Phonology

Columbia School Phonology

In Columbia School linguistics, grammar and phonology are complementary components of an essentially observational, empirical approach to the study of language. The two components are united in the theoretical construct of the meaningful signal. While grammar is the study of the distribution of signals in discourse, phonology is the study of the distribution of sound, and of the vocal gestures that produce sound, within the signal itself.

Phonology is especially instructive because it gives evidence of the importance of all the “orientations” that inform our work.

The role of communication in phonology can be seen, first of all, in the very arrangement of gestures so as to produce signals: speech is not random noise. Then within almost all signals we find a highly audible “keystone” of vocal vibration and oral aperture (the traditional vowels); these provide the acoustic carrying power within the communicative channel. Both the keystones and, to an even larger extent, the units of greater constriction (consonants) flanking them contribute to communicative distinctiveness among signals. For example, it is presumably the function of communication, with its need for distinctiveness, that prevents languages from having only front vowels or only apical consonants.

The role of the human factor, or the peculiarities of human intelligence, economy and limitations of memory in phonology, can be seen, for example, in the tendency to avoid complexity in the structure of signals. Proportionately, more signals of canonical shape V are exploited in a language than of shapes CV or VC, and these are proportionately more exploited than CVC, CCVC, CVCC, CCCV, and so forth.

Phonetics plays a crucial role in Columbia School phonology. That phonology is not an abstract, purely formal structure can be seen in the many phonotactic skewings observable in any language’s lexicon. For example, in phonetic environments where the communication load is relatively low, words show a tendency to end in ways that utilize the highly adroit and sensitive apex of the tongue, as opposed to the lips and the dorsum of the tongue (i.e., words like pot are more common than words like pop or pock), or, when there is an available phonological opposition, there is another tendency for words to end in ways that exploit fewer sets of articulators (i.e. words like pot are more common than words like pod or *pon). So distinctive phonological units ( p, t, k) are endowed with more than just distinctive value, to use Saussure’s term; they also have a phonetic substance which contributes to their functioning in language.