Prague School:
* Distinctive Features: The Prague School, heavily influenced by Roman Jakobson, Nikolai Trubetzkoy, and others, emphasized *distinctive features*. A phoneme wasn't simply a class of similar sounds, but a bundle of binary features (e.g., voiced/voiceless, nasal/oral, etc.) that distinguished one phoneme from another in a given language. A change in a single distinctive feature could change the meaning of a word. They focused on the *systemic* nature of phonemes, their relationships within the sound system (phonology) of a language.
* Archiphoneme: They introduced the concept of the *archiphoneme*, a unit representing a neutralization of contrasts in a particular context. For example, in Russian, word-final voiced/voiceless obstruents neutralize, and the Prague School would posit an archiphoneme to represent this underlying unit.
* Abstract Units: Phonemes were seen as abstract units, underlying the actual sounds (phones) produced in speech. The phonetic realization of a phoneme could vary depending on the context (allophones).
American Structuralist School (Bloomfieldian):
* Phonetic Similarity: The American structuralists, while also acknowledging allophones, placed more emphasis on the phonetic similarity of sounds within a phoneme. Their approach was more distributional – analyzing where sounds occurred in the language and grouping sounds together based on their complementary distribution (where sounds never occur in the same phonetic environment). If two sounds were in complementary distribution, they were considered allophones of the same phoneme.
* Concrete Units: While acknowledging the abstract nature of phonemes to some degree, they generally viewed phonemes as more concrete entities, closer to the actual sounds produced.
* Less Emphasis on System: While acknowledging the system, their focus was less on the systemic relationships between phonemes and more on their distributional properties within the language.
Key Differences Summarized:
| Feature | Prague School | American Structuralist School |
|-----------------|------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
| Defining Feature | Distinctive features, system | Complementary distribution, phonetic similarity |
| Phoneme Nature | Abstract, systemic unit | More concrete, distributional unit |
| Archiphoneme | Employed | Generally not employed |
| Focus | Phonological system, contrasts | Distributional analysis of sounds |
The "problem" arises from the different theoretical frameworks and their resulting methodologies. Neither approach is inherently "better"; they offer different perspectives and strengths. Modern phonology often integrates aspects of both approaches, acknowledging the importance of both distinctive features and distributional analysis in understanding phonemes. The debate, however, highlights the complexities of defining and analyzing the fundamental units of sound in language.