Principles of organization

The published books concerned with the phonetics of different languages vary in their structural organization. Sometimes there is a division between (segmental) speech sounds and prosody, but it is also possible to deal with word and sentence level and combinatorics. In the level of speech sounds, there is a distinction between vowels and consonants. Tones and quantity are accounted for, if they occur in the language. Prosody may be replaced by intonation or suprasegmental features. One of these titles is used to discuss stress, pitch (or intonation, referring to the same thing) and rhythm. However, the main structure often mirrors the more detailed subdivisions.

Although there are practical grounds for these principles of organization (and their variants), one loses the natural connection with the linguistic system and with those functional factors that generally cause phonetic phenomena.

No matter which principles of organization are selected, the subjects are bound to be grouped so that in one respect or the other, some interconnected things become isolated. A perfectly logical structure is hardly possible.

This web presentation is based on the following principles:

• Only language-specifically important phonetic issues are discussed, but they are compared with other languages in a contrastive sense and typological aspects are shown. Language-specifically interesting features may include also, e.g., speaking rate, voice quality, and typical pitch (adding the typical features of the different sexes).
  
  
• The main grouping is based on the linguistic system: one important functional unit consists of the lexicon and morphology, and other components are syntax, textuality, pragmatics, and style. As soon as the phone structure of the lexicon, word forms, and the other above mentioned components have been expressed, phonology no longer has the very independent role that it is generally considered to have. The phonology of a specific language is a kind of interface combining the lexicon, morphology, syntax, and other factors that contribute to the complex intention to speak prior to the actual act of speaking. This combining operation includes prosody, which is affected by all levels of language.

These principles give more credit to the phonetic significance of the whole system of language and shows better the functional connections between phonetic details. Moreover, prosody is not forced to the periphery where it often has been placed in linguistics.

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Department of Phonetics

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