Chapter 5: Phonological structure: The Phoneme and its allophones. Segmental specification: Distinctive Features in various phono-logical theories 5.1. Individual sounds and classes of sounds. The phoneme and its contrastive function 5.2. Allophones. Complementary distribution and free variation 5.3. The phonological idiosyncrasy of linguistic systems 5.4. Broad and narrow transcription 5.5. Segmental and suprasegmental phonemes 5.6. From the minimal unit of linguistic analysis to the bundle of distinctive features 5.7. Jakobson and Halle's feature system 5.8. Chomsky and Halle's distinctive features 5.9. Ladefoged's feature system 5.10. The use of features for segmental specification and for the description of phonological processes 5.2. Allophones. Complementary distribution and free variation Phonemes are then theoretical constructs, classes of sounds the members of which display obvious phonetic similarities the differences among the respective members being never contrastive or functional. As soon as, in a given linguistic context, this difference becomes functional and represents the basis on which a semantic contrast is achieved, it ceases to be allophonic and becomes phonemic, in other words the respective sounds are members of distinct classes (phonemes). It should be noticed that allophonic differences or variations can be of different kinds. If they result from the occurrence of the phoneme in different environments or contexts (we will call this the distribution of the respective phoneme) we will talk about distributional variation and we will say that the allophones are in complementary distribution. The word " complementary " actually refers to the fact that the contexts in which the allophones of a phoneme appear can never be the same and they cover the whole range of possible environments in which the sound can occur (for an analogous situation think of complementary angles in geometry). In other words, in a given context X only a certain allophone will occur, while in another context Y, another allophone is expected to occur and X and Y are the only contexts in which the allophones can occur. It follows from this that the occurrence of allophones is always predictable since in a certain context we can only expect one and only one realization of the phoneme. In our particular example, in the context of pill – the voiceless plosive /p/ is followed by a stressed vowel and is in syllable-initial position – we can safely say that the aspirated allophone [p h ] will come up. If, on the other hand, p is not syllable-initial and is preceded by s as in spill, we can safely predict that the unaspirated variant of p will occur. The occurrence of different phonemes is, on the contrary, totally unpredictable since it is the very fundamental characteristic of phonemes that they are contrasted in one and the same

The paper deals with the question of identification of phonemes and the nature of the phoneme, the theme that seems to be totally ignored by modern phonology so much that even the term phoneme is no more a cornerstone of phonemic theory. In this paper we are going back to the basics of phonology and phonemic analysis itself, demonstrating that phonemes could be identified only through their sets of (allo)phones and in no case there any anything else than just abstract entities discovered through phonemic analysis of the distribution and alternations of (allo)phones.

Infants have a remarkable ability to perceive all manner of phonetic contrasts. The phonological categories of a language, however, have to be learned from experience. Two learning paradigms are contrasted – supervised learning (where learners receive feedback on their categorization attempts) and unsupervised learning (where learners rely only on properties of the input). It is argued that unsupervised learning may be the appropriate paradigm, at least for the initial stages of acquisition. Thereafter, the emergence of phoneme categories draws on various kinds of knowledge available to the learner, including knowledge of articulation, and of literacy conventions. A concluding section emphasizes the taxonomic nature of the phoneme, and suggests that the special salience of a phonemic representation reflects the status of the phoneme as a basic level category.

Phonetics and Phonology-Basic Definitions Phonology and Phonetics are part of Linguistics. Linguistics is that area of research that analyses Human language and Human communication, from any perspective. In our case, the perspective is specific to sounds. So when we refer to a specific subarea of Linguistics in relation with the study of human sounds, we are really speaking of either Phonetics or Phonology. These terms are used when we describe a research activity related to the study of sounds, but they are not same. So, in the following paragraphs, we will concentrate on the definition of each term separately. Phonetics: Phonetics deals with what takes place once the sounds are actually produced, that is, Phonetics refers to the activity of the vocal tract, the acoustic features of sounds and perception of speech. These three stages also establish three different branches in Phonetics. 1. Articulatory Phonetics: deals with the articulation of sounds. Within articulatory phonetics researchers usually study the different parts and activities of vocal tract and the sounds that can be produced there: vowels and consonants. 2. Acoustics phonetics: deals with physical aspects of sounds, how sounds really are, since, in essence, sounds exist only because there occur disturbances of air particles. 3. Auditory Phonetics: is a branch of phonetics which studies how sounds are perceived, the psychological and neurological implications of such an activity. Phonology: Phonology is description of the systems and patterns of sounds that occur in language. There is a set of sounds which is attributed to every language, whereas the patterns of sounds means the combination of these sounds and other features, for example: syllable, stress, pitch and intonation. Because each language presents its unique set of sounds, these sounds are said to be distinctive sounds. To be distinctive means, by altering a single sound, whole meaning of word can be changed. So the first task of phonology is to determine which sounds can convey a difference in meaning. Problems faced in English Pronunciation: 1. Lack of correspondence between orthography (spellings) and pronunciation. E.g. sit/child, dinner/diner. 2. Interference of mother tongue: Foreigner speakers pronounce the sounds of English as they perceive them in their native language. 3. Lack of recognition of sounds like food, been, tomb, lamb, poem etc. 4. Improper use of length, intonation, stress and pitch. 5. Difficulty in fluent speech due to lack of understanding of sounds production. 6. Listening English language in unreal context leads to misconceptions of spoken language. Factors that can cause pronunciation problems: 1. Lack of confidence 2. Lack of vocabulary 3. The teachers did not focus on the pronunciation 4. Influenced by the surrounding Ways to Overcome: 1. Continuous Practice 2. Listening English language in required (BBC) accent. 3. Watch the English movies containing British accent, and watching BBC news. 4. Assign the teaching and learning process to the native speaker. 5. Understanding how the sound system of English functions. 6. Using audio materials which teach vocabulary and differences between two similar looking sounds. 7. Phonetics and Phonology classes. 8. Qualified phonology teachers. Phoneme: Any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another, for example p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat. Vowels: As indicated earlier, vowel sounds are typically voiced. They are produced with a relatively unconstricted (open) vocal tract. Air flows freely through the vocal tract during their production. Also, the lips may be rounded or unrounded in vowel production.

Infants have a remarkable ability to perceive all manner of phonetic contrasts. The phonological categories of a language, however, have to be learned from experience. Two learning paradigms are contrasted – supervised learning (where learners receive feedback on their categorization attempts) and unsupervised learning (where learners rely only on properties of the input). It is argued that unsupervised learning may be the appropriate paradigm, at least for the initial stages of acquisition. Thereafter, the emergence of phoneme categories draws on various kinds of knowledge available to the learner, including knowledge of articulation, and of literacy conventions. A concluding section emphasizes the taxonomic nature of the phoneme, and suggests that the special salience of a phonemic representation reflects the status of the phoneme as a basic level category.