Grammatological Studies Writing and Its Relation to Speech

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Grammatological Studies Writing and Its Relation to Speech RUUL Reports from Uppsala University Linguistics #29 — 1996 (digital format 2019 with minor corrections) John Sören Pettersson Grammatological Studies Writing and its Relation to Speech Dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at Uppsala University 1996 ABSTRACT Petterson, J. S. I 996. Grammatological Studies: Writing and its Relation to Speech. Reports from Uppsala University, Department of Linguistics RUUL #29. 228 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 91-506-1170-4. This work addresses the problem of how writing is related to speech and how our notions of language are related to writing principles such as ‘the alphabetic principle’. The target of the study is the concept of ‘phonography’ (sound-writing, sometimes called ‘glottography’). This has been used in several theoretical works on writing, often with the assumption that the existence of phonographic systems somehow proves that the purpose of writing is to represent speech. From a functional approach, that is, from a theoretical base where language (of whatever modality) is seen as crucially dependent on actual communicative events, the notion that writing is representational in nature is criticised. Three areas are investigated: 1. the origin of the phono+graphic type of writing (also treated are the origin of spoken language and the medium-dependency of language); 2. the relation between alphabetic writing and notions concerning the structure of language in general and of particular languages; 3. the relationship between phonographic methods of reading old scripts and the prevailing phonocentrism. In all three areas it is found that the possibility of indicating pronunciation of written texts by phonographic means has been overinterpretated in favour of the prevalent representational view. The investigations conducted here present new perspectives on how phonography is to be understood in that they demonstrate how it has contributed to the development of the means for human expression, to the historical development of writing systems, to the historical development of concepts about language. Keywords: Writing systems, alphabet, decipherment, nonverbal communication, phonetisation. © John Sören Pettersson 1996 ISSN 0280-1337 ISBN 91-506-1170-4 Originally printed in A5 size. Printed by Reprocentralen, HSC, Uppsala 1996. The electronic version was produced autumn 2019 from old files and scanned pages. Contents Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... vii 1 Phonography and phonocentrism 1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................... 1 1.2 Aim .................................................................................................. 4 1.3 A note on reference literature on writing systems .......................... 5 1.4 An outline of the present work ....................................................... 6 2 Preliminaries 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................... 13 2.2 Language and grammar ................................................................. 13 2.3 Terminology .................................................................................. 16 3 Some attampts to reject the representational view 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................... 23 3.2 Spoken language and disobedient alphabetic writing .................. 23 3.3 General works on writing systems ................................................ 35 3.4 Concluding remarks ...................................................................... 44 4 The medium-dependency of language 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................... 46 4.1.1 Background ........................................................................ 46 4.2 Sign language ................................................................................ 49 4.3 ‘Full’ semasiography? ................................................................... 51 4.4 Language at hand .......................................................................... 55 4.5 Full corporal forms........................................................................ 58 4.6 The inclination to subordinate the non-spoken ............................ 67 4.7 Writing as the norm for linguistics ............................................... 74 5 Establishing a pronunciation of writing 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................... 77 5.2 Speech’s representation of writing ............................................... 77 5.3 The origin of Sumerian writing and spoken language ................. 83 5.4 A certain relationship between text and speech ........................... 86 5.5 Summary ....................................................................................... 97 6 Writing and linguistics 6.1 Introduction ................................................................................... 99 6.2 Per Linell’s The written language bias in linguistics (1982) ..... 100 6.3 David Olson’s The World on Paper (1994)................................ 104 6.3.1 The development of grammatical concepts ..................... 105 6.3.2 Writing and grammar ....................................................... 108 6.3.3 Reading and the scientific revolution .............................. 111 6.4 Phoneme-sized units and the pronunciation of letters ................ 113 6.4.1 Alphabetic training .......................................................... 114 6.4.2 Form and meaning, and ‘awareness’ ............................... 122 6.5 Esa Itkonen’s Universal history of linguistics (1991) ................ 126 6.5.1 Panini: phonetics in a non-literate society? ..................... 126 6.5.2 Grammatical description of language .............................. 127 6.5.3 A final word on Panini ..................................................... 129 6.6 Summary ..................................................................................... 130 7 Phonetic concepts and the origin of the alphabet, I 7.1 Introduction ................................................................................. 132 7.2 ‘Consonantal’ writing systems .................................................... 134 7.3 Reclassifying ‘consonantal’ writing ........................................... 137 7.4 ‘Obstructional phonetics’ ............................................................ 139 7.5 Another phonetic theory ............................................................. 145 7.6 Concluding remarks .................................................................... 150 8 Phonetic concepts and the origin of the alphabet, II 8.1 Introduction ................................................................................. 153 8.2 Language structures and phonographic principles ..................... 153 9 Decipherment and phonocentrism 9.1 Introduction ................................................................................. 172 9.2 Approaches to long-forgotten writing systems........................... 172 9.2.1 The word made visible ..................................................... 173 9.2.1.1 Maya glyphs .......................................................... 179 9.3 The lesson for the theory of decipherment ................................. 192 9.3.1 Some newly presented decipherments ............................. 192 9.3.2 On the notion of ‘principled reading’ .............................. 194 9.4 The concept of reading................................................................ 195 9.5 The future of writing ................................................................... 198 10 Summary ............................................................................................. 200 Appendix – The precursors of cuneiform writing .................................... 211 References ................................................................................................. 216 Chapter 1 – Phonography and phonocentrism 1.1 Introduction This work is a study of phonography, that is, writing which indicates pronunciation. A text written with a phonographic writing system like the alphabetic one used here will not only mediate its content but also give information about how the text should be rendered in speech. Such systems have the feature of relating one form of communication to another on a very simplistic and formal level. Alphabetic writing is most obviously phonographic, and so are plain syllabaries. Chinese writing could be regarded as phonographic, since the formation of new signs consists of merging two already existing signs, namely one which has about the same pronunciation as the sign under creation, and the other indicating the semantic domain of the meaning of the new sign. Admittedly, Chinese literacy is old, and many signs are nowadays not pronounced as they were when they were composed. Moreover, it is not indicated in a composite sign which part constitutes the phonetic cue and which the semantic cue. Different phonographies are phonographic to different extents. They have one factor in common, however: these systems are regarded by their users as being able to give general directions as to how one can relate spoken utterances to written messages. As a matter of fact, writing has often been seen as a way to make speech visible, indeed even as nothing more than a representational device
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