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Chapter 1. Cognitive attributes of preclassical phonology
Abstract
The Continuity of Linguistic Change presents a collection of selected papers in honour of Professor Juan Andrés Villena-Ponsoda. The essays revolve around the study of linguistic variation and the mechanisms and processes associated with linguistic change, a field to which Villena-Ponsoda has dedicated so many years of research. The authors are researchers of renowned international prestige who have made significant contributions in this field. The chapters cover a range of related topics and provide modern theoretical and methodological perspectives, addressing the structural, cognitive, historical and social factors that underlie and promote linguistic change in varieties of Dutch, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish and Swedish. The reader will find contributions that explore topics such as phonology, acoustic phonetics and processes deriving from the contact between languages or linguistic varieties, specifically levelling, koineisation, standardisation and the emergence of ethnolects.
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En un muy citado artículo sobre percepción del habla, Noël Nguyen 2005 hace una afirmación que resume de modo extraordinariamente sucinto un hecho incuestionable sobre el que se han escrito infinidad
de tratados: «la forme sonore du langage est d’abord appréhendée à tra- vers l’oreille» (p. 425). Es decir, no puede entenderse el estudio de las propiedades fonéticas y de los sistemas fonológicos de las lenguas, ni su
relación con los procesos cognitivos implicados en el fenómeno del ha- bla, sin tener en cuenta ineludiblemente el papel del oyente y el propio mecanismo de la percepción. Esta realidad, ya por sí sola, justifica toda la atención que pueda brindarse al fenómeno perceptivo, pero sucede, además, que en los últimos años se han realizado importantes avances en este terreno, y se han abierto nuevas perspectivas de análisis −algunas de ellas representadas en este volumen, como se verá− que hacen aún más recomendable, si cabe, tomarlo en consideración.
Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1986), pp. 212-223
This paper casts doubt on the psychological relevance of many phonological analyses. There are four reasons for this: 1) theoretical adequacy does not necessarily imply psychological significance; 2) most approaches are nonempirical in that they are not subject to potential spatiotemporal falsification; 3) phonological analyses are estab lished with little or no recourse to the speakers of the language via experimental psy chology; 4) the limited base of evidence which most analyses are founded on is further cause for skepticism.
Conducted 9 experiments with a total of 663 undergraduates using the technique of priming to study the nature of the cognitive representation generated by superordinate semantic category names. In Exp I, norms for the internal structure of 10 categories were collected. In Exps II, III, and IV, internal structure was found to affect the perceptual encoding of physically identical pairs of stimuli, facilitating responses to physically identical good members and hindering responses to identical poor members of a category. Exps V and VI showed that the category name did not generate a physical code (e.g., lines or angles), but rather affected perception of the stimuli at the level of meaning. Exps VII and VIII showed that while the representation of the category name which affected perception contained a depth meaning common to words and pictures which enabled Ss to prepare for either stimulus form within 700 msec, selective reduction of the interval between prime and stimulus below 700 msec revealed differentiation of the coding of meaning in preparation for actual perception. Exp IX suggested that good examples of semantic categories are not physiologically determined, as the effects of the internal structure of semantic categories on priming (unlike the effects for color categories) could be eliminated by long practice. (57 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
c1 Department of Language & Linguistic Science, University of York, Heslington, York YO1 5DD, UK. E-mail: rao1@unix.york.ac.uk (Ogden) jl1@unix.york.ac.uk (Local)
This paper presents the results of a concept formation experiment that provides evidence on the possible existence of a basic-level of taxonomic organization in phonological categories as conceived of by phonetically naïve, native speakers of English. This level is roughly equivalent to the phoneme as described by phonologists and linguists. The reason why the phoneme could be considered as the basic level of taxonomies of phonological categories is discussed.
Cognitive Grammar’ is a theory of language which has been developing since the late 1970’s. Underlying the theory is the assumption that language is inherently symbolic in nature and that a language provides its speakers with a set of resources for relating phonological structures with semantic structures. John R. Taylor introduces the theory of Cognitive Grammar, placing it in the context of current theoretical debates about the nature of linguistic knowledge, and relating it to more general trends in ‘cognitive’ linguistics. The central concepts of the theory are explained in clear, non-technical language, and are applied to in-depth discussions of a range of topics in semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. Suggestions for further applications of the theory are contained in the numerous study questions which accompany each of the main chapters.
Phonological Knowledge addresses central questions in the foundations of phonology and locates them within their larger linguistic and philosophical context. Phonology is a discipline grounded in observable facts, but like any discipline it rests on conceptual assumptions. This book investigates the nature, status, and acquisition of phonological knowledge: it enquires into the conceptual and empirical foundations of phonology, and considers the relation of phonology to the theory of language and other capacities of mind. The authors address a wide range of interrelated questions, the most central of which is this: is phonological knowledge different from linguistic knowledge in general? They offer responses to this question from a variety of perspectives, each of which has consequences for how phonology and language are conceived. Each also involves a host of further questions concerning the modularity of mind and of language; whether phonology should be included in the language faculty; the nature-convention debate; the content of phonological elements and its relation to phonetic substance; the implications of sign languages for phonology; whether functional and variationist considerations are relevant in phonology; how phonological knowledge arises; and, not least, the data and methods appropriate for phonological inquiry. Phonological Knowledge is an important contribution to the most fundamental issues in phonology and the understanding of language. It will interest researchers in and advanced students of phonology, linguistic theory, and philosophy of language. In addition to the editors, the authors are Mary Beckman, Silvain Bromberger, Jennifer Fitzpatrick, Paul Foulkes, Mark Hale, Morris Hallé, John Harris, Harry van der Hulst, Robert Ladd, G. Lindsey, Scott Myers, Janet Pierrehumbert, Charles Reiss, Shelley Velleman, Marilyn Vihman, and Linda Wheeldon. By relating foundational questions of phonology to their larger linguistic, cognitive, and philosophical contexts this book will generate interest not only among phonologists and their advanced students, but also among all those concerned to understand the forms and functions of language.
The concept of the phoneme was central to the development of phonological theory. In the early twentieth century, phonological theory was all about the phoneme: how to define it, how to recognize it, how to discover it (see, for example, the articles selected for inclusion in Joos 1957 and Makkai 1972). The American structuralist term for phonology, phonemics, indicates to what extent the field was considered to be about the phoneme.
Language demonstrates structure while also showing considerable variation at all levels: languages differ from one another while still being shaped by the same principles; utterances within a language differ from one another while exhibiting the same structural patterns; languages change over time, but in fairly regular ways. This book focuses on the dynamic processes that create languages and give them their structure and variance. It outlines a theory of language that addresses the nature of grammar, taking into account its variance and gradience, and seeks explanation in terms of the recurrent processes that operate in language use. The evidence is based on the study of large corpora of spoken and written language, what we know about how languages change, as well as the results of experiments with language users. The result is an integrated theory of language use and language change which has implications for cognitive processing and language evolution.
A research perspective that takes language use into account opens up new views of old issues and provides an understanding of issues that linguists have rarely addressed. Referencing new developments in cognitive and functional linguistics, phonetics, and connectionist modeling, this book investigates various ways in which a speaker/hearer's experience with language affects the representation of phonology. Rather than assuming phonological representations in terms of phonemes, Joan Bybee adopts an exemplar model, in which specific tokens of use are stored and categorized phonetically with reference to variables in the context. This model allows an account of phonetically gradual sound change which produces lexical variation, and provides an explanatory account of the fact that many reductive sound changes affect high frequency items first. The well-known effects of type and token frequency on morphologically-conditioned phonological alterations are shown also to apply to larger sequences, such as fixed phrases and constructions, solving some of the problems formulated previously as dealing with the phonology-syntax interface.
This article reviews some recent publications dealing with the phenomenon of polysemy, and addresses some of the questions which they raise. According to a generally accepted definition, polysemy is the association of two or more related senses with a single phonological form. In many respects, the definition is highly problematic. Important foundational questions concern the nature of word senses, how they can be identified, enumerated, and characterized, the manner in which they may be related, and the psychological reality of these constructs. A further question concerns the kinds of linguistic units that are candidates for a polysemy analysis. Also not to be overlooked is that fact that the phonological pole of a linguistic unit is likely to exhibit variation no less than the semantic pole. In spite of the many theoretical and descriptive problems associated with polysemy, it is remarkable that speakers of a language are rarely troubled by it. The paradox is traced back to way in which polysemy is conceptualized by linguists, against the backdrop of ‘idealized cognitive models’ of language. The article concludes with some observations on a usage-based approach to issues raised.
This book presents a profound critique of syntactic theory and syntactic argumentation. Recent syntactic theories are essentially formal models for the representation of grammatical knowledge. These theories posit complex syntactic structures in the analysis of sentences, consisting of atomic primitive syntactic categories and relations. The result of this approach to syntax has been an endless cycle of new and revised theories of syntactic representation. The book argues that these types of syntactic theories are incompatible with the grammatical variation found within and across languages. The extent of grammatical variation demonstrates that no scheme of atomic primitive syntactic categories and relations can form the basis of an empirically adequate syntactic theory. This book defends three theses: (i) constructions are the primitive units of syntactic representation, and grammatical categories are derivative; (ii) the only syntactic structures are the relations between a construction and the elements that make it up (that is, there is no need to posit syntactic relations); and (iii) constructions are language-specific. Constructions are complex units pairing form and meaning. Grammatical categories within and across languages are mapped onto a universal conceptual space, following the semantic map model in typology. The structure of conceptual space constrains how meaning is encoded in linguistic form, and reflects the structure of the human mind.
Hitherto unknown works by Antoni Dufriche-Desgenettes (1804–1878) show that he used the term
phonème
earlier than assumed until now: the word is attested in manuscripts of March 1865 but the publication of the first article in which it occurs was apparently delayed until 1868. Possibly, Dufriche did not “invent” the expression himself but borrowed it, at least indirectly, from the Bulgarian philosopher Petăr Beron (c. 1799–1871), who had used it several years previously for the sound aspect of a word. This usage may also be the reason why some later authors applied the term
phonème
to sound sequences.
Natural Phonology (henceforth NP), founded by Stampe (1969, cf. 1980), and not to be confused with Natural Generative Phonology (henceforth NGP, as in Vennemann 1972 and Hooper 1976) and other ‘natural’ and ‘concrete’ trends in process phonologies (as in Bruck et al. 1974, cf. §3·3), has been well expounded in Donegan & Stampe (1979b) and, in terms of its application to language acquisition, in Edwards & Shriberg (1983). Important differences from Generative Phonology (henceforth GP) have been enumerated by Wojcik (1981). It is not my intention to repeat these expositions, but rather to answer those criticisms that have so far been answered only partially, such as the objections to NP discussed in Anderson (1981), Dinnsen (1978), Dinnsen & Eckmann (1977, 1978), Drachman (1978, 1981), Dressler (1974a), Hellberg (1980), Kodzasov & Krivnova (1981: 145ff), Lass (1980, 1981).
The purpose of evidence adduced in support of a theory is not to prove that theory true but to demonstrate that competing theories account for facts less well and thus no longer demand our attention. Evidence therefore, if it can unambiguously decide between competing theories, helps the discipline to spend its resources on only a few issues at a time. I evaluate this winnowing capacity of various kinds of evidence which have been offered in support of hypotheses on what knowledge native speakers' have about the sound patterns in their language and how they use it: surface sound patterns, sound change, poetry, speech errors, word games, and experiments. I argue that experiments provide evidence of the highest quality. Four experiments are reported, three psychological and one phonetic, which offer evidence on the following claims: (a) the psychological basis of speakers' awareness of phonotactics, (b) speakers' awareness of the morphemic constituents of complex derived words, (c) whether epenthetic stops of the sort evident in words like team[p]ster are added by purely mechanical constraints of the articulatory apparatus or whether they can be attributed to higher, pre-phonetic levels, and (d) the factors that determine speakers' assignment of allophones to phonemes.
Ever since the appearance of the monograph On Defining the Phoneme (Twaddell, 1935), it has become customary to classify the views of the phoneme into the four categories: mentalistic, physical, functional, and abstract. The reader is also referred to Jones (1957, and 1967: 212 ff.) and Fudge (1970) for discussions on that basis. However, we can achieve additional insight into the problem of defining the phoneme if we classify the views of the phoneme, this time, on a populational basis. By this, we mean whether the phoneme is defined as a unit of (1) an idiolect, (2) a dialect, (3) a multidialect, or (4) a supralect.
Accents of English is about the way English is pronounced by different people in different places. Volume 1 provides a synthesizing introduction, which shows how accents vary not only geographically, but also with social class, formality, sex and age; and in volumes 2 and 3 the author examines in greater depth the various accents used by people who speak English as their mother tongue: the accents of the regions of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland (volume 2), and of the USA, Canada, the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Black Africa and the Far East (volume 3). Each volume can be read independently, and together they form a major scholarly survey, of considerable originality, which not only includes descriptions of hitherto neglected accents, but also examines the implications for phonological theory. Readers will find the answers to many questions: Who makes 'good' rhyme with 'mood'? Which accents have no voiced sibilants? How is a Canadian accent different from an American one, a New Zealand one from an Australian one, a Jamaican one from a Barbadian one? What are the historical reasons for British-American pronunciation differences? What sound changes are currently in progress in New York, in London, in Edinburgh? Dr Wells his written principally for students of linguistics, phonetics and English language, but the motivated general reader will also find the study both fascinating and rewarding.
CSP postulates perceptual grouping of an acoustic continuum into sharply delimited phonological categories with discrimination maxima across the identification boundaries. The experimental procedure was applied to F0 contours in a peak-shift and semantic contextualiz-ation paradigm in German and showed a categorical change from early to medial position in re-lation to the accented syllable. But in a comparable valley shift from early to late a discrimina-tion maximum was not found although there was clear category formation in the identification task. In F0-peak perception a syntagmatic pitch contrast of high-low or low-high, respectively, across the syntagmatic articulatory landmark of consonant-vowel transition, preceding a final fall, is characteristic of early vs medial. In the valley shift, the decisive pitch difference between early and late final rises is confined to the vowel and thus lacks a tight link with a syntagmatic articulatory contrast. This leads to the conclusion that perceptual categorization of a physical continuum is not tied to a discrimination maximum, unless there is an additional association with contrastive vocal tract sequencing. This can also explain differences found in the categorization of consonants vs vowels, and stresses the relevance of syntagmatic auditory enhancement be-side paradigmatic phonemic opposition in speech perception. THE HASKINS PARADIGM OF CATEGORICAL SPEECH PERCEPTION Structural linguistics established the concept of contrastive sound units – phonemes – differen-tiated by distinctive features, as against the redundant features of contextually determined allo-phones. The psychologists at Haskins took over this segment-oriented view of language and its bipartition into contrastive invariance and conditioned variability, and projected it onto speech perception. Decoding phonemes became the task of the listener, who had to extract the dis-tinctive features of phonemic contrasts from speech variability. This is the theoretical basis that led to the paradigm of categorical speech perception and subsequently to the development of the Motor Theory: listeners would attune to the speech parameters that distinguish phonemes, and thus categorize an acoustic continuum sharply in an identification task; at the same time they would differentiate acutely across the category boundaries, but only poorly inside them (Liberman et al.1957, 1962). The classic identification and discrimination experiments of acoustic continua referring to place of articulation and VOT in plosives were considered supporting the notion of a special Speech Code in perception, closely linked to categorical separation in production as against gradual acoustic manifestation (Liberman et al.1967). The theory was critically reviewed by Lane (1965). The experimental results were less clear for vowels than for consonants, and seemed to disfavour categorical tonal perception.
On Pathology and Embryology of Language
- Baudouin de
ðə wəːd “founiːm” [The word phoneme]
- Firth
Langue et parole [Language and speech]
- Hjelmslev
Powstanie pojęcia fonemu w lingwistyce polskiej i światowej [The origin of the notion of the phoneme in Polish and international linguistics]
- Jakobson
Baudouin de Courtenay – a pioneer of structural linguistics
- Heaman
Sprogsystem og sprogforandring [Linguistic system and language change]
- Hjelmslev
The history and meaning of the term ‘phoneme’
- Jones
Ziele und Aufgaben der vergleichenden Phonologie [The aims and tasks of comparative phonology]
- Mathesius
The origin of the phoneme: Farewell to a myth
- Mugdan
Jan Baudouin de Courtenay
- Vinogradov
Phonology and cognitive linguistics
- Taylor