77. Why is the distinctive function the most important one?

Firstly, the phoneme is a functional unit. In phonetics function is usually understood as a role of the various units of the phonetic system in distinguishing one morpheme from another, one word from another or one utterance from another. The opposition of phonemes in the same phonetic environment differentiates the meaning of morphemes and words: e.g. bath-path, light-like. Sometimes the opposition of phonemes serves to distinguish the meaning of the whole phrases: He was heard badly - He was hurt badly. Thus we may say that the phoneme can fulfill the distinctive function.  

78. What does the constitutive function manifest itself in?

Secondly, the phoneme is material, real and objective. That means it is realized in speech in the form of speech sounds, its allophones. The phonemes constitute the material form of morphemes, so this function may be called constitutive function.

b) Constitutive function forms the basis of the distinctive function. It lies in that that any word is constituted with the help of phonemes. It can be subdivided: - morpheme – word – sentence. Due to the opposition of the phoneme we constitute different words. 

79. What does recognitive function consist of?

c) Recognitive or identificatory function consists in making words with their grammatical forms and whole sentences easily recognizable as a result of the right use of the right allophones in the right places.

Thirdly, the phoneme performs the recognitive function, because the use of the right allophones and other phonetic units facilitates normal recognition. We may add that the phoneme is a material and objective unit as well as an abstract and generalized one at the same time.

80. What two types of mistakes may wrong pronunciation produce?

MISTAKES IN PRONUNCIATION /mis'teiks in prs,nAnsr'eiJan/ — dif¬ferent deviations from the teaching norm in the pronunciation of a foreign lan¬guage. Academician L. V. Shcherba suggested that mistakes should be divided into 1. phonological (altering the meaning of words) and 2, non-phonological, (that do not affect the meaning of words).

PHONOLOGICAL MISTAKES 7,fauna'Iud3ik{9)l mis'teiks/— mistakes connected with the alteration of the meaning of words, which prevent communi¬cation. For example, mispronunciation of /9/ may lead to the confusion of thought — fought, think — sink, mouth — mouse, etc.

1. How can a syllable be defined?

The syllable as a unit is difficult to define, though native speakers of a language are usually able to state how many syllables there are in a particular word.

According to J. Kenyon the syllable is one or more speech sounds, forming a single uninterrupted unit of utterance, which may be a word, or a commonly recognized subdivision of a word.

The syllable can be a single word: chair /tfea/, a part of a word: English /'in-gliJV, a part of the grammatical form of a word: later /ilei-ta/.

The syllable can be analysed from the acoustic and auditory, ar-ticulatory and functional points of view. The syllable can be viewed in connection with its graphic representation.

Acoustically and auditorily the syllable is characterized by the force of utterance, or accent, pitch of the voice, sonority and length, that is by prosodic features.

Acoustic properties of syllables are studied with the help of intono-graph and spectrograph.