Radvan D. General Linguistic Theory of Phoneme and its Development in Ukraine.

The systematic analysis of the development of the general linguistic theory of phoneme in the world linguistics and in its component - Ukrainian linguistics - has been made in this dissertation. J. Baudouin de Courtenay's theory of phoneme, as well as the phonological conceptions of the main linguistic schools of the 20th century, which interpreted the theory of phoneme in the context of achievements of linguistics, psychology, psycholinguistics and physics, have been analysed. The contribution of Ukrainian linguists to the development of the general linguistic theory of phoneme has been established; the psychological aspect in the Ukrainian phonology in the 20s - 40s of the 20th century has been distinguished and characterised. It was established, that the development of the general linguistic theory of phoneme in Ukraine had been carried out in the context of actual trends and interpretations of the main linguistic schools. The main directions of the development of the general linguistic theory of phoneme and the most widespread approaches to the definition of phoneme both in the world and Ukrainian linguistics have been determined. Two major approaches to the interpretation of phoneme have been distinguished: psychological and linguistic. The classification of the conceptions, which interpreted the theory of phoneme, has been proposed. It has been established on the grounds of this classification, that the psychological approach to the interpretation of the theory of phoneme predominates both at the first stage of the building up of the theory and at the present stage of its development.