Theoretical linguistics is a term in linguistics that, like the related term general linguistics , can be understood in different ways. Both can be taken as a reference to the theory of language , or the branch of linguistics that inquires into the nature of language and seeks to answer fundamental questions as to what language is, or what the common ground of all languages is. The goal of theoretical linguistics can also be the construction of a general theoretical framework for the description of language.
39-558: The Linguistic Bibliography / Bibliographie Linguistique is an annual publication which first appeared in 1949. The publication provides comprehensive bibliographical descriptions of publications in theoretical linguistics , with about 20,000 items added per year. Since 2002, the database has also been available online, as Linguistic Bibliography Online, and contains data from 1993 onward. The Linguistic Bibliography covers all disciplines of theoretical linguistics , both general and language specific, from all geographical areas, with
78-492: A focus on linguistic structure independent of phonetic realization or semantics. In 1968, Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle published The Sound Pattern of English (SPE), the basis for generative phonology . In that view, phonological representations are sequences of segments made up of distinctive features . The features were an expansion of earlier work by Roman Jakobson, Gunnar Fant , and Morris Halle. The features describe aspects of articulation and perception, are from
117-522: A given language) and phonological alternation (how the pronunciation of a sound changes through the application of phonological rules , sometimes in a given order that can be feeding or bleeding , ) as well as prosody , the study of suprasegmentals and topics such as stress and intonation . The principles of phonological analysis can be applied independently of modality because they are designed to serve as general analytical tools, not language-specific ones. The same principles have been applied to
156-619: A more abstract level, as a component of morphemes ; these units can be called morphophonemes , and analysis using this approach is called morphophonology . In addition to the minimal units that can serve the purpose of differentiating meaning (the phonemes), phonology studies how sounds alternate, or replace one another in different forms of the same morpheme ( allomorphs ), as well as, for example, syllable structure, stress , feature geometry , tone , and intonation . Phonology also includes topics such as phonotactics (the phonological constraints on what sounds can appear in what positions in
195-403: A particular language variety . At one time, the study of phonology related only to the study of the systems of phonemes in spoken languages, but now it may relate to any linguistic analysis either: Sign languages have a phonological system equivalent to the system of sounds in spoken languages. The building blocks of signs are specifications for movement, location, and handshape. At first,
234-439: A pioneer in phonology, wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . The study of phonology as it exists today is defined by the formative studies of the 19th-century Polish scholar Jan Baudouin de Courtenay , who (together with his students Mikołaj Kruszewski and Lev Shcherba in
273-682: A pronunciation of a word that best satisfies a list of constraints ordered by importance; a lower-ranked constraint can be violated when the violation is necessary in order to obey a higher-ranked constraint. The approach was soon extended to morphology by John McCarthy and Alan Prince and has become a dominant trend in phonology. The appeal to phonetic grounding of constraints and representational elements (e.g. features) in various approaches has been criticized by proponents of "substance-free phonology", especially by Mark Hale and Charles Reiss . An integrated approach to phonological theory that combines synchronic and diachronic accounts to sound patterns
312-556: A separate terminology was used for the study of sign phonology ("chereme" instead of "phoneme", etc.), but the concepts are now considered to apply universally to all human languages . The word "phonology" (as in " phonology of English ") can refer either to the field of study or to the phonological system of a given language. This is one of the fundamental systems that a language is considered to comprise, like its syntax , its morphology and its lexicon . The word phonology comes from Ancient Greek φωνή , phōnḗ , 'voice, sound', and
351-569: A systematic study of the sounds in a language appears in the 4th century BCE Ashtadhyayi , a Sanskrit grammar composed by Pāṇini . In particular, the Shiva Sutras , an auxiliary text to the Ashtadhyayi , introduces what may be considered a list of the phonemes of Sanskrit, with a notational system for them that is used throughout the main text, which deals with matters of morphology , syntax and semantics . Ibn Jinni of Mosul ,
390-409: A universally fixed set and have the binary values + or −. There are at least two levels of representation: underlying representation and surface phonetic representation. Ordered phonological rules govern how underlying representation is transformed into the actual pronunciation (the so-called surface form). An important consequence of the influence SPE had on phonological theory was the downplaying of
429-721: Is Patricia Donegan, Stampe's wife; there are many natural phonologists in Europe and a few in the US, such as Geoffrey Nathan. The principles of natural phonology were extended to morphology by Wolfgang U. Dressler , who founded natural morphology. In 1976, John Goldsmith introduced autosegmental phonology . Phonological phenomena are no longer seen as operating on one linear sequence of segments, called phonemes or feature combinations but rather as involving some parallel sequences of features that reside on multiple tiers. Autosegmental phonology later evolved into feature geometry , which became
SECTION 10
#1732772676575468-525: Is among the most important works in the field from that period. Directly influenced by Baudouin de Courtenay, Trubetzkoy is considered the founder of morphophonology , but the concept had also been recognized by de Courtenay. Trubetzkoy also developed the concept of the archiphoneme . Another important figure in the Prague school was Roman Jakobson , one of the most prominent linguists of the 20th century. Louis Hjelmslev 's glossematics also contributed with
507-549: Is considered to be the starting point of modern phonology. He also worked on the theory of phonetic alternations (what is now called allophony and morphophonology ) and may have had an influence on the work of Saussure, according to E. F. K. Koerner . An influential school of phonology in the interwar period was the Prague school . One of its leading members was Prince Nikolai Trubetzkoy , whose Grundzüge der Phonologie ( Principles of Phonology ), published posthumously in 1939,
546-419: Is language-specific. Rather than acting on segments, phonological processes act on distinctive features within prosodic groups. Prosodic groups can be as small as a part of a syllable or as large as an entire utterance. Phonological processes are unordered with respect to each other and apply simultaneously, but the output of one process may be the input to another. The second most prominent natural phonologist
585-689: Is published on the authority of the Permanent International Committee of Linguistics (CIPL) and is in accordance with the rules of the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) and the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA). Contributors include a network of international specialists, with some of these experts responsible for a specific field of linguistics, while others cover
624-403: Is the only contrasting feature (two words can have different meanings but with the only difference in pronunciation being that one has an aspirated sound where the other has an unaspirated one). Part of the phonological study of a language therefore involves looking at data (phonetic transcriptions of the speech of native speakers ) and trying to deduce what the underlying phonemes are and what
663-709: The Kazan School ) shaped the modern usage of the term phoneme in a series of lectures in 1876–1877. The word phoneme had been coined a few years earlier, in 1873, by the French linguist A. Dufriche-Desgenettes . In a paper read at 24 May meeting of the Société de Linguistique de Paris , Dufriche-Desgenettes proposed for phoneme to serve as a one-word equivalent for the German Sprachlaut . Baudouin de Courtenay's subsequent work, though often unacknowledged,
702-651: The applied field. The dichotomy is not fully unproblematic because language pedagogy , language technology and other aspects of applied linguistics also include theory. Similarly, the term general linguistics is used to distinguish core linguistics from other types of study. However, because college and university linguistics is largely distributed with the institutes and departments of a relatively small number of national languages , some larger universities also offer courses and research programmes in 'general linguistics' which may cover exotic and minority languages , cross-linguistic studies and various other topics outside
741-465: The dichotomy of synchronic and diachronic linguistics , thus including historical linguistics as a core issue. There are various frameworks of linguistic theory which include a general theory of language and a general theory of linguistic description . Current humanistic approaches include theories within structural linguistics and functional linguistics . In addition to the humanistic approaches of structural linguistics and functional linguistics,
780-472: The emphasis on lesser-known Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages . Both Linguistic Bibliography / Bibliographie Linguistique and Linguistic Bibliography Online are published by Brill Leiden, Netherlands, on the authority of the Permanent International Committee of Linguists and under the auspices of the International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies . As of 1993,
819-405: The extent to which they require allophones to be phonetically similar. There are also differing ideas as to whether this grouping of sounds is purely a tool for linguistic analysis, or reflects an actual process in the way the human brain processes a language. Since the early 1960s, theoretical linguists have moved away from the traditional concept of a phoneme, preferring to consider basic units at
SECTION 20
#1732772676575858-514: The field of phonology vary. Nikolai Trubetzkoy in Grundzüge der Phonologie (1939) defines phonology as "the study of sound pertaining to the system of language," as opposed to phonetics, which is "the study of sound pertaining to the act of speech" (the distinction between language and speech being basically Ferdinand de Saussure 's distinction between langue and parole ). More recently, Lass (1998) writes that phonology refers broadly to
897-448: The field of theoretical linguistics encompasses other frameworks and perspectives. Evolutionary linguistics is one such framework that investigates the origins and development of language from an evolutionary and cognitive perspective. It incorporates various models within generative grammar , which seeks to explain language structure through formal rules and transformations. Cognitive linguistics and cognitive approaches to grammar , on
936-869: The online edition contained all entries of the printed volumes, with new records added on a monthly basis. Annual volumes of the Linguistic Bibliography are still published in print. Linguistic Bibliography's Online database contains over 360,000 records and is cross-searchable. It is updated 10 times per year with around 20,000 new records added per year. The database contains over 114,000 person's names, 2,400 journals and 10,000 publishers with records classified according to language and subject descriptors. Titles are given in their original language, with English translations provided of titles in lesser-known languages. Only scientific publications are included, and applied linguistic publications are listed only if they have theoretical implications. The Bibliography
975-407: The other hand, focuses on the relationship between language and cognition, exploring how language reflects and influences our thought processes. Phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages systematically organize their phones or, for sign languages , their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of
1014-533: The phonological system of a language is necessarily an application of theoretical principles to analysis of phonetic evidence in some theories. The distinction was not always made, particularly before the development of the modern concept of the phoneme in the mid-20th century. Some subfields of modern phonology have a crossover with phonetics in descriptive disciplines such as psycholinguistics and speech perception , which result in specific areas like articulatory phonology or laboratory phonology . Definitions of
1053-435: The production of their home country. The languages of the world are grouped under large categories, e.g. "Semitic". A separate section for Pidgin and Creole languages was added in 1952. Though linguists today study sign languages as true languages, the category "Sign languages" was not added until the 1988 volume, when it appeared with 39 entries. Topics covered include: Theoretical linguistics Another use of
1092-425: The same phoneme. First, interchanged allophones of the same phoneme can result in unrecognizable words. Second, actual speech, even at a word level, is highly co-articulated, so it is problematic to expect to be able to splice words into simple segments without affecting speech perception. Different linguists therefore take different approaches to the problem of assigning sounds to phonemes. For example, they differ in
1131-593: The same phonological category, that is of the phoneme /p/ . (Traditionally, it would be argued that if an aspirated [pʰ] were interchanged with the unaspirated [p] in spot , native speakers of English would still hear the same words; that is, the two sounds are perceived as "the same" /p/ .) In some other languages, however, these two sounds are perceived as different, and they are consequently assigned to different phonemes. For example, in Thai , Bengali , and Quechua , there are minimal pairs of words for which aspiration
1170-508: The same place and manner of articulation and differ in voicing only, were allophones of the same phoneme in English, but later came to belong to separate phonemes. This is one of the main factors of historical change of languages as described in historical linguistics . The findings and insights of speech perception and articulation research complicate the traditional and somewhat intuitive idea of interchangeable allophones being perceived as
1209-555: The same, but there is restricted variation that accounts for differences in surface realizations. Principles are held to be inviolable, but parameters may sometimes come into conflict. Prominent figures in this field include Jonathan Kaye , Jean Lowenstamm, Jean-Roger Vergnaud, Monik Charette , and John Harris. In a course at the LSA summer institute in 1991, Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky developed optimality theory , an overall architecture for phonology according to which languages choose
Linguistic Bibliography - Misplaced Pages Continue
1248-448: The scope of the main philological departments. When the concept of theoretical linguistics is taken to refer to core or internal linguistics , it means the study of the parts of the language system. This traditionally means phonology , morphology , syntax and semantics . Pragmatics and discourse can also be included; delimitation varies between institutions. Furthermore, Saussure's definition of general linguistics consists of
1287-412: The sound inventory of the language is. The presence or absence of minimal pairs, as mentioned above, is a frequently used criterion for deciding whether two sounds should be assigned to the same phoneme. However, other considerations often need to be taken into account as well. The particular contrasts which are phonemic in a language can change over time. At one time, [f] and [v] , two sounds that have
1326-512: The standard theory of representation for theories of the organization of phonology as different as lexical phonology and optimality theory . Government phonology , which originated in the early 1980s as an attempt to unify theoretical notions of syntactic and phonological structures, is based on the notion that all languages necessarily follow a small set of principles and vary according to their selection of certain binary parameters . That is, all languages' phonological structures are essentially
1365-400: The subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language, and in more narrow terms, "phonology proper is concerned with the function, behavior and organization of sounds as linguistic items." According to Clark et al. (2007), it means the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language , or the field of linguistics studying that use. Early evidence for
1404-507: The suffix -logy (which is from Greek λόγος , lógos , 'word, speech, subject of discussion'). Phonology is typically distinguished from phonetics , which concerns the physical production, acoustic transmission and perception of the sounds or signs of language. Phonology describes the way they function within a given language or across languages to encode meaning. For many linguists, phonetics belongs to descriptive linguistics and phonology to theoretical linguistics , but establishing
1443-445: The syllable and the emphasis on segments. Furthermore, the generativists folded morphophonology into phonology, which both solved and created problems. Natural phonology is a theory based on the publications of its proponent David Stampe in 1969 and, more explicitly, in 1979. In this view, phonology is based on a set of universal phonological processes that interact with one another; those that are active and those that are suppressed
1482-427: The term depends on the organisation of linguistics into different sub-fields. The term theoretical linguistics is commonly juxtaposed with applied linguistics . This perspective implies that the aspiring language professional, e.g. a student, must first learn the theory i.e. properties of the linguistic system, or what Ferdinand de Saussure called internal linguistics . This is followed by practice, or studies in
1521-526: Was initiated with Evolutionary Phonology in recent years. An important part of traditional, pre-generative schools of phonology is studying which sounds can be grouped into distinctive units within a language; these units are known as phonemes . For example, in English, the "p" sound in pot is aspirated (pronounced [pʰ] ) while that in spot is not aspirated (pronounced [p] ). However, English speakers intuitively treat both sounds as variations ( allophones , which cannot give origin to minimal pairs ) of
#574425