Andrew Radford - Linguistics An Introduction [Second Edition]

It might seem bizarre to say that the segment plays little role in writing systems, since very many languages have alphabetic writing systems and such systems

are clearly based on segments. However, when we look at the history of writing, it turns out that the alphabet derives from a writing system devised by Phoenician merchants about 4,000 years ago. This itself was developed from a hieroglyphic system in which whole words were represented by pictures. Phoenician was a

Semitic language (like Arabic and Hebrew), in which consonants play a particularly salient role, and, presumably because of this, the system gradually came to represent individual consonant phonemes (though not vowels – to this day, the written forms of Semitic languages tend not to represent vowels directly). The Phoenician alphabet was taken over by the Greeks (who modified the symbols

for consonants not appearing in Greek and used them as vowels). It is also thought to be the precursor of the Armenian and Georgian alphabets. The Greek system gave rise to a number of others, including the Latin alphabet. This then formed the basis of a good many other writing systems throughout the world. The upshot is that, as far as we can tell, all alphabetic writing systems derive from the Phoenician system. In other words a phoneme-based writing system seems to

have been ‘invented’ (or rather, gradually evolved) just once in the history of human literacy.

Now, many cultures have evolved their own writing systems independently,

and, in all other cases, they are based either on pictures representing whole words (like Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs or modern Chinese ideograms) or on

the syllable. Syllabic systems include those of Japanese, Inuit, later forms of Egyptian and Sumerian cuneiform and the Linear B script with which Greek

was written on Mycenaean Crete. An intriguing case is that of the Cherokee writing system, adopted in 1821. This was devised single-handedly (and in the face of opposition from some of his fellow Cherokees) by a man named Sequoyah,

who decided that his people needed a script in which to write their language.

Though he could speak only Cherokee, and though Cherokee was not written

at that time, he adapted written symbols he had seen in printed books. This

meant that he had to spend about thirty years trying to figure out the phonological system of the language. What he produced was effectively an exhaustive analysis of the syllable structure of Cherokee, one of the most remarkable feats of linguistic analysis ever recorded. What is interesting about Sequoyah’s writing system is that even this extremely gifted intellectual was not led to analysing the structure of his language in terms of phonemes, but rather in terms of syllables (exercise 6).

120

sounds

This concludes our discussion of some of the major issues which arise when

we begin to examine systematically the way sounds are used in human lan-

guages. As far as the notion of a grammar, presented in our main introduction, is concerned, the core section of this part of the book is section 5. There we saw that as soon as we begin to describe what native speakers know about their

language, it is necessary to postulate a variety of theoretical constructs, e.g.

phonemes, syllables and distinctive features which belong to a complex system of representation. This latter consists of a number of levels and these levels are linked by what we have referred to as phonological processes. Together, these representations and the processes linking them constitute the PF-component of a grammar, and in sections 6 and 7, we have discussed a small sample of the evidence available from studies of language acquisition and of language processing pointing to the involvement of these abstract constructs in the developing child and in the adult’s use of language.

More basically, we have seen the necessity of having available notation (the IPA system of section 2) which enables us to be precise and unambiguous in our discussions of sounds, and the usefulness of IPA notation was amply demonstrated in sections 3 and 4, where we employed it in illustrating the systematic nature of sound variation and historical sound change. We now turn our attention to words.

Exercises

1.

Experimental work has revealed that chinchillas and macaque monkeys

perceive some speech sounds categorically. Discuss the significance of

this for the claims that aspects of the ability to acquire, use and under-

stand language are (a) innate in humans, (b) specific to humans.

2.

Collect a corpus of speech errors. This will entail carrying a notebook

with you everywhere for two or three weeks! Analyse the phonological

errors as ‘exchanges’, ‘anticipations’, ‘perserverations’, ‘additions’

and ‘others’. What are the main difficulties in collecting such a corpus?

3.

Analyse the following errors in terms of the scan-copier model:

(a)

spack rice

[spice rack]

(b)

fart very hide

[fight very hard]

(c)

face spood

[space food]

(d)

do a one stetch swip

[step switch]

(e)

flay the piola

[play the viola]

(f)

blake fruid

[brake fluid]

(g)

week at workends

[work at weekends]

What is special about the error in (e)? How does the error in (f) relate

to syllable structure? How many possible analyses are there for (g)?

Processing sounds

121

4.

The following examples in broad IPA transcription contain errors.

Discuss the relevance of these for the role of phonology in processing:

(a) /gɪv ðə nɪpl ən ɪnfənt/ for ‘give the infant a nipple’

(b) /ən æŋgwɪʤ lækwɪziʃn prɒbləm/ for ‘a language acquisition

problem’

(c) /ɪt səːtənlɪ rʌn auts fæst/ for ‘it certainly runs out fast’

(d) /sɛvɹəl ɹæbɪts houl/ for ‘several rabbit holes’

5.

Analyse the following sample of typing errors, where the target word

appears on the right in each case. Identify the exchanges, persevera-

tions and anticipations. Do these obey the same sorts of constraints as

those of errors in spoken language? What other types of error are

illustrated here?

carerr

career

exercieses

exercises

fromal

formal

godd

good

hooly

holly

imemediately

immediately

incidentalyy

incidentally

lingiustics

linguistics

matirial

material

spychology

psychology

teh

the

whtether

whether

substition

substitution

langauge

language

studnet

student

6.

An interesting systematic way of distorting words is seen in ‘secret

languages’. These seem to abound in all cultures. Here is a passage in

Pig Latin, transcribed into IPA. What is the system behind this secret

language? What phonological units does it refer to?

igpeɪ atinleɪ ekstteɪ ɪʧweɪ æzheɪ ɔːleɪ əðeɪ ɛtəzleɪ əveɪ ɪðeɪ ælfəbɛteɪ:

əðeɪ ɪkkweɪ aunbreɪ ɒksfeɪ ʌmpsʤeɪ ɔuvəreɪ əðeɪ eɪzɪleɪ ɒgdeɪ.

Further reading and references

A very basic introduction to phonetics is Ashby (2005), which could serve as pre-reading for this text. A more detailed account of the same material is found in Roach (2001). A good introduction to basic phonetics which extends the content of section 2 can be found in Ladefoged (2005a , b). Laver ( 1994) gives a much more detailed survey of modern phonetics.

Sound variation and its relationship to social, linguistic and interactional factors are discussed in detail in a number of texts, including Chambers and Trudgill