The definition of the phoneme

Articulatory mechanisms of speech production

Speech sounds are complex phenomenon which should be studied from different points of view or different aspects. The majority of linguists recognize that speech sounds are a complex of definitely coordinated movements and positions of speech organs. To understand how speech occurs we should know about the organs of speech and their functions and be able to describe how the sounds are produced and how they are classified.

The organs of speech and their function

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The classification of speech sounds

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Acoustic aspect of speech sounds

Acoustically, a speech sound is a physical phenomenon produced by the vocal cords and percepted due to the vibrations of the layers of the air.

Each sound is characterized by its frequency, intensity, duration.

Frequencyof vibration is measured in cycles per second. It depends of the physical properties of the vibration mass, length, tension.

The greater the frequency, the higher the pitch of the sound or voice.

Intensity is measured in decibels. It shows what amount of energy is transmitted through the air.

Duration of the sound is measured in milliseconds. It shows the quantity of time during which the sound is produced.

Auditory aspect of speech sounds

From the auditory point of view, each of the mentioned properties has its auditory counterpart.

Frequency of vibration is percepted as pitch.

Intensity is percepted as loudness.

Duration is percepted as speed.

The classification of English consonants

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The classification of English vowels

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The phoneme theory

The functional aspect of the sound develops into a separate linguistic branch of phonetics called phonology. It studies what the phoneme is and how it functions in speech. Investigation of this kind are called the phoneme theory.

The Russian linguist Baudouin de Courtenay was the first who launched this sphere of linguistic investigation and demanded accurate distinction between synchronic and diachronic approaches to phonemic investigation. His views were later developed by his disciple Shcherba. It was Shcherba who first noticed that when sounds start functioning in speech, we start noticing that one and the same sound is not always the same. If we take the sound [t] and place it into different phonetic contexts, we’ll easily notice that it has about 7 variants of its pronunciation. So Shcherba stated that in actual speech we utter a much greater variety of sounds that we are aware of. In every language these sounds are united in a comparatively small number of sound types, which are capable of distinguishing the meaning and the form of words. Such sound types were given the name of phonemes, while the various speech sounds that are actually uttered were called the phonemic variants, or allophones.

For example, if we take the phoneme [t] and place it in different phonetic contexts, we shall notice that in the word t ake it is aspirated; at the – dental; in the word cer tain it has nasal plosion; li ttle – lateral plosion; t w enty - labialized; st op – non-aspirated tr ee – post alveolar.

The definition of the phoneme

Shcherba’s theory was further developed by his disciple Vassilyev in his book “English Phonetics: the theoretical course” (published in 1970) According to Vasilyev, the segmental phoneme is the smallest further indivisible language unit that exists in the speech of all the members of a given language community as such speech sounds which are capable of distinguishing one word from another word of the same language and one grammatical form from another grammatical form of the same word.

From this definition we notice that from lingua philosophical point of view the phoneme is a unity of 3 aspects: it is

1) material, real, and objective;

2) abstractional and generalized;

3) functional.