A System of Descriptive Phonology

1. Linguistics is a classificatory science. The starting-point in such a science is to define (1) the universe of discourse and (2) the criteria which are used in making the classifications. Selection and preliminary ordering of data determine the RANGE of analysis; the choice of criteria fixes the LEVEL of analysis. In linguistics there are various ranges, discussed in ?2, and two basic levels, PHONOLOGICAL and GRAMMATICAL, each with subdivisions. The phonological level is the subject of this paper.'