Wife- wives

calf – calves

house – houses

[s] - [z]

Connection with Lexicology

It’s only due to the presence of stress in the right place, that we can distinguish certain nouns from verbs. Serves to differentiate parts of speech.

È object – to obÈ ject

È increase – to inÈ crease

È insult – to inÈ sult

È transfer – to transÈ fer

È conduct – to conÈ duct

È abstract – to abÈ stract

Due to the position of word stress we can distinguish between homonymous (омонимы) words and word groups. Phonetics is also connected with Stylistics mainly through intonation.

È blackbird - дрозд

È black È bird – чёрная птица

Two courses of Phonetics in the institutes are introduced:

• Practical Phonetics, which studies the material form of Phonetics phenomena

§ Theoretical Phonetics, which is supposed to discuss those problems of modern Phonetic science which are concerned with teaching of English language.

Phonetics itself is divided into 2 major levels:

• Segmental Phonetics, which is concerned with individual sounds or segments of speech.
• Supersegmental Phonetics, which deals with larger units of connected speech (связная речь) (syllables, words, phrases and texts)

• Special Phonetics, the aim of which to study the sounds of one language at a particular period of time
• General Phonetics, which studies the sound systems of several languages. It’s also a part of General Linguistics.

• Comparative Phonetics, which compares the sound systems of 2 languages
• Experimental Phonetics, which deals with research work

Branches of Phonetics

Phonetics has 4 following branches:

1) ArÈ ticulatory

2) AÈ coustic

3) È Auditory

4) È Functional (linguistic)

Articulatory Phonetics studies speech sounds from the point of view of the articulation and in connections with the organs of speech by which they have produced.

The branch of Phonetics that studies acoustic effects produced by the organs of speech is called Acoustic Phonetics.

Both of them use special methods of research work. There are two groups of methods:

1) Methods of direct observation

2) Instrumental methods

Methods of direct observation are applied without special instruments for analyses. In this case an investigator analyses his own speech or the speech of the informant (native speaker).

Instrumental methods were introduced in Phonetics in the second part of the 19^th century. In this case, certain technique and devises are applied. When analyses segmental uses: hand mirror, laryngoscope, photographs, X-ray photographs, gramophone records and the latest technology. If you want to investigate Supersegmental Phonetics you need an intonograph.

Articulatory Phonetics is one of the oldest branches of Phonetics. Articulator research of speech sounds is conducted on the basis of physiology. Talking about physiological system we can distinguish 4 mechanisms:

• Power mechanism (силовой)
• Vibration mechanism
• Resonant mechanism (резонаторный)
• Obstructer mechanism (образования преграды)

The function of the power mechanism is to supply force necessary of the production of speech (breathing mechanism). The function of the vibration mechanism is to generate (порождать) sounds. The function of the resonant mechanism is to modify tones and overtones (обертоны). The function of the obstructer mechanism is to form obstructions to the stream of air.

“Articulatory basis” (артикуляционная база) was introduced by the Russian linguist – a set of pronunciation tendencies characterizing speech gestures (работа органов речи) with a special reference to members of a given language community.

Auditory Phonetics is concerned with auditory impressions made by Phonetics’ segments. The method used in Auditory Phonetics is called the listener’s test (аудиторский анализ).

Functional Phonetics or Phonology is concerned with the meaningful value of articulatory, acoustics and auditory features. Phonetics is older than Phonology (1850^th). The foundation of Phonology was laid down by Иван Алексеевич Бодуен де Куртене.

Nowadays Phonetics is sharply divided into Phonetics and Phonology. They are closely related and independent. They are two different sizes of the same coin. The central category of Phonology is phoneme. A sound and a phoneme are also two different sizes of the same coin.

Phoneme – is the smallest, further indivisible (более неделимая) language unit that exists in the speech of all the members of the given language community as such speech sounds which are capable of distinguishing one word from another one or one grammar form of a word from another one of the same word. (профессор Васильев). Phoneme – a minimum linguistic unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds.

3 aspects of the Phoneme:

• Material (real and objective)
• Abstractional and generalize
• Functional