Phonetics as a branch of linguistics. Speech apparatus

Phonetics(from the Greek. phone) - a section of linguistics that studies the sound side of the language, i.e. methods of education (articulation) and acoustic properties of sounds, their changes in the speech flow, their role in the functioning of language as a means of communication between people, as well as stress and intonation.

You can study the phonetics of a language for different purposes, in different aspects. Depending on this, general and specific, descriptive and historical phonetics are distinguished.

General phonetics on the material of various languages, he considers the methods and nature of the formation of speech sounds, the nature of vowels and consonants, the structure of a syllable, types of stress, etc. The sound structure of a particular language is studied private phonetics.

Descriptive (synchronic) phoneticsexplores the sound structure of a particular language at a certain stage of its historical development. Historical (diachronic) phonetics studies changes in the phonetic system that have occurred over a more or less long period of time.

Phonetics as one of the levels of the language system has its own specifics.

Sound units of the language (sounds), unlike its other units - morphemes, words, phrases, sentences - do not have meaning. The word has a certain meaning, the suffix brings meaning to the word (for example, -tel, -ik). But we cannot establish the meaning of the vowel [o] or consonant [d], they do not have an independent meaning. However, sounds serve to form other linguistic units - lexical, grammatical (words and morphemes, phrases and sentences). Therefore, they say that the sound side of a language does not exist by itself and not for itself, but in the grammar and vocabulary of the given language. Sound units and their combinations are implemented in vocabulary and grammatical structure, i.e. play a certain functional role.

Sound and letter

Writing is like a garment for oral speech. It conveys spoken language.

The sound is pronounced and heard, and the letter is written and read.

Lack of distinction between sound and letter makes it difficult to understand the structure of the language. IA Baudouin de Courtenay wrote: whoever mixes sound and letter, letter and language, “he will only with difficulty unlearn, and perhaps never will never unlearn, mix a person with a passport, nationality with the alphabet, human dignity with rank and rank”, those. entity with something external .

Sound as an object of phonetics

The focus of phonetics is sound.

Sound is studied from three sides, in three aspects:

1) the acoustic (physical) aspect considers the sounds of speech as a kind of sounds in general;

2) articulatory (biological) studies the sounds of speech as a result of the activity of the speech organs;

3) the functional (linguistic) aspect considers the functions of speech sounds;

4) the perceptual aspect studies the perception of speech sounds.

The work (set of movements) of the speech organs in the formation of sound is called articulation of sound.

Sound articulation consists of three phases:

    Excursion (attack) - the organs of speech move from the previous position to the position necessary for pronouncing the given sound (Panov: "the exit of the organs of speech to work").

    Excerpt- the organs of speech are in the position necessary for the pronunciation of the sound.

    Recursion (indent) - the organs of speech get out of the busy position (Panov: "leaving work").

The phases interpenetrate each other, this leads to various kinds of changes in sounds.

The set of movements and positions of the organs of speech habitual for speakers of a given language is called articulatory base.

Phonetics deals with the sound material of human speech. Phonetics studies the sound composition, sound structure and sound changes in the language and the patterns of these changes (from the Greek phone - voice).

In the sound composition of each language, phonemes are distinguished - the main units of the sound system and their varieties.

The first to develop the concept of a phoneme was a professor at Kazan University, Baudouin de Courtenay. He emphasized that the allocation of a phoneme is possible only when the entire system of phonemes of a given language is taken into account. Sound outside the system will not be the system. The sound system of any language consists of a certain number of phonemes. They themselves do not possess meanings, but are potentially associated with meaning as elements of a single sign system. In combination with each other and often separately, they provide recognition (identification) and discrimination (differentiation) of linguistic signs as significant units. So, due to the different composition of phonemes in Russian words, genus and glad, it is possible to recognize and distinguish these words, English. - but - boot.

Phonemes perform their function of distinguishing words or word forms on the basis of their distinctive features. These features are distinguished among phonemes as a result of their opposition to each other in the system of one or another language. Therefore, in different languages, distinctive features may be different. So, for the Russian language, it is very important to contrast the consonant phonemes in terms of hardness - softness (compare: was - beat, vases - elms, garden - sit down). There is no such opposition in English and French. In the Russian language there is no opposition of vowels in terms of longitude - brevity, and, for example, for the English language such opposition is very important.

Nowadays they talk not just about phonetics, but about phonetic sciences, each of which has its own subject and its own point of view on the sound structure of the language.

Phonetics in a broad sense considers:

1) how sounds are pronounced, more precisely, what is the physiological process of creating sound (the so-called articulation of sound), on the one hand, and 2) what are the acoustic properties of the sounds of the language, on the other hand,

3) how all these sound units and sound phenomena are used in language as a means of communication.

Phonetics in the narrow sense considers these sound means in such aspects as physical (acoustic) and biological (articulatory plus perceptual). Sometimes it is divided into articulatory phonetics, which studies the production of sound, acoustic phonetics, which studies the result of sound production, and auditory (or perceptual) phonetics, which deals with the perception of sound.

Synchronous and historical (diachronous)

Descriptive and normative

Theoretical and applied.

What is the point of studying the acoustic and physiological properties of sound? When learning new languages \u200b\u200b(or teaching someone a language), you need to take into account the properties of the sounds of this language. It is also important to know them when developing an alphabet for a non-written language. The importance of phonetics for speech therapy is generally recognized. In all these cases, the applied, practical meaning of phonetics is clearly visible.

But what is the significance of phonetics as a linguistic theoretical discipline? The theoretical meaning of studying the sound side of a language is that without taking sound changes into account, it is impossible to give a scientific history of either vocabulary or grammatical structure. It is impossible to understand sound changes without knowing the properties of sounds.

Sound characteristic

From an acoustic point of view, sound is the result of vibrations of an elastic body transmitted by an air medium. The human ear perceives sounds if the number of vibrations is not less than 16 and not more than 20 thousand per second. (if the number of vibrations is more than 20 thousand, then they are perceived as a sensation of pain in the ears).

Tones and noises are generated depending on the vibration pattern. Tones are obtained if the oscillation is rhythmic, noises are generated in the absence of rhythm.

The sound is distinguished by strength, pitch, duration and timbre.

The strength of the sound depends on the range of vibration: the larger the swing, the stronger the sound.

The pitch depends on the number of vibrations, the more vibrations per second, the higher the sound.

The duration (length or duration) of the sound depends on how long the oscillation lasts.

The timbre of a sound depends on the relationship between the pitch and the side tones.

With regard to the sounds of human speech, it should be noted:

a) most speech sounds are noisy, do not represent pure tones.

b) the strength of the sound of speech is determined by the force of the pressure of the stream of exhaled air on the vocal cords or other places of the obstacle.

c) the height of speech sounds is determined by the length and tension of the vocal cords. In children, in women, the vocal cords are shorter, the tension is high, the pitch is also correspondingly increased.

d) the duration of vowels is longer than consonants

e) the timbre of speech sounds is determined by the volume and shape of the oral and nasal cavities, as well as the throat cavity.


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6. Phonetics, sound, vowels and consonants

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies the sound side of the language, i.e. ways of forming and changing sounds in speech, as well as their acoustic properties.

Sound as a unit of language.

Sound is the smallest indivisible unit of speech that is the result of a person's articulatory activity.

Vowel and consonant sounds.

All sounds in Russian are divided into vowels and consonants. Vowel sounds (6 pcs.) Are speech sounds, during the formation of which the air stream freely passes through the vocal cords, they consist mainly of a voice tone with a complete absence of noise.

Table 1.

RiseFrontMediumRearranks of the Upper and Y Sredniy e o Lower a

Note: the rise of the tongue to the sky is a method of education, the row is the place of formation (the place of the rise of the tongue).

Depending on whether the stress falls on the vowel in the word or not, all vowel sounds are divided into stressed (characterized by full pronunciation) and unstressed (reduced) sounds.

Consonant sounds (37 pcs.) Are speech sounds, when pronounced, the air stream encounters various obstacles, they consist of noise or of voice and noise.

From how voice and noise participate in the formation of consonants, consonants are divided into:

Noisy, which, in turn, are divided into voiced (formed by noise with the help of voice): [b], [c], [d] [d] [f] [h] [b "] [c"] [g "] [ q "] [z"]; and deaf (formed only with the help of noise): [n], [f], [k], [t], [w], [s], [x], [q], [h "], [n"], [f "], [k"], [x "]. [t "], [s"].

Consonants are divided into solid ([b], [n], [c], [f], [d], [t], [z], [s], [c], [g], [w], [r], [k], [x], [m], [l], [n], [p]) and soft ([b "], [n"], [c "], [f"] , [q "], [t"], [z "], [s"], [z "] ,,, [m"] [l "], [n"], [p "]).

Consonant sounds can be paired with each other by DEAF-VOICE ([b] - [n], - [n "], [c] - [f], [c"] - [f "], [d] - [t ], [d "] - [t"], [z] - [s], [z "] - [s"], [g] - [w], [z] - [k], [z "] - [k "]) and by HARDNESS-SOFTNESS ([b] - [b"], [n] - [n "]. [B] - [B"], [f] - [f "], [D ] - [D "], [t] - [t"], [z] - [z "], [s] -, [z] - [z"], [m] - [m "], [l ] - [l "], [n] - [n"], [p] - [p "]).

Some consonants are not included in these pairs, they are called unpaired: voiced [l], [l "], [m], [m"], [n], [n "], [p], [p"] ,, deaf sounds [x], [c], [h "], hard sounds [w], [w], [c] and soft [h"], [u "],.

Because of their sound, the sounds [w], [w], [h] are called hissing, and [h], [s] - whistling. The sounds [ts] and [h] are called affrikai. since they are a merged combination of sounds: [ts] and [tsh].

Strong and weak positions of sounds.

In speech, all sounds are either in a strong (pronounced more clearly) or in a weak position. The stressed position is strong for vowels, and the unstressed position is weak (compare to? M - at home?). For consonants, the strong position is in front of the vowels [a], [o], [y], [and], [s], (mushrooms), and the weak is at the end of the owl (mushroom - [grip], position in front of voiced and voiceless consonants, in which consonants paired by voicelessness do not differ (passage [passage]).

Boris Elena
Phonetics as a branch of linguistics

2. Sounds of Russian language

2.1 Vowel sounds

2.2 Consonant sounds

3. Word stress

4. Slogan making

3. Concept phonetic position

4. Positional exchange of vowels and consonants

5. Positional changes of vowels and consonants

Modern russian language is the national language of the Russian people, a form of Russian national culture. It represents a historically formed linguistic community and unites the whole set linguistic means of the Russian people, including all Russian dialects and dialects, as well as various jargons. The highest form of national Russian language is a Russian literary tongue, which has a number of features that distinguish it from other forms of existence language: processing, standardization, breadth of social functioning, general obligation for all members of the team, a variety of speech styles used in various spheres of communication [c].

In the course of modern Russian language presents a number of sections... This is vocabulary and phraseology, phonetics, graphics, spelling, spelling, word formation, morphology, syntax and punctuation.

Phonetics(from Greek phone) - section of linguisticsstudying the sound side language, i.e. methods of education (articulation) and acoustic properties of sounds, their changes in the speech stream, their role in functioning language as a means of communication between people, as well as stress and intonation.

Distinguish between general and specific, descriptive and historical phonetics.

General phonetics based on various languages considers the methods and nature of the formation of speech sounds, the nature of vowels and consonants, the structure of the syllable, types of stress, etc. language is studied by private phonetics.

Descriptive (synchronous) phonetics explores the sound system of a particular language at a certain stage in its historical development. Historical (diachronic) phonetics studies changes in the phonetic systemthat have occurred over a more or less long period of time.

1. Phonetic units of the Russian language.

Sound units phonetics are divided into segment (linear) - sound, syllable, phonetic word, speech tact (syntagma, phrase - and supersigment (nonlinear) - stress and intonation.

The phrase is the largest phonetic unit, a complete statement, united by a special intonation and separated from other phrases by a pause.

Speech beat (or syntagma) most often consists of several words, united by one stress and characterized by the intonation of incompleteness [in].

Phonetic word - a segment of a sound chain, united by one verbal stress.

A syllable is a part of a measure consisting of one or more sounds and pronounced in one exhalation.

Phoneme - sound unit of language, represented by a number of positionally alternating sounds and serving to distinguish and identify significant units language - words and morphemes... Main function phonemes - meaningful. The founder of the phonological theory of Russian language is AND... A. Courtenay, who in the 70s of the 20th century opposed the concept of sound to the concept phonemes [p].

Sound is formed as a result of speech activity, the activity of the human speech apparatus in complex interaction with the central nervous system. Sound is the shortest sound unit in speech.

Sound is studied from three sides, in three aspects:

1.acoustic (physical) aspect examines the sounds of speech in terms of their physical characteristics: longitude, strength, altitude, timbre.

2.Articulatory (biological) studies the sounds of speech as a result of the activity of the organs of speech;

3. Phonological (functional) aspect phonetics studies the linguistic side of sounds proper, that is, their function in the process of communication as signs for the formation of word discrimination

4. the perceptual aspect studies the perception of speech sounds.

Job (set of movements) organs of speech during the formation of sound is called sound articulation.

Sound articulation consists of three phases:

1. Excursion (attack)- the organs of speech move from the previous position to the position necessary for the pronunciation of this sound

2. Exposure - the organs of speech are in the position necessary for the pronunciation of the sound.

3. Recursion (indent)- return of organs to neutral position or transition to articulation of the next sound [b].

The phases interpenetrate each other, this leads to various kinds of changes in sounds.

A set of familiar to speakers of a given language movements and positions of the organs of speech are called the articulatory base.

2. Sounds of Russian language.

Each sound is formed as a result of the activity of the human speech apparatus, in complex interaction with the central nervous system. The air stream coming from the lungs is modeled by vibrations of the vocal cords located in the larynx (vocal source, and obstacles created by the speech organs in the mouth and nose (closing or drawing the lips together, tongue and palate, etc.... - noise source. Acoustic properties (sound effect) sounds depend on the size and shape of the supraglottic cavities, which play the role of a resonator.

2.1. Vowel sounds.

Vowel sounds are speech sounds created by the free passage of an air stream through the vocal cords, consisting mainly of voice (voice tone) with almost no noise. The basis for the classification of vowels by their articulation put:

1) the degree of backrest rise language(way of education): upper vowels lifting: [and], [s], [y]; vowels of medium rise [e], [o]; lower ascent vowel [a];

2) the place of lifting the back language(place of education): front vowels a number of: [and], [e]; middle vowels a number of: [s], [a]; back vowels a number of: [y], [o].

3) participation or non-participation lips: vowels labilized (rounded [o], [y]; unstabilized (unbroken): [a], [e], [and], [s].

By the width of the mouth solution (which is related to the degree of backrest rise language) vowels are divided into broad(acoustically more sonorous): [and]; average (acoustically average sonority): [e], [o]; narrow (less sonorous acoustically): [and], [s], [y] [p].

2.2 Consonant sounds.

Consonant sounds are the sounds of speech, consisting either of one noise, or of voice and noise, which is formed in the organs of pronunciation, where the stream of air exhaled from the lungs meets various obstacles. The classification of consonants is based on the following features. [R]

2) at the place of noise generation,

3) by the method of generating noise,

4) by the absence or presence of softness.

Participation of noise and voice. According to the participation of noise and voice, consonants are divided into noisy and sonorous. Sonorous consonants are called consonants formed with the help of a voice and an insignificant noise: [m], [m "], [n], [n"], [l], [l "], [p], [p"]. Noisy consonants are divided into voiced and voiceless. Noisy voiced consonants are [b], [b "], [c], [c"], [g], [g "], [d], [d"], [g], ["], [z ], [z "], [j],, ["],,, formed by noise involving the voice. To noisy deaf consonants relate: [n], [n "], [f], [f"], [k], [k "], [t], [t"], [s], [s "], [w], ["], [x], [x"], [c], [h], formed with only one noise, without the participation of a voice (see § 62).

Place of noise generation. Depending on which active speech organ (lower lip or tongue) dominates in the formation of sound, consonants are divided into labial and lingual. Taking into account the passive organ in relation to which the lip articulates or tongue, consonants can be labial [b], [n] [m] and labiodental [c], [f]. Lingual are divided into front-lingual, middle-lingual and back-lingual. Front-lingual can be dental [t], [d], [s], [z], [c], [n], [l] and palatine-dental [h], [w], [g], [p] ; middle-lingual - middle palatine [j]; posterior lingual - posterior palatine [g], [k], [x].

Noise generation methods. Depending on the difference in the methods of generating noise, the consonants are divided into stopping [b], [p], [d], [t], [g], [k], slotted [c], [f], [c], [z ], [w], [w], [j], [x], affricates [q], [h], checkpoints: nasal [n], [m], lateral, or oral, [l] and trembling (vibrants) [R].

The hardness and softness of consonants. Absence or presence of softness (palatalization) determines the hardness and softness of the consonants. Palatalization (Latin palatum - hard palate) is the result of the middle palatal articulation language, complementing the basic articulation of the consonant sound. Sounds produced with this additional articulation are called soft, while those without it are called hard.

A characteristic feature of the consonant system is the presence of pairs of sounds in it, correlated in deafness-voicedness and in hardness-softness. The correlation of paired sounds is that in some phonetic terms(before vowels) they differ as two different sounds, and in other conditions (at the end of a word) do not differ and coincide in their sound. Wed: rose - dew and roses - grew [grew - grew]. This is how paired consonants [b] - [p], [c] - [f], [d] - [t], [z] - [s], [g] - [w], [g] appear in these positions - [k], which, therefore, form correlative pairs of consonants for voicelessness.

The correlative series of voiceless and voiced consonants is represented by 12 pairs of sounds. Paired consonants are distinguished by the presence of a voice (voiced) or lack of it (deaf)... Sounds [l], [l "], [m], [m"], [n], [n "], [p], [p"] [j] - unpaired voiced, [x], [c] , [h "] - unpaired deaf. [v].

3. Word stress.

In the speech stream, the stress is phrasal, bar and verbal.

Word stress is the emphasis on pronunciation of one of the syllables of a two-syllable or polysyllabic word. Word stress is one of the main external signs of an independent word. Service words and particles usually do not have an accent and are adjacent to independent words, making up one with them phonetic word.

Russian language forceful (dynamic) stress, in which the stressed syllable stands out in comparison with the unstressed one with a greater tension of articulation, especially of the vowel sound. The stressed vowel is always longer than the corresponding unstressed sound. Russian accent miscellaneous: it can fall on any syllable (get out, get out, get out)... Miscellaneous stress is used in Russian language to distinguish homographs and their grammatical forms (organ - organ) and individual forms of various words (mine - mine, and in some cases serves as a means of lexical differentiation of the word (chaos - chaos) or gives the word a stylistic coloring (well done - well done)... Mobility and immobility of stress serves as an additional means in the formation of forms of the same the words: the stress either remains in the same place of the word (vegetable garden, -a, -y, -th, -e, -y, -ov, etc., or moves from one part of the word to another (city, -a, -u, -om, -e; -a, -ov, etc.)... Mobility of stress ensures the differentiation of grammatical forms (buy - buy, legs - legs, etc.).

Words can be unstressed and weakly struck. Service words and particles are usually deprived of stress, however, they sometimes take on stress, so that a preposition followed by an independent word has one stress: [for the winter], [out of town], [evening].

Weakly struck can be two-syllable and three-syllable prepositions and conjunctions, simple numerals in combination with nouns, the connectives be and become, some of the introductory words.

4. Slogan making.

The structure of the syllable in Russian language obeys the law of ascending sonority. This means that sounds in a syllable are ranked from least sonorous to most sonorous.

Initial and final syllables in Russian language are built on the same principle of increasing sonority.

Syllabic section with a combination of significant words, it is usually stored in the form that is characteristic of each word included in the phrase

A particular pattern syllabic section at the junction of morphemes is the impossibility of pronouncing, firstly, more than two identical consonants between vowels and, secondly, identical consonants before the third (otherwise) consonants within one syllable. This is more often observed at the junction of a root and a suffix, and less often at the junction of a prefix and a root or a preposition and a word.

The recording of oral speech in full accordance with its sound cannot be carried out by ordinary spelling. In spelling, there is no complete correspondence between sounds and letters, the graphics lack the signs necessary to record all the sounds of oral speech. These difficulties are eliminated by a special type of letter, which is called phonetic transcription.

List of references

1. Bondarenko L. V. Phonetics modern Russian language... SPb., 1998

2.Valgina N.S., Rosenthal D.E., Fomina M.I. tongue: Textbook / Edited by NS Valgina - 6th ed., Revised. and add. - M .: Logos, 2002 .-- 528 p.

3. Rosenthal D.E., Golub I.B., Telenkova M.A.Modern Russian tongue... -12 ed., - M .: Iris Press, 2013. -448 p.

Most experts consider phonology (the study of the functional side of speech sounds) as a section (part) of phonetics (the study of the sounds of speech); some view the two disciplines as disjoint areas of linguistics.

The difference between phonology and phonetics lies in the fact that the subject of phonetics is not limited to the functional aspect of speech sounds, but also covers its substantial aspect, namely: physical and biological (physiological) aspects: articulation, acoustic properties of sounds, their perception by the listener ( perceptual phonetics).

Phonetics - a section of linguistics, in which the sound structure of the language is studied, i.e. the sounds of speech, syllables, stress, intonation. There are three sides of speech sounds, and they correspond to three sections of phonetics:

  • 1. Acoustics of speech. She studies the physical signs of speech.
  • 2. Anthropophonics or physiology of speech. She studies the biological signs of speech, that is, the work performed by a person during pronunciation (articulation) or perception of speech sounds.

The subject of phonetics is the close connection between oral, internal and written speech. Unlike other linguistic disciplines, phonetics examines not only the linguistic function, but also the material side of its object: the work of the pronunciation apparatus, as well as the acoustic characteristics of sound phenomena and their perception by native speakers. Unlike non-linguistic disciplines, phonetics considers sound phenomena as elements of a language system that serve to translate words and sentences into a material sound form, without which communication is impossible. In accordance with the fact that the sound side of the language can be considered in the acoustic-articulatory and functional-linguistic aspects, phonetics and phonology are distinguished in phonetics. phonetics sound speech morphemics

Among the linguistic sciences phonetics occupies a special place. Phonetics deals with the material side of language, with sound means devoid of independent meaning.

Distinguish between general and specific phonetics, or the phonetics of individual languages. General phonetics studies the general conditions of sound formation, based on the capabilities of the human pronouncing apparatus (for example, labial, front-lingual, posterior-lingual consonants differ, if we mean the pronouncing organ that determines the main features of a consonant, or occlusive, slotted, if we mean the way of forming a barrier for a passing from the lungs of a stream of air necessary for the formation of a consonant), and also analyzes the acoustic characteristics of sound units, for example, the presence or absence of a voice when pronouncing different types of consonants. Universal classifications of sounds (vowels and consonants) are being built, which are based partly on articulatory, partly on acoustic signs. General phonetics also studies the laws of the combination of sounds, the influence of the characteristics of one of the neighboring sounds on others (different types of accommodation or assimilation), coarticulation; the nature of the syllable, the laws of the combination of sounds in syllables and the factors that determine syllable division; phonetic organization of the word, in particular stress. She studies the means used for intonation; the pitch of the main tone of the voice, strength (intensity), the duration of individual parts of the sentence, pause.

Phonolomy - a section of linguistics that studies the structure of the sound structure of the language and the functioning of sounds in the language system. The main unit of phonology is the phoneme, the main object of research is the opposition ( opposition) phonemes that together form the phonological system of the language.

Phonemma - the minimum unit of the sound structure of the language. The phoneme has no independent lexical or grammatical meaning, but serves to distinguish and identify significant units of the language (morphemes and words).

Phonology studies the social, functional side of speech sounds. Sounds are viewed not as a physical (acoustics), not as a biological (articulation) phenomenon, but as a means of communication and as an element of the language system.

Phonology is often distinguished as a discipline separate from phonetics. In such cases, the first two sections of phonetics (in the broad sense) - speech acoustics and speech physiology are combined into phonetics (in the narrow sense), which is opposed to phonology.