On The Nature of Phonological Representation

Publisher Summary Linguists have long debated this question, and at present still agree (in their vast majority) that a unit the size of the segment or phoneme must be posited. Perhaps, less universally accepted, but nonetheless prevalent, is the notion that segments decompose into an unordered set of distinctive features. As for phonological units above the level of the segment, the one that has most often enjoyed some status in linguistic theory is the syllable, and currently it, too, is acquiring increasingly wide acceptance. In each case, such units of phonological analysis are given a place in linguistic theory on the ground that without them, significant linguistic generalizations cannot be captured. Units such as the feature, the segment (or phoneme), and the syllable have figured in models of speech production and perception as well. Though, it is not obviously true that units of linguistic theory, a theory of competence, should necessarily have a role in theories of performance, clearly such units stand as the foremost and most serious candidates for units of performance theories. Thus, much research in speech production and perception has either assumed the existence of these units, or has directly sought evidence for their existence, in models of the processing of speech.