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The Phonemic Principle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2026
Extract
As basic as the phonemic principle is to linguistic science, it is only quite recently that it has had the serious attention of linguists. In studying the phonemes of Chitimacha (an Indian language of Louisiana) I knew of no single source from which I could learn to understand all the phenomena that I observed. There seemed to be a need for an adequate and complete exposition of the phonemic principle including, especially, an account of how it applies to the more marginal and difficult types of phenomena. I at first intended to include this discussion in my paper on the Chitimacha phonemes, but the wider interest of the general discussion makes it more appropriate that it be published separately. The specific treatment of Chitimacha, which can now appear without theoretical digressions, will serve to illustrate many of the points discussed here. I do not attempt to cite previous authors on all of the points treated in this paper, though I recognize fully my dependence on them. On a few points my treatment attempts to avoid weaknesses in previous treatments, and a point or two are perhaps introduced here for the first time. However, the chief ideals of this paper are theoretical comprehensiveness, consistency of treatment, and brevity.
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- Copyright © 2024 Linguistic Society of America
Footnotes
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[Editorial note: This article was originally published in Language 10(2).117–29, 1934. In celebration of the Centennial of the Linguistic Society of America and of this journal, we are reprinting one or two articles per each decade of Language, selected for their quality and importance to the field. Each article is accompanied by a new piece by colleagues who have expertise and unique insights on the reprinted articles, to offer commentary from both historical and modern perspectives.]
References
1 The principal works consulted were:
Bloomfield, [Leonard.] Language, Chaps. 5–8. New York: Henry Holt, 1933.
Jones, [Daniel.] ‘On phonemes’, Travaux du cercle linguistique de Prague 4.74–79, [1931].
‘Projet de terminologie phonologique standardisé‘, op. cit. 4.309–22, [1931].
Sapir, [Edward.] ‘Sound patterns in language’, Language 1.37–51, [1925. DOI: 10.2307/409004].
‘La realité psychologique du phonème’, Journal de psychologie [normale et pathologique] 30.247–[65, 1933].
Troubetzkoy, [N. S.] ‘Zur allgemeinen Theorie der phonologischen Vokalsysteme’, Travaux du cercle [linguistique de Prague] 1.39–66, [1929].
‘Die phonologischen Systeme’, op. cit. [4].96–115, [1931].
Ułaszyn, [Henryk.] ‘Laut, Phonema, Morphonema’, [Travaux du cercle linguistique de Prague] 4.53–61, [1931].
I am most directly indebted to Professor Sapir, as my teacher, for my understanding of the phonemic principle. The present paper has benefited by discussion with him and with my colleagues Dr. Stanley Newman, Dr. George Herzog, and Mrs. Mary Haas Swadesh.
2 Data on Tunica (an Indian language of Louisiana) were supplied by Mary Haas Swadesh.
3 I have this information from Professor Hans Kurath, director of the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada.
4 Observed by Dr. [Guy S.] Lowman for the Linguistic Atlas, and mentioned in his paper ‘Regional differences in Virginian speech’, read at the tenth annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America [December 1933].
5 I owe this information to Dr. Lowman. The interchange was observed, for example, in one of his informants at Rockport, Massachusetts.
6 See [Melville] Jacobs, ‘A sketch of [Northern] Sahaptin grammar’, Univ. of Washington Publications in Anthropology 4.85–292, [1931].
7 See the papers of Sapir and Troubetzkoy cited above.
8 An ideal working out of this principle would give us a phonemic ‘visible speech’ in which each phonemic sign would be a composite of elements each of which would represent one of the class, sub-class, and cross-class differentiae or sets of differentiae of the phoneme. However, such an orthography might prove impractical for other reasons.
9 ű and ő represent long ü and ö respectively.
10 See pp. [360–61].
11 This important incidental value of phonemics was called to my attention by Professor Sapir.
12 Of course there are instances where it is desirable to use non-phonemic diacritical marks as a special aid to non-native students.