The interrelationships among the phonemes in “weak” positions
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 448.
The identification of the inventory of phonologically relevant features of a language
Each phoneme is characterized by a certain number of phonologically relevant features, which are its constant distinctive features.
Each allophones of a certain phoneme is characterized by definite phonologically relevant features (which are common to all its allophones) plus a number of irrelevant features (which distinguish the allophone from all the other allophones of the phoneme).
Once the phonemes of a language are established and their phonologically relevant features are determined, there arises another phonological problem: to describe the interrelationships among the phonemes of a language.There are 3 views on the problem.
Scholars who support the morphonological viewpoint (A. Avanesov, P. Kuznetsov, A. Reformatsky and others) claim that a phoneme in a "weak" position may lose one of its distinctive /phonologically relevant/ features and therefore lose its distinctive function. For example, Russian voiced consonants lose their voiced character & are pronounced as voiceless in final position (as in "ëóã" /ê/, «ãëàç» /s/), etc. This leads to the loss of the distinction between /k/ and /g/, or /ê-ã/ and /c/ and /ç/, or / s & z/. Therefore in word final position the phonological oppositions based on the phonologically relevant features «voiced vs voiceless» are neutralized in Russian.
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