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2. The distributional method in phonology

To study the sounds of a language from the functional point of view means to study the way they function, that is to find out which sounds a language uses as part of its pronunciation system, how sounds are grouped into functionally similar units, termed phonemes. The final aim of the phonological analysis of language is the identification of the phonemes and finding out patterns of relationship into which they fall as the sound system of that language. So the first step is to determine the minimum recurrent segments (segmentation of speech continuum). The next step in the procedure is arranging sounds into functionally similar groups. We do not know yet what sounds are contrastive in this language and what sounds are merely allophones of one and the same phoneme. There are two most widely used methods of finding it out. They are the distributional method and the semantic method.

Distribution means the totality of all possible contexts in which a given language unit is used. Any phoneme manifests itself in a certain pattern of distribution. The patterns of distribution are different. The simplest of them is called free variation. It is one and the same phoneme pronounced by the same or different speakers, e.g. the pronunciation of [p,t,k] with different degrees of aspiration which does not effect the basic properties of the phoneme.

Complementary distribution takes place when an allophone of one and the same phoneme occurs in a definite set of context in which no other allophone of the same phoneme occurs:

e.g. the phoneme [t] - the palatalized variant occurs only before front vowels and [j]: tear, tin the palato-alveoiar variant occurs when [t] is followed by [r] - try, tree, the labialised

variant is due to the phoneme [w] - twenty, twins .

Contrastive distribution means that the phonemes are found in contrastive

distribution. That is in the contexts which are the same but for one phoneme:

e.g. big - bag the vowel sounds are in contrastive distribution.

When we speak about free variation and complementary distribution we

mean different allophones of the same phoneme, when we speak about the contrastive

distribution we have in mind different phonemes.

So, as we see the distributional method rejects meaning and groups the sounds of the language without knowing it. This belief is based on two laws of phonemic and allophonic distribution : (1) that allophones of different phonemes always occur in the same phonetic context and (2) that consequently, the allophones of the same phoneme never occur in the same phonetic context and always occur in different positions. From these laws two conclusions are deduced: (1) if more or less different speech sounds occur in the same phonetic context, they should be allophones of different phonemes; and (2) if more or less similar speech sounds occur in different positions and never occur in the same phonetic context, they are variants of one and the same phoneme. Though the practical application of the purely distributional method are theoretically feasible, there are many difficulties in its use.

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