Lecture 1 Phonetics as a Linguistic Science Plan

3. The Moscow Phonological School

Another scientific approach to the phoneme concept in Russia is known as the Moscow phonological school. This school is represented by R.I. Avanesov, V.N. Sidorov, A.A. Reformatsky (1901-1978), P.S. Kuznetzov (1899-1968), A.M. Sukhotin, M.V. Panov, N.F. Jakovlev.

One of the first linguists to give a definition of phoneme void of psychologic elements was N.F. Jakovlev: «Phonemes are understood those phonic properties that can be analyzed from the speech flow as the shortest elements serving to differentiate units of meaning.

The representatives of the Moscow phonological school based their definition of a phoneme on the concept of the morpheme. A.A. Reformatsky gave the following definition of the phoneme: «Phonemes are minimal units of the sound structure of a language, serving to form and differentiate meaningful units: morphemes and words». Phonemes are meaningless units of a language but they are capable of distinguishing meaningful units as their sequences may form morphemes and words. For example, pit - lit, but - bet etc.

Analyzing the sound changes in the morphemic structure of a language, it is possible to establish two different positions: stressed and unstressed. In a stressed position phonemes can preserve their phonetic characteristics, while in an unstressed position they change their articulatory and acoustic features. This fact is very important in the phonetic analysis of Russian vowels. In the Russian word вода /vadˈ ʌ/ there are two variants or allophones of the phoneme /ʌ/: stressed and unstressed, which are different as to their quantitative feature because usually stressed vowels are longer than unstressed ones. But if we take the word forms воды /vodi/, водный /vodnij/, водяной /və djanoj/ in the morpheme вод we can distinguish the sound alternations /ʌ'-о-ə/. In such cases R.I. Avanesov proposes to define each member of alternations /ʌ'-о-ə/ as variants of one phoneme /o/. Likewise in the words вода / vʌdʌ'/, вод /voˊt/, воде /vʌde/ the consonants /t/ and /d/ may also be interpreted as variants of the phoneme /d/, but the members of alternations /d-t-d'/ may be considered as the realizations of one phoneme. In all these cases the relationship between the notions of phoneme and morpheme becomes very important. In such alternations, which depend on their position in morphemes or words, and there are no distinctive functions between the members of alternations, it is possible to use the term phonemic line («фонемный ряд»). According to R.I. Avanesov a phoneme is an element of a wordform and «phonemic line» is an element of a morpheme. There are some differences in the phonemic solutions of the representatives of this school. A.A. Reformatsky did not use the term «phonemic line». Thanks to the perceptual and significative functions, he divided the stressed and unstressed positions into the following types: perceptually the stressed position is that where a phoneme is represented in its basic form independent of its position; as to the unstressed position, where under the influence of positions, a phoneme is represented in its variations. For example, in the words мал — мял and мил — мыл we can observe pairs of vowels /a/ - /æ/ and /и/ — /ы/. In the first pair the basic form of the phoneme is /a/, while /æ/ is variation, likewise in the second pair /и/ is the basic form of the phoneme, while /ы/ is its variation.

Phonemes organize different phonological oppositions, resulting in their significant functions. In a stressed position phonemic oppositions may be preserved, while in an unstressed position they are neutralized. Usually neutralization is the result of coincidence of two phonemes which are differentiated by one feature. For example, in words плод and плот, луг and лук voiced consonants become voiceless at the end of words. The Moscow phonologists suggested the term «hyperphoneme» which is defined as a unit which appears in the position of neutralization of a group of phonemes. For example, in Russian neutralization may take place in unstressed syllables where the vowels /a/, /o/, /i/, /e/, /u/ can be distinguished from each other; in this case they are not phonemes but hyperphonemes /a/ o, i /e/ and /u/. The unit hyperphoneme as presented by the Moscow phonologists does not coincide with the «archiphoneme» unit suggested by the Prague phonological school. The latter is understood as a unit, when two phonemes, distinguished only by one feature, for example, voiced -voiceless consonants /p - b/, /t - d/ etc., may coincide with their fea-ture in the position of neutralization: луг - лук, пруд - прут. In such cases archiphonemes /p/b and t/d/ may appear in Russian.

Phonemes and their distinctive features differ. A phoneme is a sum of distinctive features. Distinctive sounds, i.e. phonemes and distinctive features are considered to be two levels of the phonological structure of a language. The level of distinctive features is called «merismatic level». One of the fundamental notions of phonology is that of position, which creates conditions for the realization of phonemes in speech. Positions may depend not only on the phonetic context but also on the morphological conditions. For example, in joining basic and affixal morphemes some sound combinations become an affricative: штатский, шведский where /тс/ and /дс/ form the affricate /ц/.

Some Moscow phopnologists, especially, A.A. Reformatsky gave a classification of phonological oppositions and presented a new approach to the problem of neutralization. It should be stated that their theory is commonly applied to the description of Russian phonemes; it was also fruitful in the analysis of the phonological systems of other languages. The Moscow phonologists described the suprasegmental features of syllables, stress and intonation. Besides, they improved the morphonological theory advanced by N.S. Trubetzkoy. According to A.A. Reformatsky morphonology is a «bridge» level between phonology and morphology. N.S. Trubetzkoy included almost all the phonemic alternations into morphonology and used the term «morphoneme». However, morphonology must not only study the alternations of segmental phonemes but can analyse the alternations of supraseg-mental elements i.e. stress alternations in morphemes. In the Russian words рука - ручной, нога - ножной, слух - послушный we can observe alternations both of a segmental and suprasegmental character. Such alternations in English as foot - feet, tooth - teeth, ox -oxen, child - children, which are interpreted as morphonological by the American linguists, belong to the grammatical meanings formed by the internal inflexion. The alternations, which do not depend on their positions in morphemes, would be studied in morphonology.