The Sound Pattern of English
Encyclopedia
The Sound Pattern of English (frequently referred to as SPE) is a 1968 work on phonology
(a branch of linguistics
) by Noam Chomsky
and Morris Halle
. It presents a comprehensive view of the phonology of English
, and stands as a landmark both in the field of phonology and in the analysis of the English language. Chomsky and Halle present a view of phonology as a linguistic subsystem, separate from other components of the grammar
, that transforms an underlying
phonemic sequence according to rules and produces as its output the phonetic form that is uttered by a speaker. The theory fits with the rest of Chomsky's early theories of language
in the sense that it is transformational
; as such it serves as a landmark in Chomsky's theories by adding a clearly articulated theory of phonology to his previous work which focused on syntax
.
The Sound Pattern of English has had an enormous influence on subsequent work. Derivatives of the theory have made modifications by changing the inventory of segmental features, considering some to be absent rather than having a positive or negative value, or adding complexity to the linear, segmental structure assumed by Chomsky and Halle. Its treatment of phonology as rules that operate on features, as well as its particular feature scheme, survive in various altered forms in many current theories of phonology. Some major successor theories include autosegmental phonology
, lexical phonology
and optimality theory
.
Chomsky and Halle represent speech sounds as bundles of plus-or-minus valued features (e.g. vocalic, high, back, anterior, nasal, etc..) The phonological component of each lexical entry is considered to be a linear sequence of these feature bundles. A number of context-sensitive rules transform the underlying form of a sequence of words into the final phonetic form
that is uttered by the speaker. These rules are allowed access to the tree structure that the syntax is said to output. This access allows rules that apply, for example, only at the end of a word, or only at the end of a noun phrase.
However, one of the most serious criticisms of SPE is that the so-called phonological processes alleged to be part of a speaker's competence are really only the successive phonetic transformations of the original historical lexical items. Chomsky and Halle appear to have replaced diachronic processes with purely synchronic ones.
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
(a branch of linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
) by Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
and Morris Halle
Morris Halle
Morris Halle , is a Latvian-American Jewish linguist and an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
. It presents a comprehensive view of the phonology of English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, and stands as a landmark both in the field of phonology and in the analysis of the English language. Chomsky and Halle present a view of phonology as a linguistic subsystem, separate from other components of the grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
, that transforms an underlying
Underlying representation
In some models of phonology as well as morphophonology, the underlying representation or underlying form of a word or morpheme is the abstract form the word or morpheme is postulated to have before any phonological rules have applied to it. If more rules apply to the same form, they can apply...
phonemic sequence according to rules and produces as its output the phonetic form that is uttered by a speaker. The theory fits with the rest of Chomsky's early theories of language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
in the sense that it is transformational
Transformational grammar
In linguistics, a transformational grammar or transformational-generative grammar is a generative grammar, especially of a natural language, that has been developed in the Chomskyan tradition of phrase structure grammars...
; as such it serves as a landmark in Chomsky's theories by adding a clearly articulated theory of phonology to his previous work which focused on syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
.
The Sound Pattern of English has had an enormous influence on subsequent work. Derivatives of the theory have made modifications by changing the inventory of segmental features, considering some to be absent rather than having a positive or negative value, or adding complexity to the linear, segmental structure assumed by Chomsky and Halle. Its treatment of phonology as rules that operate on features, as well as its particular feature scheme, survive in various altered forms in many current theories of phonology. Some major successor theories include autosegmental phonology
Autosegmental phonology
Autosegmental phonology is the name of a framework of phonological analysis proposed by John Goldsmith in his PhD thesis in 1976 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....
, lexical phonology
Paul Kiparsky
René Paul Viktor Kiparsky is a professor of linguistics at Stanford University. He is the son of the Russian-born linguist and Slavicist Valentin Kiparsky....
and optimality theory
Optimality theory
Optimality theory is a linguistic model proposing that the observed forms of language arise from the interaction between conflicting constraints. OT models grammars as systems that provide mappings from inputs to outputs; typically, the inputs are conceived of as underlying representations, and...
.
Chomsky and Halle represent speech sounds as bundles of plus-or-minus valued features (e.g. vocalic, high, back, anterior, nasal, etc..) The phonological component of each lexical entry is considered to be a linear sequence of these feature bundles. A number of context-sensitive rules transform the underlying form of a sequence of words into the final phonetic form
Phonetic form
In the field of linguistics, specifically in syntax, phonetic form , refers to a certain level of mental representation of a linguistic expression, derived from surface structure, and related to logical form. Phonetic form is the level of representation wherein expressions, or sentences, are...
that is uttered by the speaker. These rules are allowed access to the tree structure that the syntax is said to output. This access allows rules that apply, for example, only at the end of a word, or only at the end of a noun phrase.
However, one of the most serious criticisms of SPE is that the so-called phonological processes alleged to be part of a speaker's competence are really only the successive phonetic transformations of the original historical lexical items. Chomsky and Halle appear to have replaced diachronic processes with purely synchronic ones.
Related work
- Goyvaerts, Didier L. and Pullum, Geoffrey K. (eds.) (1975) Essays on the Sound Pattern of English. Ghent: E. Story-Scientia.
- Halle, Morris and Mohanan, K. P. (1985) Segmental phonology of Modern English. Linguistic Inquiry 16, 57–116.
- Hayes, Bruce (1982) ExtrametricalityExtrametricalityIn linguistics, extrametricality is a tool for prosodic analysis of words in a language. In certain languages, a particular segment or prosodic unit of a word may be ignored for the purposes of determining the stress structure of the word...
and English stress. Linguistic Inquiry 13, 227–76. - Ross, John Robert (1972) A reanalysis of English word stress. In Contributions to Generative Phonology, ed. Michael Brame, pp. 229–323. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
- Stampe, David (1973) On chapter nine. In Issues in Phonological Theory, ed. Michael J. Kenstowicz and Charles W. Kisseberth, pp. 44–52. The Hague: Mouton.
Editions
- Chomsky, Noam and Halle, Morris. The Sound Pattern of English. Harper & Row. New York: 1968.