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Phonological theory. Phonological theory of the Prague Linguistic School

Based on Saussure's division of "longue" and "parole", Trubetskoy N.S. creates his own phonological theory, based on the division of the science of sounds into phonology and phonetics. At the same time, understanding phonology as “the doctrine of the sounds of a language, common and constant in the minds of its speakers”, and phonetics as the doctrine of the particular manifestation of the sounds of a language in speech, which has a one-act character.

Trubetskoy speaks of the relationship between both of these components of the doctrine, since without concrete speech acts there would be no language. He considers the speech act itself as establishing a connection between Saussure's signifier and signifier.

Phonology is considered as a science that studies a signifier in a language, consisting of a certain number of elements, the essence of which is that they, differing from each other in sound manifestations, have a meaningful function. And also the question of what are the ratios of distinctive elements and by what rules they are combined into words, phrases, etc. Most of the features of the sound itself are not essential for the phonologist, since they do not function as semantic features. Those. it is the science of the language system underlying all speech acts.

Phonetics, on the other hand, considers physical, articulatory one-act phenomena. The methods of the natural sciences are more suitable for her. For her, the main questions are: How to pronounce the sound, what organs are involved in this. Those. it is the science of the material side of the sounds of human speech.

It should be noted that not all representatives of the Prague School of Linguistics shared exactly this opinion about the relationship between these two disciplines. B. Trnka believed that "the phonetician assumes a language system and strives to study its individual actualization, while the phonologist investigates what is functional in individual speech and establishes elements determined by their relation to the whole language system." That is, thus, the main difference between phonology and phonetics for Trnka was the different direction of their research.

Returning to the solution of this problem in the Fundamentals of Phonology, it must be said that Trubetskoy defines three aspects in sound: “expression”, “address”, “message”. And only the third, representative, belongs to the sphere of phonology. It is divided into three parts, the subject of which is respectively: the culminating function of the language (indicating how many units, i.e. words, phrases are contained in the sentence), the delimitative function (indicating the boundary between two units: phrases, words, morphemes) and distinctive or semantic-distinctive, found in the explicative aspect of the language. Trubetskoy recognizes the semantic-distinctive function as the most important and necessary for phonology, assigning a special section to it.

Trubetskoy's main concept for semantic differentiation is the concept of opposition - opposition according to a semantic feature. Through the phonological opposition, the concept of a phonological unit (“a member of the phonological opposition”) is defined, which in turn is the basis for the definition of a phoneme (“the shortest phonological unit, the decomposition of which into shorter units is impossible from the point of view of a given language”).

As the main internal function of the phoneme, its semantic function is recognized. The word is understood as a structure identifiable by the listener and the speaker. The phoneme is a semantic feature of this structure. The meaning is revealed through the totality of these features corresponding to a given sound formation.

Trubetskoy introduces the concept of phoneme invariance. Those. the pronounced sound can be considered as one of the variants of the phoneme realization, because it, in addition to semantic differences, also contains signs that are not such. Thus, a phoneme can be realized in a number of different sound manifestations.

Further, Trubetskoy puts forward four rules for distinguishing phonemes: 1) If in a language two sounds in the same position can replace each other, and the semantic function of the word remains unchanged, then these two sounds are variants of one phoneme. 2) And, accordingly, vice versa, if the meaning of the word changes when the sounds are replaced in one position, then they are not variants of the same phoneme. 3) If two acoustically related sounds never meet in the same position, then they are combinatorial variants of one phoneme 4) If two acoustically related sounds never meet in the same position, but can follow each other as members of a sound combination , moreover, in such a position where one of these sounds can occur without the other, then they are not variants of one phoneme.

Rules 3 and 4 regarding cases where sounds do not occur in the same position are related to the problem of identifying phonemes, i.e. to the question of reducing a number of mutually exclusive sounds into one invariant. Thus, a purely phonetic criterion is decisive here for assigning different sounds to one phoneme. Those. the interconnection of these sciences is manifested.

In order to establish the complete composition of the phonemes of a given language, it is necessary to distinguish not only a phoneme from phonetic variants, but also a phoneme from a combination of phonemes, i.e. whether a given segment of the sound stream is the realization of one or two phonemes (syntagmatic identification). Trubetskoy formulated the rules of monophonemic and polyphonemic. The first three are phonetic prerequisites for a monophonemic interpretation of the sound segment. A sound combination is monophonic if: 1) Its main parts are not distributed over two syllables. 2) it is formed by means of one articulatory movement. 3) its duration does not exceed the duration of other phonemes of the given language. The following describe the phonological conditions for the one-phoneme significance of sound combinations (potentially one-phoneme sound complexes are considered actually one-phoneme if they behave like simple phonemes, that is, they occur in positions that otherwise allow only single phonemes) and the multi-phoneme significance of a simple sound.

A very significant place in Trubetskoy's phonological system is occupied by his classification of oppositions. It was generally the first experience of this kind of classifications. The classification criteria for phonological compositions were: 1) their relationship to the entire system of oppositions, 2) the relationship between the members of the oppositions, 3) the volume of their distinctiveness. According to the first criterion, the oppositions are divided, in turn, according to their "dimensionality" (qualitative criterion) and according to their occurrence (quantitative criterion).

According to the qualitative relation to the entire system of oppositions, phonological oppositions are divided into one-dimensional (if the set of features inherent in both members of the opposition is no longer inherent in any other member of the system) and multidimensional (if the “grounds for comparing” the two members of the opposition extend to other members of the same system) . Oppositions are quantitatively divided into isolated ones (the members of the opposition are in relation to those that are no longer found in any other opposition) and proportional (the relationship between members is identical to the relationship between members of another or other oppositions).

Oppositions differ in relation between members of the opposition: 1) privative (one member differs from another by the presence or absence of a distinctive feature - a “correlative feature”) 2) gradual (members of the opposition differ in varying degrees of the same feature) 3) equivalent (members are logically equal in rights ).

In terms of the volume of the distinctive power of the opposition, they can be constant (if the effect of the distinctive feature is not limited) and neutralized (if the feature loses its phonological significance in a certain position).

Phonemes that form at the same time proportional, one-dimensional and privative oppositions are most closely related, and such an opposition is a correlation.

It must be taken into account that although the classification proposed by Trubetskoy takes into account the phonetic characteristics of phonemes, it is based on the functioning of the entire phonological system of a particular language.

As a special section of the “phonology of the word”, the Prague School of Linguistics identifies morphonology, the object of study of which is the phonological structure of morphemes, as well as combinatorial sound modifications that morphemes undergo in morphemic combinations, and sound alternations that perform a morphemic function.

Along with the synchronic description of phonemes, the Praguers tried to define the foundations of diachronic phonology, based on the principles: 1) no change in a phoneme can be accepted without reference to the system, 2) every change in the phonological system is purposeful. Thus, de Saussure's thesis about the insurmountable barriers between synchrony and diachrony was refuted.

The significance of the works of representatives of the Prague school on "phonological geography", based on the application of the method of "analytical comparison" and directed against the thesis of neogrammarists regarding the expediency of comparative study of only related languages, lies in the fact that they laid the foundation for modern typological research.

Phonology (from Greek phōnē - sound + logos - word, doctrine) is a branch of linguistics that studies the sound side of the language in its functional significance, in other words, the theory of phonemes.

The central place in phonology is occupied by the doctrine of the phoneme as the shortest (indivisible in time) unit of the sound side of the language, which has a distinctive (distinctive, semantic) ability (crowbar, com, rum, volume, catfish, etc.).

General phonology deals with the analysis of the essence of the phoneme, elucidating the relationship between the phoneme as a sound unit and the sounds representing the phoneme in the flow of speech, on the one hand, and between the phoneme and morpheme, phoneme and word, on the other. It establishes the principles and methods (rules) for determining the composition (inventory) of the phonemes of a language, as well as the oppositions in which they are located, and the connections that exist between individual phonemes or their groups, which make up a single system of phonemes - a phonological, or phonemic, system. .

The scope of the concept of "phonology" in different linguistic schools is defined differently.

However, any of them deals with the variability of the phoneme, establishes a system of phonemes and their modifications.

Phonology originated in Russia in the 70s. 19th century Its founder was I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, who introduced the concept of "phoneme" (a unit of language), contrasting it with the concept of "sound" (a unit of speech).

The successor of the ideas of the scientist of the late period was his student L.V. Shcherba, who in 1912 revealed the sound factors that determine the articulation of speech into phonemes and pointed to the meaningful function of the phoneme.

Initial ideas of I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay developed N.F. Yakovlev, who made an important contribution to the development of phonology in the early 1920s. 20th century

On the basis of the ideas of these scientists, phonology was further developed and recognized worldwide in the works of the Prague Linguistic Circle.

Major phonological schools

Kazan Linguistic School. Representatives: I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay,N.V. Krushevsky, V.A. Bogoroditsky and etc.

KLSh is a linguistic direction of the 20th century, the main provisions of which are:

building a theory of phonemes: 1st understanding of the phoneme, i.e. the phoneme was understood as a generalized type, as a mobile element of the morpheme; 2nd understanding of the phoneme, i.e. the definition of a phoneme as a mental representation of a sound;
phonetic alternations due to the strict distinction between evolutionary and statistical language learning;
the allocation of phonetic units (coherents and divergents on the one hand, and correlatives and correspondents on the other), which cannot be identified with sounds; attribution of the question of alternation of phonemes to the "theory of alternation" and on the basis of historical alternations the creation of a new science - morphonology - and the introduction of the concept of "morphoneme".

Moscow phonological school. Representatives: R.I. Avanesov, P.S. Kuznetsov,A.A. Reformatsky, V.N. Sidorov, A.M. Sukhotin, N.F. Yakovlev, M.V. Panov and etc.

IPF is a linguistic trend of the 20th century, the characteristic features of which were:

1st understanding A.I. Baudouin de Courtenay formed the basis of the Moscow phonological school, as a result, the phoneme is determined by the morpheme, the phoneme is understood as a series of positionally alternating sounds that may not have any common phonetic features;
the starting point in the views on the phoneme is the morpheme, i.e. the phoneme was determined through the morpheme: the identity of the morpheme determines the boundaries and scope of the concept of the phoneme, and the sounds of weak positions are combined into one phoneme not by their acoustic similarity, but by their functioning as part of the morpheme (in the words valY and voly, unstressed vowels, despite the identity of the sound, represent different phonemes, because in the first case there is a phoneme<а>(cf. shaft), and in the second - the positional version of the phoneme<о>(cf. ox); the final consonants in the words fruit and raft represent different phonemes, because in the first case, the positionally transformed phoneme<д>(cf. fruits), and in the second - a phoneme<т>(cf. rafts));
the definition of two main functions of phonemes: perceptual (the ability of a phoneme to identify) and significative (i.e., the ability of a phoneme to distinguish morphemes);
differentiation of types of alternation - crossing (options) and parallel (variations) types;
theoretical development of the concepts of "neutralization" and "hyperphoneme";
consider soft [g '], [k '], [x '] variations<г>, <к>, <х>, as well as [s] - a variation<и>;
distinction between a phoneme in a narrow sense, the so-called strong phoneme, formed by the main type of a phoneme and its variations - members of a parallel (non-intersecting) alternation, and a phoneme in a broad sense, the so-called phonemic series, a set of sounds formed by the main type of a phoneme and its variations - members of a non-parallel (intersecting) alternation, i.e. identified strong and weak positions of phonemes.

St. Petersburg (Leningrad) phonological school. Representatives: L.V. Shcherba, M.I. Matusevich, L.R. Zinder, L.V. Bondarko and etc.

SPFS is a linguistic direction of the 20th century, the main provisions of which were:

2nd understanding of the phoneme A.I. Baudouin de Courtenay formed the basis of this school, where the phoneme is defined as a historically formed sound type that serves to distinguish between words, to create words that are potentially related in meaning;
when defining the concept of phonemes, they proceed from the word form, in which, according to the physiological and acoustic feature, the shortest sound units are distinguished (in the word wol, the vowel phoneme is<о>, in another form of the same word oxen in an unstressed position, in accordance with the sound, a phoneme is distinguished<а>; in word forms fruits and rafts, consonant phonemes in the final syllable -<д>and<т>, but in the original form of these words, fruit and raft have the same final consonant phoneme<т>);
believe that soft [g '], [k '], [x '] are not variations<г>, <к>, <х>and [s] - not a variation<и>, but the actual phonemes;
the absence of the concepts of phonetic variants and variations (the phoneme is close to the sound and is determined by the sound in speech), however, the phoneme shades are distinguished - combinatorial and positional.

Prague Linguistic School(Prague linguistic circle, school of functional linguistics). Representatives: Czechs - V. Mathesius, B. Gavranek, B. Palek, B. Trnka,J. Vahek, V. Skalichka, Russians - N.S. Trubetskoy, S.O. Kartsevsky, R.O. Jacobson, FrenchA.Martine and etc.

PLS is a structural-functional direction in linguistics of the 20-40s. XX century, creatively combined interest in the internal correlation of language units, their semiological nature with attention to their extralinguistic functions and connections with extralinguistic reality (considers the language in connection with the general history of the people and its culture).

Achievements of PLS in the field of phonology, in particular in his work "Fundamentals of Phonology" N.S. Trubetskoy singled out the provisions:

distinguished between phonetics and phonology on the basis of units of speech (phonetics) and language (phonology);
defined the phoneme as a scientific abstraction realized in its pronunciation variants: “a set of phonologically significant features characteristic of a given sound formation”;
substantiated the concept of a phonological system, outlined the main sound functions: culminative (vertex-forming), delimitative (delimiting), distinctive (sense-distinguishing);
in phonemes, he singled out distinctive (differential) features that make up the content of phonemes;
singled out the method of opposition (lat. oppositio - opposition) as one of the leading ones in the field of studying the properties of the phoneme;
developed a system of oppositions.

Thus, the differential features of phonemes are manifested using the opposition method:

a) relations between members of the opposition:

privative - when one member of the opposition has a sign, while the other does not:<в>and<ф>, <д>and<т>;
gradual - one sign can manifest itself to a greater or lesser extent (longitude and brevity of sound):<ā>and<ă>, <д:>and<д>;
equipotent - the members have a completely different set of features: and<ц>, <п>and<р>.

Members of the opposition form a correlative pair.

b) base according to the volume of semantic power:

constant - in a certain environment, phonemes retain their characteristics:,<у>,<н>;
neutralizable - in a certain environment, phonemes lose their features and retain only common features:<б>, <э>, <з>.

These oppositions are transferred to other levels of language learning. It is important to study the syntax.

Phonemes are the smallest units of a language, because it is impossible to divide them into smaller units sequentially pronounced in the speech chain. At the same time, the phoneme consists of a number of features that do not exist outside the phonemes, but are found only in the unity of the phoneme, for example, a sign of voicedness, nasality, etc. Signs play a different role, they are divided into:

differential (distinctive) signs - only on this basis does any phoneme differ from another, for example, deafness-voicedness (house - volume).

integral (indistinguishable) signs - these signs only "fill" the composition of the phoneme, since there is no other phoneme in the language that is directly and unambiguously opposed according to this sign, for example, the sign of explosiveness in Russian<г>, because in Russian there is no slot<γ>.

Phonemes in teaching Moscow Phonetic School independent sound differences are called, which serve as signs of distinguishing the words of the language, in other words, the minimum components of the sound shells of the minimum sign units - morphemes. Since a morpheme is understood as a set of alternating morphs, a phoneme appears as a set of sounds alternating in the composition of morphs according to phonetic rules. If the alternation is determined not phonetically, but morphologically (as in Russian it drives - I drive) or lexically, the alternating elements are not part of the phoneme, but part of the morphoneme (morphophoneme). It should be noted that the status of independent linguistic units is not recognized for morphonemes, and morphonology is considered not a separate level of language, but a special area included in both phonology and morphology; from the phenomena of the first it is distinguished by the conditionality of morphological conditions instead of phonetic positions, from the phenomena of the second - the absence of significance inherent in morphemes.

Each phoneme is realized in certain varieties, each of which appears in certain phonetic conditions; in the same position, the same variety always appears, in different positions - different ones.

As follows from the definition of a phoneme as a series of positionally alternating sounds (possibly including zero sound), in order to assign different sounds to one phoneme, it is necessary and sufficient that the sounds be in an additional distribution (distribution) depending solely on phonetic positions and occupy the same the same place in the same morpheme. The phonetic proximity of sounds does not play a role in their assignment to one or another phoneme. Such a criterion is called morphological.

Phoneme functions

According to the teachings of the IMF, the phoneme performs two main functions:

perceptual - to promote the identification of significant units of the language - words and morphemes;

significative - to help distinguish between significant units.

The IPF has developed in detail the theory of positions - the conditions for the use and implementation of phonemes in speech. Within the theory, phonological and morphological positions are distinguished; in the first, the sounds that form one phoneme alternate, in the second, the phonemes that make up the morphoneme alternate.

Another classification makes it possible to single out strong and weak phonetic positions. In strong positions, the functions of the phoneme are not limited; in weak positions, they are limited. In accordance with the functions of the phoneme, perceptual and significative positions are distinguished. In a significatively and perceptually strong position, otherwise called absolutely strong, where the sound realizing the phoneme does not experience reduction and the influence of neighboring sounds, the main variant of the phoneme appears. In a perceptually weak position, the perception of a phoneme is difficult due to the deviation of its implementation from the main representative, however, the neutralization of this phoneme with any other does not occur. Variations of phonemes appear in perceptually weak positions.

Supporters Leningrad Phonetic School It is believed that the task of phoneme theory is to explain the fact that some sound differences are noticed by speakers and are evaluated by them as significant, while others, no less phonetically, are usually not noticed by native speakers.

The phoneme in LFS is defined as the shortest (indivisible in time) sound unit of a given language, capable of being the only means of distinguishing between signifying morphemes and words in it. The definition of a phoneme as capable of semantic discrimination allows us to recognize as different phonemes units that do not form a minimal pair, but act in identical phonetic positions. The indication of the semantic-distinctive function makes it possible to oppose the phoneme to the shade (variant) of the phoneme as not having this function and to provide the very possibility of isolating the phoneme in the flow of speech, where the sounds in the articulatory-acoustic relation are not delimited from each other and only the assignment of neighboring sounds to different morphemes or words allows the listener to distinguish between them.

Representatives of LFS understand a phoneme as a “holistic articulatory-auditory image”, therefore, the differential features of phonemes are not thought of as components of phonemes (which is inherent in the phonological concept of N. S. Trubetskoy), but as a classification means for describing a system of phonemes. Leningrad phonologists are not inclined to identify differential features (DP) with the phonetic properties of phonemes, considering DP an abstraction that manifests itself phonetically differently in the case of different phonemes, and point out the importance for the recognition of words by ear and non-differential (integral) features of its constituent phonemes: for example, according to L R. Zinder, pronunciation in Russian. it with the back lingual [ŋ] would make it difficult to recognize this word, although the front lingual articulation is not a DP for the normally pronounced [n] here.

Identification of sounds

According to the teachings of the LFS, different sounds representing one phoneme must occur in unequal phonetic conditions, that is, be in additional distribution. In the case when different sounds occur in the same phonetic position, they should be recognized as representatives (allophones) of different phonemes. At the same time, in order to establish the possibility for different sounds to occur in one position, it is not necessary to resort to consideration of minimal pairs: it is enough to somehow make sure that the difference in sounds is not due to position; so, to determine that in Russian [p] and [b] belong to different phonemes, a pair of mail - barrel is enough.

The unambiguous identification of a sound unit with one or another phoneme is recognized in LFS as possible in any position. Specific units of weak positions, where unambiguous identification would be impossible due to neutralization, like archiphonemesN. S. Trubetskoy or hyperphonemes of the IPF are not recognized, and “the composition of the phonemes of each given word is determined regardless of the composition of the phonemes of other words, including other forms of the same word”; only its sound appearance is important for determining the phonemic composition of a word. The identification of a sound unit with a particular phoneme is carried out by correlating the differential features of the observed unit with the differential features of the phonemes of the language; so, the final [k] in Russian. the horn belongs to the phoneme /k/, despite the alternation with [g] (horns), since it has the same differential features as the phoneme /k/

Supporters of LFS distinguish the following functions of the phoneme:

constitutive - the creation of the sound image of meaningful units of the language (from the side of the speaker);

identification - the other side of the constitutive, which manifests itself when viewed from the side of the listener;

distinctive (distinctive) - the use of the originality of the phonemic composition of meaningful units to distinguish them; is a consequence of the constitutive-identifying function.

Based on Saussure's division of "longue" and "parole", Trubetskoy N.S. creates his own phonological theory, based on the division of the science of sounds into phonology and phonetics: as a field of study of sounds from a physiological-acoustic point of view. Phonology, the subject of which is not sounds, but units of sound structure - phonemes. Phonetics refers to language as a system. Thus, phonetics and phonology, from the point of view of Trubetskoy, are two independent disciplines: the study of speech sounds is phonetics, and the study of sounds is phonology.

The only task of phonetics, according to Trubetskoy, is to answer the question: How is this or that sound pronounced?

Phonetics is the science of the material side (sounds) of human speech. And since, according to the author, these two sciences of sounds have different objects of study: specific speech acts in phonetics and the system of language in phonology, then different research methods should be applied to them. For the study of phonetics, it was proposed to use purely physical methods of the natural sciences, and for the study of phonology, proper linguistic methods.

When establishing the concept of a phoneme - the main phonological unit - N.S. Trubetskoy highlights its semantic function. Thus, the sounds that are the subject of the study of phonetics have a large number of acoustic and articulatory features. But for the phonologist, most of the features are completely unimportant, since they do not function as distinguishing features of words. The phonologist must take into account only what, in the composition of sound, performs a certain function in the system of language. In his opinion, since sounds have a function of distinction and have significance, they should be considered as an organized system, which, in terms of the order of structure, can be compared with a grammatical system.

From the point of view of the Prague School, phonemes are really unpronounceable. Being a scientific abstraction, phonemes are realized in various shades or variants that are pronounceable. But the phoneme itself, as an abstract unity of all shades, is really unpronounceable. Trubetskoy writes: the specific sounds heard in speech are rather only material symbols of phonemes ... Sounds are never phonemes themselves, since a phoneme cannot contain a single phonologically insignificant feature, which is actually not inevitable for a speech sound (Amirova T.A. , 2006).

The most comprehensive and systematic views of the representatives of the Prague School in the field of phonology are presented in the work of N.S. Trubetskoy "Fundamentals of Phonology", which is only the first part of the comprehensive work conceived by the author.

In 1921, Trubetskoy was the first in the history of Slavic studies to propose a periodization of the common Slavic proto-linguistic history, dividing it into four periods. To the first period, he attributed the era of the disintegration of the Indo-European proto-language and the separation of a certain group of “Proto-Slavic” dialects from among its dialects, explaining that “in this era, Proto-Slavic phenomena mostly spread to several other Indo-European dialects, especially often to Proto-Baltic, to which Proto-Slavic is closer Total. The second period can be characterized as an era of complete unity of the “common Slavic proto-language”, which was completely isolated from other descendants of Indo-European dialects, which did not have any common changes with these dialects and at the same time was devoid of dialectal differentiation. The era of the beginning of dialect stratification should be attributed to the third period, when, along with general phenomena, covering the entire Proto-Slavic language, local phenomena also arose, spreading only to separate groups of dialects, but they did not numerically prevail over general phenomena. In addition, during this period, the dialect groups themselves “have not yet had time to establish final strong ties with each other (for example, the West Slavic group as a whole does not yet exist, but instead of it there are two groups - the Proto-Lussian-Lechitic, pulling to the east, and the Proto-Czechoslovak, pulling south). The fourth period is the era of the end of dialect fragmentation, when general phenomena occur much less frequently than dialectical (dialect) phenomena, and groups of dialects turn out to be more durable and differentiated.

N.S. Trubetskoy was one of the first to substantiate the need for a tripartite approach to the comparative study of languages: the first - historical and genetic, the second - areal-historical (language unions, language zones), the third typological - and showed their application in a number of his works, among which stands out the final work on general phonological typology. In this area, in addition to many universals (they were later studied by J. Greenberg and other scientists), N.S. Trubetskoy revealed a number of more particular, local patterns. Thus, in the same article on the Mordovian and Russian systems of phonemes, he demonstrated an important phonological principle, according to which the similarity of the inventory of phonemes does not determine the similarity of their phonological functions and combinatorial possibilities. The latter in the Mordovian language are completely different than in Russian.

Although the interests of the young Trubetskoy lay in the plane of ethnography, folklore and comparison of the languages of the Ural, "Arctic" and especially the North Caucasian. He, according to his autobiographical notes, nevertheless decided to choose Indo-European studies as the subject of university studies, since this is the only well-developed area of linguistics. After classes at the philosophical department and at the department of Western European literatures, where he stayed for a year (from the 1909/10 academic year), N. S. Trubetskoy studies at the then newly created department of comparative linguistics (primarily Sanskrit and Avestan).

At the same time, understanding phonology as “the doctrine of the sounds of a language, common and constant in the minds of its speakers”, and phonetics as the doctrine of the particular manifestation of the sounds of a language in speech, which has a one-act character.

It should be noted that not all representatives of the Prague School of Linguistics shared exactly this opinion about the relationship between these two disciplines. N.B. Trnka believed that "the phonetician presupposes a language system and strives to study its individual actualization, while the phonologist investigates what is functional in individual speech and establishes elements that are determined by their relation to the whole language system." That is, thus, the main difference between phonology and phonetics for Trnka was the different direction of their research.

Returning to the solution of this problem in the Fundamentals of Phonology, it must be said that Trubetskoy defines three aspects in sound: “expression”, “address”, “message”. And only the third, representative, belongs to the sphere of phonology. It is divided into three parts, the subject matter of which is respectively: culminating language function (indicating how many units, i.e. words, phrases are contained in the sentence), delimitative function (indicating the boundary between two units: phrases, words, morphemes) and distinctive or meaningful, found in the explicative aspect of the language. Trubetskoy recognizes the semantic-distinctive function as the most important and necessary for phonology, assigning a special section to it.

1) If in a language two sounds in the same position can replace each other, and the semantic function of the word remains unchanged, then these two sounds are variants of the same phoneme.

2) And, accordingly, vice versa, if the meaning of the word changes when the sounds are replaced in one position, then they are not variants of the same phoneme.

3) If two acoustically related sounds never occur in the same position, then they are combinatorial variants of the same phoneme.

4) If two acoustically related sounds never meet in the same position, but can follow each other as members of a sound combination. In a position where one of these sounds can occur without the other, they are not variants of the same phoneme.

1) its main parts are not distributed over two syllables;

2) it is formed by means of one articulatory movement;

3) its duration does not exceed the duration of other phonemes of the given language.

The following describe the phonological conditions for the one-phoneme significance of sound combinations (potentially one-phoneme sound complexes are considered actually one-phoneme if they behave like simple phonemes, that is, they occur in positions that otherwise allow only single phonemes) and the multi-phoneme significance of a simple sound.

1) their relation to the whole system of oppositions;

2) the relationship between members of the opposition;

3) the volume of their distinguishing ability.

According to the first criterion, the oppositions are divided, in turn, according to their "dimensionality" (qualitative criterion) and according to their occurrence (quantitative criterion).

On relations between members of the opposition:
Privat oppositions: one member of the opposition is characterized by the presence, and the other by the absence of a feature: [e] - [n] - everything is the same, except for nasality.

Gradual - the sign is graduated: the degree of rise in vowels.

Equivalent (equivalent), where each of the members of the opposition is endowed with an independent feature: [p] - [w] - one labial-labial, the other - labial-tooth.

Permanent and neutralized oppositions: [deaf] - [voiced] in Russian - a neutralized opposition (the phenomenon of stunning - voicing), and in German and English these oppositions are permanent.

Along with the synchronic description of phonemes, the Praguers tried to define the foundations of diachronic phonology, based on the principles:

1) no phoneme change can be accepted without recourse to the system;

2) every change in the phonological system is purposeful.

Thus, de Saussure's thesis about the insurmountable barriers between synchrony and diachrony was refuted.

I. Definition of phonology.

Phonology- a branch of linguistics that studies the structure of the sound structure of a language and the functioning of sounds in a language system. The basic unit of phonology is the phoneme, the main object of study is oppositions ( opposition) phonemes, which together form the phonological system of the language.

Unlike phonology, phonetics studies the physical aspect of speech: articulation, acoustic properties of sounds, their perception by the listener (perceptual phonetics).

Ivan (Jan) Alexandrovich Baudouin de Courtenay, a scientist of Polish origin who also worked in Russia, is considered the creator of modern phonology. An outstanding contribution to the development of phonology was also made by Nikolai Sergeevich Trubetskoy, Roman Osipovich Yakobson, Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba, Noam Khomsky, Morris Halle.

II . Basic concepts of phonology

The basic concept of phonology is phoneme, the minimum linguistic unit, which primarily has a semantic-distinctive function. The manifestation of a phoneme in speech is a background, a specific segment of sounding speech that has certain acoustic properties. The number of backgrounds is potentially infinite, but in each language they are distributed among different phonemes depending on the structure of each phonological set. Phonemes belonging to the same phoneme are called allophones.

The key role in phonology is also played by the concept opposition(opposition). Two units are considered opposed if there are so-called minimum pairs, that is, pairs of words that do not differ in anything other than these two units (for example, in Russian: tom - house - com - rum - catfish - nom - scrap). If two given backgrounds enter into such an opposition, they refer to different phonemes. On the contrary, if two backgrounds are in additional distribution, that is, they do not occur in the same context - this is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for assigning them to the same phoneme. So, in Russian they never occur in the same context [a] (as in the word uterus) and [ä] (as in the word crush): the first sound is pronounced only between hard consonants (and / or vowels), the second - only between two soft consonants. Thus, they can refer to one phoneme and be its allophones (if other necessary conditions are met). On the contrary, in German, similar sounds are opposed in a stressed syllable: Apfel"Apple", Äpfel"apples", and therefore they refer to different phonemes.

Phonological system of the language- an internally organized set of its phonemes connected by certain relationships.

Oppositions phonemes form oppositions (according to the deafness / sonority of phonemes<п> – <б>or hardness/softness of phonemes<с> – <с’>).

Comparison phonemes in oppositions is based on a comparison of their features - differential and integral.

Integral signs of phonemes form the basis of the opposition, and differential form opposition, for example, in phonemes<т>and<д>integral features (i.e., common to both phonemes) are explosiveness, anterior lingualism, hardness, and differential (i.e., distinctive) - deafness (for<т>) and sonority (for<д>).

backgrounds- specific instances of the implementation of the phoneme (and its variants), instances of sounds used in millions and billions of statements by thousands or millions of native speakers of the corresponding language.

In articulatory-acoustic terms background, i.e. representative of a phoneme in speech, is not delimited by anything from the adjacent background, a representative of another phoneme. Sometimes they partially overlap, overlap each other, so a person who does not know a given language is not always able to distinguish and understand them.

III. Main phonological schools:

1. Leningradskaya

The founder, Academician Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba, worked in the first half of the 20th century. He and his students focused on the task of teaching foreign languages, setting the correct pronunciation.

The school proceeds from the understanding of the phoneme as a sound unit with a meaningful function. Uses the criterion of phonetic similarity (identity) as a criterion for identifying phonemes.

Most foreign language textbooks in their phonetic part use the concepts and terminology developed by Shcherba. Shcherba's phonological theory itself was best presented in his textbook Phonetics of the French Language. In the future, these same concepts were supported by researchers involved in the instrumental study of sound speech and the design of automatic speech recognition systems.

2. Moscow

A prominent representative of this school is Alexander Alexandrovich Reformatsky. The main works in which the views of this trend are formulated are devoted to the description of the native (Russian) language. Initially, the phonological school considered its constructions as the only true doctrine of the sound structure of the language.

With the passage of time, however, the tendency to comprehensively discuss problems and synthesize phonological theories prevailed.

Ruben Ivanovich Avanesov, one of the IDF founders, made the first attempt at such a synthesis. He put forward the concept of “weak phonemes”, which, along with “strong” ones, are part of linguistic signs.

Weak phoneme of Avanesov is a set of differential features that must be specified to determine the sound in a given position. They are associated with commands to the executive organs of speech, in order to create one or another acoustic effect.

3. American school

She developed in the early XX century as a school descriptive phonology, which solved the problem of describing the languages of the American Indians. Their concept was close to the views of the Leningrad phonological school. In particular, American scientists most clearly formulated the procedure for dividing the speech stream into phonemes of speech perception.

In the post-war years, under the influence of the advances in computer technology, American linguists for the first time directly raised the question of the technical modeling of language ability. The pioneer of these works was also a native of Russia (or rather from Poland) Naum Chomsky.

His work founded the direction called generative linguistics. Its task is to build a formal model (automaton) for the production of correct statements in a particular language.

The phonological part of the generative theory arose thanks to the work of another Russian, Roman Osipovich Yakobson, who, in connection with the Second World War, emigrated from Prague (where he was a prominent member of the Prague School) to America. Describing the generation (production) of speech, generative phonology naturally came to a concept close to the Moscow phonological school.

The essence of the theory is that linguistic signs, through successive transformations according to language rules, are transformed from an internal representation in the phonemes of speech production into a surface representation by speech sound types. Accepting this terminology, we can call the phonemes of speech production deep phonemes, and the phonemes of speech perception - surface phonemes.

(created on the basis of an essay by Ekaterina Vlasova)

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Phonological theory. Phonological theory of the Prague Linguistic School

Gradual - the sign is graduated: the degree of rise in vowels.

Equivalent (equivalent), where each of the members of the opposition is endowed with an independent feature: [p] - [w] - one labial-labial, the other - labial-tooth.

Permanent and neutralized oppositions: [deaf] - [voiced] in Russian - a neutralized opposition (the phenomenon of stunning - voicing), and in German and English these oppositions are permanent.