Positional and combinatorial variants of English phonemes

Abstract

The variants of phonemes are very different in character. They are different and can be classified according to different criteria. Depending on the phonetic conditions for the manifestation of phoneme variants, among them one should distinguish between mandatory and optional variants.

Mandatory variants of a phoneme are sounds that are pronounced in strictly defined phonetic positions, differ depending on the phonetic conditions of the use of the phoneme and, therefore, are impossible in the same sound environment. They are strictly obligatory for all speakers of the given language.

Positional variants of phonemes are subdivided into variants proper positional and combinatorial. Actually positional (or positional in the narrow sense) are considered such mandatory (phonetic) variants of the phoneme that differ depending on the place in the word in relation to the absolute beginning or end of the word and to the stressed syllable and do not depend on the articulation of neighboring sounds. In the Azerbaijani language, these include, for example, different variants of vowel phonemes of non-upper (lower and middle) rise, pronounced in unstressed syllables, variants of voiced noisy consonant phonemes at the absolute end of a word.