5. The phoneme

To know how sounds are produced by speech organs is not enough to describe and classify them as language units. When we talk about the sounds of a language, the term "sound" can be reted in two rather different ways. In the first place, we can say that [t] and [d] are two different sounds in English, [t] being fortis (voiceless) and [d] being lenis (voiced). We can illustrate this by showing how they contrast with each other to make a difference of meaning in a large number of pairs, such as tie — die, seat —seed, etc. But on the other hand if we listen carefully to the [t] in let us and compare it with the [t] in let them we can hear that the two sounds are also not the same, the [t] of let us is alveolar, while the [t] of let them is dental. 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 perfectly clear that the sense of "sound" in these two cases is different. To avoid this ambiguity, 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 (i.e. in differ­ent environments) and hence cannot contrast with each other, nor be used to make meaningful distinctions.

As you probably know from the course of general linguistics, the definitions of the phoneme vary greatly.

The truly materialistic view of the phoneme was originated by the Soviet linguist L.V.Shcherba. According to L.V.Shcherba the phoneme may be viewed as a functional, material and ab­stract unit.(1) These three aspects of the phoneme are concentrated in the definition of the phoneme suggested by V.A.Vassilyev: 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 three aspects. Firstly, the phoneme is a functional unit. It means that the phoneme distinguishes 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, e.g. said — says, bath — path, light — like.

Sometimes the opposition of phonemes serves to distinguish the meaning of the whole phrases, e.g. He was heard badly — He was hurt badly. Thus we may say that the phoneme can fulfil the distinctive function.

Secondly, the phoneme is material, real and objective. That means that it is realized in speech of all English-speaking people in the form of speech sounds, its allophones.The sets of speech sounds, that is the allophones belonging to the same phoneme are not identical in their articulatory content though there re­mains some phonetic similarity between them.

As you know the phoneme [d] when not affected by the ar­ticulation of the preceding or following sounds is a plosive, forelingual apical, alveolar, lenis stop. This is how it sounds in isolation or in such words as door, down, darling etc., when it retains its typical articulatory characteristics. In this case the consonant [d] is called the principal allophone. The allophones which do not undergo any distinguishable changes in the chain of speech are called principal. At the same time there are quite predictable chanages in the articulation of allophones that occur under the influence of the neighbouring sounds in different phonetic situations. Such allophones are called subsidiary.

E.g. [d] is slightly palatalized before front vowels and the sonorant [j] e.g. deal, day, did, did you.

[d] is pronounced without any plosion before another stop, e.g. bedtime, badpain, good dog; it is pronounced with the nasal plosion before the nasal sonorants [n] and [m], e.g. sudden, admit, could not, could meet; the plosion is lateral before the lateral sonorant [1], e.g. middle, badly, bad light.

These modifications of the phoneme [d] are quite sufficient to demonstrate the articulatory difference between its allophones, though the list of them could be easily extended. If you consider the production of the allophones of the phoneme above you will find that they possess three articulatory features in common, all of them are forelingual lenis stops.

Allo­phones of each phoneme possess a bundle of distinctive features, that makes this phoneme functionally different from all other phonemes of the language concerned. This functionally relevant bundle of articulatory features is called the invariant of the pho­neme. Neither of the articulatory features that form the invariant of the phoneme can be changed without affecting the meaning.

Consequently, though allophones of the same phoneme pos­sess similar articulatory features they may frequently show con­siderable phonetic differences.

But the speech sounds do not corre­spond exactly to the allophone predicted by this or that phonetic environment. They are modified by phonostylistic, dialectal and individual factors. In fact, no speech sounds are absolutely alike.

The listener may pick up a variety of information about the speaker: about the locality he lives in, regional origin, his social status, age and even emotional state (angry, tired, excited), and much other information. Most of this social infor­ mation comes not from phonemic distinctions, but from phonetic ones.

The relationships between the phoneme and the phone (speech sound) may be illustrated by the following scheme:

phonostylistic variation

Phoneme allophone dialectal variation phone

individual variation

Thirdly, allophones of the same phoneme, no matter how different their articulation may be, function as the same linguistic unit. The question arises why phonetically naive native speakers seldom observe differences in the actual articulatory qualities between the allophones of the same phonemes.

The reason is that the phonemes have an important function in the language: they differentiate words like tie and die from each other, and to be able to hear and produce phonemic differences is part of what it means to be a competent speaker of the language. Allophones, on the other hand, have no such function: they usually occur in different positions in the word (i.e. in different environments) and hence cannot be opposed to each other to make meaningful distinctions. Sounds which have similar functions in the language tend to be considered the "same" by the community using that language while those which have dif­ferent functions tend to be classed as "different".

The function of phonemes is to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words. The native speaker does not notice the difference between the allophones of the same pho­neme because this difference does not distinguish meanings.

In other words, native speakers abstract themselves from the difference between the allophones of the same phoneme because it has no functional value. For example, in the Russian word посадит the stressed vowel [a] is more front than it is in the word посадка. It is even more front in the word ся­дет. But Russian-speaking people do not observe this difference because the three vowel sounds belong to the same phoneme and thus the changes in their qualily do not distinguish the meaning. So we have good grounds to state that the phoneme is an abstract linguistic unit, it is an abstraction from aclual speech sounds, that is allophonic modifications.

On the one hand, the phoneme is objective real, because it is realized in speech in the material form of speech sounds, its allo­phones. On the other hand, it is an abstract language unit. That is why we can look upon the phoneme as a dialectical unity of the material and abstract aspects. All the allophones of the same phoneme have some articulatory features in common, that is all of them possess the same invariant.

The articulatory features which form the invariant of the pho­neme are called distinctive or relevant. To extract relevant fea­ture of the phoneme we have to oppose it to some other pho­neme in the same phonetic context. For example, the words port and court differ in one consonant only, that is the word port has the initial conso­nant [p], and the word court begins with [k]. Both sounds are oc-clusive and fortis, the only difference being that [p] is labial and [k] is backlingual. Therefore it is possible to say that labial and backlingual articulations are relevant in the system of English consonants.

The articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning are called non-distinctive, irrelevant or redundant; for instance, it is impossible in English to oppose an aspirated [p] to a non-aspirated one in the same phonetic context to distinguish meanings. That is why aspiration is a non-distinctive feature of English consonants.

As it has been mentioned above any change in the invariant of the phoneme affects the meaning. Naturally, anyone who studies a foreign language makes mistakes in the articulation of particular sounds. L.V.Shcherba classifies the pronunciation er­rors as phonological and phonetic.

If an allophone of some phoneme is replaced by an allophone of a different phoneme the mistake is called phonological, be­cause the meaning of the word is inevitably affected. It happens when one or more relevant features of the phoneme are not real­ized, e.g.: When the vowel [i:] in the word beat becomes slightly more open, more advanced or is no longer diphthongized the word beat may be perceived as quite a different word bit. It is perfectly clear that this type of mistakes is not admitted in teaching pro­nunciation to any type of language learner.

If an allophone of the phoneme is replaced by another allo­phone of the same phoneme the mistake is called phonetic. It happens when the invariant of the pboneme is not modified and consequently the meaning of the word is not affected, e.g.: When the vowel [i:] is fully long in such a word as sheep, for instance, the quality of it remaining the same, the meaning of the word does not change. Nevertheless language learners are advised not to let phonetic mistakes into their pronunciation. If they do make them the degree of their foreign accent will cer­tainly be an obstacle to the listener's perception.