The acoustic aspect of phonetics is the study of speech sounds in terms of their physical characteristics. Sound is a wave vibration air environment, arising as a result of the movement of any physical body. When producing speech sounds, various speech organs act as moving bodies: elastic muscles in the larynx - vocal cords, as well as the tongue, lips, etc.
The speech signal is complex sound vibrations propagating in the air. The sound of speech is the minimum unit of the speech chain that arises as a result of human articulation and is characterized by certain acoustic properties.
The sources of speech sounds in the articulatory tract are:
Noise (vortex) – narrowing of the pronunciation tract;
Explosive - sharp opening of the bow, change in air pressure.
Acoustics distinguishes the following main characteristics of sound: pitch, strength, duration and timbre.
The pitch of the sound depends on the vibration frequency, i.e. from the number of complete oscillations per unit time. The more vibrations there are per unit time, the higher the sound. The human ear can perceive vibrations ranging from 16 hertz to 20,000 hertz, i.e. distinguishes the pitch of sounds in this range. Sounds below 16 Hz are infrasounds and sounds above 20,000 Hz are not perceived by the human ear. The vocal cords can produce vibrations from 40 Hz to 1700 Hz. In fact, the range of the human voice ranges from 80 Hz (bass) to 1300 Hz (soprano). In speech, the average range of a male voice is 80-200 Hz, a female voice is 160-400 Hz [see. about this Girutsky 2001].
The strength of the sound depends on the amplitude of the vibration. The greater the amplitude of the oscillation, the stronger sound. The strength of sound is measured in decibels. The sounds of the human voice range from 20 dB (whisper) to 80 dB (scream). The human ear can perceive sound strength up to 130 dB. Stronger sounds can cause a person to go deaf.
In terms of perception, the strength of sound is called loudness. Loudness depends not only on the strength of the sound, but also on its height: sounds of the same strength, but different heights are perceived as sounds of different volumes.
Sound duration (longitude) – the duration of a sound in time. The relative length of sounds is important for language. For example, stressed vowels in most languages are longer than unstressed ones. The duration of speech sounds is from 20 to 220 milliseconds.
Oscillatory movements can be rhythmic, ordered and arrhythmic, disordered. Rhythmic vibrations produce sounds of a certain, stable frequency - tones. Arrhythmic vibrations produce sounds of uncertain, unstable frequency - noise. Uniform oscillations are oscillations vocal cords. The result of this vibration is a tone (voice). Uneven vibrations are vibrations of other parts of the speech apparatus, in particular, vibrations of the pronunciation organs in oral cavity at the moment the air stream overcomes one or another obstacle. This sound is called noise.
In speech sounds, tone and noise are often combined into one mixed tone-noise sound. Based on the ratio of tone and noise, speech sounds can be divided into following types:
Tone Tone + Noise Noise + Tone Noise
Vowels Sonorants Voiced consonants Voiceless consonants
From an acoustics point of view, the difference between tones and noises is as follows. air particle can carry out several simultaneously periodic oscillations, having different frequencies ( different quantities oscillations per unit time). If simple oscillations occur simultaneously, the frequencies of which are correlated multiples (in the form proper fractions), then they add up to a complex oscillation, which also turns out to be periodic (i.e., repeating in the same way at regular intervals of time). All complex periodic vibrations are called tones (harmonic sounds).
Non-harmonic sounds (noise) are the result of the addition of such simple vibrations, the frequencies of which have a non-multiple ratio (in the form of infinite non-periodic fractions). Such complex sounds cannot be periodic (it is impossible to find equal time intervals during which a complex vibration would be repeated in the same way) [see about this: Shirokov 1985].
The tonal sounds of speech (vowels, sonorants, voiced consonants) arise from the harmonic vibration of tense vocal cords. Noisy speech sounds (voiceless and voiced consonants) arise when the exhaled air flow overcomes various kinds obstacles created on its way by the pronunciation organs.
To form speech sounds important role plays resonance. Resonance occurs in a closed air environment (for example, in the oral or nasal cavity). The phenomenon of resonance is that the vibration of a sounding body causes response vibrations of another body or air located in a hollow vessel, in confined space. The resonator resonates at a certain frequency of vibrations and amplifies them. Resonance is an increase in the amplitude of a vibration under the influence of other vibrations of the same frequency. For example, the natural sound vibrations of the vocal cords can be amplified by various resonators in the mouth, nose or pharynx. In this case, it is necessary that the vibrations of the resonator coincide in frequency with the vibrations of the vocal cords.
Vibrations of the physical body that creates sound usually occur as a whole and in its individual parts. The tone created by the vibration of the whole body is called the fundamental tone. The fundamental tone is usually the highest in the sound. Tones generated by vibrations of body parts are called partials, or overtones. Overtones have a higher frequency than the fundamental tone. They give the sounds that qualitative characteristics, which is called timbre. Timbre distinguishes one sound from another, as well as the pronunciation of the same sound by different persons.
Due to the movements of the speech organs, the shape and volume of the resonator change, which leads to the appearance of different resonator tones.
The sound of speech is not a simple vibration of an air stream, but the addition of several simultaneous vibrations. Overtones are superimposed on the fundamental tone (this is the lowest frequency component of sound). The number and ratio of these fluctuations to each other can be very different. The ratio of the amplitudes of the different tones that make up a given sound is of great importance. For example, if the fundamental tone of a sound has a frequency of 30 Hz, and the overtones have frequencies of 60, 120, 240, etc. hertz (multiples of the fundamental frequency), then possible different ratios amplitudes of the frequencies of the fundamental tone and overtones. The timbre of a sound depends not only on the number and frequencies of the amplitudes of the overtones layered on the fundamental tone, but also on the ratio of the amplitudes of all tones that form the sound.
All these components are recorded by precise physical instruments, in particular, a spectrograph, which converts air vibrations into electromagnetic ones, and depicts electromagnetic ones in the form of a special picture with a drawn part of the spectrum - a spectrogram.
Complex sound using electroacoustic instruments, it is decomposed into its constituent tones and presented in the form of a sound spectrum. Spectrum – frequency composition of sound. A spectrum is a graphic “portrait” of sound, showing exactly how vibrations are combined in it different strengths and frequencies. Frequency concentration bands—formants—are recorded in the spectrum. The combination of formants and interformant regions gives the sound spectrum. The sound spectrogram is similar to thin shading, in which the formants correspond to denser bunches of lines (see Fig. 5).
Spectrogram of Russian sounds [i] [s]
(See Norman 2004: 213)
The vertical scale shows the vibration frequency in hertz, and the horizontal scale shows the sound strength. The acoustic characteristics of these two vowel sounds are different.
To “identify” and describe speech sounds, the first two formants are usually sufficient. In particular, we can assume that the timbre of sound [i] is determined by a combination of vibrations with a frequency of approximately 500 and 2500 hertz, timbre [s] - 500 and 1500 hertz. For [o] these values are 500 and 1000 hertz, for [y] - 300 and 600 hertz, [a] - 800 and 1600 hertz, etc. And in speech different people these values may vary slightly, depending on the pitch of the pitch, determined by the structure of the speech apparatus. But their ratio remains constant. For example, formants [and] are correlated approximately as 1: 5, formants [o] - as 1: 2, formants [y] - also as 1: 2, but provided that both the first and second formants are lower than those of [ O].
The frequency of formants is in a certain way related to the articulatory properties of vowels. The frequency of the first formant depends on the rise of the vowel (the more open the vowel, i.e. the lower its rise, the higher the frequency of the first formant, for example, in [a] and, conversely, the more closed the vowel, i.e. the higher its rise rise, the lower the frequency, for example, [i], [s], [y]). The frequency of the second formant depends on the vowel row (the more front the vowel, the higher the frequency of the second formant, for example, [and]). Labialization of vowels reduces the frequency of both formants. In accordance with this, the high vowels [i, ы, у] have the lowest first formant in frequency, and the low vowel [a] has the highest first formant. The highest second formant is the non-labialized front vowel [and], and the lowest is the labialized vowel back row[y].
The formant characteristics of consonant sounds are usually more complex. In experimental phonetics, accurate data on the tone and formant composition have been obtained different sounds different languages.
The most important acoustic feature of consonants is the nature of the increase in noise at the beginning of their sound. Based on this feature, plosive and fricative consonants are distinguished. The noise decay at the end of the sound is also taken into account. Based on this feature, glottalized consonants (glottal stops) are distinguished, during the formation of which a glottal stop occurs in final phase articulations, and non-glottalized. There are other acoustic features of consonants.
The use of physical equipment allowed phoneticians to identify and generalize features suitable for describing the sound structure of any language. The desire to describe the diversity of sounds human speech on a unified classification basis contributed to the development universal classifications, constructed on a dichotomous basis. Each sound with this approach can be characterized through a set of acoustic parameters such as “vocal - non-vocal”, “interrupted - uninterrupted”, “high - low”, “diffuse - compact”, etc.
Experimental (instrumental) phonetics deals not only with individual speech sounds and their classification, it also studies entire fragments of coherent speech - words and utterances. A sound in a speech stream is adjacent to other sounds, and this affects its acoustic properties. The sound “acquires” certain qualities from its neighbors, to the point that it can be very difficult to isolate a separate component from the sound stream.
To study the sound material of a language, experimental phonetics uses special instruments that make it possible to objectively record many essential physical properties of sounds. Among these devices are kymographs, which mechanically record on special tapes the sound vibrations of the air created by the utterance of individual sounds; oscilloscopes that convert air sound vibrations into vibrations electric current and recording these vibrations; tape recorders that record and reproduce sounds at the speed and sequence needed by the experimental phonetician. The most complex instruments are electrical spectrographs, which make it possible to record and analyze the “acoustic composition” of sound and “see” its phonetic structure. Using electrical spectrographs, precise data has been obtained that allows one to calculate the tonal and formant composition of various sounds in different languages.
Currently, the physical properties of sounds are studied not only by linguists, but also by psychologists, engineers, mathematicians, and physicists.
Experimental phonetics solves many applied, practical problems. In particular, it helps to improve telephone and radio communications, sound recording and playback equipment. Electroacoustic research methods make it possible to identify a speaker by voice, i.e. establish, if necessary, the authorship of speech. The task remains relevant for experimental phonetics automatic recognition sounding speech(computer understanding of human speech), as well as the problem of artificial speech synthesis based on the acoustic characteristics given to the machine. Special devices have been created - speech synthesizers, which in practice carry out this task.
From an acoustic point of view, sound is divided into tone and noise.
The second sign of sound is its height, it depends on the vibration frequency; the higher the vibration frequency, the higher the sound (from 16 to 20 thousand hertz).
But for linguistics, it is not the absolute, but the relative pitch of the sound that is important - the difference between the pitch different sounds. The pitch of the same sound can vary depending on intonation, and this is important.
The strength of the sound (depends on the amplitude of the vibrations; the greater the amplitude, the stronger the sound).
It should not be confused with loudness (the perception of sound intensity by a person’s hearing aid, background).
Sounds that are the same in strength but different in pitch are sounds of different volumes.
Timbre - depends on the relationship between the fundamental tone and additional tones, overtone.
From an acoustic point of view, in sound speech, first of all, a distinction is made between tone and noise. Tone arises from periodic oscillations, while noise arises from non-periodic oscillations. IN different groups sounds, the ratio of tone and noise is different. Second important feature sound is the pitch. It depends on the oscillation frequency. The higher the vibration frequency of the sound, the higher it is. For linguistics, it is not the absolute, but the relative pitch of a sound that is important; the pitch of the same sound can change depending on intonation, and this is important for highlighting stressed syllables. The strength of the sound depends on the amplitude of the vibrations. Sound intensity should not be confused with volume. Loudness refers to the perception of sound intensity by a person's hearing aid. Sounds are equal in strength, but different in height, perceived as sounds of different volumes, more high sounds are perceived as louder. The next sign is the timbre of the sound. It is by this that we distinguish people.
Articulatory characteristics speech sounds.
Depends on the functioning of the speech apparatus, which is based on:
Respiratory apparatus (lungs, diaphragm, bronchi, trachea);
Supraglottic cavities (pharynx, mouth, nose).
The speech organs are divided into active and passive.
Passive - hard palate, alveoli, teeth.
As a result collaboration speech organs transforming sounds is called articulation. It consists of three stages:
a0 Attack (excursion) - the speech organs occupy the position necessary to pronounce a sound.
b0 Central (main) - exposure, sound pronunciation.
c0 Indentation (recursion) - return of the speech organs to their original position.
In the work of the speech organs there is common features, regardless of what language people speak and at the same time, each nation has its own pronunciation characteristics. These features are explained by the habit of speakers of a given language to a certain structure of the speech organs.
Habitual articulatory skills that are typical for all speakers of a given language are called its articulatory base.
Classification of vowel sounds
In linguistics, the classification of vowels is most often used, based on articulatory features, taking into account acoustic signs vowels. Special meaning When classifying vowels, the work of the tongue and lips is involved. The movement of the tongue can occur horizontally or vertically. The vertical movement of the tongue determines the rise of the vowel.
The rise determines: top rise, middle rise and bottom rise. Vowels of the upper rise are called narrow (closed) vowels, and those of the lower rise are called wide (open) vowels.
The horizontal movement of the tongue determines the vowel row. Vowels can be front or middle.
The quality of the vowel depends on the shape of the oral resonator. If the lips are tense and rounded, then the vowels are called rounded. Degree of thickening in various languages may be different (in English less than in Russian). If the lips are not tense and not rounded, the vowels are called unrounded.
From an acoustic point of view, vowels differ in the degree of sonority and pitch. There are pure and nasal vowels. It is important to divide vowels by duration: long and short. But in different languages the role of duration is different (English, German, French). The longness and shortness of the vowel are used to recognize words. In Russian, vowel duration is only an emphatic means. In some languages, there are 3 levels of vowel duration (Estonian). The duration of a vowel is usually associated with another feature of it (for example, in German, long vowel is closed, kr. is open). An additional feature of the vowel is tension (laxness). Tense vowels are pronounced clearly. The degree of tension in languages is different (for example, in Russian vowels are less tense than in French and German). But within the same language, the degree of tension in vowels is different. Thus, stressed vowels are more tense than unstressed ones. High vowels are also more tense than low vowels. The main thing for the classification of vowels is the division into monophthongs and diphthongs. Most vowels are monophthongs (single-voiced, integral in composition). Special group make up diphthongs. When pronouncing diphthongs, the transition from one articulation to another is carried out in the form of a slide, which leads to their displacement. English is rich in diphthongs. and German The main elements that make up diphthongs always belong to one syllable, and one of the components of the diphthong is syllabic. If the first component is syllabic, then such a diphthong is called descending (German, English), if the syllabic phenomenon is. the second element is ascending (Romanian).
Lectures:
The speaker's activity ends with the creation sound vibrations as sound wave – speech signal in phonetics. It belongs to the last phase of speech production. The physical properties of this signal are studied acoustic phonetics , the main part of acoustic phonetics is acoustic theory . The speech signal represents insignificant vibrations of the air; “traveling” through the air it reaches the eardrums, causes them to vibrate, and from here the complex process of auditory analysis begins. Task: to identify and describe the aerodynamic and acoustic processes that occur in the vocal tract when pronouncing sounds. Understanding these processes is important because Acoustics data can explain many acoustic features.
The foundations of acoustic theory were laid in the twentieth century. Helmholtz, Fant: acoustic theory of speech production, 1964, Flangan.
Provisions of the theory.
1. The movements themselves speech organs no sounds are produced.
2. The role of the speech organs is to create aerodynamic conditions in the vocal tract for speech or sound vibrations. Here the vocal tract is like an acoustic trumpet.
For it to make sounds, 2 conditions are necessary:
Create the necessary air flow in it and turn it into an oscillating air stream. Air flow is created by the respiratory system.
The implementation of the second condition is due to the vocal cords and obstructions in the supraglottic part of the vocal tract.
3 types of sound source:
2. Turbulent - vortex flows are formed, causing a specific noise due to an obstacle in the form of a narrowing (hissing, whistling, fricative).
3. Impulse - an obstacle in the form of a bow.
Reformatsky's textbook:
General theory sound is a branch of physics - acoustics. In acoustic terms, sound is the result oscillatory movements any body in any environment, carried out by the action of any driving force and accessible to auditory perception.
Acoustics differentiates in sound following signs:
1. Height, which depends on frequencies vibrations: the higher the frequency (number of vibrations per unit t) of vibrations, the higher the sound; the lower the vibration frequency, the lower the sound. 1 Hertz = 1 oscillation/sec).
2. Strength, which depends on amplitudes(span) oscillations (distance highest point lifting and lowest point sound wave fall); the greater the amplitude of the vibration (i.e., the greater the swing), the stronger the sound.
3. Duration or longitude ; G.O. is important for language. relative duration of sounds. Thus, in the Russian language, stressed vowels are longer than unstressed ones, but in many languages there are both long and short vowels under stress (in German, English, French, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, etc.).
4 . Timbre (timbre - from the French timbre - “bell”) sound, i.e. individual quality its acoustic characteristics.
Types of sound vibrations:
1) periodic (uniform), the number of oscillations per unit time does not change.
2) non-periodic (uneven), the number of oscillations per unit time changes.
In the result periodic fluctuations arise tones (vibrations of the vocal cords and air filling the mouth and nose); as a result non-periodic fluctuations arise noises (vibrations of the lips, tongue, small tongue, sounds of friction and explosion at close or closed speech organs). Tones have absolute altitude , noises have only relative height , so we can talk about higher and lower noises, but it is impossible to determine the absolute height of the noise.
Resonance occurs in a closed air environment. Thanks to the presence of a resonator, the tone is enhanced and enriched by harmonic overtones layered on it (overtone - from the German Oberton - “upper tone”), higher tones.
Sound timbre is a phenomenon containing a fundamental tone and noise (or a combination of them), harmonic overtones(if there is a fundamental tone) and resonator tones.
Acoustically, speech sounds are divided into sonorous (sonorous) and noisy . Sonorants are defined by resonator tones; noises are either not present in them at all (vowels), or participate minimally (for example, in p - different types); in noisy ones (and these are only consonants), the timbre is determined by the nature of the noise.
The extreme points of sonority are the vowel [a] and the noisy consonant [p]. The characteristic sound of [a] consists of pure tonal effect, i.e. is determined only by a given resonator tone, there is no noise in [a], for the sound [n] tonal effects are reduced to zero; what characterizes the timbre [p] consists precisely in the characteristic noise of the explosion of closed lips, and the voice does not participate in the formation of the sound [p].
Between these two poles - purely tonal sounds such as the vowel [a] and then in descending order of sonority (due to the decreasing mouth opening) [e], [o], [i], [u] and purely noise , such as dull, instantaneous noisy [p] - there are sounds transitional from sonorant to noisy: within sonorant ones - sonorant consonants [m], [n], [l], [r], [i], [w], and within noisy ones - voiced noisy long-lasting ones, like [v], [z], [zh], and instantaneous ones, like [b], [d], [g], voiceless noisy long-lasting ones, like [f], [s ], [w], [x], and instantaneous, like [p], [t], [k]. Thus, acoustically, vowels stand out as purely tonal sounds.
Speech sounds, like any other sound, are the result of oscillatory motion elastic medium. A stream of air pumped from the lungs sets the vocal cords into oscillatory motion, they transmit movement to particles of the surrounding air. Each particle first moves forward from the oscillating body, then returns back. The result is periodic change air pressure, that is, successive condensation of air (when moving forward) and vacuum (when moving backward). This creates a sound wave (acousma).
We can talk about the following acoustic components of speech sound:
Pitch depends on the number of oscillations per unit time. As the number of vibrations increases, the pitch of the sound increases, and as the number decreases, it decreases. The pitch of sounds is measured in hertz - one vibration per second (Hertz - German physicist). The human ear perceives sounds from 16 to 20,000 hertz. Changes in the pitch of sounds in speech create intonation and melody of speech.
The power of sound is determined by the amplitude of the vibrations of the sound wave: the greater the amplitude, the stronger the sound (lat. amplitudo spaciousness, vastness). In speech, the strength of sound is associated with the concept of forceful stress. The strength of sound is perceived by the listener as loudness. Scientists distinguish two thresholds: the threshold of audibility (when the sound is faintly distinguishable) and the threshold of pain.
Duration or longitude sound, related to the duration of this sound in time with its number of fluctuations: in Russian, for example, stressed vowels are longer than unstressed ones.
The nature of the oscillatory movement plays a large role in the acoustic coloring of sounds: if it occurs rhythmically, that is, the same periods are repeated at certain intervals, then such a sound wave creates musical tone; this is observed when pronouncing vowel sounds, when air from the lungs, passing through the vocal cords, does not meet any obstacles anywhere else. If the oscillatory movement is interrupted, then the ear perceives such a sound as noise. Consonant sounds are noisy: air, passing through the vocal apparatus, encounters obstacles along the way (with the participation of the palate, tongue, teeth and lips).
Tones and noises interact in the oral and nasal resonators, creating individual timbres sounds by which we recognize sound speech our friends and relatives.
Phoneme and phoneme system
The sounds of language can be characterized from three sides: biological, physical and linguistic proper (or, as they say differently, social, functional).
The biological sounds of language are characterized due to the fact that they are created by the human speech organs and, therefore, have a physiological conditionality. Russian scientist I.A. biological unit of sound. Baudouin de Courtenay called it kinema (Greek kinema “movement”).
We can talk about the physical side of speech sounds, keeping in mind that speech sounds, like any other sounds in nature, can be considered from an acoustic point of view (gr. akustikos “auditory”; acoustics - in physics - the study of sounds). Baudouin de Courtenay called the acoustic unit acousma (Greek akustikos “auditory”). Biological and acoustic side sounds are studied by phonetics.
But these qualities of linguistic sounds are not the main ones for people; people do not even think about them.
Main side speech sounds is their role in creating and distinguishing morphemes and words, i.e. semantic units of language. Sounds in themselves do not express meanings, but they are said to be directed towards meaning, i.e. help to identify words and distinguish their meaning. This aspect of speech sounds turns them from biological and acoustic units into actually linguistic units. Meaningful sounds are called phonemes. This understanding came from the theory of phonemes, or phonology (Greek phone “sound”, “voice” and logos “teaching”). The phoneme was discovered by the Russian scientist Ivan Aleksandrovich Baudouin de Courtenay. At first, his idea of the phoneme was developed by his students: in Kazan - Nikolai Vyacheslavovich Krushevsky, in St. Petersburg - Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba; then - members of the Prague Linguistic Circle, especially Nikolai Sergeevich Trubetskoy and Roman Osipovich Yakobson, also Baudouin’s students in St. Petersburg. The question of the phoneme was also developed by the Swiss scientist F. De Saussure.
Phoneme- this is the minimum unit of language, represented by a number of positionally alternating sounds and serving to identify and distinguish words and morphemes.
Both phonetics and phonology are inextricably linked with each other by a common object - sound - and are mutually enriched by their achievements in the study of it. In a phoneme it is customary to talk about different signs: differential and integral. Differential features- These are the semantic distinctive features of phonemes. Integral features(Latin integral “whole”) are non-distinctive features of phonemes (kinema, acousma), they only fill the phoneme.
Different languages have different numbers of phonemes: in Russian. – 39 (or 41), in English. – 40, French – 35, Finnish. – 30, Korean. – 39, Abkhazian. – 71. Naturally, there are different numbers of vowel and consonant phonemes: in Russian, for example, there are 6 vowels, and in German. - 13.
To fulfill this role - folding and distinguishing significant units of language - phonemes must be opposed to each other in the language system. This is where the term comes from opposition– opposition of phonemes (from Latin oppositio “opposition”). Phonemic contrasts in different languages are of a specific nature. For example, in Russian longitude and brevity are not differential features, and in German they distinguish between words and meanings: biten- suggest, bitten- ask; Staat- state, Stadt- city.
The concept " phoneme" And " speech sound» do not match, because:
1. A phoneme can consist of two sounds (English diphthongs, fly"fly", boy"boy").
2. Two phonemes can be represented by one sound, for example, a word sew[shyt], where the sound [sh] combines the phoneme of the prefix [s] and the initial phoneme of the root [sh]; wash[myts], where the sound [ts] combines the final phoneme of the root [t] and the initial phoneme of the postfix [s].
3. The phoneme can be equal to zero sound, for example, phoneme [t] in a word honest[chesnyi].
Phoneme as a complex phenomenon consists of a number of features that do not exist independently, outside the phoneme, but coexist simultaneously in its unity. Thus, in the phoneme [d] in Russian we can distinguish the following features:
sonority(cf. [t] house - volume);
hardness(cf. [d] home – Dema);
explosiveness(cf. fricative [z] dal – hall);
lack of nasality(cf. [n] I'll give it to us);
presence of anterior lingualism(cf. back lingual [g] ladies - din);
lack of labiality(cf. [b] dock - side).
Allophones, or variants of a phoneme, are its phonetically similar varieties, differing from each other by partial changes in individual distinctive features and located in relation to additional distribution (environment).
Hyperphoneme– a functional unit represented by a number of positionally alternating sounds common to several phonemes, in the absence of a representative of this unit in a strong position.
Neutralization– failure to distinguish several phonemes in a certain (weak) position.
Literature
Reformatsky A.A. Introduction to linguistics. - M., 2000. P. 161-227.
Golovin B.N.. Introduction to linguistics. - M., 1977. - P. 31-69.
Introduction to linguistics. Reader / Ed. A.E. Supruna. - M., 1977 (I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, A.A. Reformatsky).
THE WORD AS A SUBJECT OF LEXICOLOGY
Signs of a word
The linguistic units familiar to us - phonemes and morphemes - are not used separately, not in isolation, but only in mutual combination with each other. The combination of phonemes determines the material side of morphemes. The combination of morphemes is produced in the name of forming the structure of a larger and more complex linguistic unit - the word.
The word is the core unit of language, in connection with this we will name several important points :
· person in verbal communication distinguishes only word and reacts only to its meaning;
· V word all phonemic and morphemic processes take place;
· word is an independent linguistic unit - a lexeme;
· word forms the basis of larger linguistic units - phrases and sentences;
· word is a part of speech and a member of a sentence.
That is why it is natural to talk about a phonemic word, about morphemic word, about a lexical word, about a word - a part of speech, about a word - a component of a phrase, about a word - a member of a sentence, and even about a word - a sentence.
The words concentrate the features of linguistic units of lower and higher levels, and therefore it is convenient to consider them around the word.
There have been many attempts in science to define the word, but due to its multidimensionality, none of the definitions has received recognition. The best way definition is a consistent and comprehensive description of the properties of an object. We will do so, but first we will still agree to consider the text from space to space as a word. writing language. In relation to the letter type of writing, for example, of Indo-European languages, this method of defining a word is the most convenient.
To begin with, we note that among words it is customary to distinguish significant and auxiliary words.
Significant words– those to which objects, phenomena and their signs correspond in the objective world. Significant words have something to convey; they consolidate all the knowledge acquired by people in the process of their social practice. Significant words - lexemes correspond to objects, phenomena and their properties as names. This is their difference from morphemes: morphemes express meaning without naming, lexemes express meaning by naming. This ability of lexemes is called them nominative function(Latin nomina – titles, names).
Function words - those that do not have objective correspondences in the non-linguistic world, but are used only with significant words, introducing additional shades of meaning into them. Function words are not names; they express meanings like morphemes, and therefore, as we have seen, they have a tendency to turn into service affixes. But it is impossible to completely deprive function words of correlation with objective reality: through them a person expresses his understanding of the relationships between objects and their characteristics. But, nevertheless, we will consider the only meaning of function words to be purely grammatical. In connection with this, it should be noted that in the science of lexemes - lexicology - significant words are always meant, words are names. Function words are appropriate when we are talking about a word - a part of speech.
Now let's list the minimum signs, which are typical for words:
Phonet And chess office O mness. The word differs from phonemes in its two-dimensionality, since in its original form it always appears as an organic unity of sound and meaning. A word is always characterized as a specific phonetic whole - a complex of phonemes.
Semant And cecal shaft e ness- every word has one meaning or another.
Nedwood A rnity. A word is necessarily differentiated accentologically from phrases; it is either unstressed or has one main stress.
L e xico-grammat And logical attribution. Words are distinguished from morphemes primarily by the possibility of attributing them to a specific grammar class(noun, verb, etc.).
Impenetrable A capacity. Words differ from prepositional-case combinations primarily in their impenetrability, i.e. It is impossible to insert one or another sound element into a word as a complex of phonemes.
So, word- This linguistic unit, which in its original form has one main stress and has meaning, lexico-grammatical relevance and impenetrability (N.M. Shansky. Lexicology of the Russian language. - M., 1972. P. 32).
Word on language level is a very complex aggregate of meanings, forms and functions. A word, for example, is a morphemic association, which means that it expresses all the meanings of its constituent morphemes: material (lexical), derivational (expressive-emotional) and relational (grammatical). For example, in the word under the snow-nich-k-i prefix under– expresses the lexical meaning of placing one below the other; root - snow- expresses the idea of precipitation in the form of white star-shaped crystals; suffix - nothing- with alternating k//h expresses the grammatical meaning of the subject husband. R. (compare - prostrate-) ; suffix - To- is an exponent of the derivational meaning of endearment; inflection - And expresses the lexical meaning of plurality.
Morphemic meanings create the motivation for the meaning of the word-lexeme and constitute, as they say, the internal form of the word.
Internal form of a word
This is the morphonological composition of the stem, which indicates a motivated connection between its sound and a given meaning. Root words, as a rule, hide the motivation of the meaning: snow, moon, field. Their internal form coincides with the lexical meaning.
Word as separate linguistic unit– the lexeme also has its own eigenvalue, synthesizing the meaning of morphemes only to some extent. The word “snowdrop,” for example, means “a bulbous plant from the amaryllis family with white flowers that bloom immediately after the snow melts.” This meaning is lexical.
In addition, the word, being part of speech, expresses general meaning a whole class of words: the word “snowdrop” as a noun expresses, for example, the meaning of objectivity: the word “white” as an adjective expresses the meaning of a passive attribute, etc. This meaning is general grammatical; it could be called semantic (Greek semantikos - denoting). The semantics of a word would show what the word means: an object, a passive attribute, an action, etc.
And finally, when the word becomes a member of a sentence, the syntactic meaning of the subject - subject, predicate, definition, etc. - is added to its semantic volume. Syntactic meaning can be called a communicative meaning (lat. communicatio - message, connection).
As you can see, there are many types of meanings in a word: lexical, semantic, grammatical, expressive-emotional and communicative. The word, already due to the variety of types of meanings, is polysemantic, polysemic (Greek poly - many, sema - sign). But when they talk about polysemy, they usually mean a multitude of it. lexical meanings, although it is one-sided and narrow. The word has multiple meanings and grammatical meanings: in the verb “ I'm coming» 7 grammatical meanings: the action is expressed, it does not transfer to the object, the 1st person performs the action singular present tense, the action has not yet reached its limit, it is reported indicatively, etc. So when we're talking about about the polysemy of a word, one must always specify what type of meaning is meant.
PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION. PRINCIPLES OF PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION
To more accurately convey spoken speech in writing, phonetic transcription is used - a special system based on uniform relationships between sounds and letters: each sound is indicated by one, and the same sign; each sign always represents the same sound.
The Russian phonetic transcription is based on the Russian alphabet, with the exception of the letters e, ё, yu, ya, sch, y, which do not correspond to the principles of transcription. Special sound meaning have the letters b and b: they denote short reduced sounds.
The following signs are used to denote Russian vowel sounds: a, e, o, i, ы, у, и, e. To denote Russian consonants - b, p, v, f, k, g, d, t, z, s, l, m, n, p, x (and their soft variants), g, w, c. In addition, in Russian transcription, the letter from the Latin alphabet - j is used to denote the middle-lingual palatal consonant, and the voiced velar fricative in the words biennial is denoted y. Additional features of sounds are marked with special additional (diacritic) symbols: softness - an apostrophe or a minute sign [set"]; stress - an accent sign: acute - primary (/); gravity - secondary, secondary (\); longitude - a horizontal line above the sign - give; brevity - with a bow under the sign; the syllabic character of the consonant is lo^ro; the nasal character of the consonant is o~.
2. CLASSIFICATION OF SPEECH SOUNDS
How physical phenomenon The sound of speech is the result of the vibrational movements of the vocal cords. The source of oscillatory movements forms continuous elastic waves, which affect the human ear, as a result of which we perceive sound. The properties of sounds are studied by acoustics. When describing speech sounds, the objective properties of oscillatory movements are considered - their frequency, strength, and those sound sensations that arise during the perception of sound - volume, timbre. Often the auditory assessment of sound properties does not coincide with its objective characteristics.
The pitch of the sound depends on the frequency of vibrations per unit time: than larger number vibrations, the higher the sound; The less vibration, the lower the sound. The pitch of a sound is measured in hertz. For the perception of sound, it is not the absolute but the relative frequency. When comparing a sound with an oscillation frequency of 10,000 Hz with a sound of 1,000 Hz, the first will be assessed as higher, but not ten times, but only 3 times. The pitch of the sound also depends on the massiveness of the vocal cords - their length and thickness. In women, the ligaments are thinner and shorter, so women's voices usually higher than men's.
The strength of sound is determined by the amplitude (span) of the oscillatory movements of the vocal cords. The greater the deviation of the oscillating body from the starting point, the more intense the sound. Depending on the amplitude, the pressure of the sound wave on the eardrums changes. The strength of sound in acoustics is usually measured in decibels (dB). The strength of sound also depends on the volume of the resonating cavity. From the listener's perspective, force is perceived as loudness: increasing sound pressure results in increased loudness. There is no direct relationship between strength and volume. Sounds of equal strength, but with different pitches are perceived differently. Thus, sounds with a frequency of up to 3000 Hz are perceived as louder.
The sounds of the Russian language differ in the time of their sound. The sound duration is measured in thousandths of a second - ms. Based on the length of sound, stressed and unstressed vowel sounds are distinguished. The unstressed vowels of the first and second prestressed syllable are also different in time. The duration of stop plosive consonants is practically zero.
The timbre of sound is called the phonetic passport of a person. The timbre of a sound is created by superimposing overtones resulting from the vibrations of the vocal cords on the fundamental tone. individual parts sounding body. The frequency of vibration of the overtones is always a multiple of the frequency of vibration of the fundamental tone, and the strength is weaker the higher the pitch. Resonators can change the ratio of tones and overtones, which is reflected in the timbre pattern of the sound.
With the development of electroacoustic (in 1920-1930) and then (in the mid-60s) computer (electronic) technology, a more detailed study of the acoustic characteristics of speech sound became possible.
