Methods and Problems of phonological analysis (p.a.)

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 478.

There are 2 most widely used methods of p.a.: the distributional method - phoneticians consider it is possible to group all the sounds into phonemes according to the 2 laws of phonemic and allophonic distribution (allophones of dif. phonemes occur in the same phonetic context; allophones of the same phonemes never occur in the same phonetic context). If 2 sounds in dif. positions are never occur in the same phonetic context their distribution is complementary: [p]-[ph] –pay. If 2 dif sounds occur in the same position their distribution is contractive: [p]-[b] pit-bit, [l]-[d] lay-day. Thus in Russian [л]-[p] are allophones of different phonemes. They are in contractive distribution: лак - рак. While in Japanese they are in complementary distribution and they don't distinguish words. Sometimes 2 sounds occur in a lang, in the same position, but the speakers are inconsistent in the way they use them. As in the case of the Russian шкап – шкаф, галоши – калоши. In such cases we must take them as free variants of a single phoneme. We could explain it on the basis of "dialect"; the semantic method - it is based on a phonemic rule that the phonemes, can distinguish words and morphemes when opposed to one another. It gives great importance to meaning. The main procedure this method uses is called the communication test. It consists of finding minimal pairs of words or morphemes which are dif by only I phoneme in the same position. [pin – bin – sin - din] – minimal pairs of words with different meaning; [phin – wrong pronunciation, but we can still recognize it]. There are 3 problems of p. a.: the identification of the phoneme inventory of a given lang; the study of interrelationship among the phonemes of the language; the system of phonological opposition.