10. The conceptions of the phoneme.

Some problems of segmental phonetics.

Speech sounds form morphemes, words, sentences. When we use the term “sound” we are faced with the problem of identifying numerous phonetic differences and similarities between sounds.

The linguists use two terms “the phoneme”, which is referred to “sound” in its contrastive sense, sound capable of distinguishing the meaning of words, and the “allophone”, the representation of the phoneme in a particular position or context.

To know how sounds are produced by speech organs it is not enough to describe and classify them as language units. When we talk about the sounds of a language, the term "sound" can be interpreted in two rather different ways. In the first place, we can say that [t] and [d] are two different sounds min English, [t] being fortis and [d] being lenis and we can illustrate this by showing how they contrast with each other to make a difference of meaning in a large number of pairs, such as tie die, seat seed, etc. But on the other hand if we listen carefully to the [t] in let us and compare it with the [t] in let them we can hear that the two sounds are also not the same, the [t] of let us is alveolar, while the [t] of let them is dental. In both examples the sounds differ in one articulatory feature only; in the second case the difference between the sounds has functionally no significance. It is perfectly clear that the sense of "sound" in these two cases is different. To avoid this ambiguity, the linguist uses two separate terms: "phoneme" is used to mean "sound" in its contrastive sense, and "allophone" is used for sounds which are variants of a phoneme: they usually occur in different positions in word (i. e. in different environments) and hence cannot contrast with each other, nor be used to make meaningful distinctions.

To explain these notions we must formulate the definition of the phoneme. The most comprehensive defmition ofthe phoneme was first introduced by the Russian linguist L. V. Shcherba. The phoneme is a minimal abstract language unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds opposable to other phonemes of the same language to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words.

It is possible here to single out three aspects of the phoneme. The aspects of the phoneme reflected in the definition are:

• material

• abstract (generalized)

• functional

11. Main trends in the phoneme theory

Main Trends in the Phoneme Theory

It is generally acknowledged that the phoneme is one of the basic language units. However it is described by different scholars and representatives of different linguistic schools in different ways.

The idea of distinguishing between the functional approach to the study of speech sounds and their material substance was first expressed by the Russian linguist I.A. Baudauin de Courtenay at the end of the XIX century. It was 30 years later when the idea was accepted in different countries. We should mention the great Russian scholar N.S.Trubetskoy and R.O.Jakobson (Prague phonological conception).

In Russia the ideas of phonology were later elaborated in different ways by the so-called Leningrad and Moscow schools. In Petersburg the phonological theory was developed by L.V.Sherba and his followers L.R.Zinder, L.V.Bondarko. The most outstanding representatives of the Moscow school are R.I.Avanesov, P.S.Kuznetzov, A.A.Reformatsky.

We try to group the phoneme theories into bigger categories we’ll see that the main criterion is the approach of the linguists to the three aspects of the phoneme. Some linguists exaggerate the abstract aspect of the phoneme and tend to ignore the material aspect, others, on the contrary pay more attention to the material aspect and ignore the abstract aspect. We must admit that no theories ignore the functional aspect.

1. The first group includes the conceptions that tend to pay special attention to the abstract aspect. According to “mentalistic” or “psychological” view the phoneme is an ideal mental image, it doesn’t exist objectively, it exists only in the mind of the speaker. Actual speech sounds are imperfect realizations of it. These ideas were first expressed by I.A.Baudauin de Courtenay and later were developed by E.Sapir, A.Sommerfelt and others. The "psychological", or "mentalistic" view of the phoneme was brought back into favour by generative phonology, represented by a well-known American linguist N.Chomsky.

2. The second group of conceptions can be called “functional”, because special focus is given to the ability of the phoneme to differentiate meaning. Scholars are particularly interested in relevant or distinctive features of the phoneme, while non-distinctive features are often ignored. This view was shared by N.Trubetskoy, R. Jakobson, L.Bloomfield. The great achievement of these scholars was that it gave rise to “phonology” as a linguistic discipline. However, it resulted in the separation of phonetics and phonology. The aim of phonology is the study of system of distinctive features and the meaningful aspect of the phoneme. Phonetics was limited to the description of physiological and acoustic characteristics of speech sounds without reference to their linguistic function. They claimed that only phonology was a linguistic discipline, while phonetics should belong to biology, which certainly cannot be accepted by Russian phoneticians. Thus, we can say that the material aspect of the phoneme was ignored or underestimated within the framework of this approach.

3. The third group of conceptions is concerned with the material aspect. The “physical” view, represented by D.Jones, B.Bloch and others, regards the phoneme as a “family” of related sounds. In other words, the phoneme is a mechanical sum of its allophones. So similarity between sounds is considered to be the main criterion for attributing them to a particular phoneme. We see that the representatives of this approach tend to ignore the abstract and functional aspects of the phoneme.

This brief overview of the approaches to the phoneme demonstrates that the definition given by prof. Shcherba is definitely a comprehensive one, because it gives equal importance to all the three aspects of the phoneme: material, absract and functional.