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Фонема
. It is quite evident that "t" and "d" are different segmental phonetical units but such words as "try", "take", "bat", "at the" ti, t:,, t^, U are also different from the acoustic and articulatory point of view. It is not proper to apply the term sound in both cases. We use theterm phoneme when "t" is contrasted to "d" and allophone for variants of the phoneme "t" - they usually occur in different positions in the word. They do not contrast with each other and are not used to make meaningful distinctions.
Though in actual speech we utter a great variety of sounds, these sounds may be united into comparatively small number of sound types which are capable to distinguish the meaning and the form of words.
There are many definitions of the phoneme which reflect different aspects of this linguistic unit. The first definition runs as follows: the phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds. It is opposed to other phonemes of the same language to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words.
The phoneme is a functional unit. Its function is to discriminate between morphemes, words and utterances: but//beat, bed//bad, ship//sheep, pit//bit, Ben//pen, back//bag. Phonemes fulfill here a distinctive function.
The phoneme is material, real and objective. They realize themselves in speech through speech sounds, their allophones which are characterized by some phonetic similarity between them. The principle allophones are not subjected to obvious changes, subsidiary members are influenced by the neighbouring sounds.
All the allophones are important for practical purposes; it they are not pronounced properly in actual speech it makes a person's speech "foreign".
Allophones are subdivided into positional and combinatory. The first ones are used in certain positions traditionally. The second ones represent the result of assimilation and accommodation.
The number of definitions of a phoneme testifies to its extremely complex and contraversary nature.
I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay regards phonemes as fictitious units and considers them to be only perceptions. Ferdinard de Saussure viewed phonemes as the sum of acoustic impressions and articulatory movements. N. S. Trubetskoy (the Prague Linguistic School) defined the phoneme as a unity of phonologically relevant features. What is a relevant feature? The one without which we can not distinguish one phoneme from another.
Phonemes can be neutralized [d: t]. In this case we receive an "arch-phoneme" — a unity of relevant features common to both phonemes (an abstraction).
II. Another kind of approach to the nature of the phoneme was expressed by a British scholar, head of the London School of Phonology, Daniel Jones. He defined phonemes as a family of sounds.
III. American linguistic school (L.Bloomfield, E.Sapir and others) define the phoneme as a minimum unit of distinctive sound-features, an abstractional unit.
IV. Academician L.V.Sherba defined the phoneme as a real independent distinctive unit which manifests itself in the form of its allophones.
Summing up what has been said we may state that a phoneme comprises material, real and objective features and at the same time abstractional and generalized. It exists in the material form of speech sounds (allophones).
The functions that phonemes perform in speech are:
1) Constitutive (sounds constitute words, phrases and sentences);
2) Distinctive (sounds help to distinguish words);
3) Recognitive (allophones help to recognize words, sentences and phrases.
All the allophones of the same phoneme have ""some articulatory features in common: they possess the same invariant: try, tap, little, bit, hunt, at the.
The articulatory features which form the invariant of me phoneme are called distinctive or relevant. What features are distinctive in these allophones of ||t||? Apical, fortis, oral stop.
The articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning are called not-distinctive, irrelevant or redundant. What features are not distinctive in the same allophones? Aspiration, apico-dental quality, apico- post-alveolar quality, open quality, lateral explosion, etc.
If we replace one phoneme by another (bit - bid) the mistake is called phonological.
If one allophone of the phoneme is replaced by another allophone of the same phoneme the mistake is called phonetic.
Each phoneme manifests itself in a certain pattern of distribution. The simplest pattern of distribution is free variation, i.e. the variation of one and the same phoneme pronounced by different speakers: e.g. different degrees of aspiration of initial "p". /w/ may be replaced by /м/ depending on the individual manner of one's pronunciation.
Complementary distribution takes place when a phoneme occurs in such positions where no other phoneme can occur (clear & dark "1" in "little" in BE).
Contrastive distribution takes place when we deal with phonemes in contrasted pairs, big - beg, bake - bake, bit - beet, etc.
We may discover phonemes of the language by method of minimal pairs or by distinctive oppositions - finding as many pairs of words as possible which differ in one phoneme. The substitution of one sound for another is called communication test (коммуникационная проверка). When the meaning changes together with the change of sounds we deal with different phonemes.
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