University of Babylon

College of Education for Human Sciences

Department of English

FFuunnccttiioonnaall PPhhoonnoollooggyy AA TThheeoorreettiiccaallllyy DDeessccrriippttiivvee AAccccoouunntt wwiitthh aann

““EEppiilloogguuee”” oonn FFoorrmmaall PPhhoonnoollooggyy

A Presentation for

A course in Phonetics and Phonology

PhD Programme, 2012-2013

First Semester

By

Ahmed Sahib Jabir

Under the Supervision of

Prof. Fareed H. Al-Hindawi, PhD

November, 27th , 2012

Contents

Section Page

1. Functional phonology

1. 1. Phonological Models

1. 2. Functional Principles

1. 2. 1. Functional principles of speech production

1. 2. 2. The functional principle of the communication channel

1. 2. 3. Functional principles of speech perception

1. 3. Functions of phonic elements

1.The representative function

2. The indexical function

3. The appellative

4. The culminative function

5. The distinctive function

6. The contrastive function

7. The delimitative function

8. The expressive function

1. 4. The Functional Model of Phonology

1. 5. The Functional load

2. Formal phonology

3. Conclusions

References

1. Functional phonology

“Functional phonology” is the type of phonology, part of

functional linguistics, which is generally associated with the

Linguistic Circle of Prague; hence it is sometimes referred to as

Prague School Phonology. In the literature, the term functional is

usually used to contrast with the term formal. In this respect, Davis

and Baertsch (2012: 8) affirm that a formal explanation of phonology

denotes that a process occurs in a particular language because of the

way the constraints are ranked or ordered. A functional explanation,

however, references something outside the language system. This

could include allusion to general cognitive abilities such as

perception or to frequency among other factors.

Although it is difficult to specify an exact date for the

beginnings of the theory of functional phonology, it is claimed that its

early beginning was in 1911 when Daniel Jones went to St Petersburg

and there he met Ščerba, a professor of French and follower of

Baudouin de Courtenay. From that meeting on, there were attempts

to distinguish the phoneme from a speech sound (Akamatsu, 1992:

iv). Nevertheless, its “real” start is usually associated with the Prague

Linguistic Circle which was founded in 1926. At that time, Jakobson

and Trubetzkoy attached great importance to the oppositions among

phonemes rather than to the phonemes themselves. Thus to say that

English has phonemes /s/ and /z/ is a statement about a distinction

which English speakers make and recognize rather than a claim

about phonemes as mental images or phonetic entities.

(http://www.ling.fju.edu.tw/phono/prague.htm)

As hardly anything is static, functional phonology has

undergone a substantial development, either during the work of the

members of the LCP themselves or by adoption and ameliorations of

its concepts by the Functionalist School led by Martinet (Bičan 2005:

6). In the recent years, two names are much in the center of the

theory, Tsutomu Akamatsu whose book Principles of Functional

Phonology (1992) is introduced by Martinet; and Paul Boersma the

whose publications (his PhD dissertation (1998) as well as a number

of papers and studies1997-2000) all elaborate on the concepts and

principles of functional phonology.

1. 1. Phonological Models

Until fairly recently, phonology was dealt with only within two

competing models. The first is the structuralist model which has a

discrete phonological level that is transitional between two

sequentially ordered modules associated with phonology and

phonetics:

(1) Structuralist model of phonology

| underlying | → / phonemic / → [ phonetic ]

The second is the generative model collapsing the phonological and

phonetic modules into one, which means it rejects the discrete

phonological surface level.

(2) Generative model of phonology

| underlying | → [ phonetic ]

Boersma (1999: 1), however, argues that “these two models actually

share the major assumption of hybrid cognitive phonological

representations” and thus proposes a third model called functional,

claiming that it draws closer on the reality of the phonological

phenomena. That model has an articulatory phonetic level lying

between two sequentially ordered modules associated with

production and perception:

(3) Functional model of phonology

| underlying | → [ phonetic ] →/ phonemic /

He (ibid) explains that the functional model of phonology in (3)

is expressed in the structuralist and generative terms for maximal

comparability with the structuralist and generative models.

Consequently,(4) is a paraphrase of (3) by using functional terms that

make explicit the distinction between articulation and perception:

(4) Functional model of the production grammar

|perceptual specification| → [articulatory implementation] →

/perceptual output/

To illustrate the difference between the generative model and

the functional model of phonology, Boersma (1999: 6) cites an

example of /s/ production before and after teeth loss:

Figure (1) Generative view of teeth loss

Figure (2) Functional view of teeth loss

1. 2. Functional Principles

Language is intended to convey information from one person to

another as quickly and clearly as possible. As such, each of its aspects

will have to do with the three elements of production, channel, and

perception (Passy, 1890 cited in Boersma, 1997: 3). Therefore, the

functional principles will in accordance with these three elements.

1. 2. 1. Functional principles of speech production

As far as the production of speech is concerned, two principles are

significant, these are: (1) the principle of economy stating that:

“languages tend to get rid of anything that is superfluous” and (2) the

principle of emphasis which proclaims that: “languages tend to

stress or exaggerate anything that is necessary” (Passy, 1890 cited in

Boersma, 1997: 3).

The use of the terms superfluous and necessary in these two

principles emphasizes the idea that articulatorily stimulated

constraints should be adhered to if they do not violate the (more

important) perceptually stimulated constraints. Clearly these

principles harmonize with the speaker-oriented principle of the

minimization of articulatory effort and the listener-oriented principle

of the maximization of perceptual contrast.

1. 2. 2. Functional principle of the communication channel

In so far as the communication channel is concerned, there comes out

the principle of the maximization of information flow which says:

“put as many bits of information in every second of speech as you

can”, provided that such bits of information are communicative and

not redundant.

1. 2. 3. Functional principles of speech perception

Regarding speech production, two functional principles emerge:

maximization of recognition and minimization of categorization.

Through the first principle, the listener attempts to maximally utilize

the accessible acoustic information, because that will help them

identify the meaning of the utterance. Alternatively, by the second

principle the disambiguation of an utterance is facilitated by having a

lesser number of perceptual classes into which the acoustic input can

be scrutinized.

1. 3. Functions of phonic elements

Akamatsu (1992: 17) mentions that functional phonology is

typically concerned with identifying, describing, and classifying

various functions accomplished by phonic elements in a certain

language. He (ibid: 17-24) states the following main functions:

1. The representative function is the function that relates the

linguistic sign to the referent (hence it is also called the referential

function). Speakers inform listeners of whatever extralinguistic

facts or states they are talking about. For example, intonation

contours provide an interpretation for a sentence by indicating

which part of the information is viewed as new/known, salient

/less salient or topic/comment…etc.

2. The indexical function is the one which helps identify the

speaker as belonging to different social groups (middle class,

working class, …etc.), geographical places (urban, rural …etc. ),

and occupations (lawyer, sergeant, …etc.) (Malmkjar 2002: 160).

3. The appellative function is that which serves to provoke well-

definable impressions or feelings in the listener as when uttering

an imperative with an intonation inducing the listener not to

comply (ibid) as when insincerely inviting someone for dinner!

4. The culminative function is the function which helps indicate

how many significant units (i.e. “words” or “word-combinations”)

there are in an utterance. According to Akamatsu (1992: 20) this

function is manifested in Spanish, for instance, where polysyllabic

words are stressed on only one of the syllables so the number of

stressed syllables will identify the number of polysyllabic words

in an utterance.

5. The delimitative function is the function which spots the

boundary between significant units. Akamatsu (1992: 21) states

that this function is realized in languages like Czech, Finnish, and

Estonia where the first syllable of polysyllabic words is normally

stressed, the matter which demarcates words (hence this function

is alternatively called demarcative).

6. The distinctive function is a function which derives directly

from the concept of phonological opposition. It is the function by

virtue of which linguistic forms are opposed to, or differentiated

form, each other. The minimal linguistic form that is meaningful,

or the minimal significant unit, is known as a moneme, which

consists in the association between a signifier (vocal expression)

and a signified (semantic content). For example, in English ‘bit’

and ‘bet’ are monemes semantically distinguished through the

phonetic difference.

7. The contrastive function enables the listener to analyze a

spoken chain into a series of significant units like monemes,

words, phrases, etc. Stress in any language functions contrastively

by bringing into prominence one, and only one, syllable in what is

called an accentual unit. What is meant by the term contrastive is

that the stressed syllable contrasts with the unstressed syllable

and characterizes the accentual unit as a whole. In this respect,

Akamatsu (1992: 23) states that in languages like

8. The expressive function is that function whereby speakers

convey to listeners their state of mind without resorting to the

use of additional monemes. Saying “That tree is eNNNNormous!”

instead of saying “That tree is really/absolutely/extremely

enormous!” is an example of this function. (162)

1. 4. The Functional Model of Phonology

After being differentiated from the structural and generative

models, the functional model will now be elaborated on to make

more explicit the processes of speech production and

comprehension. These processes, Boersma (2000: 1) states, are best

described with reference to three “Optimality-Theoretic grammars”

shown in Figure (3) below.

Fig. (3) The grammar model of functional phonology (after Boersma 2000)

First there is the production grammar which starts with an

underlying form that is shaped by means of certain perceptual

specifications to form a continuous articulatory output which is then

transformed by the speaker’s perception system to a more distinct

perceptual output form. From a list of appropriate output candidates,

the chosen one will be that which minimally violates the ranked

constraints of the production grammar.

The constraints are divided into two groups: articulatory

constraints (ART), which evaluate each articulatory output, thus

implementing the functional principle of minimizing articulatory

effort, and faithfulness constraints (FAITH), which evaluate the

similarity between each perceptual output and the underlying form,

thus implementing the functional principle of minimizing perceptual

confusion.

Secondly, the perception grammar consists of constraints that

help to classify the acoustic input to the ear into a finite number of

perceptual categories (anti-categorization constraints CATEG,

perceptual faithfulness constraints WARP) and higher-level structures

(obligatory contour principle OCP, and line-crossing constraints LCC).

This grammar was mentioned above as a part of the speech

production process, but is also used by the listener as a first step in

the comprehension process.

Thirdly, the recognition grammar maps the discrete output of

the perception grammar to underlying lexical forms. It consists of

constraints that evaluate the lexical and semantic appropriateness of

recognized underlying forms (*LEX) and, as in the production

grammar, faithfulness constraints (FAITH).

1. 5. The Functional load

The term functional load refers to the case in which certain

features make contrasts in a language and how much use that

language makes from such contrasts. Also referred to as phonemic

load, in phonology it is used to denote the measure of the work which

two phonemes do in keeping utterances apart. Put differently, it is

the gauge of the frequency with which two phonemes contrast in all

possible environments (Surendran and Niyogi, 2003:1).

The first suggested measurement for functional load was the

number of minimal pairs, but this does not take into account word

frequency and is difficult to generalize beyond binary phonemic

oppositions. Hockett (1955) proposed an information theoretic

definition which has since been generalized. Now, given a large text

corpus, one can compute the functional load of any phonological

contrast including distinctive features, suprasegmentals, and

distinctions between groups of phonemes (Wikipedia).

In English for example, vowels have a very high functional load.

There are numerous sets of words which are distinguished just by

their vowels, such as:

pin, pen, pun, prn, pein, pgin, pn:n

but, bet, bit, bi:t, beqt, bgit, beit, bn:t

Voicing is similar, as can be seen in pad - bad, sue - zoo.

Speakers who do not control these differences make it very difficult

for others to understand them. Although voicing in English is

important, its difference between the two fricatives written ⟨th⟩, /θ,

ð/, has a very low functional load: it is difficult to find meaningful

distinctions dependent solely on this difference. One of the few

examples is thigh vs. thy although the two can be distinguished from

context alone, not to mention that thy is no longer in normal use in

English. Similar is the difference of /dʒ/ (written ⟨j⟩, ⟨ge⟩, etc.)

versus /ʒ/ (resulting from /z + j/, or the ⟨j⟩, ⟨ge⟩, etc. in some

recent French loanwords), as in virgin vs. version.

In this regard, Surendran and Levow (2004) have found that

the functional load of tone in Mandarin, a Chinese dialect, is as high

as that of vowels. This means the tone (which is a property of

syllables in Mandarin) is as important to identify as it is to identify its

vowels.

2. Formal phonology

Formal phonology is that view of phonology which refers to the

conception of taking phonology to be a formal object in the sense of

having abstract formal properties. The most eminent work in this

regard is Chomsky’s who denies that human language is designed for

communication and holds the view that language is designed for

thinking (this is why he is considered as anti-functionalist).

The term “formal phonology” is also used to denote any set of

formal devices for the representation of linguistic structure, such as

the formalisms known as metrical grids used in metrical phonology.

Some linguists take the term to denote a way of describing human

languages in terms of mathematical or logical formalisms. Therefore,

some have argued that Chomsky’s work is not properly formalist, in

the sense that it is not properly mathematical in nature.

In the relevant literature, “formal phonology” is the term used

to encompass any theory that does not adopt the functionalist view

(i. e.) it refers to theories that are concerned rather with “form” than

with “function”. Consequently, atomic phonology, autosegmental

phonology, computational phonology, generative phonology, linear

phonology, stratificational phonology…etc. are all considered part of

formal phonology.

3. Conclusions

Functional phonology is the view of studying phonology from

the angle of the functions of phonic elements of a language and how

they are employed to express different “meanings” and reflect

various attitudes and feelings. Thus, it focuses on function rather than

form.

It is usually associated with the linguistic circle of Prague

because its pioneers are the founders of this circle; namely,

Trubetzkoy and Jakobson who were the first to evolve this view.

Other figures who developed it through its course of progress are

Martinet and, more recently, Akamatsu and Boersma.

A essential difference between functional phonology and other

theories is its distinction between “phonetic implementation” and

“perceptual representation”. It believes that an underlying form is

phonetically implemented under the “supervision” of the perceptual

representation.

References

Akamatsu, T. (1992) Essentials of Functional Phonology: with a

forward by Andre Martinet. Peeters Louvain-la-neuve:

Leuven.

Bičan, A. (2005) http://www.phil.muni.cz/linguistica/art/bican/bic-

001.pdf

Boersma P. (1997) “Elements of Functional Phonology”

--------------- (1999) “Nasal harmony in functional phonology.”

http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/paul/

--------------- (2000) “Phonetically-driven acquisition of phonology”

---------------(1998). Functional phonology: formalizing the

interactions between articulatory and perceptual drives.

PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam. LOT

International Series 11. The Hague: Holland Academic

Graphics. [http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/paul/diss/]

Davis S. and Baertsch K. (2012) “Formal versus Functional

Explanation for a Universal Theory of Syllable Structure:

The Case of Vowel Epenthesis in Winnebago.” Journal of

Universal Language 13-2 (PP 7-34).

Hockett, C. (1955) A manual of phonology International journal of

American linguistics, Vol. 21, No. 4, Part 1 Pp. v, 246

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_load

Malmkjar, K. (2002) The Linguistics Encyclopedia, Second Edition

http://books.google.iq/books?id=XMaq84Mc_5sC&pg=PA1

60&lpg=PA160&dq=%22the+appellative+function+of+pho

nic+elements%22&source=bl&ots=7iEPkds1wo&sig=DIao3

XOEeygJk_Go_QQGNVz6S44&hl=ar&sa=X&ei=KkmuUIqxHL

SM4gST04HYCg&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22t

he%20appellative%20function%20of%20phonic%20elem

ents%22&f=false

Surendra, D. Niyogi, P (2003) Measuring the Usefulness (Functional

Load) on Phonological Contrasts. Retrieved on Nov. 19th

2012 from:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.5.203

Surendran and Levow, The functional load of tone in Mandarin is as

high as that of vowels, Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2004,

Nara, Japan, pp. 99-102.