4. Phoneme and its functions

When we speak, we produce a continuous stream of sounds. In studying speech we divide this stream into small pieces that we call segments. The word 'man' is pronounced with a first segment m, a second segment and a third segment n. It is not always easy to decide on the number of segments. To give a simple example, in the word 'mine' the first segment is m and the last is n, as in the word 'man' discussed above. But should we regard the ‚ in the middle as one segment or two? In the words tie, meet them, seat, seat down the sound t has some differences. To avoid some ambiguity, the linguists use two separate terms: phoneme is used to mean sound in its contrastive sense, and allophone is used for sounds which are variants of a phoneme: they usually occur in different positions in the word and hence cannot contrast with each other, nor be used to make meaningful distinctions.

In some languages we find that there are restrictions on the sequences of phonemes that are used. For example, no English word begins with the consonant sequence zbf and no words end with the sequence h. In phonology we must try to analyse what the restrictions and regularities are in a particular language, and it is usually found helpful to do this by studying the syllables of the language.

Many significant sound contrasts are not the result of differences between phonemes. For example, stress is important: when the word "import" is pronounced with the first syllable sounding stronger than the second, English speakers hear it as a noun, whereas when the second syllable is stronger the word is heard as a verb. Intonation is also important: if the word "right" is said with the pitch of the voice rising, it is likely to be heard as a question or as an invitation to a speaker to continue, while falling pitch is more likely to be heard as confirmation or agreement. These examples show sound contrast that extend over several segments (phonemes), and such contrasts are called suprasegmental. Any phoneme has three aspects: physical, abstract and functional. It means that any phoneme exists in the air if we can hear it, that it has material nature, if we can recognise it and distinguish. Each unit is a sort of abstraction (we can speak about the concept of table and of a certain table). A phoneme is very often treated as the smallest functional unit.

To know how sounds are produced is not enough to describe and classify them as language units. When we talk about the sounds of language, the term "sound" can be interpreted in two different ways. First, we can say that [t] and [d], for example, are two different sounds in English: e.g. ten-den, seat-seed. But on the other hand, we know that [t] in let us and [t] in let them are not the same. In both examples the sounds differ in one articulatory feature only. In the second case the difference between the sounds has functionally no significance. It is clear that the sense of "sound" in these two cases is different. To avoid this ambiguity, linguists use two separate terms: phoneme and allophone.

The phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds opposable to other phonemes of the same language to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words.

Let us consider the phoneme from the point of view of its aspects.

Firstly, the phoneme is a functional unit. In phonetics function is usually understood as a role of the various units of the phonetic system in distinguishing one morpheme from another, one word from another or one utterance from another. The opposition of phonemes in the same phonetic environment differentiates the meaning of morphemes and words: e.g. bath-path, light-like. Sometimes the opposition of phonemes serves to distinguish the meaning of the whole phrases: He was heard badly - He was hurt badly. Thus we may say that the phoneme can fulfill the distinctive function.

Secondly, the phoneme is material, real and objective. That means it is realized in speech in the form of speech sounds, its allophones. The phonemes constitute the material form of morphemes, so this function may be called constitutive function.

Thirdly, the phoneme performs the recognitive function, because the use of the right allophones and other phonetic units facilitates normal recognition. We may add that the phoneme is a material and objective unit as well as an abstract and generalized one at the same time.