Тема 3. «The theory of phonemes»

The theory of phonemes. Different approaches to the theory of phonemes

Phonology studies speech sounds with reference to their linguistic relevance. It

investigates them as units serving for communicative purposes. Thus we come across a new

concept, that of a phoneme. The phoneme is a completely new unit of the language. In the

study of the phoneme it has been felt necessary to invent a number of terms to express the

relationship between different phonemes, for example, sounds may be substituted for each

other in a given context ([í] and [â] in “patting” and “packing”, thus producing different

words. When we look at the whole set of phonemes in a language, which is called the

phonemic structure of the language, we can often find very complex patterns of oppositions

among the various groups of sounds. In English some phonologists claim that there are only

six vowel phonemes, others that there are twenty or more (it depends on whether you count

diphthongs and long vowels as single phonemes or as combinations of two phonemes).

Spoken language can be broken down into a string of sound units and each language

has a small, relatively fixed set of these units. Most sounds can be put into groups. An

important question in phoneme theory is how the analyst can establish what the phonemes

of a language are. The most widely accepted view is that phonemes are contrastive. It means

that the sounds are opposed to each other and they differentiate between meanings of words.

One must find cases where the difference between two words is dependent on the difference

between two phonemes. As an example we can take words 'pin' and ‘pan’ and we can prove

that the difference between the words depends on the vowel. Pairs of words that differ in

just one sound are known as minimal pairs. We can establish the same fact about /é/ and /Ä/

by citing 'pin' and 'bin'. We can only start doing tests like this when we have a list of

possible phonemes to test, so some basic phonetic analysis must precede this stage.

Fundamental concepts used in phonemic analysis of this sort are complementary

distribution, free variation, distinctive feature and allophone. It is not enough to know how

the sounds are produced to classify them as language units. The term “sound” may be

interpreted in two ways: difference in the articulation of the sound accounts for physical

difference of these sounds though functionally this difference bears no significance. To

avoid this confusion two concepts are introduced in phonology. The term phoneme is used

to mean the sound in the contrastive sense. The term allophone is used to define variants of

the phoneme.

It is no easy matter to give the clear-cut definition of the phoneme because this

language unit has many aspects and functions. In its simple form, the theory of the phoneme

implies that two sounds that are in opposition to each other in all contexts throughout the

language. Closer study of phonemes has, however, shown that there are some contexts

where the opposition no longer functions. Firstly, the phoneme is a functional unit. It exists 20

so far as it fulfills its function. The opposition of the phonemes in the same phonetic

environment differentiates the meanings of morphemes and words. Sometimes the

opposition of phonemes serves to distinguish the meaning of the whole phrases. Thus, the

phoneme fulfills the distinctive function.

Secondly, the phoneme is material and objective. It is realized in speech in the form of

speech sounds. The sounds of speech, through which the phoneme realizes itself, are called

the phonemic variants - allophones. Central to the concept of the phoneme is the idea that it

may be pronounced in many different ways. In English we take it for granted that the [ê]

sounds in 'ray' and 'tray' are the same (the same phoneme), but in reality the two sounds are

very different – the [ê] in 'ray' is voiced and non-fricative, while the [ê] sound in 'tray' is

voiceless and fricative. In phonemic transcription we use the same symbol /ê/ for both. The

slant brackets indicate that phonemic symbols are being used, square brackets indicate

transcription. But we know that the allophones of /ê/ include the voiced non-fricative sound

and the voiceless fricative one.

In theory a phoneme can have an infinite number of allophones, but in practice for

descriptive purposes we tend to concentrate on the ones that occur most regularly.

Allophones belonging to the same phoneme are not identical in their articulatory content

though of course there remains some phonetic similarity between them. The allophones,

which do not undergo any distinguishable changes in the chain of speech, are called

principal or typical. There are quite predictable changes in the articulation of allophones that

occur in different phonetic situations. Such allophones are called subsidiary. The variant of

the phoneme, which is described as the most representative and free from the influence of

the neighbouring phonemes is considered to be typical or principal. Allophones can also be

positional and combinatory. Positional allophones are traditionally used in certain positions.

Combinatory allophones represent the result of assimilation, and other phonetic processes.

Phonemic variants are important for practical purposes: their mispronunciation in actual

speech makes it “foreign”.

Speech sounds that are capable of differentiating one member of the minimal pair from

the other are considered different if they appear in identical positions. According to this law

allophones of different phonemes are said to be in contrastive distribution: they occur in the

same phonetic context. Such sounds are called mutually distinctive. E.g., cat – mat – sat;

man – men. Allophones of the same phoneme never occur in the same phonetic

circumstances. They always occur in the language in different positions, different phonetic

environment. Mutually non-distinctive sounds are physically different. They are said to be in

complementary distribution. E.g., let (clear) – tell (dark). To qualify as allophones of the

same phoneme, two (or more) sounds, must meet two criteria. First, their distribution must

be predictable: we must be able to specify where one will turn up, and where the other; and

those sets of contexts must not overlap. If this is true, the two sounds are in complementary

distribution.

Thirdly, the phoneme is an abstract language unit. All allophones of the phoneme

possess a set of pronunciation features which make this phoneme functionally different from

all other phonemes of the language concerned. This functionally relevant set of articulatory

features is called the invariant of the phoneme. It represents distinctive or relevant features.

Non-distinctive articulatory features do not serve to differentiate meanings of linguistic

macrosegments.

The minimal distinctive unit unsusceptible of further differentiation is a phoneme. The

phonemes are the elements that stand in contrast with each other in the phonological system 21

of the language. Distinctive features of oppositions make them relevant. Each sound of the

language comprises distinctive and non-distinctive features. The sum of phonologically

distinctive features is a phoneme. The number of phonemes in each language is much

smaller than the number of sounds actually pronounced. The total number of phonemes in

English is 45 that include 24 consonants and 21 Vowels.

There are different approaches to the problem of phoneme. When the importance of the

phoneme became widely accepted in the 1930's – 40's, many attempts were made to develop

scientific ways of establishing the phonemes of a language and listing each phoneme`s

allophones; this was known as phonemics. Nowadays little importance is given to this type

of analysis, and it is considered a minor branch of phonology, except for the practical

purpose of devising writing systems for previously unwritten languages.

The founder of the phoneme theory was I.A. Baudouin de Courteney (1845-1929), the

Russian scientist. This approach is also called “mentalistic” or “psychological”. I.A.

Baudouin de Courteney defined the phoneme as the psychical image of a sound. He views

the phoneme as an ideal “mental image” of a speech sound. Allophones are materializations

of the phoneme. His views were developed by his disciple, L.V. Shcherba, who stated that

the great variety of sounds we pronounce could be united in a comparatively small number

of sound types, which are capable to distinguish the meaning and the form of words. He

called such sound types – phonemes. Actually uttered speech sounds which represent

phonemes are phonemic variants or allophones. L.V. Shcherba and his disciples (V.

Vassiliev) considered the phonemes material, real and objective because they really exist in

the material form of speech sounds.

F. de Sausseur introduced “abstract” approach to the problem of the phoneme. He

considered the phoneme to be essentially independent of the acoustic and physiological

properties associated with sounds. He interpreted phonemes as strictly abstract language

units as they belong to language. From his point of view these units were formed by the

differences separating its acoustic image from the rest of the units. American structuralist

W. Sapir, European linguists L. Hjelmslev, H.J. Uldall shared the same approach.

D. Jones’s conception of the phoneme is quite different: physical. He presents the

phoneme as a family of sounds. The phoneme is regarded as the sum total of all its

allophones. He was the first to speak about the invariant representing the most typical

allophone, which is described as the most representative and free from the influence of the

neighbouring phonemes. This approach to the phoneme was shared by American linguist L.

Bloomfield.

“Functional” point of view regards the phoneme as the minimal sound unit by which

meanings can be differentiated without much regard to actually pronounced speech sounds.

The only relevant feature of the phoneme is its function. And this is the defining

characteristic of the phoneme. This view was shared by N.S. Trubetskoy, M. Halle, R.

Jakobson.

Methods of phonological analysis

The most basic activity in phonology is phonemic analysis, in which the objective is to

establish what the phonemes are and arrive at the phonemic inventory of the language. Very

few phonologists have ever believed that this would be an adequate analysis of the sound

system of a language. One can look at suprasegmental phonology – the study of stress,

rhythm and intonation, which has led in recent years to new approaches to phonology such

as metrical and autosegmental theory. One can go beyond the phoneme and look into the

detailed characteristics of each unit in terms of distinctive features; the way in which sounds

can combine in a language is studied in phonotactics and in the analysis of syllable 22

structure. For some phonologists the most important area is the relationships between the

different phonemes – how they form groups, the nature of the oppositions between them and

how those oppositions may be neutralized.

Until the second half of the XXth century phonology had been treated as a separate

"level" that had little to do with other "higher" areas of language such as morphology and

grammar. Since the 1960's the subject has been greatly influenced by generative phonology,

in which phonology becomes inextricably bound up with these other areas; this has made

contemporary phonology much harder to understand, but it has the advantage that it no

longer appears to be an isolated and self-contained field. To study the sounds of the

language from the linguistic point of view means to study the way they function, which

sounds a language uses as part of its pronunciation system, and how those sounds are

grouped into functionally similar units. The distinctive function is the most important

among the others, because it is intimately connected with the meaningful side of the

language. We do not so much listen to the acoustic properties of speech sounds as sense

how these sounds are distributed within words and sentences. The attention is focused on

how sounds are used contrastively in sequences pointing to meanings. A distinctive

phonological pattern always carries a semantic implication. If you are at a noisy party with a

lot of people talking close to you, it is a striking fact that you are able to choose to listen to

one person and to "shut out" what others are saying equally loudly. The importance of this

effect cocktail party phenomenon was first highlighted by the communications engineer

Colin Cherry, and has led to many interesting experiments by psychologists and

psycholinguists. An essential component of practical phonetic training, ear-training is used

to develop the student's ability to hear very small differences between sounds

(discrimination), and to identify particular sounds (identification). It used to be said that

learning the pronunciation of a language depended on learning the individual phonemes of

the language, but this "building-block" view of pronunciation is looked on nowadays as an

unhelpful oversimplification

Phonological analysis involves finding minimal pairs of words and their grammatical

forms. The first step in identifying phonological units is to distinguish minimal segments.

The only phonetic technique of distinguishing minimal phonetic segments is the opposition.

In establishing the set of phonemes of a language, it is usual to demonstrate the

independent, contrastive nature of a phoneme by citing pairs of words which differ in one

sound only and have different meanings.

Minimal phonetic units are opposed and differentiated according to their articulatory

features. The distinctive function of the sound manifests itself most conspicuously in

minimal pairs. A minimal pair is the pair of words or two grammatical forms of a word,

which differ in one element only. These words are differentiated by only two different

speech sounds, occurring in identical positions that are in sequences. The next step in the

procedure of the analysis is to arrange the determined segments into functionally similar

groups. Each member of the distinctive opposition is called a distinctive unit. The compared

units have something in common, which does not count – the similarity upon which the

comparison is realized (the basis). E.g., p:b = p:p+x. One should always bear in mind that

any opposition is based on the similarity of the opposed units. The method of opposition is

widely used in linguistic science nowadays. A notion of central importance in traditional

phoneme theory is that of contrast: while it is important to know what a phoneme is (in

terms of its sound quality, articulation and so on), it is vital to know what it is not meaning

what other sounds it is in contrast with. For example, English /í/ contrasts with /é/ and /â/ in 23

place of articulation, with /Ç/ (in the matter of voicing or force of articulation), /å/ (by being

plosive rather than nasal), and so on.

The notion of opposition brings to life a new term: distinctive feature, which denotes

the differentiating quality. In any language it seems that the sounds used will only differ

from each other in a small number of ways. If for example a language had 40 phonemes,

then in theory each of those 40 could be utterly different from the other 39. However, in

practice there will usually be just a small set of important differences: some of the sounds

will be vowels and some consonants; some of the consonants will be plosives and affricates,

and the rest will be continuants; some of the continuants will be nasal and some not, and so

on. These differences are identified by phonologists, and are known as distinctive features.

The aim of phonological analysis is to determine which differences of sounds are

phonemic that is vitally important to the meaning expressed by these sounds – to define

distinctive features, and to find the inventory of the phonemes of the particular language. In

the study of the phoneme it has been felt necessary to invent a number of terms to express

the relationship between different phonemes. Sounds which are in opposition to each other

are ones which can be substituted for each other in a given context (e.g., /í/ and /â/ in

'patting' and 'packing'), producing different words. When we look at the whole set of

phonemes in a language we can often find very complex patterns of oppositions among the

various groups of sounds.

Some phonologists state that a theoretical distinction must be made between contrast

and opposition. In their use of the terms, 'opposition' is used for the "substitutability"

relationship described above, while 'contrast' is reserved to refer to the relationship between

a sound and those adjacent to it. N.S. Trubetskoy in his famous work on phonology first

stated the classification of oppositions. He classified oppositions according to several

criteria:

1) From the point of view of their correlation in the phonological system. There are two

main groups:

− bilateral oppositions members of which possess common features characteristic only of

the members of this very opposition. E.g., bill – pill, came – game;

− multilateral oppositions whose common features may be found in any other member of

the phonological system of the language. E.g., tie – shy, day - pay.

− If the distinctive feature is recurrent, the opposition is called proportional: e.g., /Ä/ : /é/

= /í/ : /Ç/ = /â/ : /Ö/. Isolated oppositions are those where you cannot find any other pair of

sounds corresponding in contrast: e.g., rot – got, bit – hit. Multilateral oppositions are

subdivided into homogeneous and heterogeneous. Extreme points of homogeneous

oppositions constitute an opposition that can be unfolded into the series of bilateral

oppositions: e.g. /â/ : /å/ = /â/ : /k/ : /å/.

2) From the point of view of the relation between the members of the phonological

opposition.

− Private binary oppositions are the oppositions in which the members are differentiated by

the only distinctive feature. The member of the opposition that does not possess this feature

is called weak/unmarked. The member of the opposition with the distinctive feature is called

strong/marked.

− Gradual oppositions are the ones in which the distinctive feature is increasing or

decreasing.

− In the equipollent oppositions the differentiating features are equal in status, thus no

member of the opposition is considered weak or unmarked. 24

3) From the point of view of the distinctive function of the members of the opposition

the oppositions can be classified into permanent (constant) and neutralized. Some

distinctive features may be relevant for differentiating units of the language in one position

and non-relevant, that is having no distinctive function in another. In this case, we are

talking about neutralization of the opposition.

Phonologists like to make clear-cut divisions between groups of sounds, and usually

this involves "either-or" choices: a sound is either voiced or voiceless, consonantal or nonconsonantal, rounded or unrounded. Such choices are binary choices. In the study of

phonetics, however, it is acknowledged that sounds differ from each other in "more or less"

fashion rather than "either-or": features like voicing, nasality or rounding are scalar or

multi-valued, and a sound can be, for example, fully voiced, partly voiced, just a little bit

voiced or not voiced at all. The phonological system of the language is thus mainly

identified with the help of binary oppositions. According to the number of the distinctive

features present in the opposition it may be single, double and triple.

The aim of the phonological analysis is firstly to determine which differences of

sounds are phonemic, and secondly to find the inventory of the phonemes of the particular

language. There are two mostly widely used methods of arranging sounds into functionally

similar groups. The first one is the distributional method. The distributional method is based

on the laws of phonemic and allophonic distribution. A very important aspect of the study of

the phonology of a language is examining the contexts and positions in which each

particular phoneme can occur (its distribution). In looking at the distribution it is possible,

for example, to define the concepts of 'vowel' and 'consonant' purely in terms of the

distributions of the two groups of sounds.

The main principles, which lie in the basis of phonology, were formulated by the

Prague linguistic school. The sounds are classified as interchangeable and not

interchangeable. Interchangeable sounds can be used in the same position (phonetic

environment). They are used in contrastive distribution. Interchangeable sounds fall into

distinctive (contrastive) oppositions. Distinctive oppositions are phonologically relevant.

Non-interchangeable sounds cannot occur in the similar environment. They are used in

mutually exclusive positions (complementary distribution). There is third possibility – free

variation of a single phoneme.

The second method is called semantic. The semantic method is based on the concept of

minimal pairs. It attaches great significance to meaning. The method is based on the

phonemic rule that the phonemes can distinguish words opposed to each other. The change

of meaning is stated with the help of the informant. This procedure is called commutation

test. When we want to demonstrate that two sounds are in phonemic opposition, we

normally do this with the commutation test; this means substituting one sound for another in

a particular phonological context. For example, to prove that the sounds [é, Ä, í, Ç]

represent different contrasting phonemes we can try them one at a time in a suitable context

which is kept constant; using the context we get 'pin', 'bin', 'tin' and 'din', all of which are

different words.

There are serious theoretical problems with this test. One of them is the widespread

assumption that if you substitute one allophone of a phoneme for another allophone of the

same phoneme, the meaning will not change; this is sometimes true but in other cases it is

dubious: for example, the unaspirated allophones of /é, í, â/ found after /ë/ at the beginning

of syllables such as /ëé, ëí, ëâ/ are phonetically very similar to /Ä, Ç, Ö/ as some of the force

with which the sounds are pronounced is lost in assimilation, and pronouncing one of these 25

unaspirated allophones followed by a vowel would be likely to result in the listener hearing

'bill', 'dill', 'gill' rather than 'pill', 'till', 'kill'.