In any teaching about languages there is such a thing as a phoneme. It may seem strange and incomprehensible to a person far from linguistics. In fact, this is the most important element in the system of general philology.
You can deal with this term by exampleabstract and concrete concepts. The specific sound of human speech is related to the abstract definition of a phoneme. The same person in different situations pronounces the same phoneme in different ways. Therefore, it can be argued that sounds are an unlimited number, while their abstract images are a certain final set in each language.
Proceeding from all this, scientists determine that the phoneme is the smallest semantic unit of speech, which generalizes specific sounds.
It has a form of expression and a form of meaning.This concept is expressed by specific signs (graphemes) and sounds of speech. The phoneme has no lexical meaning, but it bears grammatical. For example, a horse-horse is a different form of a word, as indicated by the phoneme [a], expressed using the letter i.
At the end of the 19th century, the scientist F. de Sosure first introduced this term to scientific use. At that time, he said that the phoneme is a mental image of sound, indicating its subjectivity.
A little later, B. de Courtenay filled this concept with new meaning. He suggested that phonemes can be elementary units of speech. This assumption was proved by L. Shcherba, pointing to the functions of this unit.
Since then, all linguists already know thatis a phoneme and how to select it in the system of a specific language. Scientists began to study the so-called phonetic matrix. It consists of a specific set of phonemes that allow a native speaker to distinguish other people's words and create their own.
If people do not have the same phonetic matrix,they cannot communicate. Therefore, when learning foreign languages, it is very important to constantly listen to its speakers. This allows you to form in your mind an adequate system of phonemes for oral communication.
In linguistics it has traditionally turned out thatthe question “What is a phoneme?” is answered at once by its three sections. The main task of phonetics is the study of the system of abstract speech units of a specific language, their interaction and change under the influence of different phonetic positions.
In phonology, sounds are studied, their waysformations and factors from which they may vary. The concept of phoneme is used here to correlate the abstract and concrete identification of one and the fact of reality. It is phonology that helps determine what determines the formation in the language of a particular phoneme.
Orthoepy is a practical science.She matches phonemes and sounds and makes sure that they match each other. The inconsistency of these concepts is fraught with a change in the entire language system on a global scale, and a simple misunderstanding of people speaking in particular to each other.
Orthoepy develops a set of rules as neededpronounce phonemes to get the sounds that they represent. As a rule, they are known to native speakers on an intuitive level, but sometimes it happens that people can "eat" sounds, erasing the boundaries between phonemes.
Any unit must be allocated according to certain rules. The signs of the phoneme are fairly simple: it is the minimum unit of speech, and it determines the meaning of a word without carrying such a meaning in itself.
The minimality of the phoneme can be proved by dividingspeech flow into the smallest components - sounds. Replacing one sound with another, we get new words. Since the phoneme is a generalized meaning of sound, it can be argued that it is the smallest unit of a language.
Regarding her ability to distinguish words is worthrefer to specific examples. The nose and the knife differ only in one consonant phoneme. Replacing at the end radically changes the lexical meaning of a word from a part of the body of a living being to a kitchen utensil for cutting food.
The words sit and gray in speech have blurryboundaries of phonemes [and-e]. Therefore, the exact lexical meaning of a word can be defined either in context or by placing the word in a form where the phoneme will be in a strong position and will provide the conditions for a clear sound. In this way, differential signs of phonemes appear in any language.
Scientists distinguish only two functions of the phoneme.One exists for the formation of the semantic shell of the word. It is from a permanent set of phonemes that the same units have a lexical and grammatical meaning. Without this permanent system, not a single language in the world can function. The greater the correspondence between phonemes and sounds, the easier it is to master a foreign language. According to this principle, Esperanto was created, where the complete identity between these concepts was maintained.
The second function is distinctive.What is a phoneme in its context, it becomes clear with specific examples. The lexical meaning of the night “night” is radically changed to “female child” (daughter) when only one initial phoneme is replaced.
Grammatical relations are perfectly visible on the example of the endings of a hand (singular) - hands (plural).
Thus, all phonemes are of great importance for the structure of the minimum semantic units of the language and their differentiation.
Фонемы любого языка делятся по нескольким criteria. For the participation of noise and voice emit vowels and consonants. It is sometimes common for vowels to get under stress when the flow of exhaled air is at the highest point of articulation.
In terms of softness, pronunciation is consonant to palatalized and non-palatalized. According to the method of education emit africative and well-slotted. By voicing distinguish deaf and voiced.
Consonant and vowel phonemes can be in both strong and weak positions. The simplicity of their differentiation depends on it.
The same phoneme in a weak position may loseits distinctive function. It depends on the fact that the minimal units of speech standing nearby begin to influence it. The mechanism of this process is quite simple. The speech apparatus of a person in the process of pronouncing a word in a split second must be rearranged for each specific phoneme. If there is a cardinally different unit in a word, or it is an absolute end, then the variant is possible when the speech apparatus does not fit correctly and smears the clarity of the phoneme’s sound in a particular sound.
An example is the word "carrot", where the final sound is heard as soft [f], but in the test word "carrot" you can hear a clear [in].
The situation with vowels [and s] is even more complicated.In a weak position, they become similar to each other, forming a medium-high phoneme. In this case, it is difficult to determine exactly what lexical meaning of the word. This causes speech incidents. Thus, the differential functions of a phoneme strongly depend on its strong or weak position in a word.
In linguistics, strongly intertwined conceptsphonemes, sounds and letters. All this is because they are a reflection of the same fact of reality. The most primary concept in human speech activity is sound. Even prehistoric people published them, starting to form some rudiments of the language.
Only after human beingslearned to communicate with the help of sounds; the concept of phonemes was formed - a certain reproducible set of sounds that has a certain meaning. Of course, the term itself and the understanding of what a phoneme is, came to humanity only at the end of the 19th century.
Letters became necessary to creategraphic symbols of sounds and words. With the development of civilization, people have learned to reflect the minimum unit of speech with the help of written signs. At the same time, in hieroglyphic writing, there is still no designation of specific phonemes. But in the alphabetic system of many languages, there is a striking correspondence between letters and phonemes.
