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Prague School Phonology
Prague School Phonology
1. Forerunner:
The forerunner of the Prague School was the Moscow Linguistic Circle founded
in 1915. It is a circle consisted of a group of young scholars such as Trubetzkoy
(25yr) and Jakobson (20yr), who is the president from 1915-1920. The issues
that this circle concerns are of both language and linguistics including problems
of poetics, literature analysis, and general artistic structure under the influence
of Slavic and historical linguistics. The sources of their study are based on
Saussure and Baudouins works. When the Revolution broke out on October
1917 the members of this circle fled and this circle nearly dismissed.
2. Foundation:
By the 1920s, the terms phoneme and phonology were well known to
European linguistics. More importantly, de Saussure had left a legacy of modern
structuralism which greatly influenced linguistics in general. Working within
this structuralist tradition were, among others, a group of scholars known from
1926 as the Linguistic Circle of Prague. In phonology, two members of the Circle
stand out: Roman Jakobson (1896-1982), who began his career in Moscow but
moved to Czechoslovakia and worked there in the 1930s before fleeing via
Scandinavia to the USA; and Nikolai S. Trubetzkoy (1890-1938), also of Russian
origin, who was a professor in Vienna from 1923 until his death.
N. S. Trubetzkoy (L2)
1.1 Contribution:
Linguistics.
This part can be found in the book, Roman Jakobson: A Bibliography of His
Writings, which contains 484 items of his writing from 1916 to 1971.
2. Trubetzkoy, Nikolai Sergeyevi (1890-1938)
2.1 Contribution
Phonology. The content includes about 140 articles/books published before his
death and 7 posthumous
publications and translations of his works. Most of his articles can be found in
the following publication:
1952 The Common Slavic Elecment in Russian Culture. ed. Leon Stilman.
trans. by a group of graduate students of the Department of Slavic Languages,
Columbia University. New York: Columbia Univ.
1956 Die russischen Dichter des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. Abriss einer
Entwicklunsgeschichte. Nach einem nachgelassenen russiscfhen Manuskript
hrsg. Rudolf Jagoditsch, Graz, H. Bhlaus Nachf.
1. Main Theory
Jacobson and Trubetzkoy also initiated modern distinctive feature theory. The
notion of component features is already implicit in the idea of opposition. The
notion was made explicit by Jakobsons and Trubetzkoys recognition of such
features as differential qualities or relevant properties. This further
strengthened their point that phonemes represented points in a system rather
than physical or mental entities.
2. The Prague Circle manifesto, which changes the character of the European
phonology, points out the tasks of phonology are as follows:
1. Distinctive Features:
Jakobson (1939, 1949) drawing on earlier phonological concepts of de Saussure
and Hjelmslev, pointed to the limited number of differential qualities or
distinctive features that appeared to be available to languages. Jakobsons
interest was in showing hoe oppositions as the constitutive features of
relations among phonemes reflected a hearers response to an acoustic signal.
Just as this signal contains a limited number of variables, so perceptual response
to it operates with a limited number of categories.
Jakobson and Halle employed only 12 features, which were listed with
articulatory correlates as well as acoustic cues. All of the features are polar
oppositions, allowing relative values. So the acute vowels of one language need
not to be identical in nature with the acute vowels of another, provided that they
are more acute than the grave vowels to which they are opposed. Moreover, the
same acoustic effect can be achieved by different articulatory means. Lip
rounding, pharyngealization and retroflexion, for instance, may all be covered
by the one distinctive feature of flatness. Each feature is binary, with only two
opposed values along a single dimension.
Distinctive Features
Continuant
Distinguishes noisy sounds like sibilant [s]
8. Strident/Mellow
from more mellow fricatives.
Refers to the higher rate of energy discharge in
9. Checked/Unchecked glottalized sounds and therefore distinguishes
ejectives from pulmonic sounds.
Refers to the acoustic spectrum and
distinguishes sounds with more energy in the
10. Grave/Acute lower frequency ranges from those with greater
concentration of energy in the upper
frequencies.
Refers to the lowering or weakening of upper
frequencies created by some kind of narrowed
aperture: distinguishes lip rounded sounds
11. Flat/Plain from nonrounded, as well as other articulations
with comparable acoustic consequences,
notably pharyngealized consonants from their
plain counterparts.
More or less the opposite of flat/plain and
12. Sharp/Plain refers to the upward shift of upper frequencies
characteristic of palatalized consonants.
2. Neutralization:
Firstly, a language has a contrast but only one of the relevant phonemes occurs
under neutralization. Suppose a language has a contrast of voiced and voiceless
plosives in word-initial and word-final positions, nut only voiceless plosives
occur word-finally. Since the word-final plosives are not in contrast with voiced
plosives, the contrast of voicing is inoperative or neutralized word-finally.
1. Historical Status:
2. Influence:
http://www.heartfield.demon.co.uk/jakobson.htm
http://www.shlrc.mq.edu.au/~rmannell/ling210/features/jakobson.
shtml
http://www.shlrc.mq.edu.au/~rmannell/ling210/features/trubetzko
y.shtml
VII. References
Tobin, Yishai. 1997. Phonetics versus Phonology: The Prague School and
Beyond in Phonology as Juman Behavior: Theoretical Implications and
Clinical Applications.