A phoneme is a completely new unit in the language. Any spoken language can be broken down into a stream of some units and each language has a relatively small relatily fixed set of such units. Most sounds can be united into groups. The most important question here will be how we can establish what the phonemes of a language are. The most widely excepted view on the phonemes is that they are contrasted (the sounds are opposed to each other, they are different). They differentiate meanings of bigger units. For example – pin-pen, men-man. Pairs of words which are differ in just sound are called minimal pairs. Thundamental concepts used in phoneme analysis are complementary distribution three variation, distinctive feature, allophone and some others.
The term sound can be interpreted into the two ways. The articulation of the sound which accounts for the physical difference of a sound made and perceived. The second interpretation of the sound is its functional importance and this second interpretation of the sounds abraises the basys of the constant phoneme. A phoneme is a functional unit. It exists because it fulfills some function. The phoneme implies that two sounds are in opposition to each other in all contecs throughout the language. The opposition of the phonemes in the same phonetic environment always differentiates meanings of bigger units. Closer study of phonemes shows that in some contests the opposition ceases to function. Basically those are cases when people experience some difficulty in understanding each other.
Secondly, the phoneme is objective and material. It exists in the form of speech sounds. These sounds represents phonemic variants and they are called allophones. The phonemes are not sounds we must remember. A phoneme can be realized in many different ways. In theory a phoneme can have an infinite number of allophones, but in practice they can be united into several groups. Allophones of the same groups are different; there is always some phonetic similarity. The allophones which do not undergo any distinguishable (significant) changes of speech are called principal or typical. Accordingly the allophones which undergo distinguishable changes of speech are called subsidiary. Subsidiary allophones are always predictable because phonetic situations are always predicted in the language. Subsidiary allophones can be divided into positional and combinatory. Positional – light and dark l (at the beginning and at the end of the words). Combinatory – exists in different combinations. Phonemicс variants of allophones are very important in practical, their mispronounciation in actual speech makes it foreign. Speech sounds which differentiate one member of the meaningful pair from the other are phonemic variants of the phoneme. Allophones of different phonemes are in contrastive distribution. They are mutually distinctive. And allophones of the same phoneme never occur in the same phonetic circumstances (they never occur in the minimum pair) they never differentiate the meanings. Thus, they are mutually non-distinctive. Though, physically they are different. They are in complementary distribution. The distribution of the allophones of the same phoneme is usually predictable, we are able to tell when one variant or another will appear. For example –[k] –representative of phoneme. Kick – quick. Kik - kwik
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The phoneme is an abstract unit. All allophones of the same phoneme possess a set of pronunciation features which make this phoneme phunctionally different from any other phoneme in the language. This functionally important relevant set of pronounciation features. These features that help to differentiate one phoneme from another – it is called diferentic
Non-called distinguished features don`t deferentiate the meanings of bigger units.
The phoneme is a minimal functional objective and abstract unit of the language which serves to differentiate meanings of bigger linguistic units. A phoneme represents a set of functionally releavant pronunciation features (distingtive features). The number of the phonemes in any language is much smaller than a number of sounds actually pronuanced. The total number of the phonemes in eng is 45 which 24 consonantal phonemes, 21 vowel phonemes.
Approach to the problem of the phoneme. There are different approaches. When the importance of the phoneme was studies (19 century) many attempts were made to develop scientific ways of establishing phonemic structure of a language. During this period a new branch of linguistics was stablished the phonemics. Its purpose now is to devise writing systems for previously unwritten languages. The founder of the phoneme theory was the Russian scientist Бодуэн де Куртене. His approach is called psychological. He defined the phoneme is a сайкикал mantal image of the sound. Allophons are material forms of phonemes. He didn`t call them phonemes. This term was given us to his ученик профессор Щерба. He and His disciple professor Васильев considered the phonemes objective and material because they exist in material form. Another French scientist Фердинанд де Соссюр introduced an abstract approach to the phoneme. He considered the phoneme to be absolutely independent from any physiological, acoustical or other properties. The same approach was shared by european linguist УльДаль and Sepler an American. Wolall Hhjelmslew Sapir. From his point of wiev these units were formed by the differeneces separating its acoustic image from that of other units. Sapir shared the same approach. Daniel Johnses view of the phoneme was quite different. He looked upon the phoneme as a physical matter. From his point of view a phoneme represented a family of sounds which means all its allophons. He was the first to speak about invariant. It is presented in all possible allophons. This point was shared Lanad Bloomthild. All these points looked upon the phoneme from one of its aspect. Thus there was a problem of giving proper definition. By the end of the 19th century a new approach to the phoneme was developed. It was called the functional approach. The phoneme was looked at and investigated from the point of view of its functional relevance (importance it is). The phomene is looked upon as a minimal linguistical unit which can differentiate meanings without much regard to actually pronounced speech sounds. This was the approach of Nikolai Trubetskoi. He is a founder of this theory. His point of view was shared by the Prague Linguistic School (кружок) with Hally, Jakobson, Jassem (Яссем).