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A New Classification of the Constituents of Spoken Japanese
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
It is now a matter of common experience that it is often found impossible to describe and classify linguistic material within the framework of the classical categories of morphology. The most reasonable alternative and one which has the merit of being objective and practical is the strictly formal and positional technique which has for many years been advocated by J. R. Firth, Senior Lecturer in Phonetics and Linguistics, University College, London. He states that in grammatical studies “ mental structures must be abandoned and research directed towards finding purely formal and positional characteristics of the facts themselves which, being differentiæ, will serve as a means of description, and as criteria for a congruent classification ”. “ And secondly,” he continues, “ beyond this technique of formal description, function or meaning can then be studied in context on sociological lines, unobscured by categories serving any other purpose.”
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , February 1937 , pp. 1039 - 1053
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1937
References
page 1039 note 1 Firth's, J. K. review of H. Straumann's Newspaper Headlines, in English Studies, xvii, June, 1935, p. 112.Google Scholar
page 1039 note 2 This is a modification of the negative definition given to Standard English by Firth in his most stimulating and instructive little book, Speech, p. 63.Google Scholar
page 1047 note 1 The name “ Constituent ” is here given to a constantly recurring phone sequence whose components are so firmly joined together that any attempt to divide it into smaller parts would either cause unnecessary inconvenience or serve no useful purpose in a study of the language under consideration. A constituent may of course consistin a single phone like a, e, n, etc.
page 1047 note 2 Some Invariables may occur in more than one form, e.g. mina and minna. But these are always found in precisely the same verbal contexts, and so outside the category of Variables.
page 1047 note 3 Cf. “ The Technique of Semantics ” by Firth, J. R., in the Philological Society's Transactions, 1935, pp. 48–9.Google Scholar
page 1048 note 1 This name has been suggested by Firth.
page 1048 note 2 Their number is well under half that of Irregular Verbs in English.
page 1049 note 1 For this term see Firth's review, op. cit., p. 112: “ The Technique of Semantics,” op. cit., p. 62.Google Scholar
page 1049 note 2 Such a phonetic sequence as detemasu (is out) is here treated as a variant of dete imasu and not as a junction of dete and -masu.
page 1051 note 1 This name has been suggested by Firth.
page 1052 note 1 -nde is the phonetic implication of -nte, -mte, and -bte; -ide of -ŋte, and -tte of -tte, -rte, -kte, and -fte. If this latter system of notation, which is expressive of the morphological consonant junctions, be adopted, the te(de)-form may simply be called the te-form. Cf. “ The Technique of Semantics ”, op. cit., pp. 59–60.Google Scholar