Aspects of Syntagmatic Phonology

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Aspects of Syntagmatic Phonology MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA Filozofická fakulta DIPLOMOVÁ PRÁCE Brno 2006 Aleš Bičan Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University Department of Linguistics and Baltic Languages ACCENT AND DIAEREME AND THEIR POSITION IN FUNCTIONAL PHONOLOGY M.A. major thesis Aleš Bičan Supervisor: Mgr. ONDŘEJ ŠEFČÍK, Ph.D., Department of Linguistics and Baltic Languages Brno 2006 I hereby confirm that the present thesis was worked out independently. All sources are ac- knowledged in the accompanying list of references. Dřevohostice, April 26th 2006 Aleš Bičan ii CONTENT SYMBOLS ...................................................................................................................................iv ACKNOWLEDGMENT ..................................................................................................................v PREFACE....................................................................................................................................vi 1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................1 1.1 Motivation of this work....................................................................................................1 1.2 Functionalism ...................................................................................................................3 1.3 Basic assumptions ............................................................................................................5 2 THEORETICAL BASIS...............................................................................................................7 2.1 Axioms .............................................................................................................................7 2.2 Language as a system of relations ..................................................................................10 2.3 Basic phonological units.................................................................................................15 2.4 Functions of the phonic substance..................................................................................16 2.5 Zero position...................................................................................................................20 2.6 Syllable ...........................................................................................................................20 2.7 Phonotactics and para-phonotactics ...............................................................................21 2.8 Formalization..................................................................................................................23 3 ACCENT .................................................................................................................................25 3.1 Functional view of accent...............................................................................................25 3.2 Definition of accent ........................................................................................................26 3.3 Accentuable unit.............................................................................................................27 3.4 Functions of accent.........................................................................................................29 3.5 Secondary and n-nary accents ........................................................................................35 3.6 Accentual unit.................................................................................................................37 3.7 Accent and tonemes........................................................................................................41 3.8 Manifestations of accent.................................................................................................43 4 DIAEREME .............................................................................................................................45 4.1 Preliminary terminological notes ...................................................................................45 4.2 Historical and theoretical overview of the problem of junction.....................................46 4.3 The problem of junction from a functional viewpoint ...................................................53 4.4 On the term diaereme .....................................................................................................57 4.5 Definition of diaereme....................................................................................................58 4.6 Functions of diaereme ....................................................................................................62 4.7 On concord .....................................................................................................................65 4.8 Structural and realizational implications of diaereme ....................................................69 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................76 SUPPLEMENT ............................................................................................................................83 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................96 iii SYMBOLS […] phonetic transcription or editorial notes /…/ phonological representation italics terms or words as spelled “…” meanings, contents of words or signs ‘…’ other uses of quotation marks SMALL CAPITALS emphasis /T, K, P etc./ archiphonemes bold face accent/prominence (depending on context), e.g. [§lava] head # diaereme pi phonological form {…} set of Px position where phonological units stand di distinctive function ci contrastive function R relation (e.g. piRdi – a relation between phonological form and distinctive function) Ř reverse/opposite relation E expression C content S sign & conjunction ÷ opposed by commutation with/to + syntagmatic relation × contrasted with/to ↔ commutation between → brings about, causes iv ACKNOWLEDGMENT It is only due to the generousness of many people that the present work could be pos- sible. It is first of all Tsutomu Akamatsu who kindly shared many papers of his and whose books introduced me into the intriguing aspects of functional phonology. I would also like to thank to a number of people who helped me in obtaining many useful works not unavailable to me. Most of all I want to give my thanks to Tobias Scheer and Bohumil Vykypěl who ac- cessed me to a lot of important works. My thanks go also to Tomáš Hoskovec, Václav Blažek, Radek Skarnitzl, Katarína Petřiščáková and Marie Krčmová, to the latter for patiently answer- ing my questions and for suggesting some improvements. Finally, I want to thank to Ondřej Šefčík, my supervisor and friend. Without his con- tinuous support and encouragement the present work would never be possible. It is also thanks to his suggestions that parts of this work are more lucid and understandable. v PREFACE The present work is an attempt to explore two phonological concepts, accent and diae- reme, and to set their position within the theory of functional phonology. I will first present theoretical background of a phonological theory which is based on the assumption that lan- guage is a system of relations. Inspired, though not following in detail, by the glossematic the- ory of Louis Hjelmslev, I define two basic types of relations of language, paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations, as two logical operations, exclusive disjunction and ordered conjunc- tion. The whole set of other relations in phonology such as opposition, contrast, simultaneity etc. are built upon the two basic relations. The relational view of language has also its inspira- tion in works by Jan W. F. Mulder, in particular in his book Sets and Relations in Phonology. Published in 1968, Set and Relations was a first attempt of its author to establish a consistent hypothetico-deductive theory of language. The theory was later formulated into a set of postu- lates (known as Postulates for axiomatic linguistics) and provides, in my opinion, a solid base for adequate descriptions of language. Mulder’s own theory is part of a larger theoretical framework called functional lin- guistics. It is a branch of linguistics practiced by a huge body of linguists who follow the teachings of Ferdinand de Saussure about the structural view of language, and the basic tenets of the so-called Prague School which maintains that language is endowed with functions. As the present work is above all delving into problems of phonology, my focus will be limited on a part of functional linguistics: functional phonology. This type of phonology is the one asso- ciated with the names of Nikolai S. Trubetzkoy and André Martinet. It will be most of all Martinet’s type of functional phonology that will be followed here. Martinet’s functionalism is also the type that served as the basis for Mulder’s Postulates. It is an unfortunate circumstance that both functional phonology in general and func- tional phonology of Martinet’s branch in particular are neglected in certain quarters. First of all, interests of the Prague School after Trubetzkoy’s death in 1938 and World War II shifted to other linguistic areas. Secondly, there seems to be a general contention that functional pho- nology is solely a domain of the Prague School. As a consequence of this, developments in functional phonology outside the School appear to be ignored. This is a situation
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