Relevant and irrelevant features of allophones. The invariant.

The articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning are called non-distinctive, irrelevant or redundant. Thus, it is impossible to oppose a plosive [d] to a non-plosive one in the same phonetic context to distinguish meanings. If an allophone of the phoneme is replaced by another allophone of the same phoneme the pronunciation error is phonetic.

The articulatory features which serve to distinguish meaning are called distinctive or relevant. The change of relevant features affects the meaning. Thus, all the allophones of the phoneme [d] are occlusive, forelingual, voiced. If occlusive articulation is changed for constrictive one [d] will be replaced by [z] (ex. breed – breeze). If forelingual articulation is changed for the backlingual one [d] is placed by [g] (ex. dear – gear). If voiced articulation is changed for the voiceless one [d] is replaced by [t] (ex. foot – food). All the above mentioned changes in articulation bring about changes in meaning, so occlusive, forelingual and voiced characteristics of the phoneme [d] are relevant, or distinctive. And if an allophone of the phoneme is replaced by an allophone of a different phoneme the pronunciation error is phonological.

The functionally relevant bundle of articulatory features is called the invariant of the phoneme, which is generalized in the mind of the speaker. As all the allophones of the same phoneme have some articulatory features in common, all of them possess the same invariant. Simultaneously each allophone possesses quite particular phonetic features which may not be traced in the articulation of other allophones of the same phoneme.

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
The phonemic variant (allophone). The classification of variants	\|	Distribution of phonemes. Phonemic oppositions.

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