Content s introduction Chapter I phonological schools in linguistics and their theoretical concepts

I.4 The London Phonological School

There is a long tradition of phonetic and phonological studies in England. One of the first linguists who made a serious study in Eng­lish phonetics was Henry Sweet. He distinguished broad and narrow transcriptions and gave the classification of English vowels and con­sonants in his “Handbook of Phonetics” (Oxford, 1877).

Under “The London Phonological School”, we mean the theory and methods of phonetic and phonological analysis proposed by the British linguists. This school is represented by J.R. Firth, Daniel Jones, D. Abercrombie, I. Ward, L. Armstrong, D. B. Fry, H. Kingdon, J.D. O’Connor, A.C. Gimson. The British linguists presented original idea on phonemic and prosodic analysis. Well-known British linguist D. Jones and J.R. Firth gave brief explanations of the pho­neme concept.

D. Jones admits the fact that the idea of the phoneme was first in­troduced to him by Leningrad professor L.V. Shcherba in 1911, but both the theory and the term itself had existed for more than thirty years even then. D. Jones wrote: “According to J.R. Firth the term “phoneme” was invented as distinct from “phone” in 1879 by Krushevskiy”.¹⁰ Thus, both outstanding English linguists were familiar with theory and term “phoneme” used by Russian linguists.

D. Jones prefers to speak about an “explanation” of phoneme rather than a “definition”, the latter is impossible without making use of terms such as “language”, “speech sounds” and “words”. He gave the following explanation of a phoneme: “... a phoneme is a family of sounds in a given language which are related in character and are used in such a way that no one member ever occurs in word in the same phonetic context as many other members”.¹¹

D. Jones explanation of a phoneme is a physical (acoustic) one, since the phoneme is treated as a “family of sounds”. His Physical interpretation is distinct from the articulatory approach to the phoneme. D. Jones explained a phoneme on the basis of auditory distinctions, which only secondarily is based on presumed articulatory positions. He also distinguishes “principal and subsidiary member” of the phoneme, which are equal to the terms “allophone” and a “variant” of the phoneme. According to his viewpoint, a phoneme consists of more than one member, and one of the sounds seems more important and common than the others, or because it is the one used in isolation or is intermediate between extreme members. Such a sound is called by D. Jones as the “principal members of the phoneme”. The other sounds in the same phoneme are called as “subsidiary members”. One of the rules for the determination of a phoneme is that if two sounds of a language can occur in the same phonetic context that they belong to separate phonemes. For instance, /i/ and /ə/ belong to separate phonemes in English because they can both occur initially before the same consonant as in the words illusion /i`lu:ʒn/ - allusion /ə’lu:ʒn/. Such differences between phonemes are significant i.e. capable of distinguishing one word from another. These ideas of D. Jones emphasize the importance of the semantic function of phoneme in a language. Two members of the same phoneme cannot be significant if they cannot distinguish words. The aspirated /k^h/ and non-aspirated /k/ sound as members of the phoneme /k/ cannot distinguish two words and they are used in different positions. The aspirated /k^h/ is used before vowels while non-aspirated /k/ is used in all other positions in English.

Besides the phoneme concept D. Jones presented his ideas on the problems of syllable structure, stress and intonation applied to the description of English in a number of his work. Particularly in “Outline of English Phonetics” (Cambridge, 1957), “The pronunciation of English” (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1956) etc. D. Jones’ “Everyman’s English Pronouncing Dictionary” (reprinted with minor correction and short supplement. Eleventh edition, L., 1958) is the best handbook on literary British pronunciation. The well-known English linguist J.R. Firth, who is considered as the head of the London Phonological School, began to work in the area of phonology in 1930 although his fundamental work “Sounds and Prosodies” was published in 1948. J.R. Firth distinguished prosodic system from phonematic system on the basis of the analysis of works. J.R. Firth stated “Looking at language material from syntagmatic point of view, any phonetic features, characteristic of and peculiar to such positions or junctions, can just as profitably and perhaps more profitably be stated as prosodies of the sentences or word. Penultimate stress or functional germinations are also obvious prosodic features in the syntagmatic junctions. Thus, the phonemic and phonological analysis of the word can be grouped under … sounds and prosodies”¹²

J.R. Firth purposely avoided the term “phoneme” in his work, as “sound” is sufficient for his analysis. He illustrated his prosodic the­ory with the character of the English neutral vowel, which marks junc­tions and required by the prosodies of word formation, especially in the formation of derivatives. The occurrence of Southern English diph­thongs is a good illustration of the value of his prosodic treatment. Be­sides J.R. Firth regarded the so-called intrusive r, linking r, the glottal stop etc. as prosodies. He also distinguished prosodies of strength quantity, tone in which the prominent syllable is regarded as the nucleolus of the group of syllables forming a word. He wrote: “The prominent syllable is a function of the whole word or piece structure”, naturally, therefore, the prosodic features of a word include:

1. The number of syllables.

2. The number of syllables - open or closed.

3. The syllabic quantities.

4. The sequence of syllables (radicals and flexional elements sepa­rately

treated)

5. The sequence of consonants

6. The sequence of vowels

7. The position, nature and quantity of the prominent.

8. The dark or clear qualities of the syllables.¹³

J.R. Firth’s prosodic theory was developed and applied in the description of different languages. R.H. Robins classified syllable prosodies, prosodies of syllable groups, phrase or sentence - part prosodies, sentence prosodies, word and morpheme prosodies¹⁴. John Lyons included some consonantal and vocalic features (aspiration, vowel harmony etc.) into the object of prosodies besides tone, stress and quantity as they all operate as "long components".¹⁵

A.C. Gimson who revised some ideas of D. Jones and other representatives of the London phonological school gives a new approach to the description of English phonemics and prosodies.¹⁶