Phoneme my intro

Editor's Notes

• #5: We all know them very well but is it all we know about phoneme? No its notta as simple as it looks like there is much to be explored yet
• #6: Source:
• #8: Sign language: visualsSign writing: graphemehttp://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAPhoneme.htm
• #10: Segments are called discreet bec they are separate and individual and occur in a distinct temporal order.
• #13: Like other linguistic notions, such as “sentence,”“syllable,” and “topic,” what starts out as a relatively unproblematic intuitiveconcept inevitably gets caught up in theory-internal considerations. In the caseof the phoneme, three issues have been particularly contentious: (i) what sort ofentity is the phoneme (physical, psychological, other); (ii) what is the contentof the phoneme; and (iii) how does one identify phonemes?
• #14: SAPIR(1933): “the phonemic attitude is more basic, psychologically speaking,than the more strictly phonetic one,”
• #15: Representing the underspecified phoneme. The remarks concerning Sapir, Jakobson,and Trubetzkoy above suggest a view of the phoneme as having a single representation,from which other variants, or allophones, are derived. Moreover, ifthe interpretation of these proposals given above is correct, it would appearthat this one representation of the phoneme is underspecified, in the sense that itconsists only of contrastive properties (chapter 7: feature specification andunderspecification). Underspecified phonemic representations were proposedby Jakobson and his colleagues (see, among others, Jakobsonet al. 1952 and Jakobsonand Halle 1956). They proposed that contrastive features are assigned by successivelydividing up an inventory until each phoneme has been assigned a uniquerepresentation. This theory has been taken up within generative phonology underthe name Modified Contrastive Specification (MCS; Dresher et al. 1994; D. C. Hall2007; Dresher 2009).
• #17: Jakobson notes (1962: 224) that the presence of /æ/ in Slovak, though “a mere detailfrom a phonetic point of view . . . determines the phonemic make-up of all the shortvowels.” Thus all the short vowels in Standard Slovak come in pairs that contrastin the frontness/backness dimension, so that the vowels /i e æ/ are contrastivelyfront (acute, in terms of Jakobson’s features), and /u o a/ are contrastively back(grave). Lip rounding, though present phonetically in /u/ and /o/, is not contrastiveand therefore does not enter into the phonemic make-up of these vowels.This concept can be illustrated with respect to the phoneme /r/ in three differentlanguages. German has two liquids, /r/ and /l/, which are set apart fromall other consonants by being liquids (3a). Trubetzkoy (1969: 73) observes that thephonemic content of German /r/ is “very poor, actually purely negative: it is nota vowel, not a specific obstruent, not a nasal, nor an l. Consequently, it also variesgreatly with respect to its realization” (see also chapter 30: the representationof rhotics). By “purely negative,” Trubetzkoy means that the contrastivespecifications of /r/ are all the unmarked members of their respective contrasts.He proposes that because /r/ is not contrastively specified for place or specificmanner of articulation, some speakers pronounce it as a dental vibrant, some asa uvular vibrant, some as a noiseless guttural spirant, and it varies a great dealin different contexts as well. By contrast, “Czech /r/ has a much richer phonemiccontent,” because it stands in a relation not only to /l/ but to /Å/ (3b): /r/is distinguished from /Å/ in that it is not an obstruent but a liquid, and from /l/in that it is a vibrant. “For this reason, Czech r is always, and in all positions,pronounced as a clear and energetically trilled sonorant.”3 In Gilyak (also calledNivkh, a language isolate spoken in Russia along the Amur River and on SakhalinIsland) (3c), /r/ is opposed to a voiceless spirant, and the two fall into place as thedental members of a series of oppositions between voiced and voiceless spirants,from which it follows that Gilyak /r/ is always dental (the Gilyak phonemes arelisted as in Gruzdeva 1998: 10).
• #18: Chroneme: word IPA meaning pala /ˈpala/ shovel palla /ˈpalla/ ball
• #21: Bloomfield recognised the need for underlying forms tosimplify the description of morphopho202020nemicalternations.Only later (1939) did he call for a separate discipline calledmorphophonemics whose basic units weremorphophonemes.He chose the forms and used ordered rules to achieve thesimplest possible description.He even set up “artificial” underlying forms to achieve asimpler description.Post-Bloomfieldians were strictly insistent on theseparation of levels (morphophonemics from phonology)and did not accept ordered rules.