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Chapter 18. A short history of phonology in America

Plus c’est la même chose, plus ça change
  • Stephen R. Anderson
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All Things Morphology
This chapter is in the book All Things Morphology

Abstract

Although awareness of a difference between the study of the sound patterns of particular languages and the study of the language-independent capacity of humans to produce and perceive sound existed in European and American thought in the early years of the twentieth century, a clear enunciation of the distinction between phonology and phonetics is due to Otto Jespersen in 1924. As phonology became established as a coherent object of inquiry, two themes can be identified in theorizing about it: first, the question of whether phonological structure is in the mind, as an aspect of human cognition, or only a set of facts about the external data of language; and second, the question of whether there are valid universals of phonological structure. These issues are traced across the past century in the work of American linguists. An additional factor identifiable in historical shifts in theoretical perspective is somewhat less principled: as discussion of fundamental issues becomes more technical and relevant data harder to identify, students and scholars looking for productive research topics tend to abandon previous frameworks for others in a search for lower hanging fruit without necessarily having resolved the earlier questions.

Abstract

Although awareness of a difference between the study of the sound patterns of particular languages and the study of the language-independent capacity of humans to produce and perceive sound existed in European and American thought in the early years of the twentieth century, a clear enunciation of the distinction between phonology and phonetics is due to Otto Jespersen in 1924. As phonology became established as a coherent object of inquiry, two themes can be identified in theorizing about it: first, the question of whether phonological structure is in the mind, as an aspect of human cognition, or only a set of facts about the external data of language; and second, the question of whether there are valid universals of phonological structure. These issues are traced across the past century in the work of American linguists. An additional factor identifiable in historical shifts in theoretical perspective is somewhat less principled: as discussion of fundamental issues becomes more technical and relevant data harder to identify, students and scholars looking for productive research topics tend to abandon previous frameworks for others in a search for lower hanging fruit without necessarily having resolved the earlier questions.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. All things morphology 1
  4. Part I. Paradigms
  5. Chapter 2. Making sense of morphology 17
  6. Chapter 3. A formal restriction on gender resolution 41
  7. Part II. Words, stems, and affixes
  8. Chapter 4. Signs and words 57
  9. Chapter 5. Leaving the stem by itself 81
  10. Chapter 6. Stem constancy under the microscope 99
  11. Chapter 7. Major lexical categories and graphemic weight 117
  12. Chapter 8. Word formation in the brain 127
  13. Chapter 9. The suffixing preference 147
  14. Part III. Competition, inheritance, and defaults
  15. Chapter 10. Feature-based competition 171
  16. Chapter 11. Competition in comparatives 199
  17. Chapter 12. Multi-layered default in Ripano 215
  18. Part IV. Morphomes
  19. Chapter 13. Morphomes all the way down! 239
  20. Chapter 14. Conditional exponence 255
  21. Chapter 15. My favorite morphome 279
  22. Chapter 16. In further pursuit of the adjective 289
  23. Chapter 17. Two-suffix combinations in native and non-native English 305
  24. Part V. Interfaces
  25. Chapter 18. A short history of phonology in America 327
  26. Chapter 19. Realization Optimality Theory 349
  27. Chapter 20. A-prefixing in the ex-slave narratives 377
  28. Chapter 21. Trajectory of children’s verb formation in Hebrew as a heritage language 395
  29. Chapter 22. A primer for linguists on the reading wars 415
  30. Index of languages 431
  31. Index of names 433
  32. Index of terms 435
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.353.18and

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. All things morphology 1
  4. Part I. Paradigms
  5. Chapter 2. Making sense of morphology 17
  6. Chapter 3. A formal restriction on gender resolution 41
  7. Part II. Words, stems, and affixes
  8. Chapter 4. Signs and words 57
  9. Chapter 5. Leaving the stem by itself 81
  10. Chapter 6. Stem constancy under the microscope 99
  11. Chapter 7. Major lexical categories and graphemic weight 117
  12. Chapter 8. Word formation in the brain 127
  13. Chapter 9. The suffixing preference 147
  14. Part III. Competition, inheritance, and defaults
  15. Chapter 10. Feature-based competition 171
  16. Chapter 11. Competition in comparatives 199
  17. Chapter 12. Multi-layered default in Ripano 215
  18. Part IV. Morphomes
  19. Chapter 13. Morphomes all the way down! 239
  20. Chapter 14. Conditional exponence 255
  21. Chapter 15. My favorite morphome 279
  22. Chapter 16. In further pursuit of the adjective 289
  23. Chapter 17. Two-suffix combinations in native and non-native English 305
  24. Part V. Interfaces
  25. Chapter 18. A short history of phonology in America 327
  26. Chapter 19. Realization Optimality Theory 349
  27. Chapter 20. A-prefixing in the ex-slave narratives 377
  28. Chapter 21. Trajectory of children’s verb formation in Hebrew as a heritage language 395
  29. Chapter 22. A primer for linguists on the reading wars 415
  30. Index of languages 431
  31. Index of names 433
  32. Index of terms 435
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