4. The phoneme theory. Phoneme and allophone. Types of allophones.

The Phoneme Theory

The founder of the Phoneme Theory was the Russian scientist Jan Baudouin -de-Courtenay who was the head of the Kazan Linguistic School. He expressed the idea of distinguishing between the functional approach of the study of speech sounds and their material substance.

The idea was first expressed by the Russian linguist Baudauin de Courtenay at the end of the 19th century. But his phonological conceptions appeared in different countries only at the end of the 20s and 30s of the 20th century. Baudauin de Courtenay defined the phoneme as a physical image of a sound.

Ferdinand de Saussure viewed phonemes as the sum of acoustic impressions and articulatory movements. Language in his opinion contains nothing but differences. This approach is called abstractional/ abstract.

Trubetskoy defined the phoneme as a unity of phonologically relevant features. Relevant feature is the feature without which we can’t distinguish one phoneme from another. This approach is called functional.

The materialistic approach was expressed by Leo Tsherba. Academician Tsherba defined the phoneme as a real independent distinctive unit which manifests itself in the form of its allophones. This approach comprises the abstract, the functional.

Summing up what has been said we may state that the phoneme comprises material, real & objective features and at the same time distinctive abstractional and generalized ones features which are present in all the allophones of the phoneme). It exists in the material form of speech sounds (allophones).

Phoneme and allophone

Phonemes are small number of sound types, which are capable of distinguishing the meaning and form of words.

There are 3 aspects of the phoneme:

1.The functional aspect

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.

said— says; sleeper — sleepy; bath — path; light — like

Sometimes the opposition of phonemes serves(служить) to distinguish the meaning of the whole phrases:.

He was heard badly — He was hurt badly.

There is no room for you in my hut. – There is no room for you in my heart.

2. The material aspect

the phoneme is material, real and objective. That means it is realized in speech in the form of speech sounds, its allophones.

3. The abstract (generilazed) aspect

The phoneme is a minimal language unit.

The phoneme belongs to the language, the allophone – to the speech.

Language is an abstract category, it’s an abstraction from speech. Speech is the reality of a language, thus the phoneme as a language unit is materialized in speech sound. The phoneme is a sort of generalization (abstraction).

Allophones are instances, realizations of phonemes in real speech.

Types:

principal The allophones which do not undergo any distinguishable changes in speech are called principal.

subsidiary. Allophones that occur under influence of the neighboring sounds in different phonetic situations are called subsidiary, e.g.:

a. deal, did - it is slightly palatalized before front vowels

b. bad pain, bedtime - it is pronounced without any plosion

с. sudden, admit - it is pronounced with nasal plosion before [n], [m]

d. dry - it becomes post-alveolar followed by [r].

We can’t pronounce a phoneme, we pronounce allophones, which are accompanied by several social and personal characteristics. The actual pronounced sounds which we hear are formed with stylistic, situational, personal characteristics. They are called phones.