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On System-Structure Phonology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Victoria Fromkin
Victoria Fromkin*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

In 1934, when Yuen-Ren Chao discussed the nonuniqueness of phonemic solutions, he demonstrated that different phonological analyses presuppose different underlying concepts. The thirty years since the publication of that paper have not produced any one phonological theory to which even most linguists will subscribe. The situation is not unusual in the history of science. Scientific theories are constantly submitted to change and revision; in an empirical science, the structure is never completed. Experiments become more precise, new phenomena are revealed, new concepts are developed. At all times we must be prepared to abandon our theory, remodel the foundations, and erect a new structure. But the history of science shows also that theories which turn out to be inaccurate can yet lead to the discovery of new facts; and each new theory retains some elements of the one it has supplanted. Acceptance of one theory does not require one to reject a rival theory in toto.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 41 , Issue 4: October-December , December 1965 , pp. 601 - 609
Copyright
Copyright © 1965 by Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Yuen-Ren Chao, ‘The non-uniqueness of phonemic solutions of phonetic systems’, Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica 4.363-97 (1934).

2 The dialect described is Akuapem Twi. My informant was Kwaku Asenso.

3 The Hague, 1959.

4 Halle 19.

5 There are two exceptions to the rule. Gã is the name of a language spoken in Ghana and may be considered a loan-word, outside the system. Mo ‘good’, though widely used, is best handled by a special rule.

6 These rules include the following.

(1) —tense consonants → +nasal /— {V#}, where # = morpheme final. (A morpheme-structure rule limits the final nasal to [m] or [ŋ].)

(2) C → α compact, α grave, +nasal /— C. (α = ‘the same as’.) Thus C{b p f}→ m{b p f}, C{t s}→nC{t s} etc.

Rule 2 applies after other P rules have specified the feature as + or — grave wherever it was left unspecified in the lexical matrix, and after certain nonpalatal consonants have been specified as —grave by other P rules.

(3) —tense C → +nasal / N — (where N = C nasalized by rule 2; e.g. mb → mm, nd → nn, ŋg → ŋŋ.

Note. Throughout the paper symbols used have the following meanings. The arrow (→) = is rewritten as; the slant line (/) = in the environment of; the braces ({ }) indicate a choice of items.

7 Twi is a tone language, with both lexical and grammatical tone. The tonal system is outside the scope of this paper; tone is therefore unspecified in the DF matrix and in the examples.

8 In the rules the parentheses represent optional segments.

9 By a later P rule [kyɛ] will be rewritten as [kye].

10 Morris Halle, ‘On the role of simplicity in linguistic descriptions’, Proceedings of Symposia in Applied Mathematics 12.90 (1961).

11 For the rest of this paper, except where specified, C = any segment that is —vocalic and +consonantal, and V = any segment that is +vocalic and —consonantal. N = C which by virtue of P rules is rewritten as + nasal.

12 The italicized forms are printed in the official orthography.

13 In these forms, the hyphen represents the boundary between prefix and stem.

14 M. A. K. Halliday, ‘Categories of the theory of grammar’, Word 17.241-92 (1961).

15 J. R. Firth, ‘A synopsis of linguistic theory, 1930-1955‘, Studies in linguistic analysis 30 (Oxford, 1962).

16 Firth 24.

17 R. H. Robins, ‘Aspects of prosodic analysis’, Proceedings of the University of Durham Philosophical Society, series B 1.5 (1957).

18 This phenomenon has been treated prosodically in J. Berry, ‘Vowel harmony in Twi’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 19.124-30 (1957); L. Boadi, ‘Palatality as a factor in Twi vowel harmony’, Journal of African languages 2.133-39 (1963); and J. Carnochan, ‘Vowel harmony in Igbo’, African language Studies I 155-63 (1960).