II. Theoretical phonetics

2.1. THE CONCEPT OF PHONEME, ITS DISTINCTIVE AND REDUNDANT

FEATURES

The outline of the problem discussed

1. Phonetics as a branch of linguistics. Phonetics and phonology.

2. Branches of phonetics.

3. Phonetics and other linguistic disciplines.

4. Application of phonetics.

5. The theory of phoneme:

a) Speech sound and phoneme.

b) Types of allophones.

Linguistics as a science of language consists of several disciplines, each of

which takes only one particular aspect of language or one level of its structure as the

object of its analysis.

The theoretical course of English consists of phonology, lexicology,

morphology, syntax and linguostylistics.

Phonology is the branch of linguistics, which is concerned with the ultimate

units of the expression of language, and in sense analyses the lowest layer of the

structure of language.

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It is known that language is a means of communication, a means of

transmitting message from one speaker to another.

In linguistic science “language” has a more specific meaning. It denotes the

system of signs, a structure which exists only in its material realization-speech.

Language as a social and abstract phenomenon is contrasted with speech as

individual and concrete.

An utterance, an act of speech is a single concrete manifestation of the system

at work. Language is primarily a means of conveying meanings. But no meaning can

be conveyed without a certain kind of “form”.

A linguistic sign possesses 2-sides – 1) content and 2) form

or

1) meaning and 2) expression

It is bilateral. S o u n d s have no meaning, they are unilateral.

Language and speech are bound by “eme-allo” relations. Every linguistic unit exists

as an “eme” member of the system and the “allo” representative of it in speech. This

principle works for every branch of linguistics – be it phonology, morphology,

syntax, lexicology, stylistics. Thus,

phoneme – allophone

morpheme – allomorph

lexeme – allolex

In other words, differentiation should be made between phonemes (ememembers

of the system) and speech sounds (i.e. the sounds pronounced in actual

human speech, i.e. allo-representatives of phonemes in speech), as well as between

the disciplines studying them – p h o n o l o g y and p h o n e t i c s.

Phonetics studies the sounds of speech, phonology studies phonemes.

Phonology is mainly concerned with the function of sounds is communication

between people. Phonetics studies the sounds of human speech as the material of

which human languages are made. Every natural language is a sound language, as

sound form is indispensable for the existence of languages.

The notion of the “sound of human speech” includes sounds as such, melodies,

stress, rhythm, pause and other prosodic features.

The sound form of language is of double nature: on the one hand, it is a natural

prehomenon and on the other hand it is an ideal social sign.

As a natural phenomenon it is studied by articulatory (physioligical) phonetics,

acoustic (physical) phonetics; the perceptual aspect is studied by psycho-acoustics.

As a linguistic sign it is studied by functional phonetics, or phonology.

Of all the branches of phonetics only functional phonetics (phonology) belongs

to linguistics proper. Others make part of medicine (physiology), psychology and

physics.

The findings of different branches of phonetics have a wide sphere of

application: Phonetics registers the orthoepic norms of speech, it is used in teaching

pronunciation, in compiling alphabets for languages which have no writing systems.

It can be applied in non – linguistic spheres: in defectology whose aim is to

correct children’s wrong articulation; in psychiatrics, where the analysis of intonation

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has become one of the important diagnostic cues; computer technique is interested in

the synthesis of speech and automatic translation.

Phonetics has branches of its own: The most important of them are: special

phonetics and general phonetics.

The aim of special phonetics is to study the sounds of the language at a

particular period of time, that is synchronically (it is a descriptive phonetics), or

diachronically, that is to study the sounds of the language in its historical

development (historical phonetics). General phonetics studies the sound system of

several languages.

The connection of phonetics with grammar, lexicology and stylistics is

exercised first of all via orthography which in its turn is very closely connected

with phonetics.

Phonetics formulates the rules of pronunciation of separate sounds and sound

combinations. The rules of reading are based on the relation of sounds to orthography

and present certain difficulties in learning the English language.

Through the system of rules of reading phonetics is connected with grammar

and helps to pronounce correctly singular and plural forms and past participles of

English regular verbs (wanted, wished, etc.), “s” phoneme forming plural of nouns.

One of the most important phonetic phenomena – sound interchange – is

another manifestation of the connection of phonetics with grammar. For instance, this

connection can be observed in the category of number. Thus, the interchange of [f –

v], [s – z], [ø – ð] helps to differentiate singular and plural forms of such nouns as

‘leaf – leaves’, ‘bath – baths’, ‘house – houses’, etc.

Vowel interchange helps to distinguish the singular and the plural of such

words as ‘basis – basesz’, ‘crisis – crisesz’, ‘analysis – analysesz’, ‘woman – women’,

etc. Besides, vowel interchange is connected with the tense forms of irregular verbs

(sing – sang – sung).

Phonetics is also connected with grammar through its intonation component.

Sometimes intonation alone can serve to single out the logical predicate of the

sentence (He came home). In affirmative sentences the rising nuclear may serve to

show interrogation: …/home. Pausation may also serve to perform differentiating

function.

Phonetics is also connected with lexicology. It is only due to the presence of

stress or accent in the right place that we distinguish certain nouns from verbs:

“ґabstract (реферат) – to abґstract (извлекать)”

“ґobject – to obґject”. Due to the position of word accent we can distinguish

between homonymous words and word groups,

e.g. ґblackbird – ґblack ґbird

Phonetics is also connected with stylistics first of all through intonation and its

components, which serve to express emotions. Very often the writer helps the reader

to interpret his ideas through special words and remarks, such as: “a pause”, “a short

pause”, “angrily, hopefully, gently”, etc.

The theory of phoneme.

A speech sound and a phoneme. The speech sounds of a language, which

substitute all of its morphemes and words, are instances, manifestations, or

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realizations of its segmental phonemes. The number of sounds in speech is unlimited.

There are no two absolutely identical sounds. Still we speak of a definite number of

vowels or consonants for a given language. What we are thinking about is not

concrete sounds; it’s phonemes – abstracted ideal concepts of actual sounds, models

which enable us to identify the limitless variety of speech sounds however different

in the pronunciation of various speakers as a quite definite set.

But it is not always simple and easy to establish the phonemic status of certain

speech sounds, i.e. to decide to which phonemes they should be assigned or, in other

words, variants (allophones) of which phonemes they are. For instance, what is the

phonemic status of the neutral vowel sound [q] in RP? Has RP a neutral vowel

phoneme whose variants, or allophones, are constituted by different varieties of the

neutral vowel sound? Or are these varieties of the neutral vowel sound allophones of

some other phoneme or phonemes? If so, of which one or which ones? By answering

such questions about each speech sound of the language its phonemes are identified,

the inventory of its phonemes is drawn up, phoneme system is established.

It should be pointed out, however, that speech sounds which occur in

interjections and words borrowed from other languages, but do not occur in other

words of the language, do not form part of its phonemic system, i.e. they are not

instances, or realizations, of any of its phonemes, e.g. ejective plosives pronounced in

the English interjection spelt “tut, tut” or nasalized vowels pronounced in some words

borrowed from French, such as genre. Such sounds may form a phonemic subsystem.

The identification of the phonemes of a language is not the only problem of its

phonological analysis. Closely connected with this problem is the problem of

establishing the phonemic composition of those of its words which contain one or

more sounds whose phonemic status is uncertain, the problem of deciding to which

phonemes “suspicious” sounds in such words should be assigned.

Suppose, we have proved by finding such minimal pairs as [q'ksept] (accept) –

[І'ksept] (except), ['Ofisqz] (officers) – ['Ofisiz] (offices) and many others that RP has

a neutral vowel phoneme [q] and that the different varieties of the neutral vowel

sound are allophones of this phoneme.

This does not mean, however, that all linguists admitting the existence of the

neutral vowel phoneme in RP will at the same time agree that the neutral vowel

sounds in all the words in which they occur in RP are allophones of RP neutral vowel

phoneme.

For instance, while agreeing that the neutral vowel sounds in [q'ksept] (accept)

and ['Ofisqz] (officers) are allophones of the neutral vowel phoneme [q], it may be

argued, however, that the same neutral vowel sound in [qk'tiviti] (activity) is an

allophone of the phoneme [x] which occurs under stress in the same morpheme in

the word ['xktiv] (active) rather than a variant of the neutral phoneme.

The solution of these two problems, especially of the first one, is the main aim

of a phonological analysis of a language.

Linguists have not yet arrived at a definition of a phoneme acceptable to all.

The most widely-accepted (used) understanding of a phoneme is that the segmental

phoneme is the smallest (i.e. further indivisible into smaller consecutive segments)

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language unit (sound type) that exists in the speech of all the members of a given

language community as such speech sounds which are capable of distinguishing one

word from another word of the same language. Phoneme is a unit of language, and a

concrete speech sound is a unit of speech; phoneme is a member of the system and its

material representative is its allophone. In other words, the actual speech sounds

pronounced by the speaker or reader are variants, or allophones, of a phoneme.

Speech sounds which have one or more articulatory, and therefore acoustic features

in common and at the same time differ from each other in some degree are said to

belong to one and the same phoneme, i.e. are variants of one and the same phoneme.

For example, in the words [eit] (eight) and [eitT] (eighth) the [t] consonants are

similar, but at the same time they are slightly different: [t] in [eit] 8 is pronounced

with the tongue pressed against the alveoli and is therefore an alveoli consonant,

whereas the [t] in [eitT] is pronounced with the blade of the tongue pressed against

the upper teeth and is therefore a dental consonant. Yet, if these two different [t]

sounds were interchanged, each of these words would still be recognized and

understood as such. In fact, it often happens that in certain positions a final alveolar

consonant is replaced by its dental counterpart in one and the same word. For

example, the final consonant of the above-mentioned word “eight” is dental when it

is immediately followed by the dental consonant [T] or [D] as in “eight thick books”

or “eight then”, whereas it is alveolar in other positions, e.g. “eight apples”.

Among the variants of one and the same phoneme there is always one that

preserves all the articulatory-acoustic features of the phoneme, which are listed in the

phonetic definition given in the classification. It is usually the sound which would be

pronounced by a native speaker of the language if he is asked to say the sound in

isolation. This sound is called the principal variant of the phoneme. All the other

variants of the same phoneme are called its subsidiary variants.

With the exception of free variants all the other variants of one and the same

phoneme are mutually exclusive, i.e. no variants can normally occur in the position in

which any other variant occurs; they are in complementary distribution (examples

with “eight” and “eighth”).

Phoneme has the following properties:

1. It is an ultimate unit of language (syntagmatically);

2. It is of a generalized, even abstract nature

3. It is psychologically real for any speaker of a given language;

4. It is capable of differentiating meaningful units (morphemes, words);

5. It is not conditioned by position.

The functions of the phoneme are the constitutive/recognitive and distinctive.

As we have just stated, allophones are realizations of some phoneme(s) in

speech. They depend on the position. By position is meant the immediate phonetic

environment, i.e. the preceding and the following neighbouring sound. For vowels the

stressed and unstressed position is also relevant.

The influence of sounds upon each other is called coarticulation. Coarticulation

is the basic fact of speech.

Examples of different allophones are as follows:

[k] – phoneme

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car – [kh] – aspirated allophone

cat – [kґ] – palatalized allophone

could – [k.] – labialized allophone

baker – [k] – weakly aspirated allophone

talked – [k] – unaspirated, explosionless

tickle – [k] – laterally exploded allophone

Taking the phoneme [t], the following examples of allophones can be provided:

In the word “twice” [t] is rounded because as soon as the tip of the tongue

touches the teethridge, the lips move forward to form a round narrowing for the [w]

sound which follows it. In the word “teeth” [t] is pronounced with spread lips under

the influence of [i:]. In the word “try” [t] is post-alveolar under the influence of the

[r] phoneme which follows it.

Another example can be provided with the sound type [i:]. In the word “bee”

[i:] is the longest, in “bead” [i:] becomes shorter under the influence of the voiced [d],

in the word “beat” [i:] is the shortest because it is followed by the voiceless

consonant [t].

Vowel phonemes undergo changes not only in quantity, but also in quality, as,

for example, in the word “beak” where [i:] is more back than in the word “bee”. It

happens because of the influence of the [k] phoneme which follows [i:] in the word

“beak”.

Allophone, which is the least dependent on the position, is called the basic allophone.

It is the closest to our concept of phoneme. As a phoneme, strictly speaking, cannot

be pronounced; what we actually say introducing, for instance “phoneme [k]”, is its

basic allophone. Basic allophones are important for teaching.

For a language user allophones of one and the same phoneme seem very close

articulatorily, or even identical. The reason here is not the objective articulatory

similarity, but one’s phonological habits. What seems “same” for speakers of one

language may sound “different” for speakers of another. Thus, [l] & [l’], hard and

soft consonants, are different for the speakers of Russian, as well as the words “угол”

& “уголь” while for an English or German speaker they sound “the same”. On the

other hand, where the English speaker would see an obvious difference, ([r] & [l]), a

Japanese speaker registers one sound. Since every phoneme has several variants, the

need arises for their classification.

First, allophones are divided into 1) principal, or typical, and 2) subsidiary

ones.

The principal or typical allophone (variant of a phoneme) 1) is free from the

influence of neighbouring speech sounds and purely phonetic factors, such e.g., as,

the absence of stress; 2) it is most representative of the phoneme as a whole, in the

sense that it has the greatest number of articulatory features (both distinctively

relevant and irrelevant, among all the variants of the phoneme). For instance, the

English phoneme [t] has 3 articulatory features, which are always present in all its

allophones and thus constitute its invariant. These features are expressed in the

following articulatory terms: 1) forelingual, 2) occlusive, and 3) voiceless. The

plosionless, nasally & laterally exploded variants of the [t] phoneme, as in “nightcap,

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night-light, nightmare, night-nurse”, have only these 3 features, which auditorily, are

just silence and, acoustically, absence of energy. But in spite of the fact that these

allophones of the [t] phoneme are the very embodiment of its invariant, it is hardly

possible to consider any of them to be its principal or typical allophone. They are not

free from the influence of the neighbouring sounds.

The subsidiary variants of a phoneme are subdivided into two groups:

1) combinatory & 2) positional.

Combinatory allophones are those which are clearly due to the influence of the

neighbouring speech sounds (assimilation and adaptation, or accommodation) and to

the specific way in which adjacent sounds are joined together, e.g. dental variants of

the English forelingual phonemes [t,d,n,l] which are due to the assimilating influence

of the following dental consonants [и], [D], as in [eitи] (eights), [L:lґDqu] (although),

etc., [the labialized variants of the consonant phonemes which are due to the

accommodating influence of a following rounded vowel, as in [tu:] (two), etc.]; the

plosionless variants of the occlusive (contoid) phonemes [p, b, t, d, k, g,] which are

due to the specific English way in which they are joined to the same phonemes or

affricates that follow them, as in [ґblækbLd] (blackboard), [ґblæk ґtЃзеq] (black chair),

etc.

Positional allophones are those which are used in definite positions

traditionally, according to the orthoepic norms of the language, rather than because of

the clearly observable influence of neighbouring sounds. A good example of a

positional allophone is provided by the clear variant of the English phoneme [l]

(field, feel – dark variant).