THEORY: phonetics and phonology [was: Textbook choices]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, jesse stephen bangs wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, dirk elzinga wrote:
>
> > I agree that [tense] needn't be invoked in all languages, but in
> > English it is absolutely crucial. And it can't be reduced to some
> > other phonetic contrast, such as retraction of the tongue root;
> > Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996) demonstrate this fairly convincingly.
> > So if it's good phonology to invoke [tense], it's also equally good
> > phonetics, if only because we haven't been able to explain it away as
> > something else.
>
> Well, that begs the question of *what* is the distinction between
> phonetics and phonology.  I would like to think of phonetics as purely
> articulatory and only concerned with the actual facts of speech
> production.  Phonology, on the other hand, deals with the relationships
> between sounds in a given language.  Thus, I see the English tense/lax
> distinction as a valid phonological alternation without any phonetic
> motivation.  Many theorists like every natural class to have phonetic
> basis, but based on the data I know from English and Romanian, that just
> ain't so.
Well, that's the $64 question for many phonologists; just where is the
dividing line between phonetics and phonology? I don't pretend to have
the definitive answer, and anyone who does is lying to you. However,
there are real articulatory, acoustic, and perceptual distinctions
between "tense" and "lax" vowels; these need to be recognized. If you
don't want to call the phonetic distinction "tense/lax," find another
label. The point is, though, that it is there.

As for phonetics being "purely articulatory," and concerned with "the
actual facts of speech production," that is too narrow a
characterization, since phonetics is also concerned with the acoustic
and perceptual properties of speech sounds. These branches of
phonetics aren't as well developed since they require rather
sophisticated equipment (and in some cases a medical degree) to
pursue. But researchers are finding increasing evidence that
perceptual phonetics plays a large role in the comprehension and
production of speech. Of course, that should come as a surprise to no
one.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu