Phonetics and Phonology

The development of different approaches to the interpretation of a phoneme enriched the linguistic science in general and leads to the appearance within phonetics a separate branch called phonology.

What is the main distinction between phonetics and phonology?

Phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are made, transmitted and received i.e. phonetics is the study of all possible speech sounds. The human vocal apparatus can produce a wide range of sounds; but only a small number of them are used in the language to construct all its words and utterances.

Phonologyis the study of these segmental (speech sound types) and prosodic (intonation) features which have a different value in the language. It studies the way in which speakers systematically use a selection of units – phonemes and intonemes in order to express meaning. It investigates the phonetic phenomena from the point of view of their use.

Within phonology two branches of study are usually recognized: segmental and supra-segmental. Segmental phonology analyses speech into discrete segments such as phonemes. Supra-segmental phonology analyses those features which extend over more than one segment such as intonation contours.

The primary aim of phonology is to discover the principles that govern the way that sounds are organized in languages, to determine which phonemes are used and how they pattern phonological structure of a language.

Phonology also solves:

1. the problem of the identification of the phonemes of the language:

2. the problem of the identification of the phoneme in particular word, utterance;

It establishes the system of phonemes and determines the frequency of occurrence in syllables, words, utterances. The distribution and grouping of phonemes and syllables in words are dealt with an area of phonology which is called phonotactics.

Phonology was originated in the 30s of the 20^th century by a group of linguists belonging to the Prague linguistic school – Vilem Matesius, Nicolai Trubetsoy, Roman Jakobson. The theoretical background of phonology is phoneme theory whose foundations were first laid down by I.A. Bodoine – de- Courtenay (1845-1929) in the last quarter of the 19th century (between the years 1868-1881). The most important work in phonology is THE GROUNDWORK OF PHONOLOGY (1939) by Nicolai Trubetsoy. He claimed that phonology should be separated from phonetics as it studies the functional aspect of phonic components of language. Phonetics is a biological science which investigates the sound-production aspect. Contemporary phoneticians hold the view that form and function cannot be separated and treat phonology as a linguistic branch of phonetics.

Questions and tasks:

1. What is a phoneme? What are allophones?

2. What is the basic method of establishing a phonemic status of a sound?

3. Give detailed characteristics of each approach to the study of a phoneme.

4. What is the difference between phonetics and phonology?

5. Phonology as a separate branch of phonetics.