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Chapter 2. Comparative typology of English and Uzbek at different
language levels
§1.
Phonological level
Main notions of the paragraph:
1.
The sections of linguistic typology
2.
The phonemic system of languages
3.
The concept of a phoneme
4.
Phonological opposition
5.
compile typological characteristics of English and Uzbek the
phonological systems
As it was mentioned above, linguistic typology has different divisions
based on the objectives of the analysis. Depending on the nature of the
comparison, it can be genetic, structural, areal, or comparative typology. Besides,
the analysis can be performed within these typologies in different language levels.
Linguistic typology operates at all levels of language without exception. In other
words, it can compare units of phonological, morphological, lexical, syntactic
levels, and several others as well. So, concerning the levels of language linguistic
typology may have the following sections: 1) phonological typology; 2)
morphological typology; 3) syntactic typology; 4) lexical typology.
Phonological typology implies a comparison of phonological units of
languages. It deals with the issues of distinguishing phonological differential
features, determining their universality, studying the phonological structure of
languages, classifying languages based on their phonological features, the
definition of the phonemic composition of the languages of the world and many
others. Each language has its peculiar system of sounds. So, it is necessary to
determine the most basic units of phonological classification, before conducting
a phonological typology of different languages.
The basic unit of the phonological level of the language is the phoneme.
The concept of a phoneme is associated with the development of an
understanding of language as a holistic system. A phoneme is the smallest
phonetic unit of a language used to distinguish between words and word forms.
They perform two functions that are very essential for communication purposes:
1) the constitutive function, consisting in the fact that phonemes are the necessary
building material for units of morphological and other levels (without phonemes,
neither morpheme nor word cannot exist); 2) distinctive function, which makes it
possible to distinguish one morpheme from another, one word from another,
which is also of great importance for communication purposes.
World languages have very diverse phonological system and phonemic
compositions. Therefore, they are analyzed classified according to various
criterion. Languages can differ in the number of phonemes. The number of
phonemes in different languages ranges from 14 (in some indigenous languages
of Australia) to 70 (in the Caucasian languages).
The difference in the differential features of phonemes leads to a different
ratio of vowels and consonants in a particular language. In some languages, the
consonant system is predominant, characterized by a variety of consonant
phonemes and a relatively small number of vowel phonemes. Such languages are
called consonant languages. In other languages, there is a fairly diverse system of
vowel phonemes with a limited number of consonants (the Ubykh language is
one of the Abkhaz-Adyghe languages, there are only two vowels (closed [ә] and
open [a], which can acquire various timbre qualities, allophones, and about 80
consonants phonemes). Languages with such a composition of phonemes are
called vocal language languages.
The phonemic system of languages can also differ in a number of features.
For instant, in the English, Arabic, Turkmen languages there are so-called
interdental phonemes -
[
θ] and [ð]. In such languages as Uzbek and Arabic noisy
consonant of the deep back row - [ɣ] is represented. In Japanese [r] is of particular
interest being an apical postalveolar mostly sounds like [l] because of the
tendency to lateralize the sound. In contrast to these languages, there are a number
of languages where vowels are distinguished according to a long and a short
correlation, as in English and Arabic.
It follows from what has been said that the inventory of phonemes, vowels
and consonants, their number and composition can be recognized as a general
criterion for the typological characteristic of phonological systems of the
languages being compared. The structure of the phoneme inventory is important
for establishing the typology of the corresponding language. One of the
components of the structure should be considered the quantity and quality of
oppositions and correlations.
Phonological opposition refers to the opposition of two or more phonemes
in order to identify the presence or absence of any feature. Depending on this,
L.S.Ivanova and S.L.Vasilyeva identified various types of oppositions of
phonemes.
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