A Comment on “Interpretations of the English Suprasegmentals”

Extract

We are pleased that our earlier article, “Pitch and Stress As Phonemes: Analysis or Synthesis”, has produced such a spirited reply. Unfortunately, the happy conditions of proximity at the 1958 Summer School of Linguistics in Alberta which produced that article do not now exist and Professor Drysdale, Professor Mackey, and I are now so far apart in actual miles that collaboration is almost impossible. This comment is the result, then, of my own thinking: and Professor Drysdale and Professor Mackey are not aware that it has been written and, obviously, are not required to support it.

My colleagues from Toronto will agree that the greater part of their article is not an answer to the questions which we raised, but is a discussion of a further problem, the nature of plus juncture. This is relevant to our article only in the sense that it shows the danger of making ultra-positivist statements about the English suprasegmentals, the very thing that inspired our article.