Notation

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 760.

The abstractional and material aspects of the phoneme have given rise to the appearance of transcription. Transcriptionis a set of symbols representing speech sounds. The symbolization of sounds naturally differs according to whether the aim is to indicate the phoneme, i.e. a functional unit as a whole, or to reflect the modifications of its allophones as well.

The International Phonetic Association (IPA) has given accepted values to an inventory of symbols, mainly alphabetic but with additions. The first type of notation, the broador phonemictranscription, provides special symbols for all the phonemes of a language. The second type, the narrowor allophonictranscription, suggests special symbols including some information about articulatory activity of particular allophonic features. The broad transcription is mainly used for practical expedience, the narrow type serves the purposes of research work. We shall discuss two kinds of broad transcription which are used for practical purposes in our country. The first type was introduced by D. Jones. He realized the difference in quality as well as in quantity between the vowel sounds in the words sit and seat, pot and port, pull and pool, the neutral vowel and the vowel in the word earn.

According to D. Jones' notation English vowels are denoted like this: [i] – [i:], [e]

– [æ], [٨] – [a:], [ɔ] – [ɔ:], [u] – [u:], [ə] – [з:]. This way of notation disguises the qualitative difference between the vowels [I] and [i:], [ɔ] and [ɔ:], [u] and [u:], [ə] and [з:] though nowadays most phoneticians agree that vowel length is not a distinctive feature of the vowel, but is rather dependent upon the phonetic context, that is it is definitely redundant. For example, in such word pairs as hit – heat, cock – cork, pull – pool the opposed vowels are approximately of the same length, the only difference between them lies in their quality which is therefore relevant.

The other type of broad transcription, first used by V.A. Vassilyev, causes no phonological misunderstanding providing special symbols for all vowel phonemes: [i], [i:], [e], [æ], [a:], [٨], [ɒ], [ɔ:], [u], [u:], [ə], [з:].

The narrow or phonetic transcription incorporates as much more phonetic information as the phonetician desires, or as he can distinguish. It provides special symbols to denote not only the phoneme as a language unit but also its allophonic modifications. The symbol [h] for instance indicates aspirated articulation, cf. [kheit] – [skeit].