The difference between phonemes and allophones. Classification of allophones.

The subject-matter of Phonetics. Branches of Phonetics.

Phonetics (“phone” – Greek sound) – science of a sound. It’s an independent branch of Linguistics, it studies sound, it’s aspects and functions. It studies a semantic description of the sound in speech of any language. The way the are produced and perceived and their acoustic properties. It studies the sounds system of the language that it is segmental phonemes, word stress, syllabic structure and intonation.

Phonetics=an independent branch of linguistics which studies and gives a semantic description of the sound structure of the language.

Structure: 1. speech sounds (production, perception, acoustic characteristics)

2. combinations of sounds (syllables, words, tone groups)

3. groups are characterized by: stress, rhythm, intonation

4. correlation b/n spoken and written language.

Branches of Ph:

1. articulatory/physiological – branch of Phonetics, which studies the way in which the air set emotion, the movement of speech organs, and coordination of these movements and the production of trains of speech.

2. acoustic – studies the way in which the air vibrates between the speaker’s mouth and listener’s ear.

3. functional/linguistic – studies linguistic properties of phonemes, syllable, accent and intonation.

4. auditory/perceptive (perception only) – which investigate hearing process.

Types of Phonetics according to its specific fields of investigation.

1) descriptive (synchronic) – synchronic description of the language.

2) historical (diachronic) – the description of the language at its point in history.

3) Comparative – compares the sounds of different languages of the world.

4) Dialectology (accents, dialects) – describes phonetic data from different dialects of the 1 language.

5) Normative – sets standards for the correct pronunciation of varies languages.

6) Clinical/speech – correction of speech pathologies.

7) voice training – for singes and actors.

8) Telephonic – deals with problems peculiar to the telephonic transmission of the speech sound.

9) speech recognition – communication between humans and machines.

Phonology. The relationship between Phonetics and Phonology.

Phonetics – the study of the way humans make, transits and receive speech sounds. It studies sounds as articulatory and acoustic units. The unit – a speech sound. (physiological and acoustic levels of speech chain)

Phonology – the study of the sound system of the language. It studies only those contrasts in sounds, which make difference of meaning within the language. It investigates sounds as units, which serve communicative purposes. The unit – a phoneme. (linguistic level of speech chain). It a branch of phonetics that studies the linguistic function of consonant and vowel sounds, syllabic structure, word stress and prosodic features.

The difference between phonemes and allophones. Classification of allophones.

Phoneme – minimal abstract unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds opposable to other phonemes.

- It’s a smallest unit of speech

- It distinguishes one word or word element from another.

- It’s an oppositional unit of speech.

There are a great number of sounds in actual speech, which are combined into a certain amount of types. These types are phonemes. Their realisations in actual speech are allophones.

e.g. take – aspiration; twice – rounded lips; button – partially through nose; cattle – laterally; Betty – partially voiced; eighth – dental; stone – no aspirtion.

Classification of allophones.

1.principal/typical. The allophones that do not undergo and distinguishable changes in the chain of speech.

2.subsidiary. The allophones that undergo predictable changes in the articulation under the influence of the neighbouring sounds in different phonetic situations.

2a. positional are used in certain positions traditionally (st-, sk-, sp-)

2b. combinatory.–appear in a process of speech and result from, the influence of one phoneme upon another. (let them [leӨәm])

Allophones can also be:

Relevant/distinctive – articulatory features which the invariants of the phoneme if the opposed sounds differ in one articulatory feature and this difference brings about changes in the meaning of the word the contrasting features are relevant) e.g. port-court (both – voiceless, aspirated, but they different in the place of articulation.

Irrelevant –do no serve to distinguish meaning. E.g. pan-ban (p – aspirated, b – non-aspirated).

5. The Phoneme as an oppositional unit of speech. Main trends in Phoneme theory.

The phoneme is an oppositional unit of sound. Phoneme => ideal, sound => material.

The phoneme is the least meaning-distinguishing speech unit. It can be discovered by the method of minimal pairs -> finding pairs of words, which differ only in one phoneme. (fan/van). [subminimal pair -> differ in more than one phoneme]. A minimal pair is discovered through a minimal set – a chain of words, which differ in one phoneme (fan/van/pan/ran/tan).

Views of the phoneme.

Mentalistic/psychological. The Phoneme – an ideal “mental image” or a target at which the speaker aims. Allophones – different materialisations of it. (I. A. Baudauin de Courtenay).

Functional. The Phoneme is the minimal sound unit by which meanings may be differentiated without much regard to actually pronounced sounds. Meaning differentiation is taken to be a defining characteristic of phoneme. This view gave rise to phonology. (N. Trubetskoy, L.Bloomfield, R.Jakobson, M.Halle).

Abstract. The Phoneme is essentially independent of the acoustic & physiological properties associated with them, that is of speech sounds. (L.Hjelmslev, H.J.Uldall, K.Togby).

[These views of phoneme => idealistic]

Physical. The Phoneme is a family of related sound, which

1. show phonetic similarity to one another;

2. can’t occur in one and the same phonetic context. (D.Jones, B.Bloch, G.Trager).

Materialistic. The most suitable for the purpose of teaching is conception by L.V.Shcherba: the Phoneme is a dialectical unity of functional, materialistic and abstract aspects.

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