Abstract
For the purposes of the present discussion, the term structure will be used in the following non-rigorous sense: A set of phonemes or a set of data is structured in respect to some feature, to the extent that we can form in terms of that feature some organized system of statements which describes the members of the set and their interrelations (at least up to some limit of complexity). In this sense, language can be structured in respect to various independent features. And whether it is structured (to more than a trivial extent) in respect to, say, regular historical change, social intercourse, meaning, or distribution — or to what extent it is structured in any of these respects — is a matter decidable by investigation. Here we will discuss how each language can be described in terms of a distributional structure, i.e. in terms of the occurrence of parts (ultimately sounds) relative to other parts, and how this description is complete without intrusion of other features such as history or meaning. It goes without saying that other studies of language — historical, psychological, etc.—are also possible, both in relation to distributional structure and independently of it.
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References
The investigation of historical regularity without direct regard to descriptive (synchronic) structure was the major achievement of the linguists of the late eighteen hundreds. There are incipient studies of historical-descriptive interrelations, as in H. M. Hoenigswald, ‘Sound Change and Linguistic Structure’, Lg. 22 (1946), 138–43; cf. A. G. Juilland, ‘A Bibliography of Diachronic Phonemics’, Word 9 (1953), 198–208. The independent study of descriptive structure was clarified largely by Ferdinand de Saussure’s Cours de linguistique générale, the Prague Circle in its Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague, Edward Sapir in various writings, and Leonard Bloomfield’s Language
The investigation of historical regularity without direct regard to descriptive (synchronic) structure was the major achievement of the linguists of the late eighteen hundreds. There are incipient studies of historical-descriptive interrelations, as in H. M. Hoenigswald, ‘Sound Change and Linguistic Structure’, Lg. 22 (1946), 138–43; cf. A. G. Juilland, ‘A Bibliography of Diachronic Phonemics’, Word 9 (1953), 198–208. The independent study of descriptive structure was clarified largely by Ferdinand de Saussure’s Cours de linguistique générale, the Prague Circle in its Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague, Edward Sapir in various writings, and Leonard Bloomfield’s Language
These approaches are discussed by Martin Joos, ‘Description of Language Design’, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 22 (1950), 702–8, and W. F. Twaddell, ibid. 24 (1952), 607–11.
These approaches are discussed by Martin Joos, ‘Description of Language Design’, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 22 (1950), 702–8, and W. F. Twaddell, ibid. 24 (1952), 607–11.
Y. R. Chao, ‘The Non-Uniqueness of Phonemic Solutions of Phonetic Systems’, Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica 4 (1934), 363–98. Cf. the two solutions of Annamese phonemes in M. B. Emeneau, Studies in Vietnamese (Annamese) Grammar, 9–22.
This kind of formulation is best expressed in the work of Sapir and Newman; cf. reviews of Selected Writings of Edward Sapir (ed. by D. Mandelbaum) in Language 27 (1951), 289–92; and of Stanley Newman, Yokuts Language of California in International Journal of American Linguistics 10 (1944), 196–211.
This kind of formulation is best expressed in the work of Sapir and Newman; cf. reviews of Selected Writings of Edward Sapir (ed. by D. Mandelbaum) in Language 27 (1951), 289–92; and of Stanley Newman, Yokuts Language of California in International Journal of American Linguistics 10 (1944), 196–211.
E.g. in Edward Sapir, ‘La réalité psychologique des phonèmes’, Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique 30 (1933), 247–65 (translated in David Mandelbaum, éd., Selected Writings of Edward Sapir, 46–60).
C. F. Hockett, review of Recherches structurales in International Journal of American Linguistics 18 (1952), 98.
Here we have discussed whether the distributional structure exists in the speakers as a parallel system of habits of speaking and of productivity. This is quite different from the dubious suggestion made at various times that the categories of language determine the speakers’ categories of perception, a suggestion which may be a bit of occupational imperialism for linguistics, and which is not seriously testable as long as we have so little knowledge about people’s categories of perception. Cf. for the suggestion, Benjamin L. Whorf, ‘The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language’, Language, Culture and Personality (Sapir Memorial Volume) (ed. by A. I. Hallowell, L. Spier, and S. Newman), 75–93; ‘Languages and Logic’, The Technology Review, 1941, 43–6; and against it, Eric H. Lenneberg, ‘Cognition in Ethnolinguistics’, Lg. 29 (1953), 463–71; Lewis S. Feuer, ‘Sociological Aspects of the Relation Between Language and Philosophy’, Philosophy of Science 20 (1953), 85–100.
Here we have discussed whether the distributional structure exists in the speakers as a parallel system of habits of speaking and of productivity. This is quite different from the dubious suggestion made at various times that the categories of language determine the speakers’ categories of perception, a suggestion which may be a bit of occupational imperialism for linguistics, and which is not seriously testable as long as we have so little knowledge about people’s categories of perception. Cf. for the suggestion, Benjamin L. Whorf, ‘The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language’, Language, Culture and Personality (Sapir Memorial Volume) (ed. by A. I. Hallowell, L. Spier, and S. Newman), 75-93; ‘Languages and Logic’, The Technology Review, 1941, 43–6; and against it, Eric H. Lenneberg, ‘Cognition in Ethnolinguistics’, Lg. 29 (1953), 463–71; Lewis S. Feuer, ‘Sociological Aspects of the Relation Between Language and Philosophy’, Philosophy of Science 20 (1953), 85–100.
In E. G. Schachtel’s ‘On Memory and Childhood Amnesia’, Psychiatry 10 (1947), 1–26 it is suggested that the experiences of infancy are not recallable in later life because the selection of aspects of experience and the classification of experience embodied in language, which fixes experience for recall, differs from the way events and observations are experienced (and categorized) by the infant.
The following analysis can be fully understood only if one checks through the actual lists of Cherokee forms. The few forms cited here are taken from William D. Reyburn, ‘Cherokee Verb Morphology II’, International Journal of American Linguistics 19 (1953), 259–73. For the analysis, see the charts and comments in Reyburn’s work and in Z. S. Harris, ‘Cherokee Skeletal Grammar’, and ‘Cherokee Grammatical Word Lists and Utterances’, in the Franz Boas Collection of the American Philosophical Society Library.
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Harris, Z.S. (1981). Distributional Structure. In: Hiż, H. (eds) Papers on Syntax. Synthese Language Library, vol 14. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8467-7_1
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