Editing Phonology (section)

== History ==
<!--'History of phonology' redirects here-->

Evidence for a systematic investigation of the sounds of a language appears in the 4th c. BCE Ashtadhyayi, a Sanskrit grammar by Pāṇini. Particularly, within the Shiva Sutras, auxiliary work to the Ashtadhyayi, an inventory of what would be construed as a list of the phonemes of Sanskrit is provided, with a notational scheme for them which is deployed throughout the main text, which concern itself with issues of morphology, syntax and semantics.

[[Ibn Jinni]] of [[Mosul]], a pioneer in phonology, wrote prolifically in the 10th century on [[Arabic]] morphology and phonology in works such as ''[[Kitāb Al-Munṣif]], [[Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab]],'' and '' {{Interlanguage link|Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ|ar|الخصائص (كتاب)|italic=y}}''.<ref>Bernards, Monique, "Ibn Jinnī", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Consulted online on 27 May 2021

First published online: 2021

First print edition: 9789004435964, 20210701, 2021-4</ref>

The study of phonology as it exists today is defined by the formative studies of the 19th-century Polish scholar [[Jan Baudouin de Courtenay]],<ref name="and2021">{{cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Stephen R. |title=Phonology in the twentieth century |date=2021 |publisher=Language Science Press |location=Berlin |isbn=978-3-96110-327-0 |edition=Second, revised and expanded |url=https://zenodo.org/record/5577931 |access-date=28 December 2021|doi= 10.5281/zenodo.5509618|issn=2629-172X|author-link=Stephen R. Anderson}}</ref>{{rp|17}} who (together with his students [[Mikołaj Kruszewski]] and [[Lev Shcherba]] in the [[Kazan School]]) shaped the modern usage of the term ''[[phoneme]]'' in a series of lectures<!--''A detailed programme of lectures for the academic year'', p. 115--> in 1876–1877. The word ''phoneme'' had been coined a few years earlier, in 1873, by the French linguist [[A. Dufriche-Desgenettes]]. In a paper read at 24 May meeting of the [[Société de Linguistique de Paris]],<ref>Anon (probably [[Louis Havet]]). (1873) "Sur la nature des consonnes nasales". ''Revue critique d'histoire et de littérature'' 13, No. 23, p. 368.</ref> Dufriche-Desgenettes proposed for ''phoneme'' to serve as a one-word equivalent for the German ''Sprachlaut''.<ref>[[Roman Jakobson]], ''Selected Writings: Word and Language'', Volume 2, Walter de Gruyter, 1971, p. 396.</ref> Baudouin de Courtenay's subsequent work, though often unacknowledged, is considered to be the starting point of modern phonology. He also worked on the theory of phonetic alternations (what is now called [[allophony]] and [[morphophonology]]) and may have had an influence on the work of Saussure, according to [[E. F. K. Koerner]].<ref>[[E. F. K. Koerner]], ''Ferdinand de Saussure: Origin and Development of His Linguistic Thought in Western Studies of Language. A contribution to the history and theory of linguistics'', Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn [Oxford & Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press], 1973.</ref>
[[File:Nikolai Trubetzkoy.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.75|Nikolai Trubetzkoy, 1920s]]
An influential school of phonology in the interwar period was the [[Prague school]]. One of its leading members was Prince [[Nikolai Trubetzkoy]], whose ''Grundzüge der Phonologie'' (''Principles of Phonology''),<ref name="GdP" /> published posthumously in 1939, is among the most important works in the field from that period. Directly influenced by Baudouin de Courtenay, Trubetzkoy is considered the founder of [[morphophonology]], but the concept had also been recognized by de Courtenay. Trubetzkoy also developed the concept of the ''[[archiphoneme]]''. Another important figure in the Prague school was [[Roman Jakobson]], one of the most prominent linguists of the 20th century. [[Louis Hjelmslev]]'s [[glossematics]] also contributed with a focus on linguistic structure independent of phonetic realization or semantics.<ref name="and2021" />{{rp|175}}

In 1968, [[Noam Chomsky]] and [[Morris Halle]] published ''[[The Sound Pattern of English]]'' (SPE), the basis for [[generative phonology]]. In that view, phonological representations are sequences of [[segment (linguistics)|segments]] made up of [[distinctive feature]]s. The features were an expansion of earlier work by Roman Jakobson, [[Gunnar Fant]], and Morris Halle. The features describe aspects of articulation and perception, are from a universally fixed set and have the binary values + or −. There are at least two levels of representation: [[underlying representation]] and surface phonetic representation. Ordered phonological rules govern how [[underlying representation]] is transformed into the actual pronunciation (the so-called surface form). An important consequence of the influence SPE had on phonological theory was the downplaying of the syllable and the emphasis on segments. Furthermore, the generativists folded [[morphophonology]] into phonology, which both solved and created problems.

Natural phonology is a theory based on the publications of its proponent David Stampe in 1969 and, more explicitly, in 1979. In this view, phonology is based on a set of universal [[phonological process]]es that interact with one another; those that are active and those that are suppressed is language-specific. Rather than acting on segments, phonological processes act on [[distinctive feature]]s within [[prosody (linguistics)|prosodic]] groups. Prosodic groups can be as small as a part of a syllable or as large as an entire utterance. Phonological processes are unordered with respect to each other and apply simultaneously, but the output of one process may be the input to another. The second most prominent natural phonologist is Patricia Donegan, Stampe's wife; there are many natural phonologists in Europe and a few in the US, such as Geoffrey Nathan. The principles of natural phonology were extended to [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] by [[Wolfgang U. Dressler]], who founded natural morphology.

In 1976, [[John Goldsmith (linguist)|John Goldsmith]] introduced [[autosegmental phonology]]. Phonological phenomena are no longer seen as operating on ''one'' linear sequence of segments, called phonemes or feature combinations but rather as involving ''some parallel sequences'' of features that reside on multiple tiers. Autosegmental phonology later evolved into [[feature geometry]], which became the standard theory of representation for theories of the organization of phonology as different as lexical phonology and [[optimality theory]].

[[Government phonology]], which originated in the early 1980s as an attempt to unify theoretical notions of syntactic and phonological structures, is based on the notion that all languages necessarily follow a small set of [[principle]]s and vary according to their selection of certain binary [[parameter]]s. That is, all languages' phonological structures are essentially the same, but there is restricted variation that accounts for differences in surface realizations. Principles are held to be inviolable, but parameters may sometimes come into conflict. Prominent figures in this field include [[Jonathan Kaye (linguist)|Jonathan Kaye]], Jean Lowenstamm, Jean-Roger Vergnaud, [[Monik Charette]], and John Harris.

In a course at the LSA summer institute in 1991, [[Alan Prince]] and [[Paul Smolensky]] developed [[optimality theory]], an overall architecture for phonology according to which languages choose a pronunciation of a word that best satisfies a list of constraints ordered by importance; a lower-ranked constraint can be violated when the violation is necessary in order to obey a higher-ranked constraint. The approach was soon extended to morphology by [[John McCarthy (linguist)|John McCarthy]] and [[Alan Prince]] and has become a dominant trend in phonology. The appeal to phonetic grounding of constraints and representational elements (e.g. features) in various approaches has been criticized by proponents of "substance-free phonology", especially by [[Mark Hale]] and [[Charles Reiss]].<ref name=HaleReiss2008/><ref name=HaleReiss2000/>

An integrated approach to phonological theory that combines synchronic and diachronic accounts to sound patterns was initiated with [[Evolutionary Phonology]] in recent years.<ref>Blevins, Juliette. 2004. ''Evolutionary phonology: The emergence of sound patterns''. Cambridge University Press.</ref>