13. Semantically-distributional method of establishing the phonemic status of speech sounds (I.E. Phonological analysis)

The phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic 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. (p. 18)

The aim of the phonological analysis is: Firstly, to determine which differences of sounds are phonemic and which are non-phonemic; Secondly, to find the inventory of the phonemes of a language.

There are 2 most widely used methods what sounds are contrastive. (p. 29)

• the formally distributional method

• the semantically distributional method

The analysis is performed through the system of phonological oppositions. It is based on the following fundamental phonological rule: phonemes can distinguish the meaning when opposed to one another in the same phonetic context ( day – they, sheep – ship). So to establish the phonemic status of a sound it is necessary to oppose one sound to some other sound in the same phonetic context. This procedure is called commutation test. To conduct this test we must find the so-called minimal pairs. A minimal pair is a pair of words which differ in one sound only. So we replace one sound by another sound and try to find out if the opposed sounds belong to the same or different phonemes.

Now, the commutation test may have three possible results:

Pin – sin | the meaning is different so the opposed sounds belong to different phonemes.

P(h)in – pin | the meaning is the same so the opposed sounds belong to the same phoneme.

Pin – hin | we have a meaningless word, so we can’t make any conclusion about the phonemic status of the second sound, we can’t identify it.

It should be noted that there are different types of oppositions.

1) If the members of the opposition differ in one articulatory feature the opposition is called single. Pen – ben | [p] is fortis (voiceless), [b] is lenis (voiced).

2) If there are two distinctive features, the opposition is double. Pen – den | [p] is labial, fortis, [b] is forelingual, lenis.

3) If three distinctive features are marked, the opposition is triple (multiple). Pen –then | the differentiating features: occlusive – constrictive, labial – interdental, fortis – lenis.

To establish the system of phonemes of a language it is necessary to oppose sounds in all possible positions (initial, medial, final). But there are cases when the sounds can’t be used in the same position and can’t be opposed. For example [h] is never used in final position, [n ] is never used in the initial position. These sounds are treated as different phonemes on the basis of native speakers’ knowledge and their phonetic dissimilarity which illustrates that they cannot be allophones of one phoneme.

14. WORD STRESS. ITS ACOUSTIC NATURE AND LINGUISTIC FUNCTION. Stress is a greater degree of prominence of a syllable or syllables as compared to the other syllables of the word. Stress pattern is a particular combination of varying prominence of syllables in a word forms.

The effect of prominence of the stressed syllable is achieved by a number of phonetic parametres:

• pitch,

• loudness,

• length,

• vowel quality

• or their combination.

As a result there appears a contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables. There is another term widely used in phonetic literature to describe this phenomenon – accent.

The nature of word stress сan be studied from the point of view of production and perception. The production of stressed syllables requires more muscular energy. Greater muscular effort and muscular activity produce higher subglottal pressure and an increase in the amount of air expelled from the lungs. On the acoustic level this extra articulatory activity leads to the increase of intensity, duration and fundamental frequency of the stressed syllable. On the perception level it corresponds to the increase of loudness, length and pitch.

Production and Perception of the Stressed Syllables

Production and Perception	Stressed syllable
Production level	Greater muscular effort
Acoustic level	Increase of intensity, duration, fundamental frequency
Perception level	Increase of loudness, length, pitch

The balance of these components may be different in different languages. There are two main types of word stress in the languages of the world: dynamic and musical (tonic). The dynamic stress is achieved by greater force with which the syllable is prononuced. Greater intensity and duration of the stressed syllable which contains a vowel of full articulation contribute to the effect of prominence. European languages such as English, German, French, Russian, have dynamic word stress. Musical stress is observed in Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and other languages. This type of stress is the result of the change of pitch in the stressed syllable.

English word stress is a complex phenomenon formed by interdependent components: loudness, pitch, length and vowel quality.

Functions of WS. (p. 65)

• constitutive function 1. WS organizes the syllables into a word 2. WS creates a particular pattern of relationship among syllables, making some syllables more prominent than others and thus it shapes the word as a whole.

• identificatory (recognitive) WS helps us to recognize the word in the chain of speech.

• distinctive WS is capable of differentiating the meaning of words or their formas -Primary stress placement can distinguish a) the grammatical category (morphological class) of the word ‘import – im’port, ‘insult – in’sult b) the meaning of the word ‘billow – be’llow c) compound nouns from free word combinations ‘blackboard – ‘black ‘board, ‘greenhouse – ‘green ‘house *In Russian WS also performs distinctive function, differentiating lexical meaning of words ‘чудная – чуд‘ная, ‘замок - за’мок

Semantic value = the stress is generally assigned to the elements which have a greater semantic, distinctive weight.