Lew Shcherba and the theory of phoneme

Here are instructive and interesting comparisons with materials from the history of spelling norms of many other languages. They allow you to touch the regular mechanics of spelling norms.L.V. Shcherba greatly assisted in the development of the reform of the spelling of other peoples of the USSR after the October Revolution. At the Baku Turkological Congress in 1926, he made a report "Basic principles of spelling and their social significance", published in the proceedings of this congress.The big problem in the field of applied linguistics, which occupied Shcherba, was orthoepy. The pinnacle in this area was his report in 1915 in the St. Petersburg society "On different styles of pronunciation and on the ideal phonetic composition of words." This work remains the largest milestone in the history of the theoretical understanding of orthoepy. This report will be further considered in our work. The scientific discovery of Shcherba immediately clarified many confusing arguments, resolved long-standing, seemingly hopeless disputes, and indicated the paths for further orthoepic observations.In 1916, L.V. Shcherba outlined in French the main differences between the French sound system and Russian. In 1936, in the journal "Russian Language in the Soviet School" (No. 5), his article "On the question of orthoepy" appeared, and in 1937 the first edition of "The Phonetics of the French Language. An Essay on French Pronunciation Compared to Russian," which was for a long time, appeared remained an exemplary book in the study of orthoepy.In the article "Theory of Russian writing" he raises the question of graphics and spelling. In the spelling rules, he distinguishes two categories of rules: some talk about the meaning of letters regardless of the spelling of words, others talk about writing specific words of a given language, which can be in some cases and in complete contradiction with the rules of the first category. Shcherba gives an example: in R. p. unit m. and sr in adjectives and pronouns we write r, and pronounce in: red, himself, etc. But the sound in the Russian language cannot be portrayed through r. Therefore, Shcherba says, this case belongs to the second category. An example of the first category is the spelling in Russian letters of Chinese geographical names Yancheng, Zhejiang through e. Therefore, this runs counter to the rules of the second category, according to which e is not written after hissing. Shcherba's conclusion - the rules of the second category apply only to Russian words or to words that have become completely Russian.Unlike Baudouin de Courtenay, Shcherba calls the rules of the first category "rules of the alphabet" (instead of the "rules of graphics"), and the rules of the second category - "rules of spelling." Shcherba writes: “... the very concept of“ spelling ”or spelling arises only at the moment when, for one reason or another, they begin to write differently from what they say, and when, thus, the spelling that is conventionally accepted by everyone is“ correct ”, even if it did not match the sounds of the word. "Shcherba believed that spelling reform did not make it easy, although the goal of the reform was to facilitate full literacy. "... The spelling of the language used by one and a half hundred million people, by the very essence of things, cannot be absolutely easy ... and a half hundred million, settled on colossal territory, cannot speak the same, but they must write the same." This reform has undermined the prestige of spelling, but the task of linguists is to return real prestige, which "makes it a wonderful tool for the communication of millions of people."In the article "Basic principles of spelling and their social significance", Scherba considers 4 principles of spelling: 1) phonetic, 2) etymological (word-making, morphological), 3) historical and 4) ideographic and speaks of their social significance, since "language is a phenomenon social and in its essence serves to communicate between people, rallies groups, and writing, even more so in the very essence of things, is perhaps more than spoken language. "According to Shcherba, the phonetic principle ("write as you say") is the simplest, but since writing is intended for a wide range of people, there will certainly be differences. The historical principle is ideal for a people with a rich past and history, because according to this principle people write as their ancestors wrote, this allows us to use the literature that our ancestors left us. Shcherba cites the word dog as an example. We write the letter o here only because our ancestors wrote so. The same principle applies to the distinction of "yat" and e in the old spelling.Under the ideographic principle, signs are associated with meaning, bypassing sound. For example, we write the word ball without a soft sign, and the word night with a soft sign. This is simply a reflection of some meaning, as Shcherba believes.In general, Shcherba concludes that each nation makes its own choice in favor of one or another principle, because "the question of spelling is painful and painful and must be worked out in the course of life experience and in each given case, in a given language and in particular individual data cases in their own way, in different ways. "The most important thing is not to get carried away by the phonetic principle, since all the same, writing correctly you need to learn meaningfully. Therefore, the etymological principle is good, in which children awaken their thinking, think. And finally, "writing competently requires social decency, respect for the time of your neighbor. We must be accustomed to this matter in every way and try to make it not meaningless, but meaningful, and the path to this lies precisely in the etymological principle."In his article "On the norms of exemplary Russian pronunciation," he speaks, first of all, about the need to revise Russian orthoepic norms that no longer correspond to living reality. This problem was particularly acute after the revolution, since at that time the composition of the Moscow population was changing due to the influx of guests from different cities and republics of the Soviet Union to the capital. Prior to this, the living pronunciation was the so-called “Moscow” pronunciation, it was not studied, it was “absorbed, so to speak, with mother’s milk. Muscovites, like the Moliere tradesman in the nobility, and did not think that they speak exemplary Russian: this language together with pronunciation it was assimilated by each new generation from the previous one completely unconsciously. "ConclusionHaving analyzed the main works of L.V. Shcherby, we came to the following conclusions. Shcherba, in his work, partly builds on the ideas and principles of his teacher, Professor Baudouin de Courtenay, but, on the other hand, brings a lot of new to the development of phonology, orthoepy, and morphology, which runs counter to traditional views on these problems. Many of Shcherba's ideas were further developed in Russian studies.In the field of phonology, he gives his own interpretation of the phoneme, gives a list of phonemes of the Russian language, not only those that are universally recognized as objectively existing, but also those that could potentially become them. He also analyzes in detail many phonemes of the Russian language and gives clear, vivid examples. He believed that any alphabet should denote only phonemes, not their variants. Separately, I want to note Shcherba's remark about the phoneme: whether it is a separate phoneme or a variant of the phoneme and. Despite all the objective arguments of Baudouin de Courtenay that s are definitely a variant of the phoneme, Shcherba believes that this is an independent phoneme, at least it was historically, and this trend may resume. Shcherba's remarks on the verbal stress and duration of individual sounds are also interesting. When studying the sounds of speech, Shcherba suggests equally using both subjective and objective methods.In the field of orthoepy, Shcherba noted the merits of Russian orthoepy, explained the reasons for which the pronunciation is changing at the current stage, outlined the ways for further development of pronunciation. He believed that the Russian language in the future will rely on writing, drawing closer to it more and more, very complex rules will be simplified, all that does not represent value from an expressive point of view will disappear.Shcherba assigned a special role to the codification of orthoepic norms to actors and linguists.The main reason for the illiteracy of his contemporary society, Shcherba believed that teachers mechanically teach children the rules of the Russian language, while it is necessary first of all to learn the language and its structure.For more successful teaching of correct pronunciation, Shcherba offers to give two transcriptions in dictionaries: the ideal phonetic word and the word that sounds in lively colloquial speech. Here he fundamentally diverges from Ushakov D.N., who only recognized one pronunciation variant as the only true one, without taking into account phonetic conditions. And Ushakov’s variant seems to Shcherba to be dialectic.Bibliography1. 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