MAIN trends in phoneme theory

of sounds consisting of an important sound of the language

(generally the most frequently used member of that family) together with other related sounds which 'take its place' in particular sound-sequences or under particular conditions of length or stress or intonation.
– Daniel Jones,
“An Outline of English Phonetics”

THE MATERIAL ASPECT OF THE PHONEME

and mutually exclusive with all similar classes in the language.

–

B. Bloch and G. Trager

PHYSICAL VIEW

THE MATERIAL ASPECT OF THE PHONEME

members of the “family” of the phoneme /l/.


PHONETIC SIMILARITY:
ALVEOLAR
LATERAL
CONSONANT
PHONETIC

CONTEXT:
LIGHT [l] – BEFORE VOWELS
DARK [ɫ] – BEFORE CONSONANTS AND WORD-FINALLY

is vulgarly materialistic and metaphysical.
The phoneme cannot be defined as

the sum total of all its allophones, though it includes all of them.

sounds.
Supporters: D. Jones, B. Bloch, G. Trager
Based on the

material aspect.

NO REGARD to functional and abstract aspects.

meanings may be differentiated without much regard to actually pronounced

sounds. Meaning differentiation is taken to be a defining characteristic of phoneme.
___________________
A phoneme is a bundle of distinctive features.

(i.e. binary).
There is a difference between phonetic and phonological features:
distinctive

features are phonological.
phonetic features are surface realizations of underlying phonological features.
A small set of features is able to differentiate between the phonemes of any single language.
Distinctive features may be defined in terms of articulatory or acoustic features.

the phoneme /m/ might be represented as a feature matrix
[+

sonorant]
[-continuant]
[+voiced]
[+nasal]
[+labial]

Supporters: L. Bloomfield, R. Jakobson, M. Halle
Based on the

functional aspect.

NO REGARD to material and abstract aspects.