Phonology and Language Use

by Joan Bybee

• ISBN13: 9780521533782
• ISBN10: 0521533783
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-02-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Referencing new developments in cognitive and functional linguistics, phonetics, and connectionist modeling, this book investigates various ways in which a speaker/hearer's experience with language affects the representation of phonology. Rather than assuming phonological representations in terms of phonemes, Joan Bybee adopts an exemplar model, in which specific tokens of use are stored and categorized phonetically with reference to variables in the context. This model allows an account of phonetically gradual sound change that produces lexical variation, and provides an explanatory account of the fact that many reductive sound changes affect high frequency items first.

Table of Contents

1. Language use as a part of linguistic theory

2. A usage-based model for phonology and morphology

3. The nature of lexical representation

4. Phonological processes, phonological patterns

5. The interaction of phonology with morphology

6. The units of storage and access: morphemes, words, and phrases

7. Constructions as processing units: the rise and fall of French liaison

8. Universals, synchrony and diachrony.