On the Importance of the Phoneme Theory

Analyzing the structure of language has primarily to do with understanding the sounds that make up language. Saussure’s idea of ‘language is a system of mutually defining entities’ [there is nothing but differences in language] has been the main incentive behind the phoneme theory. The theory in modern terms has been formed especially by Baudouin de Courtenay and linguitsts such as Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Paul Passy, Roman Jakobson, Sergey Karçevski. These scholars made a tremendous contribution to linguistics by setting a system that made possible to differentiate speech sounds and phonemes from all other unprocessed (raw) ones. This system laid the foundation of modern phonetic and phonology. This study examines the main features of the phoneme theory that analyzes distinctive features of speech sounds from a systematic approach.

Keywords

phoneme theory, phoneme, allophone, distinctive features