Typology of phonological system

Typology of phonological system
In the linguistic literature phoneme is defined as the smallest distinctive unit. Unlike the other bigger units of language as morpheme and word it doesn't have its meaning but helps us to distinct the meanings of words and morphemes. Comp. boy-toy, better-letter-latter-litter-later; bola-tola-xolaola, non-?on-son-on, un-un(tovush)-o‘n-o‘ng(mo?), bo‘z(o‘zlashtirilmagan) - bo‘z(material), bo‘lbo‘l(ta?sima) etc. From the acoustic and articulatory points of view the phonemic system of any language may be divided into vowels and consonants.
Phonological level is the first among those levels which form complex hierarchical structure of the language. The main unit of this level is a phoneme. Phoneme is the main unit of the phonological level of the language that fulfils two functions essential to communication:
constitutive (sostavnoy) function. Phonemes are the necessary building material for the units of morphological and other levels, (neither morphemes nor words can exist without phonemes);
distinctive (razlichitelьnыy) function which gives chance to distinguish morphemes from each other, words from each other. It has important significance for the communicative purpose.
Thus phoneme can be defined as "the class of sounds physically similar and functionally identical". So one and the same phoneme can sound variously in different conditions. Such sounds representing variety of one and the same class of physically similar sounds are called allophones or versions of the same phoneme. Besides phonemes and their versions supersegmentive units that is stress and intonation belong to the phonological level too.
Subsystem of English vowels is divided into two types of phonemes: 1)12 monophthongs and 2) 8 diphthongs. Monophthongs, sometimes called pure vowels. This is because the tongue and lips are relatively stationary while these vowels are being pronounced - the vowels do not move around in the vowel chart. Diphthongs, on the other hand, move through the chart as they are pronounced: they start at one vowel-position, and move towards another. The word diphthong is from Greek: it means
«two vowels», and we write them as two vowels.
English monophthongs are classified according to the position of tongue and according to the position of the rise with two varieties - narrow and wide.
According to the position of the tongue English vowels are divided into 5 groups:
front: [i:, e, æ]
front — retracted (draw back): [ɪ]
medial: [ə:]; [ə]; [ᴧ]
back: [ᴐ:]; [a:]; [ᴐ]; [u:]
back - advanced: [u]
According to the height of the raised part of the tongue vowels are divided into 6 groups: 1) upper rise, narrow: [i:], [u:] 2) upper rise, wide: [i], [u]
medial rise, narrow: [e], [ə:]
medial rise, wide: [ə] 5) lower rise, narrow: [ᴐ:]; [ᴐ]
6) lower rise, wide: [ᴧ]; [a:]; [æ]
Russian vowel subsystem consists of 6 phonemes. Unlike English vowel subsystem Russian subsystem is divided according to the position of the tongue and rise without any subdivision. According to the position of the tongue Russian vowels are divided into 3 groups: 1) front: [u], [e]
medial: [e]
back: [a], [o], [u]
According to the height of the raised part of the tongue vowels are divided into 3 groups: 1) upper rise: [u], [y]
medial rise: [e], [o]
lower rise: [a], [e]
There are 8 diphthongs in English vowel subsystem: [eɪ, ɔʊ, aɪ, aʊ, ɔɪ, ɪə, eə, ʊə]. These diphthongs form a number of oppositions with monophthongs and especially lots of (to 36) oppositions with each other.
There is no diphthong in Russian vowel subsystem. Phonetic diphthongs in words are not diphthongs from the phonological point of view as they consist of two phonemes - vowel and non - syllabic [u]. When word - changing or word - building morpheme which begins with a vowel sound joins a corresponding word non - syllabic [u] joins the following vowel; Comp: kray - kraya [ kra-y-a], day - dayu [da-y-u] and so on.
The table of typological signs of vowel subsystems in both languages is given below.

There are 24 consonant phonemes in English and 35 ones in Russian. Significant exceeding number of Russian consonant phonemes is the result of soft or palatalized (nyobnыy), hard phonemes in its phonological system.

There are plosive (vzrыvnoy), fricative (щelevoy), sonorous and affricative phonemes in the consonant subsystems of both languages.
There are six zones of articulation in the English language - labial, interdental, alveolar, mediolingual, back-lingual and guttural (zadnenyobnыy). There are no interdental and alveolar zones of articulation in Russian. There is a dental zone instead of an alveolar one.
Consonant subsystems of compared languages are characterized by the following phoneme classes:
Plosive class is represented by the following phonemes: in English -[p,t,k,b,d,g] in Russian - [ d, t, k, g, b, p ]
Fricative class consists of the following phonemes; in English - [f, ʒ, ʃ, s, w, v, z, h]; in Russian - [f, f', s, s", sh, x, x", v, v", z, z', j]
Class of affricates, most limited in both languages, consists of:
in English - [tʃ; dʒ]; in Russian - [ch,ss].
Sonorous class consists of the following phonemes:
in English - [m, n, r, l, j]; in Russian - [m, m', n, r, r', l, l', y].
Class of long consonants consists of:
in English - lack in Russian - [j`: sh':].
The following table gives us a clear idea of English consonants:

Most divergences on the inventory of consonant phonemes are in the fricative class where there are the phonemes [w, h] and is sonorous class where there is the phoneme [ŋ], absent in Russian.

In Russian consonant subsystem two types of opposition are notable clearly - hardness - softness and voicelessness - voicedness. As V.K.Juravlyov notes, the hardness - softness opposition has not only more power than the voicelessness – voicedness one in the modern Russian language, but also a tendency to intensification.
In the English language one type of opposition – voicelesseness - voicedness is very significant.
The table of typological signs of consonant subsystems in both languages is given below.
Signs

Language

English

Russian

Plosive
6

12

Fricative

9

12

Affricative

2

2

Sonours

7

9

Long consonants

-

2

Voicelessness – voicedness correlation

Yes

Yes
Palatality (palatal character) – non-palatality (non-palatal character) correlation

No

Yes
Neutralization of the voicedness – non-voicedness

opposition
No

Yes

Self-control questions:
What is the main unit of the phonological level?
What functions do phonemes fulfill as the main unit of the phonological level?
What is allophone?
Into how many types of phonemes is the subsystem of English vowels divided?
Into how many groups are English vowels divided according to the position of tongue?
Into how many groups are English vowels divided according to the height of the raised part of the tongue?
How many consonant phonemes are there in English and Russian languages?