The phoneme theory in different countries

• Phoneme


  The basic sound units that can differentiate words and convey meaning. They are limited in number and are defined in a contrastive sense.
• Allophone


  Variants of a phoneme that are influenced by different phonetic environments. Allophones do not carry distinct meanings and usually occur in different positions within words. The number of allophones is virtually unlimited because variations can occur due to phonostylistic, dialectal, and individual factors.
• The phoneme theory was first formulated at the end of the 19th century by Prof. I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay.
• Phonological schools in Russia

  • Moscow school
  • St. Petersburg school
• Moscow school


  • Investigated the phoneme mostly on the basis of the Russian language
  • Considered that the same speech sound may belong to different phonemes (they believed that луг-лук were pronounced identically)
• St. Petersburg school


  • Investigated the problem on the basis of foreign languages
  • Believed that /k/ in луг-лук were allophones of the /k/ phoneme
• Phoneme theory in America

  • Headed by Leonard Bloomfield and Edward Sapir
  • L. Bloomfield's definition: "...a minimum unit of distinctive sound - features..."
  • Tend more and more to develop an abstractional view of the phoneme
• According to Ch.F. Hockett, language may be compared to any system of codes, such as the Morse code or transmission of messages by means of waving flags.
• Archiphoneme


  A combination of distinctive features common to two phonemes
• Archiphoneme


  • /k/ and /г/ (in the words "лук","луг" and "кот", "год") differ only by the work of the vocal cords but possess the following identical features: (1) plosive, (2) back lingual
• London School of Phonology


  • Headed by Prof. Daniel Jones
  • Represents the physical conception of the phoneme
  • His definition: "phoneme is a family of sounds in a given language which are related in character and are used in such a way that no one member ever occurs in a word in the same phonetic context as any other member."