- See his Syntactic Structures, Sec. 8.3, pp. 90–1; or my review of it, Language XXXIII (1957), 375–408. I assume that sentences with normal word-order but rising intonation, as in utterance (2) quoted above, are transformationally derived variants of ordinary yes-no questions.
- R. M. Martin, Truth and Denotation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958, p. 6.
- R. Carnap, Logical Foundations of Probability, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950, pp. 210–7.
- For an account of such a “Complement” type of grammatical transformation, see Chomsky, A Fragment of English Grammar, mimeographed notes for Third Texas Conference on Problems in the Analysis of English, University of Texas, 1958 (to be pub-(lished).
- Many examples are cited in Heinz Werner's Comparative Psychology of Mental Development, Chicago: Follett, 1948.
- These similarities are explored by Ludwig Wittgenstein in Philosophische Untersuchungen. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1953.
- The same sort of lapse into voluntaristic language occurs in most behavioristic psychologies when they attempt to explain complex processes. It is often to be found in the work of the American Pavlovians (and Freudians) John Dollard and Neal Miller, Personality and Psychotherapy; An Analysis in Terms of Learning, Thinking, and Culture, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950. In general, however, this is an excellent book which has done much to direct the attention of American students of conditioning and animal learning to human language and thought.
- Experimental reports have appeared for the most part, in the Journal of Experimental Psychology and in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. General reviews of research on topics concerning language and cognition have appeared in the Psychological Bulletin.
- The second element, ‘-roller’, is also abundantly clear, of course, the compound therefore being of the type dubbed by Rössing “redende Namen”.
- Other volumes in the series: 1, Folklore, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok (Bloomington, 1952); 2. The Supernatural, by Thomas A. Sebeok and Frances Ingemann (New York, 1956); 3. The First Cheremis Grammar (1775), a facsimile edition with introduction and analysis by Thomas A. Sebeok and Alo Raun (Chicago, 1956); 5. The Cheremis, by Thomas A. Sebeok (New Haven, 1955); 6. Games, by Thomas A. Sebeok and Paul G. Brewster (Bloomington, 1958).
- A description of these texts is given in the first volume of this series, p. 6.
- For a discussion of the Soviet policy of introducing Russian words into minority languages, see Jacob Ornstein, “Soviet Language'Policy: Theory and Practice,” Slavic and East European Journal, XVII (1959), 4–10.
- The reasons for this classification are actually given in the author's M.A. thesis, The So-Called Past Tenses in Cheremis (Indiana University, 1953), shortly to be published. “The verbal noun in N… is used in connection with another verb to indicate an action that takes place during another action, or has taken place before another action… the N-form is comparable to a class of denominal derivatives in ən, n, common in the language: šörən ‘being on one edge’ from šör ‘edge’; koktən ‘by two’ from koktə ‘two’;… This derivation is used in the phrase adverbially… it appears that both the deverbal and denominal N-suffix indicate some kind of condition: muren toleš ‘comes in the condition of singing’ and jolən toleš ‘comes in the condition of walking on foot.’ As they appear in similar surrounds, they can be included in the same N-morpheme… there is no apparent way of separating ən or n from the homonymous genitive morpheme” (pp. 20–24).
- I have argued this point in almost identical terms in “Why and How Do We Study the Sounds of Speech?” H. J. Mueller, ed., Report of the Fifth Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Teaching, (Washington, D.C., 1954), pp. 73–80.
- The same point has been made by N. Chomsky, “Semantic Considerations in Grammar,” R. H. Weinstein, ed., Report of the Sixth Round Table Conference on Linguistics and Language Teaching, (Washington, D.C., 1955), pp. 141–153, where English examples are quoted.
- N. S. Trubetzkoy, “Die Aufhebung der phonologischen Gegensätze,” Travaux du cercle linguistique de Prague, VI (1936) 29–45.
- E.g., in addition to <t2> Avanesov uses <t1> to represent an obstruent in which the feature of palatalization is contextually determined, and <t3> to represent an obstruent in which both palatalization and voicing are contextually determined.
- On distinctive features see R. Jakobson and M. Halle, Fundamentals of Language ('s-Gravenhage, 1956).
- The conventional phonemic representation /r|ot/ or /r|od/, depending on context, can also be logically deduced from the morphophonemic representation.
- Perhaps the clearest statement of this position is found in C. F. Hockett's “A Note on ‘Structure’” IJAL XIV (1948), 269–271. Hockett writes: “The analytical process thus parallels what goes on in the nervous system of a language learner, particularly, perhaps, that of a child learning his first language… The essential difference between the process in the child and the procedure of the linguist is this: the linguist has to make his analysis overtly, in communicable form, in the shape of a set of statements which can be understood by any properly trained person…” Though rarely stated as explicitly, this view is all but universal. It is implicit, for instance, in almost all interventions in the discussion of phonemics at the Eighth International Congress of Linguists.
- For a discussion of this point see N. Chomsky, Syntactic Structures ('s-Gravenhage, 1957), ch. 6, and his review of J. Greenberg, Essays in Linguistics, in Word XV (1958) 214–215.
- The study of the methods and rules of discovery and invention has been the aim of a special field which some writers call “heuristic.” In recent years it has received attention in the writings of the mathematician G. Polya; cf. his How to Solve It (Princeton, 1945) and Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning (Princeton, 1954).
- “Today the distinction between phonemic and morphophonemic patterns is quite prominent. In La réalité psychologique de phonémes… Sapir includes both kinds without explicit distinction.” Z. S. Harris, Review of Selected Writings of Edward Sapir, Language XXVII (1951) 293.
- Thus, for instance, Harris characterizes phonemes as standing in “bi-unique correspondence with speech events: given the writing we know uniquely what sounds to pronounce, and given the sounds we know uniquely how to write them.” He adds to this the comment that “if only the first of these were true, we should have morphophonemic writing.” Z. S. Harris, “Simultaneous Components in Phonology,” in M. Joosed., Readings in Linguistics (Washington, 1957) pp. 136–137. “Bi-unique correspondence” is usually interpreted as “point to point correspondence,” see, e.g., C. F. Hockett, Review of A. Martinet, Phonology as Functional Phonetics, Language XXVII (1952), 340.
- In several recent papers E. Haugen has proposed to introduce the syllable as an entity in phonemic descriptions, in spite of the fact that “the attempts to And phonetic criteria for syllable division appear to be futile.” (“Syllabification in Kutenai,” UAL XXII (1956)). His justification for this step is that “the syllable is the most convenient framework for describing the distribution of phonemes.” He even defines the syllable in any language as “that stretch of phonemes which makes it possible to state their relative distribution most economically.” “The Syllable in Linguistic Description,” For Roman Jakobson, ('s-Gravenhage, 1956), p. 216.
- I find myself in sympathy with the following remark by Pike: “If it can be demonstrated that a grammatical approach to phonemics gives a simpler, easier accounting of all of the facts, why should we follow an a priori separation of the two? If language actually works as a unit, with grammatical configurations affecting phonetic configurations, why should we not describe the language and analyze it that way?” “Grammatical Prerequisites to Phonemic Analysis,” Word III (1947), 162.
- <α>is a “weak phoneme” in which the features of compactness and gravity are neutralized; it represents, therefore, the “strong phonemes” <|o> <|a> <|e> in certain unaccented syllables. See below, sec. 4.2.
- Particularly significant in this regard is the account by Černyšev of spelling errors made by secondary school students. See V. Černyšev, “Zametki o delenii slov v russkom proiznoSenii,” Izv. otd. russ.jaz. i slov., 14, 2, 64–70 (1911).
- “… in many languages certain grammatical units—say 'words'—have as one of their characteristics the induction of subphonemic modification of some of the sounds. When modifiable sounds happen to occur at the borders of such units, the juncture becomes phonologically recognizable. If no modifiable sounds happen to occur at a grammatical boundary, the boundary is not phonetically perceptible but is nonetheless present and just as important in the total structure of the language.” K. L. Pike, toc. cit.
- Example from A. A. Reformackij, “Fonologičeskie znanija,” Voprosy Jazyko-znanija, 6, 2, 101–102 (1957).
- The boundary is postulated after prefixes as well as unaccented prepositions because the phonetic processes are the same in both contexts. Note, however, that accented prepositions are treated as independent words. This is particularly striking in case of prepositions like pered ‘before,’ which appear in two variants, one accented and the other unaccented. For examples see Avanesov, p. 82.
- The voicing of the entire initial cluster in the last two examples is governed by the general rule that voiceless obstruents cannot appear before voiced obstruents.
- The term “soft consonants” as used here includes all palatalized consonants and liquids, the glide [j], and the palatal consonants.
- Avanesov points out repeatedly (six times on pp. 109–112 alone and in some other places as well) that it is very common today to disregard the distinction between [i] and [ie]. It is my impression that this coalescence is all but universal at present, and that a pronunciation which carefully distinguishes the vowels gives the appearance of being either bookish or archaic.
- Cf. R. Avanesov, Russkoe literaturmu proiznoSenie (Moscow, 1958), pp. 43–46.
- In discussing this problem in my book, The Sound Pattern of Russian (s-Gravenhage, 1959), p. 39, I postulated two internal boundaries; one, for these word final morphemes, and the other, for the prefixes and unaccented prepositions. My colleague, R. Abernathy, has pointed out to me, however, that this is an unnecessary proliferation of symbols, since prefixes and unaccented prepositions cannot end in “soft consonants”, whereas the special treatment of {o} and {a} which concerns us here is limited to the position after “soft consonants.” We thus have a clear case of complementary distribution, and hence need only a single internal boundary.
- While boundaries can be postulated more freely, as proposed here, it is not possible to let all bars down, for it is obvious that unless some fairly severe limitation is placed on the introduction of boundaries, one can replace all symbols in a phonemic or morphophonemic transcription by various boundaries. In a joint paper with Chomsky and Lukoff we have proposed that boundaries be postulated only at morpheme junctions. (See “On Accent and Juncture in English,” For Roman Jakobson, 's-Gravenhage, 1956, pp. 65–80.) This restriction does not appear to me now to be sufficiently severe. I believe that an additional constraint is needed which would rule out a boundary that stands in a one-to-one relationship with a particular morpheme class. This restriction is suggested by T. Milewski's observation that words are recognized only in such languages in which groups of morphemes possess certain “constant (phonetic—M.H.) characteristics independent of the function of the given group of morphemes in the clause”, “The Conception of the Word.in the Languages of North American Natives,” Lingua Posnaniensis III (1951), 249. It would have as its main consequence the establishment of a firm dividing line between phonetic processes which are part of the phonology of a language and those which belong to its morphology.
- Choose new content alerts to be informed about new research of interest to you
- Easy remote access to your institution's subscriptions on any device, from any location
- Save your searches and schedule alerts to send you new results
- Export your search results into a .csv file to support your research