Lecture 1 Phonetics as a Linguistic Science Plan

2. General Characteristics of Phonemes

When we talk about the sounds of a language, the term "sound" can be interpreted in two rather different ways. A linguist uses two separate terms: "phoneme" is used to mean "sound" in its contrastive sense, e.g.: tie — die, seat — seed and "allophone" is used for sounds which are variants of a phoneme. They usually occur in different positions in the word (i.e. in different environments) and hence cannot contrast with each other, nor be used to make meaningful distinctions.

V.A.Vassilyev defined the phoneme like this:

The segmental phoneme is the smallest (i.e. further indivisible into smaller consec­utive segments) 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 of the same language or one grammatical form of a word from another gram­matical form of the same word" (Vassilyev 1970: 136).

The only drawback of this definition is that it is too long and complicated for practi­cal use. The concise form of it could be:

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 [Теоретическая фонетика 1996: 40].

Let us consider the phoneme from the point of view of its three aspects. Firstly, the phoneme is a functional unit. Function is usually understood to mean discriminatory function, that is, the role of the various components of the phonetic system of the lan­guage in distinguishing one morpheme from another, one word from another or also one utterance from another.

The opposition of phonemes in the same phonetic environment differentiates the meaning of morphemes and words, e.g. said - says, sleeper -sleepy, bath - path, light- like.

Sometimes the opposition of phonemes serves to distinguish the meaning of the whole phrases, e.g. He was heard badly - He was hurt badly. Thus we may say that the phoneme can fulfil the distinctive function.

Secondly, the phoneme is material, real and objective. That means that it is real­ized in speech of all English-speaking people in the form of speech sounds, its allophones. The sets of speech sounds, that is the allophones belonging to the same phoneme are not identical in their articulatory content though there remains some phonetic similarity between them.

As a first example, let us consider the English phoneme [d], which when not affected by the articulation of the preceding or following sounds is a plosive, fore-lingual apical, al­veolar, lenis stop. This is how it sounds in isolation or in such words as door, darn, down, etc., when it retains its typical articulatory characteristics. In this case the consonant [d] is called the principal allophone. At the same time there are quite predictable changes in the articulation of allophones that occur under the influence of the neighbouring sounds in different phonetic situations. Such allophones are called subsidiary.

[d] is slightly palatalized before front vowels and the sonorant [j], e.g. deal, day, did, did you.

[d] is pronounced without any plosion before another stop, e.g. bedtime, bad pain, good dog; it is pronounced with the nasal plosion before the nasal sonorants [n] and [m], e.g. sudden, admit, could not, could meet; the plosion is lateral before the lateral sonorant [l], e.g. middle, badly, bad light.

Followed by [r] the consonant [d] becomes post-alveolar, e.g. dry, dream; followed by the interdental [0], [5] it becomes dental, e.g. breadth, lead the way, good thing.

When [d] is followed by the labial [w] it becomes labialized, e.g. dweller.

In the initial position [d] is partially devoiced, e.g. dog, dean; in the intervocalic position or when followed by a sonorant it is fully voiced, e.g. order, leader, driver; in the word-final position it is voiceless, e.g. road, raised old.

Allophones are arranged into functionally similar groups, that is groups of sounds in which the members of each group are not opposed to one another, but are opposable to members of any other group to distinguish meanings in otherwise similar sequences. But the phones which are realized in speech do not correspond exactly to the allophone pre­dicted by this or that phonetic environment. They are modified by phonostylistic, dialectal and individual factors. In fact, ho speech sounds are absolutely alike.

Thirdly, allophones of the same phoneme, no matter how different their articulation may be, function as the same linguistic unit. The native speaker is quite readily aware of the phonemes of his language but much less aware of the allophones: it is possible, in fact, that he will not hear the difference between two allophones like the alveolar and dental consonants [d] in the words bread and breadth even when a distinction is pointed out; a certain amount of ear-training may be needed. The reason is that the phonemes differentiate words like tie and die from each other. Allophones, on the other hand, have no such function.

At the same time native speakers realize, quite subconsciously of course, that allo- phones of each phoneme possess a bundle of distinctive features, that makes this pho­neme functionally different from all other phonemes of the language concerned. This func­tionally relevant bundle of articulatory features is called the invariant of the phoneme. Neither of the articulatory features that form the invariant of the phoneme can be changed without affecting the meaning. All the allophones of the phoneme [d], for instance, are occlusive, forelingual, lenis. If occlusive articulation is changed for constrictive one [d] will be replaced by [z], cf. breed - breeze, deal - zeal; [d] will be replaced by [g] if the forelin- gual articulation is replaced by the backlingual one, cf. dear - gear, day - gay. The lenis articulation of [d] cannot be substituted by the fortis one because it will also bring about changes in meaning, cf. dry - try, ladder - latter, bid - bit.

The articulatory features which form the invariant of the phoneme are called dis­tinctive or relevant. To extract a relevant feature of the phoneme we have to oppose it to some other phoneme in the same phonetic context. If the opposed sounds differ in one articulatory feature and this difference brings about changes in the meaning of the words the contrasting features are called relevant. For example, the words port and court differ in one consonant only, that is the word port has the initial consonant [p], and the word court begins with [k]. Both sounds are occlusive and fortis, the only difference being that [p] is labial and [k] is backlingual. Therefore it is possible to say that labial and backlingual articulations are relevant in the system of English consonants.

The articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning are called non- distinctive, irrelevant or redundant; for instance, it is impossible in English to oppose an aspirated [p] to a non-aspirated one in the same phonetic context to distinguish mean­ings. That is why aspiration is a non-distinctive feature of English consonants.

If an allophone of some phoneme is replaced by an allophone of a different pho­neme the mistake is called phonological, because the meaning of the word is inevitably affected, e.g.: beat - bit.

If an allophone of the phoneme is replaced by another allophone of the same pho­neme the mistake is called phonetic. It happens when the invariant of the phoneme is not modified and consequently the meaning of the word is not affected, e.g.:

When the vowel [i:] is fully long in such a word as sheep, for instance, the quality of it remaining the same, the meaning of the word does not change.

Thirdly, the phoneme is abstract or generalized and that is reflected in its definition as a language unit. It is an abstraction because we make it abstract from concrete realiza­tions for classificatory purposes.

approximately of the same length, the only difference between them lies in their quality which is therefore relevant.

The other type of broad transcription, first used by V.A. Vassilyev, causes no pho­nological misunderstanding providing special symbols for all vowel phonemes.

The narrow or phonetic transcription incorporates as much more phonetic information as the phonetician desires, or as he can distinguish. It provides special symbols to denote not only the phoneme as a language unit but also its allophonic modifications. The symbol [h] for instance indicates aspirated articulation, cf. [k^heit] - [skeit].