Theoretical Phonetics of the English Language

The phoneme theory. Structuralists

• The American structuralists Leonard /̍lenəd/ Bloomfield, Edward Sapir /sə̍pɪə(r)/ and others expressed the similar view.
• They defined the phoneme as a bunch or a bundle of distinctive features, as an ‘abstractional fiction…’.

The phoneme theory

• The functional view of the phoneme can be qualified as idealistic as it regards the phoneme as an abstract conception existing in the mind but not in reality, that is in human speech.

Methods of phonological analysis

Distributional method is based on the phonological rule that different phonemes can freely occur in one and the same position, while allophones of one and the same phoneme occur in different positions and, therefore (поэтому, следовательно), cannot be phonologically opposed to each other.

pea – bee

/p/ /b/

rope – robe

Methods of phonological analysis

Semantic method is based on the phonological rule that can distinguish words when opposed to another phoneme or zero in an identical phonetic position.

Methods of phonological analysis

/si:z/ - /si:t/

/z/ vs (versus) /t/ phonological opposition

/si:z/ - /si:/

/z/ vs /-/ zero opposition

Methods of phonological analysis

Minimal pairs – the pairs of words which differ only in one speech sound.

pill – bill /pil – bil/

sea – tea /si: - ti:/

rise – raise /raiz – reiz/

beat – bee /bi:t – bi:/

Methods of phonological analysis

• If two speech sounds distinguish words with different meanings, they are a realization of two different phonemes.
• If not, they are different allophones of one and the same phoneme.
• But with the sound of a complex nature the establishment of phonological opposition is not enough to determine the phonemic status of a sound.