Keywords : phonetic, linguistics, grammar, phonetic form.
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics which deals with the ways of forming speech sounds with their acoustic, physiological and semantic properties. Phonetics being a branch of linguistics occupies a peculiar position. It is quite independent and develops according to its own laws. Phonetics is an essential part of the language, because it gives the language a definite form; — the vocabulary and grammar of the language can function only when the language has phonetic form. The reason of this is that the lexical and grammatical forms are expressed phonetically.
Branches of phonetics. English phonetics has several branches, such as:1. General phonetics. 9 2. Special phonetics. 3. Phonology. 4. Historical phonetics. 5. Comparative phonetics. 6. Comparative historical phonetics. General phonetics studies all the sound producing possibilities of human speech apparatus, it finds out what types of speech sounds exist in the languages of the world, and what role they play in expressing thoughts. It gives general conclusions about the phonemic theory, the theory of syllable formation, syntagm, stress and intonation, also about graphical rules and the rules of orthography. So general phonetics provides valuable theoretical material which helps to understand correctly different phonetic phenomena of concrete languages. Special phonetics studies the present phonetic system of a given language, at the given period synchronically. It gives a description of the system of pronunciation of the given individual language. Special phonetics may be subdivided into descriptive and historical phonetics. It is concerned with the study of the phonetic structure of a concrete language as the phonetics of the Turkmen language, phonetics of the Russian language etc. Historical phonetics studies the changes in the phonetic system of a given language at different stages of its historical development. Historical phonetics uses the philological method of investigation, which consists of studying written documents and comparing 10 different spellings of one and the same word. Historical phonetics is very important also for the study of modern phonetics, because without the historical approach it is impossible to understand the modern phonetic system of the language. Comparative phonetics studies the phonetic system of two or more languages comparatively finding out the sameness or differences of the phonetic system of those languages. Practical application of phonetics. Phonetics has a wide field of application. It is widely used in teaching. The children learn to read and write in their mother tongue. They are taught to understand the relations between sounds and letters. The practical importance of phonetics is closely connected with teaching foreign languages. Main methods of teaching foreign languages are based on phonetics. The pioneer of this method is professor Scerba, who introduced it in teaching in the 20th century. The phonetic method of teaching is widely used in correcting speech defects, in teaching dialect speakers of the language. Creating new alphabets and changing orthographical principles are also based on phonetic investigations.
The methods of investigation which are widely used in phonetic investigations are different. We distinguish in phonetics such methods as
1) the method of direct observation;
2) the experimental physiological and experimental acoustic method;
3) the method of substitution and the distributional method;
4) the comparative and comparative historical method;
The method of direct observation is the oldest and the simplest method. It is also called auditory or visual method. It consists of observing the movements and positions of one’s own or other people’s organs of speech in producing various speech sounds. This method comprises three important models of phonetic analysis: by ear, by sight and by muscular sensations. That is why the method of direct observation is called a subjective method. The experimental method is based on the use of special instruments. That is why this method may be called the objective method. They use 12 such instrumental techniques as artificial palate, magnetic tape recorders, photo cameras, kymograph, x-ray photography, and others. The rapid development and great popularity of experimental phonetics during the high development of the technique science gave good results in learning the speech sounds of the language. Now laboratories for phonetic research exist in all higher educational institutions with up-to-date apparatus. Modern computers and other electronic machines for investigations are at the disposal of the linguistic scholars and students.
The method of distributional analysis establishes the distribution of speech sounds. It deals with the distribution of speech sounds of all positions and combinations in which the speech sound can occur in the words of the language, as, for example, the English sounds [η] and [u] never can stand at the beginning of the word. The sounds [æ] and [h] never can come at the end of the words. The English sound combinations [tl] and [dl] always come at the end of the words (little, middle), but they never come at the beginning of the words. The comparative and the comparative historical methods. The comparative method is used for analysis of the phonetic structure of one language with the phonetic structure of another language. With the help of this method we can compare the phonetic structure of two or more languages. As a result of comparison we find out the structure of the compared languages. A good example of the use of this method is Professor Gurdow’s work «Phonetical and morphological typology of English and Turkmen». (Turkmenabat-2000). The comparative historical method is used when we analyze the phonetic structure of one language at different stages of its historical development. We can compare the historical development of the pronunciation of words in old English, Middle English and New English. e.g. OE. man [mΛn] >NE man [mæn]. In this example we can see the pronunciation differences at different periods of the development of the English language. Historical phonetics is used by linguists to show the successive changes in the phonetic system of the language. In their investigations the linguists use the philological method of investigation which consists of studying the existing written documents of different periods of the English language.
The phoneme theory came into being in Russia. Its originator was Professor Baudouin De Courtenay. He is the founder of Kazan linguistic school. His investigations of the phoneme theory may be divided into two periods: The 1 st period. Investigations with the morphological approach. By this method Bedouin tried to analyze the phonemes according to their functions in morphemes, as for example, the morpheme sound interchanges (rise-rose-risen). The morpheme sound interchanges [ai>ou>i] help to form the basic forms of the verb in English. This method of investigation had its followers. N. S. Trubetskoy was influenced by it and continued this method of investigation. The second period. Investigations with the psychological approach. In this approach Baudouin calls the phoneme as a complex perception of a sound. This perception is the result of articulatory muscular movements while producing the sound. This approach to the phonemes did not become widely spread, because this phoneme idea was known to a very few linguists being published in the Polish language.
References:
- Бегмырат Вейисов, Гулалек Бабаева «Фонетика туркменского языка» Ашхабад — 2009 г.
- Е. С. Гейцбург Курс современной лексикологии английского языка
