Archiphoneme

原音位

A term used in phonology referring to a way of handling the problem of neutralization (i.e. when the contrast between phonemes is lost in certain positions in a word). In such cases as plosives following initial /s-/, where there is no opposition (e.g. there is no sgin to contrast with skin), the problem for the phonologist is how to analyze the second element of these words. To choose either the voiceless transcription /skin/ or the voiced one /sgin/ would be to attribute to the element a contrastive status it does not possess. The solution suggested by the Prague School phonologist Nikolai Trubetskoy was to set up a new category for such cases, which he called an archiphoneme, and to transcribe it with a different symbol. A capital letter is sometimes used, e.g. /sKin/. Alternative ways of analyzing the problem have been suggested, as in morphophonemic approaches.

音系学术语，指一种处理中和现象（即在词的某些位量上音位的对立消失）的方法。例如，在首输音/s-/之后出现的破裂音没有对立关系（如没有与skin“皮”对立的sgin），音系学家面临的问题是如何分析这些词中的第二个成分。选用清音/skin/来记音或者选用浊音/sgin/来记音都会赋予这个成分本身不具有的对立性。布拉格学派音系学家尼古拉·特鲁别茨考依提出的解决办法是为此建立一个新范畴，他称之为原音位，并用一个新的符号来标记。有时使用一个大写字母，例如/sKin/。也有人提出分析这一现象的其他方法，如采用形态音位的分析法。