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Interpretations of the English Suprasegmentals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

R. H. Robinson ,
D. F. Theall  and
J. W. Wevers
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Extract

In a brief declaration in the last issue of this journal, our colleagues P. Drysdale, W. Mackey and M. Scargill outlined their objections to the Smith-Trager description of English stress, pitch and juncture. Their article calls into question the most fundamental American research works in English linguistics. At the outset, we would like to observe that in adopting attitudes towards the great tradition of linguistics in the United States, it is imperative that we avoid the two extremes of total belief and of rash rejection. This tradition is the product of several decades of intense, patient research by men with eminent ability to observe sounds and patterns, and an extraordinary flair for generating verifiable hypotheses. Thus the critic can condemn any part of the tradition only when he can demonstrate that it is false. On the other hand, the American tradition is empirical and positivist. It is evolving rapidly, and its conclusions and postulates are constantly being modified. Furthermore, it is not a monolithic tradition. Though there is a consensus of views at any given time, there are also hot debates, such as the current one on the interpretation of the English vowels and suprasegmentals. Thus anyone who believes this year’s conclusions may soon find himself cherishing obsolete positions that their originators have long transcended.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , Spring 1959 , pp. 8 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1959

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References

1. Drysdale, P. D., Mackey, W. F. and Scargill, M. H., “Pitch and Stress Phonemes: Analysis or Synthesis?”, The Journal of The Canadian Linguistic Association, 4. 2 (Autumn 1958): 61–62 Google Scholar.

2. Hill, Archibald, Introduction to Linguistic Structures, N. Y., Harcourt Brace & Co., 1958 Google Scholar.

3. See for example:

Bolinger, Dwight, “Intersections of Stress and Intonation”, Word 11 (1955): 195–203 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Householder, Fred, “Stress, Juncture and My Grandfather’s Reader”,. Word 14 (1958)Google Scholar.

Chomsky, M., Halle, M., and Lukoff, F., “Accent and Juncture in English”, in For Roman Jakobson, Mouton, The Hague, 1956: 65–80 Google Scholar.

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Sledd, James, “Review of Trager and Smith ‘Outline of English Structure’ and Fries ‘The Structure of English’”, Language 31: 312–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. The article by Drysdale, Mackey and Scargill will be hereafter refered to as DMAS.

5. Pike, Kenneth, Intonation, of American English, Univ. of Michigan Publications in Linguistics, v. 1, Univ. of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1945 Google Scholar. See especially the review of earlier study of intonation Section 2: 3–15 and note 40: 176–179. Wells, cf. R., “The Pitch Phonemes of English”, Language, 21 (1945): 27–37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Hockett, Charles F., “Peiping Morphology”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1947; reprinted in Linguistincs, p. 219b Google Scholar “Microjuncture is a zero-point of sonority, a clear and unambiguous point of syllable division.” There are a few Chinese morphemes that consist of more than one syllable, but the syllable-morpheme coincidence is extremely high.

7. Robins, R. H., “Formal Divisions in Sundanese”, TPS 1953: 139–40Google Scholar. Firth, cf. J. R., “Sounds and Prosodies”, in Papers in Linguistics, 1934–1951. Oxford, 1957: 121–139 Google Scholar.

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9. Chomsky, N., Syntactic Structures, Mouton, The Hague, 1957 Google Scholar: 1. “Syntax is the study of the principles by which sentences are constructed in a given language.” The problem is, however, if a transform Sx is formed by combining S1 and S2, the linguist is dealing with units larger than sentences [s=sentence].

10. Firth, J. R., “A Synopsis of Linguistic Theory, 1930–1955”. Studies in Linguistic Analysis, passim: 7–11 and 31 Google Scholar. Halliday, cf. Michael, “Grammatical Categories in Chinese”, TPS, 1956: 182 Google Scholar.

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