Theoretical Phonetics of the English Language

The phoneme, its definition, aspects and functions

The functions of the phoneme:

• 1) distinctive

word-distinctive: /´dri:mə - ´dri:mi/

form-distinctive: /α:sks - α:skt/

sentence-distinctive: It was cold.

It was gold.

The phoneme, its definition, aspects and functions

The functions of the phoneme:

• 2) constitutive (являющийся образующим или неотъемлемым элементом чего-л.)

The phonemes in isolation have no meaning, but they constitute morphemes and words, all of which are meaningful.

The phoneme, its definition, aspects and functions

The functions of the phoneme:

• 3) recognitive (identificatory)
• (распознавательная)

This function of the phoneme consists in making words with their grammatical forms easily recognizable as a result of the use of right allophones in their right places.

The phoneme theory

• The phoneme theory was originated in Russia. Its founder was Prof. I.A. Bauduoin [ˈbɔ:dwin] de Courtnay [ˈkɔ:tnɪ].

The phoneme theory

Baudouin de Courtenay Ivan Alexandrovich (born Jan Nechislav)

(1845-1929)

linguist-theorist, Slavonic scholar, worker of the Higher School of Russia and Poland, Corresponding Member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences

The phoneme theory

• Baudouin de Courtenay supported the so-called psychological school of thought in linguistics.
• A phoneme is defined by him as a group of related (родственный) sounds of a given language which are so used in connected speech that no one of them ever occurs in the position which any other can occupy.