneme [k]. In some languages, however, [k?] and [k] are perceived by native speakers as different sounds, and substituting one for the other can change the meaning of a word; this means that in those languages, the two sounds represent different phonemes. For example, in Icelandic, [k?] is the first sound of kбtur meaning "cheerful", while [k] is the first sound of gбtur meaning "riddles". Icelandic therefore has two separate phonemes /k?/ and /k/.

A pair of words like kбtur and gбtur (above) that differ only in one phone is called a minimal pair for the two alternative phones in question (in this case, [k?] and [k]).

The existence of minimal pairs is a common test to decide whether two phones represent different phonemes or are allophones of the same phoneme. To take another example, the minimal pair tip and dip illustrates that in English, [t] and [d] belong to separate phonemes, [t] and [d]; since these two words have different meanings, English speakers must be conscious of the distinction between the two sounds. In other languages, though, including Korean, even though both sounds [t] and [d] occur, no such minimal pair exists.

The lack of minimal pairs distinguishing [t] and [d] in Korean provides evidence that in this language they are allophones of a single phoneme [t].

The word “tata” is pronounced [tada], for example. That is, when they hear this word, Korean speakers perceive the same sound in both the beginning and middle of the word, whereas an English speaker would perceive different sounds in these two locations.

However, the absence of minimal pairs for a given pair of phones does not always mean that they belong to the same phoneme: they may be too dissimilar phonetically for it to be likely that speakers perceive them as the same sound. For example, English has no minimal pair for the sounds [h] (as in hat) and [?] (as in bang), and the fact that they can be shown to be in complementary distribution could be used to argue for them being allophones of the same phoneme. However, they are so dissimilar phonetically that they are considered separate phonemes.

Phonologists have sometimes had recourse to "near minimal pairs" to show that speakers of the language perceive two sounds as significantly different even if no exact minimal pair exists in the lexicon. It is virtually impossible to find a minimal pair to distinguish English [?] from [?], yet it seems uncontroversial to claim that the two consonants are distinct phonemes. The two words 'pressure' [pre??] and 'pleasure' [ple??] can serve as a near minimal pair.

While phonemes are normally conceived of as abstractions of discrete segmental speech sounds (vowels and consonants), there are other features of pronunciation - principally tone and stress - which in some languages can change the meaning of words in the way that phoneme contrasts do, and are consequently called phonemic features of those languages.

Phonemic stress is encountered in languages such as English. For example, the word invite stressed on the second syllable is a verb, but when stressed on the first syllable (without changing any of the individual sounds) it becomes a noun. The position of the stress in the word affects the meaning, and therefore a full phonemic specification (providing enough detail to enable the word to be pronounced unambiguously) would include indication of the position of the stress: [in'vait] for the verb, [`invait] for the noun. In other languages, such as French, word stress cannot have this function (its position is generally predictable) and is therefore not phonemic (and is not usually indicated in dictionaries).

Phonemic tones are found in languages such as Mandarin Chinese, in which a given syllable can have five different tonal pronunciations. For example, the character –ѓ (pronounced mв, high level pitch) means "mom", –ѓ (mб, rising pitch) means "hemp",–ѓ (ma, falling then rising) means "horse",–ѓ (mа, falling) means "scold", and ? (ma, neutral tone) is an interrogative particle. The tone "phonemes" in such languages are sometimes called tonemes [30].

Languages such as English do not have phonemic tone, although they use intonation for functions such as emphasis and attitude.

When a phoneme has more than one allophone, the one actually heard at a given occurrence of that phoneme may be dependent on the phonetic environment (surrounding sounds) - allophones which normally cannot appear in the same environment are said to be in complementary distribution. In other cases the choice of allophone may be dependent on the individual speaker or other unpredictable factors - such allophones are said to be in free variation.

A somewhat different example is found in English, with the three nasal phonemes [m, n, ?]. In word-final position these all contrast, as shown by the minimal triplet sum [s?m], sun [s?n], sung [s??].

However, before a stop such as [p, t, k] (provided there is no morpheme boundary between them), only one of the nasals is possible in any given position: [m] before [p], [n] before [t] or [d], and [?] before [k], as in limp, lint, link ( [l?mp], [l?nt/, /l??k]). The nasals are therefore not contrastive in these environments, and according to some theorists this makes it inappropriate to assign the nasal phones heard here to any one of the phonemes (even though, in this case, the phonetic evidence is unambiguous). Instead they may analyze these phones as belonging to a single archiphoneme, written something like |N|, and state the underlying representations of limp, lint, link to be |liMp|, |liNt|, |liNk|.

This latter type of analysis is often associated with Nikolai Trubetzkoy of the Prague school. Archiphonemes are often notated with a capital letter within pipes, as with the examples |A| and |N| given above. Other ways the second of these might be notated include |m-n-?|, [m, n, ?], or [n]|.

Another example from English, but this time involving complete phonetic convergence as in the Russian example, is the flapping of [t] and [d] in some American English (described above under Biuniqueness). Here the words betting and bedding might both be pronounced [b????], and if a speaker applies such flapping consistently, it would be necessary to look for morphological evidence (the pronunciation of the related forms bet and bed, for example) in order to determine which phoneme the flap represents. As in the previous examples, some theorists would prefer not to make such a determination, and simply assign the flap in both cases to a single archiphoneme, written (for example) |D|.

For a special kind of neutralization proposed in generative phonology, see absolute neutralization.

A morphophoneme is a theoretical unit at a deeper level of abstraction than traditional phonemes, and is taken to be a unit from which morphemes are built up [31].

A morphophoneme within a morpheme can be expressed in different ways in different allomorphs of that morpheme (according to morphophonological rules).

For example, the English plural morpheme -s appearing in words such as cats and dogs can be considered to consist of a single morphophoneme, which might be written (for example) |z|, and which is pronounced as [s] after most voiceless consonants (as in cats) and [z] in most other cases (as in dogs).

The language will use only a small subset of the many possible sounds that the human speech organs can produce, and (because of allophony) the number of distinct phonemes will generally be smaller than the number of identifiably different sounds. Different languages vary considerably in the number of phonemes they have in their systems (although apparent variation may sometimes result from the different approaches taken by the linguists doing the analysis).

The English language uses a rather large set of 13 to 21 vowel phonemes, including diphthongs, although its 22 to 26 consonants are close to average.

Phonemes are considered to be the basis for alphabetic writing systems. In such systems the written symbols (graphemes) represent, in principle, the phonemes of the language being written.

However, because changes in the spoken language are often not accompanied by changes in the established orthography (as well as other reasons, including dialect differences, the effects of morphophonology on orthography, and the use of foreign spellings for some loanwords), the correspondence between spelling and pronunciation in a given language may be highly distorted; this is the case with English, for example. (Occasionally, though, such discrepancies are reduced through the establishment of spelling pronunciations.)

The correspondence between symbols and phonemes in alphabetic writing systems is not necessarily a one-to-one correspondence. A phoneme might be represented by a combination of two or more letters (digraph, trigraph, etc.), like <sh> in English or <sch> in German (both representing phonemes /?/). Also a single letter may represent two phonemes, as the Cyrilic letter я in some positions. There may also exist spelling/pronunciation rules (such as those for the pronunciation of <c> in Italian) that further complicate the correspondence of letters to phonemes, although they need not affect the ability to predict the pronunciation from the spelling and vice versa, provided the rules are known.

In sign languages, the basic elements of gesture and location were formerly called cheremes or cheiremes but they are now generally referred to as phonemes, as with oral languages [32].

Sign language phonemes are combinations of articulation bundles in ASL. These bundles may be classified as tab (elements of location, from Latin tabula), dez (the hand shape, from designator), sig (the motion, from signation), and with some researchers, ori (orientation). Facial expression and mouthing are also considered articulation bundles. Just as with spoken languages, when these bundles are combined, they create phonemes.

Stokoe's notation is no longer used by researchers to denote the phonemes of sign languages; his research, while still considered seminal, has been found to not describe American Sign Language and cannot be used interchangeable with other signed languages. Originally developed for American Sign Language, it has also been applied to British Sign Language by Kyle and Woll, and to Australian Aboriginal sign languages by Adam Kendon [33].

Other sign notations, such as the Hamburg Notation System and Sign Writing are phonetic scripts capable of writing any sign language. Stokoe's work has been succeeded and improved upon by researcher Scott Liddell in his book Grammar, Gesture and Meaning, and both Stokoe's and Liddell's work have been included in the Linguistics of American Sign language [33].



2. Differences in the articulation basis of English, Russian and Kazakh phonemes

People belonging to different races and nationalities possess an identical speech apparatus. That is why in all existing languages there are typologically identical sounds, such as consonants, vowels and sonorants. For instance, in all European languages of the Soviet Union there are such typologically identical sounds as [a, o, u, i, e, t, m, k, 1, s, d] etc. And yet, not a single sound of one language is absolutely identical spectrally with a typologically identical sound of another language.

This is due to the fact that people use their speech organs differently, or, as phoneticians say, it is due to the difference in the articulation basis. The articulation basis may be defined as the general tendencies (or habits) in the way native speakers use their speech organs both during speech and at rest. The articulation basis influences the phonetic system of a language. The articulation basis of one language may differ from the articulation basis of another language.

Though the articulation bases of English, Kazakh and Russian have not yet been studied we may only speak about the most characteristic features of the Received Pronunciation articulation basis as compared with the Kazakh and Russian Standard articulation bases [34].

Articulatory differences between vowels, consonants and sonorants depend on three articulatory criteria:

a) the presence or absence of an articulation abstraction to the air stream in the larynx or the super glottal cavities;

b) the concentrated or defused character or muscular tension;

c) the force of exhalation;

On the basis of these criteria consonants may be defined as sounds in the production of which:

1) there is an articulatory abstraction to the air stream;

2) muscular tension is concentrated in the place of abstraction;

3) exhaling force is rather strong;

Vowels may be defined as sounds in the production of which there is:

a) no artic abstraction to the air stream;

b) muscular tension is defused;

c) the exhalation force is rather weak;

Sonorants are intermediate sounds between noise consonants and vowels, because they have features common to both. There is an obstruction but not narrow enough to produce noise. Muscular tension is concentrated in the place of obstruction but the exhaling force is rather weak. English sonorants are: [m, n, l, r, w, j, ?].

Speech sounds according to its physical nature are vibratory movements of air environment evoked by the resonant body (speech organs).

Speech sounds are divided into musical (they are called also by tones) and non-musical (they are called noises).

Speech sounds differ from each other by the pitch, force and duration adn also by tembre. Pitch of sound defined by number of vibratory in units of time. For vowels o and y pitch is equal to 400 gtz, for a it'ss consist of already about 800 gtz. In speech pitch of voice depends on length and strained of voice copula.

Force of sound defined by the swing (amplitude) of vibratory. From the point of perception by the hearing aid of sound is called loudliness which defines not only by the strengtherning of wave but with hightness also, sounds of similiar force, but various heightness is percepted as sounds of various loudiness. Force of the sound has great meaning for the clearness in rendering and perception of speech, at the definition of the stress type.

Sound of speech acoustically is compound, because it contains not only the main tones but sounding-boarded tones.

In our research paper we will point out some peculiarities of English, Russian and Kazakh phonemes. At the same time we will try to analyze the differences and similarities in the articulatory bases of the consonants of these three languages.

Kazakh has nine vowels: а, ?, е, і, ы, о, ?, ?, ?. The following sounds [и] and [у] are called dipthongoids by some linguists. The sound у is considered a semi-consonant by others. As such it can appear between vowels, such as in "ауыз" mouth. Kazakh vowels are generally pronounced short. Vowels followed by the consonant [й] are pronounced long, e.g. ?й [ui]i (home, house) [35].

The vowels are divided into:

1. back (hard) vowels: а, о, ?, ы;

2. front (soft) vowels: ?, ?, ?, і, е;

It is important to remember this classification as the law of vowel harmony is based on it.

Consonants 25 of the 42 letters of the alphabet are consonants. They are divided into 3 groups:

1. voiceless: к, ?, п, с, т, ф, х, ц, ч, ш, щ;

2. voiced: г, ?, б, з, д, в;

3. sonorants: л, м, н, р, й, у;

Some consonants came into Kazakh from the Russian language. They are: в, ф, ц, ч, щ.

The consonant х usually occurs in words borrowed from the Arabic, Russian, and other languages. Very often х is replaced by the Kazakh ?, e.g.: хош-?ош, хал-?ал, рахмет-ра?мет.

The law of vowel harmony (syngarmonism) is a characteristic feature of all Turkic languages. According to the Law the first vowel of a word determines the character of the remaining vowels. If the first vowel is back, the remaining vowels are back too, as in бала (child), а?ылшын (English), ?айталау (repeat), ж?мыс (work). All the syllables in these words are hard. If the first vowel is front, the remaining vowels are front, as in ?ке (father), т?сіну (understand). It follows that Kazakh words will either contain back or front vowels. If a word has both back and front vowels, like м??алім (teacher), кітап (book), рахмет (thanks), it is of foreign origin [35].

Consonant assimilation consists of one sound being either totally or partially made similar to another. The main types of change are the following. When suffixes with the initial consonants л-, б-, м-, н-, д- are added to stems with a final consonant, the initial consonant of the suffix is assimilated to the stem final consonant. For example:

1. after voiceless consonants ( -п, -т, -с, -к, -?) the plural suffix +лар / +лер changes to +тар / +тер:

- ат+лар "horses" > аттар

- кітап+лар "books" > кітаптар

2. after voiced consonants ( -з, -ж, -л, -м, -н, -? ) the plural suffix is changed to +дар / +дер:

- жыл+лар "years" > жылдар

- ?ыз+лар "girls" > ?ыздар

3. similar rules of consonant assimilation exist for all other suffixes with the above mentioned initial consonants.

There is a general voicing of к/? to г/?:

- тара? "comb" тара?ым

- шык "go out" шы?у

4. The consonant п voices to б between vowels:

- кітап "b- кітабым "my book"

- к?п "many, all" - к?біміз "most of us"

Differences in the articulation bases of English, Kazakh and Russian, reflected in the system of consonants, are as follows: the English have a tendency to hold the tip of the tongue in neutral position at the level of the alveoli (or teeth-ridge), whereas the Russians and the Kazakh keep it much lower, at tooth level. That is why there are about 50 % of all the consonants in R.P. which are articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveoli, as in [t, d, n, 1, s, z, ?, t?, d?, ?, r ].

They are alveolar, palato-alveolar and post-alveolar/and post-alveolar) in accordance with the place of obstruction. The tip of the tongue in the articulation of Russian and Kazakh fore lingual consonants occupies dental position.

The English and the Kazakhs have a general habit to hold the bulk of the tongue in neutral position a little further back, lower and flatter than the Russians. This may be observed in the articulation of the consonants /h, ?, / in British R.P. and [h, ?, ?, ?] in Kazakh.

In the production of the English and Kazakh [h] the root of the tongue moves in the direction of the pharyngeal cavity. In the articulation of the Kazakh [?, ?, ?] the back part of the tongue is raised in the direction of the soft palate.

In the production of English and Kazakh [?] the soft palate makes up a complete obstruction with the back part of the tongue. Russian students are apt to substitute the fore lingual [n] for the back lingual [?].

The flatter and lower position of the bulk of the tongue limits the system of English "soft" consonants of which there are only five [ ?, t?, d?, ?, l ] whereas in Russian almost all the consonants may be "soft" (or palatalized). Compare the palatalized and velarized consonants in Russian:

рад-ряд жар-жарь борозда-бороздя

мот-мед вес- весь казна- казня

рвы-рви рожь-рощь угол- уголь

The English have a specific way of articulating final consonants. Voiced consonants in final position are always weak in English (even partially devoiced). They are called lenis. Voiceless consonants in final position, on the contrary, are strong. They are called fortis.

In Russian voiced consonants are impossible in final positions (except sonorants), and voiceless consonants in final position are always weak.

In Kazakh sonorants and [з] are possible in final position, e.g. к?з, сабаз, азыксыз. There is a specific way of articulating voiceless plosive consonants in English. When they are followed by a stressed vowel they are aspirated, as in "teacher", "paper", 'comrade". In Kazakh and Russian they are non-aspirated. There is a tendency to lengthen the English word-ending sonorants before a pause, especially when they are preceded by a short vowel as in "doll", "long", "sin". The similar Russian and Kazakh sonorants are short in the same position. Differences in the articulation bases of English, Russian and Kazakh reflected in the system of vowels are as follows: the positions and movements of the lips are very peculiar. On the one hand, when the English is silent, his lips occupy the so-called flat-type position, they are more or less tense and the corners are raised as in a smile. Russians and Kazakhs keep the lips rather lax with the corners of the lips lowered.

Spreading of the lips for front vowels is rather typical of English. In Russian and Kazakh the lip position for unrounded vowels is neutral.

On the other hand, in the production of the Russian vowels [o, y] and the Kazakh [o, e , y, ?, ?] the lips are rounded and considerably protruded. In English such protrusion does not take place, as in [?, ?, u, u: ].

In the production of English vowels the bulk of the tongue is more often at the back of the mouth; in the production of Russian and Kazakh vowels the tongue is mostly in the front part of the mouth. Besides, the tongue may occupy more positions when articulating English vowels than in Russian or Kazakh vowel production.

English and Kazakh vowels are more tense than Russian. This is especially felt in unstressed syllables. In English and Kazakh an unstressed vowel does not always differ greatly from a stressed one. In Russian it is always short, lax and reduced. There are in English short and long vowels which are different both in quality and quantity. There are no such phonemic oppositions in the Russian and Kazakh languages.

Kazakh exhibits tongue-root vowel harmony, with some words of recent foreign origin (usually of Russian or Arabic origin) as exceptions [36]. There is also a system of rounding harmony which resembles that of Kyrgyz, but which does not apply as strongly and is not reflected in the orthography.

When teaching English pronunciation in Kazakh school each group of sounds and intonation patterns should be considered separately by the teacher, depending on the difficulty of perception and articulation, as well as depending on the similarity of the sound phenomena of the Kazakh language. This makes it possible to determine, taking into account any difficulties should be based learning English pronunciation in Kazakh schools. For example, learning by students of Kazakhs English sound [a:] is a difficulty. Students are apt to replace the English long back vowel [a:] (in the words of garden, star) qualitatively and quantitatively different from Kazakh vowels (a) (in the words of the Kazakh: bala - English: child). Consequently, over the sound [a:] teacher has to work longer and hard to prevent the influence of the corresponding sound of the native language learners.

We have characterized the English vowel sounds that have particular or other similarities with the vowels of the Kazakh language. As it can be seen from the description, almost all the vowels in English have more or less similar couples in the Kazakh language.

Several Kazakh vowels do not have similar in the English language - (?), (?) and so they usually do not caused influence of assimilation of English vowels. These vowels are specific for the Kazakh language. Sounds (?) and (?) are brief, incomplete formation, lip, narrow, upper lift. In the formation of sound (?) the language takes on the same position, and in the formation of sound (ы). When the lips are rounded and protrude forward, however, mouth hole turns out not so narrow as in formation (?).

Vowels (?) and (?) mainly differ from each other only in hardness and softness: (?) is solid, i.e. back row (?) is soft, i.e. of front row. The presence of these sounds is a distinctive feature in relation to each other is confirmed by the following comparison: ?н (flour) - ?н (voice), т?р (stand) - т?р (sort, kind), ?ш (fly) - ?ш (three). These sounds are used, mainly, in the first syllable of the word.

Special attention from the teacher is required to introduce students to new concepts for them, reflecting the phonetic system of the English language. One of these concepts is a complex vowel (diphthong). Each diphthong in the English language is a separate phoneme and is part of the vowels: [ai], [ei], [ei], [au], [ou], [i?], [е?], [u?]. Part of the English diphthongs can be likened to some combinations of vowels in Kazakh: ай (moon) ?ой (sheep), aу (network). But such English diphthongs as [i?], [е?], [u?], [ou] does not have similar combination in the Kazakh language. Above shown of the Kazakh vowels differ from diphthongs, they sound like two separate sounds, while top (nucleus) of the English diphthong pronounced quite clearly then followed by sliding in the direction of the second sound.

The main difference of English diphthongs from these similar of Kazakh vowels is that the latter falls easily into two syllables and can be separated by a morphological boundary (e.g тай, та-ый; бой, бо-ый; бау, ба-уыр).

In English, such phenomenon is excluded. English diphthongs cannot apart into two syllables. They are always pronounced together, i.e one effort with an emphasis on the core.

Each diphthong has lax, fading end. That is, the second element of the diphthong is a weak, sliding, extremely brief faint sound. His voice may not be identical to the sound of corresponding isolated vowel, as it is in the Kazakh language.

Although the transcription of the second element is transferred by sign of the vowel complete formation, it should be noted that this sign indicates only the movement of the speech organs to this vowel.

1) 3 diphthongs with a glide to [i]: [ei-ai-ei]

2) 2 diphthongs with a glide to [u]: [ou-au]

3) 3 diphthongs with a glide to [?] [i?-е?-u?].

In setting up the pronunciation of diphthongs [ai], [ei], [ei], [au] is necessary to consider the inherent common patterns and contrast with the Kazakh diphthongs (aй), (ей), (ой), (ay). In the final position before pausing English diphthongs pronounced drawl, before a voiced consonant is some shorter, and before voiceless consonants is very briefly [37].

Let's compare the following:

Kazakh	English
(ай) aй (moon) май (oil) бай (rich)	[ai] eye my buy
(eй) кейде (sometimes) бейне (image) мейле (let)	[ei] case bay male
(ой) ?ой (sheep) той (holiday) бой (growth)	[oi] coy toy boy
(ау) тау (mountain) ау (network) бау (ligament)	[au] tower hour bow

Above description of the specific articulation of the vowel sounds allows us to identify the most important for the pronunciation production of differences between articulatory bases of Kazakh and English languages in the area of fields [37].

One of the main features of the English vowels pronunciation is their great strength compared with the Kazakh vowels. English labial vowel characteristic flat rounding of the lips like Kazakh labial vowels are pronounced with bulging lips. When pronouncing Kazakh (и) (ы), (e) unstressed loose lips are neutral (no special way of), the lower jaw is natural.

English vowels [i:], [i], [e], [ei] are pronounced in flat grin: lips slightly elongated strips to expose the upper and lower teeth; the lower jaw is launched so that the lower incisors were directly under the upper incisors.

In English, the pronunciation of vowels are mixed [?:], [?], and also moved back and moved forward (i, u, Л, ou] way of the tongue. There is no way of the tongue in Kazakh.

English is clearly compared lingering articulation of vowels and some brief articulation of others (long connection in average of 60%). It is not such a distinctive feature of vowels in the Kazakh language.

In English difference from Kazakh is widely used moving articulation of vowel sounds (diphthongs).

In Kazakh language the organizing center in the word is a vowel sound, which creates a system of vowel harmony.

According to the law of vowel harmony in a single word can combine only similar sounds from the point of view the front (soft) or back (hard) formation. Therefore, all Kazakh words are divided into hard and soft: к?л (lake), ?н (song) are soft, ?oл (hand), жан (the soul) are hard.

In this case, of soft are added affixes with vowels only from the front row, for example, in сен - дер - дeн (from you), and added to the hard affixes with vowels only from back row: ба - лa - лар - ды (children - accusative case.).

Whereas the English language, there is complete independence of vowels and affixes the end of the vowel root, alternation vowels of front row with vowels of back row in the same word (army, answer, public, language).

Thus, the system of English vowels is marked the large number of contrasts than in Kazakh. So, there is no similarity between Kazakh and English vowels:

1) mixed sound of the front and back row, and

2) long and short; monophtong - diphthong.

Nowadays, English is taught in many schools and high schools in the Kazakh Republic. Since the students will eventually learn English on the basis of mother tongue, there is a need for a number of research tools based on a comparison of phonetics, vocabulary and grammar of English and Kazakh languages. The given research is considered the issues of teaching English pronunciation in attracting of such comparisons. In the practice of language teaching two ways of teaching pronunciation are mainly distributed. The first is based on imitation, i.e. by unconscious assimilation of phonetic phenomenon. On the basis of second is a meaningful learning.

This means that teaching pronunciation skills cannot be mechanical. Students need to maintain awareness of the linguistic features of foreign speech to the development of skills, and not vice versa, so this information is not given at all. This method of teaching pronunciation is called analytical and imitative. For example, learning English sound [a:] by students of Kazakh is a difficulty. Students are inclined to change the English long vowel [a:] (in the words garden, star) qualitatively and quantitatively, it's different from Kazakh vowel (a) (in the words of the ball-child).

Consequently, over the sound [a:] the teacher has to work longer and more laborious, to prevent the influence of the corresponding sound of the native language of students. On the other hand, the pronunciation of the English sound [?] are very easy to digest to Kazakh students, as the same sound is also in the Kazakh language (?a?aрмaн - hero, a?!)

Now we would like to suggest a number of effective phonetic exercises we have used in the process of teaching English pronunciation during our school practice. We have adopted them from the following textbooks “Practical phonetics of English language” by Dubovsky A.S. [38], “Practical phonetics of English language” by Sokolova M.A. [39], “Language files” by Crabtree M. and Powers I. [40], also “Practical phonetics of English language” by Arakin V.D. [41].

The following elaborated exercises which will help the learners develop correct pronunciation of English vowel and consonant phonemes. Practicing with phonetic materials allow pupils to activate their knowledge. There are some amounts of exercises which are suitable only for the learners, beginners and also there are some for the learners of intermediate level.

Exercise1

Give the conventional spelling for the following phonetically transcribed words:

a) si? hж?k gud m?:ni?

l?? tж?k gud a:ft?_,nu:n

i:ti? li?ki? gud _,i:vni?

skeiti? иi?ki? gud bai

b) ri:d beri ri:d р?_,raimz

rait nжr3u bi:t р?_,riрm

r3ud f?rin ржts _,rait

reid:3u very_,s?ri greit britn

Exercise2

a) tri: fri: twinz

trai frend twelve

trжm praud kwik

drai pr3unaun kwait

dri:m иr3u kwes?n

b) litl s?dn pai-spai

teibl ritn pein-spein

pi:pl teikn keit-skeit

tr?bl bi:tn ku:l - sku:l

c) wil ju ri:d

wil ju k?m

wil ju ?u

wil ju h?v braun bred f?brekf?st

Exercise 3

Pronounce the following sounds [t, d, n, s, z] correctly:

did sit siti sid-sit

dig nit kiti dik-dig

kid sik tikit ti-tig

sin kis gidi

Exercise 4

Pronounce the following consonants [p, t, k] with aspiration:

ten get en det-ded gets

pen pet eg bet-bed pets

men net et set-sed bedz

sit - set bizi - beni

bit - bet piti - beti

big - beg mini - meni

did - ded

Exercise 5

Pronounce these words with loss of plosion:

ka: - ka:m - ka:t

fa: - fa:m - pa:t

ba: - ba:d - ba:k

a:m ?fa:,sta:

a:t a:sk fa:р?

a:sk р?da:k , ga:dn

Exercise 6

Give the conventional spelling for the following phonetically transcribed words:

a) sin - si? - si?k si? - si?i?

иin - иi? - иi?k ri? - ri?i?

win - wi? - wi?k bri? - bri?i?

rжn - rж? - rж?k bж? - bж?i?

b) w3:d - w3:dz w3:k - w?:k

w3:k - w3:kt w3:d - w?:d

w3:s - w3:m w3:m - w?:m

c) m?р? s?m - и?m def

fa:р? tin - иin deи

?'n?р? tik - иik pa:s

рi?р? fin - иin pa:и

Exercise 7

a) hi - hiz h?'l3u

ha:m - ha:t h3u'tel

hiz ,hed h?spitl

hiz ,ha:t g3u h3um

b) t?:t - и?:t -s?:t - f?:t

w?n-ba:и - иri: ba:рz

w?n -mauи - иri - mauрz

w?npa:и - иrip?:рz

w?nju:и - иrijuрz

c) n?t ?t,?:l ; iz рiz `b?:l , big ? ,sm?:l

Exercise 8

Make [p, t, k] aspirated:

pen ten came

pack tart court

ben dean give

back dot goal

Exercise 9

Read the word-contrasts. Concentrate on the difference between an initial voiceless stop and its voiced counterpart:

[ p - b ] [ t - d ]

pig - big tin - dean

port - bought ton - done

[ k - g ] [ t - d ]

curl - girl hearten - harden

card - guard putting - pudding

Exercise 10

Make clear distinction between the Russian-English counterparts

in the following sets of words:

пик - peak такт - tact

порт - port табло - table

бить - beat дата - date

боб - Bob диск - disk

кипа - keeper грипп - grippe

колония - colony галантный - gallant

Exercise 11

Practice reading the following word-contrasts:

[ f - и ] [ v - р ]

finn - thin vote - though

fought - thought vain - they

[ v - w ] [ р - s ]

vest - west thick - sick

verse - worse thing - sing

[ s - и ] [ s - ? ]

sin - thin see - she

sick - thick sips - ships

Exercise 12

Practice reading the families of words at normal conversational speed. Concentrate on the clusters of two plosives:

[ p ] + another plosive: kept, slept,dropped, snapped, stop trying, ripe tomato, a deep pool

[b] + another plosive: bobbed, robbed, sub-title

[ t] + another plosive: football, foot path, hot toast, act two

bad beer

[ k] + another plosive: blackboard, desk-chair, picked, tricked, black coffee, black dog, look carefully

Exercise 13

Pronounce the following consonant cluster correctly:

[иs]: depths, length

[sи]: sixth, this thermometer

[sр]: takes this, it's that

[иr]: three, thrash

[fр]: if those, enough though

[рz]: truths, wreaths

[zр]: was that, raise them

[zи]: these thieves, those thoughts

[fи]: fifth, diphthong

Exercise 14

Practice reading the following with [h] and no [h] initially:

Helen is arty

Helen eats up the pie

Helen looks after her hair

Ellen is hearty

Ellen heats up the pie

Ellen looks after her heir

Exercise15

Pronounce the following words observing close articulation of plosive and fricative consonant:

streets takes snobs Betsy

wants thanks crabs outside

gets eggs bulbs midsummer

Exercise 16

Pronounce the following word combinations and phrases observing fricative plosion at the junction of words:

the Black sea I hope so

the Baltic sea I think so

a dark valley I need some milk

a good cigarette look sharp

We picked some flowers

I'd like some tea

He didn't finish it

It cost a hundred shilling

Exercise 17

Pronounce the following words and phrases. Use the dental variants of the alveolar consonants before [и, р]:

sixth thirteenth

seventh fourteenth

seventeenth at the party.

eighteenth in the morning.

nineteenth in the afternoon.

d) Did the bell ring?

Turn round the corner

That's the right thing

Exercise 18

Pronounce the following words and word-combinations. Observe assimilation in consonant cluster with [w]:

1. twice quick

twist quarrel

twelve quinsy

twenty

twelve seas

a quarter of an hour

2. sweet

sweep

sweater

switch

out of the question

language laboratory

to master the language

3. dwell sweep the floor

dwindle twice a week

dwarf switch off the light

language

Exercise 19

Study articulatory features of RP consonants:

RP Consonant Phonemes /C ph: 24

[p] a labial, bilabial, occlusive, plosive, voiceless, fortis consonant phoneme

(=C ph)

[b] a labial, bilabial, occlusive, plosive, voiced, lenis C ph

[t] a lingual, forelingual, alveolar, occlusive, plosive, voiceless, fortis C ph

[d] a lingual, forelingual, alveolar, occlusive, plosive, voiced, lenis C ph

[k] a lingual, backlingual, occlusive, plosive, voiceless, fortis C ph

[g] a lingual, backlingual, occlusive, plosive, voiced, lenis C ph

[f] a labial, labio-dental, constrictive, fricative, voiceless, fortis C ph

[v] a labial, labio-dental, constrictive, fricative, voiced, lenis C ph

[и] a foreligual, interdental, constrictive, fricative , voiceless, fortis C ph

[р] a foreligual, interdental, constrictive, fricative , voiced, lenis C ph

[s] a forelingual, alveolar, constrictive, fricative, voiceless, fortis C ph

[z] a forelingual, alveolar, constrictive, fricative, voiced, lenis C ph

[?] a foreligual, palato-alveolar, constrictive, fricative, voiced, lenis C ph

[h] a glottal, constrictive, fricative, voiceless, fortis C ph

[?] a voiceless affricate

[?] a voiced affricate

[m] a bilabial, occlusive, plosive nasal sonant (S)

[n] an alveolar-apical, occlusive, plosive nasal S

[?] a backlingual, velar, occlusive, plosive nasal S

[1] an alveolar-apical, constrictive, fricative, lateral S

[w] a bilabial, constrictive, fricative, medial S

[r] a post-alveolar, constrictive, fricative, medial S

[j] a medio-lingual, palatal, constrictive, fricative S

Study articulatory features of RP vowels

RP Vowel Phonemes / Vph: 20

RP Monophthongs / M): 12

[i:] a monophthong , long, tense, unrounded, front, high / close vowel phoneme of the narrow variety (=v.)

[i] a M, short, lax, unrounded, front retracted, high / close V ph of the wide v.

[e] a M, short, lax, unrounded, front, mid / half-open V ph of the narrow v.

[?] a M, short, lax, unrounded, central / mixed, mid V ph of the wide v.

[a:] a M, long, tense, unrounded, back, low / open V ph of the wide v.

[?] a M, short, lax, rounded, back, low / open V ph. of the wide v.

[u] a M, short, lax, rounded, back advanced, low / open V ph of the wide v.

[u:] a M, long, tense, rounded, back, high / close V ph of the narrow v

[з:] a M, long, tense, unrounded, central / mixed, mid V ph of the narrow v.

[з] a M, short, lax, unrounded, central / mixed, mid V ph of the wide v.

Exercise 20

RP Diphthongs = 8

[ei] a closing diphthong (= D) with the i-glide

[ai] a closing D with the i-glide

[oi] a closing D with the i-glide

[зu] a closing D with the u-glide

[au] a closing D with the u-glide

[i?] a centering D with the 3-glide

[e?] a centering D with the 3-glide

[u?] a centering D with the a-glide

Reading matter

Exercise 21

Read the phrases below:

[ f:] Fine fellows met at five on the first of February. “Philip” said Ferdinand, “I fear we must fight. Then Philip and Ferdinand fought fairly for fifty-five minutes, after which they fell down in a faint, for the fight had been fearfully furious. When Philip came out of the faint, Ferdinand offered his hand. “Fair's fair”, said Philip and “I think this affair shows neither of us fears to fight”.

[ v:] Every evening Victor and Vivian visit Eve. Victor and Vivian are rivals. Both vow to love Eve forever. But Eve is very vain. Eventually, Victor gives Eve up and goes over to Vivienne, leaving Eve to Vivian.

[и ] Arthur Smith, a thick-set, healthy athlete sees three thieves throw a thong round Thea's throat and threaten to throttle her. He throws one thug to with a thud that shakes his teeth. Both the other thieves run off with a filthy oath.

[ р ] These are three brothers. This is their other brother. These are their father and mother. Their other brother is teething.

[ s ] Sue and Cecily are sisters. Sue is sixteen this summer. Cecily was seven last Sunday. Sue is sowing grass seed. She sees Cecily asleep with a glass of cider and nice sixpenny ice by her side. Sue slips across, sips the glass of cider and eats the ice. Cecily gets such s surprise when she wakes.

[ z ] Zoe is visiting the Zoo. A lazy zebra called Desmond is dozing at the Zoo. He feels flies buzzing round his eyes, ears and nose. He rouses, opens his eyes, rises and goes to Zoe. Zoe is wearing a rose on her blouse. Zoe gives Desmond the buns.

[ ? ] She showed me some machine-made horse shoes. I wish to be shown the latest fashion in short shirts. Mr. Mash sells fish and shell-fish fresh from the ocean. She was still shaking from the shock of being crushed in the rush.

[ ? ] I can't measure the pleasure. I have in viewing this treasure at leisure. The decision was that on that occasion the collision was due to faulty vision.

[ h ] Humble hairy Herbert has his hand on his heart because he sees how his brother's Henry horse has hurt his hoof in a hole while hunting. Henry helps him to hobble home. Henry is very humorous.

[ ?] Charles is a cheerful chicken-farmer. A poacher is watching Charles' chickens, choosing which to snatch. He chuckles at the chance of a choice -chicken to chew for his lunch. They cheered the cheerful chap who chose to venture to match his skill with the champion's.

[ ? ] The aged judge urges the jury to be just but generous. In June and July we usually enjoy a few jaunts to that region. He injured his thumb on the jagged edge of a broken jar.

All the activities suggested will provide the practical basis for the effective learning of English phonetic structure in general and the system of English phonemes in particular.



Conclusion

In the course of our investigation of the complex nature of the phoneme we have revealed its significant role as a basic unit of speech. We have tried to show that there are a great number of definitions of the phoneme offered by different phonological schools and outstanding scholars.

Our contention is that all the definitions are valid within the frame of the theories in which they were postulated but they should not be meant to be universally valid. Nearly every phonological school offers its own way to describe various speech phenomena and the basic formative unit they choose to operate with at the level of phonology is usually called the phoneme but it should not be concluded that the concept that is called the phoneme is always the same thing. It is hardly so. In fact, some of the various concepts of the phoneme are not compatible with others. Some of the concepts of the phoneme may yet be found compatible or may at least supplement each other.

We have found out that the phoneme is material, real and objective. That means that it is realized in speech in the form of speech sounds, its allophones. The sets of speech sounds that are the allophones belonging to the same phoneme are not identical in their articulatory content though there remains some phonetic similarity between them. In this respect we have studied and analyzed all the distinctive features of the consonant and vowel phonemes on the basis of several languages: English, Russian and Kazakh. We have also studied functions of the phoneme and have come to the conclusion that the most important among them is the distinctive one as it differentiates not only the meaning of words but also the meaning of utterances.

Having studied theoretical aspects of the research we would like to state that there are two major classes of sounds traditionally distinguished by phoneticians in any language. According to the specific character of the work of the speech organs, sounds in practically all the languages are subdivided into two major subtypes: vowels (V) and consonants (C). Consonants articulations are relatively easy to feel, and as a result are most conveniently described in terms of place and manner of articulation.

We have revealed that vowels have no place of obstruction, the whole of speech apparatus takes place in their formation, while the articulation of consonants can be localized, an obstruction or narrowing for each consonant is made in a definite place of the speech apparatus.

The particular quality of vowels depends on the volume and shape of the mouth resonator, as well as on the shape and the size of the resonator opening. The mouth resonator is changed by the movements of the tongue and the lips. The particular quality of consonants depends on the kind of noise that results when the tongue or the lips obstruct the air passage. The kind of noise produced depends in its turn on the type of obstruction, on the shape and the type of the narrowing. The vocal cords also determine the quality of consonants. From the acoustic point of view, vowels are called the sounds of voice, they have high acoustic energy, while consonants are also the sounds of noise but which have low acoustic energy. Functional differences between vowels and consonants are defined by their role in syllable formation: vowels are syllable forming elements and consonants are units which function at the margins of syllables, either singly or in clusters.