Theoretical Phonetics

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 Speech is a complicated process, and to study it
requires a whole scientific subject – the science of
phonetics.

Much of the attention of phonetics is taken up with

considering the way in which speech sounds (often
called segments) are made, and how phoneticians can
classify them in a scientific way.

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 Vowels versus Consonants
 This is based on the fundamental distinction between
vowels and consonants.
 Another fundamental aspect of the subject is the use of
symbols.

 In phonetics, we must be able to use a particular symbol to

represent a particular sound. The latter has been one of the
most important achievements of phonetics in the past
century, when anyone can learn to use above mentioned
symbols to represent the sounds of any language. This is
the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

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 Taking English as an example of a writing system that
does not always give a reliable guide to pronunciation, we
find that for various purposes (including teaching the
pronunciation) it is helpful to use phonetic transcription
instead of ordinary spelling. Using these symbols, we can
write English in a way that tells us exactly which sounds
are pronounced.

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 Phonetics has links with many other subjects: when
we look at the parts of the body which are in
speaking, we make use of information from anatomy
and physiology; the study of the transmission of
speech sounds from speaker to hearer is related to
acoustics, which is a branch of physics; when we look
at how we hear and understand spoken messages, we
are in the territory of other subjects including
audiology (the study of the hearing mechanism) and
cognitive psychology (the study of how the brain
receives and processes information).

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 Phonetics formulates the rules of pronunciation for
separate sounds and sound combinations. The rules of
reading are based on the relation of sounds to
orthography and present certain difficulties in learning
the English language, especially on the initial stage of
studying. Thus, vowel sounds, for instance, are
pronounced not only as we name the letters corresponding
to them.

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 Through the system of rules of reading phonetics is
connected with grammar and helps to pronounce correctly
singular and plural forms of nouns, the past tense forms
and past participles of English regular verbs. One of the
most important phonetic phenomena – sound
interchange – is another manifestation of the connection
of phonetics with grammar.
e. g. leaf – leaves ; house – houses

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 Intonation, stress and pausation may perform a
differentiatory functions. If we compare two similar
sentences pronounced with different places of the pause,
we will see that meaning is different:
e.g. a) What │writing poet is doing is interesting.
b) What writing │poet is doing is interesting.
The sentence a) implies that we are interested in what the
poet is doing in general and the sentence b) conveys the
following contents: what book or article the poet is
writing.

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 Phonetics is also connected with lexicology. It is only due
to the presence of stress, or accent, in the right places, that
we can distinguish certain nouns from verbs.
e.g. ‘abstract – to ab’stract ; ‘object – to ob’ject
Close connection of phonetics with stylistics is revealed
through intonation and its components: speech melody,
utterance stress, rhythm and voice timbre.

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  The phonological or functional properties of
phonemes, syllables, accent and intonation are
investigated by means of special linguistic methods,
which help to interpret them as socially significant
elements.
 Theoretical significance of phonetics is connected
with the further development of the problem of the
synchronic study and description of the phonetic
system of a national language, the comparative
analysis and description of different languages and the
study of the correspondences between them, the
diachronic description of successive changes in the
phonetic system of a language or different languages.

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 Teoriuli fonetika

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 metyveleba metad rTuli procesia da mis Sesaswavlad aucilebelia gavecnoT
mecnierebas metyvelebis Sesaxeb, romelsac fonetika warmoadgens.

fonetikis kvlevis sferos metyvelebis procesSi warmoebuli bgerebi

(segmentebi) da maTi mecnieruli TvalsazrisiT klasifikacia gansazRvravs.
aRniSnuli midgoma xmovnebsa da Tanxmovnebs Soris arsebul
fundamentur gansxvavebas emyareba. meore, aseve mniSvnelovani,
principi simboloTa gamoyenebaa. mecnierebis am dargis upirobo
moTxovna xom isaa, rom zustad vicodeT Tu romeli simbolo romel bgeras
Seesatyviseba da gamoxatavs mas. aRniSnuli faqti ki gasuli saukunis erT-
erT umniSvnelovanes miRwevadaa miCneuli, roca nebismier individs
ZaluZs ise gamoiyenos zemonaxsenebi simboloebi, rom nebismieri enis
bgerebi warmoadginos. simboloTa am krebuls sxvagvarad saerTaSoriso
fonetikur anbansac (IPA) uwodeben.

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 inglisuri enis damwerloba, xSir SemTxvevebSi,
sawarmoTqmo kuTxiT, arasaimedod gvevlineba. rogorc
gamocdilebam gviCvena, sxvadasxva situaciaSi
(sawarmoTqmo Cvevebis swavlebis CaTvliT), ufro
upriania fonetikuri transkrifcia gamoviyenoT, vidre arsebul
orTografias daveyrdnoT.

simboloTa amgvari gamoyeneba saSualebas gvaZlevs

zedmiwevniTi sizustiT aRviqvaT is bgerebi, romlebsac
warmovTqvamT.

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 fonetikas sakuTari arsidan gamomdinare, mWidro kavSiri
aqvs sxva disciplinebTanac.. kerZod, rodesac sxeulis nawilTa
metyvelebis procesSi CarTulobas vakvirdebiT, udaod vxedavT
mis xvedriT wils anatomiasa da fiziologiasTan. sametyvelo
bgerebis mosaubridan msmenelamde da piruku gadacemis
urTierTmonacvleoba mas (fonetikas) fizikis iseT dargTan
akavSirebs, rogoricaa akustika. roca mowodebuli informaciis
aRqmasa da gagebaze vmsjelobT, fonetikas audiologiasa
(smenisa da masTan dakavSirebuli darRvevebis Semswavleli
samecniero dargi) da SemecnebiT (kognitiur) fsiqologiasTan
(tvinis mier informaciis miReba-damuSavebis Semswavleli
samecniero dargi) kavSirSi moviazrebT.

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 fonetika calkeul bgeraTa da bgeraTkompleqsebis
sawarmoTqmo wesebs ayalibebs. kiTxvis wesebi
bgerebis orTografiasTan kavSirs emyareba da im
calkeul sirTuleebs warmogvidgenen, romelTac adgili
aqvT inglisuri enis Seswavlisas. gansakuTrebiT, am
ukanasknelis dauflebis sawyis safexurze.
magaliTisaTvis moviyvanT xmovan bgerebs, romlebic
xSirad ise rodi warmoiTqmian, rogorc maTi uSualo
saxeldebuli grafikuli Sesatyvisebi (asoebi).

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 SeuZlebelia gverdi avuaroT fonetikis gramatikasTan
kavSirsac kiTxvis wesebis sistemidan gamomdinare.
namdvilad rom fonetikis daxmarebiT, sworad
warmovTqvamT arsebiT saxelTa mxolobiTi da mravlobiTi
ricxvis formebs, inglisuri enis wesieri zmnebis namyo
drois mimReobas da sxv.
am mWidro kavSiris kidev erTi naTeli dadasturebaa
bgeraTa urTierTcanacvleba:
leaf - leaves ; house - houses

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 intonacia, maxili da pauzacia swored rom is
maxasiaTeblebia, romlebsac mravalferovani funqciuri
datvirTva SeiZleba gaaCndeT metyvelebisas.
magaliTad, Tu SevadarebT or erTmaneTis msgavs
winadadebas, romlebSic pauza sxvadasxva adgilzea
dafiqsirebuli, aSkarad davinaxavT am winadadebebs
Soris Sinaarsobriv gansxvavebas:
a) What writing poet is doing is interesting
b) What writing poet is doing is interesting

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pirvel winadadebaSi Semdegi Sinaarsi realizdeba:
a) zogadad rasac poeti akeTebs sainteresoa.
meoreSi ki:
b) ra wignsa Tu statiaze muSaobs poeti, sainteresoa.

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 fonetika leqsikologiasac esazRvreba.
maxvilis Sesaferisad dasma ganasxvavebs zmnebs
arsebiTi saxelebisagan.
‘abstract - to ab ‘ stract
‘object - to ob ‘ ject
fonetikis stilistikasTan kavSiri intonaciisa da misi
Semadgenlebis safuZvelze vlindeba.

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 daskvnis saxiT vityviT, rom Teoriuli fonetika
miznad isaxavs enis fonetikuri wyobis, misi
bgeriTi mxaris sakomunikacio funqciebis
Seswavlas, rogorc segmentur, ise zesegmentur
doneze.
enaTa fonetikuri sistemebis kvlevas Teoriul planSi.
enobriv elementTa niSnadobisa da diskretulobis
Cvenebas erTi mTliani sistemis farglebSi.

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