Talk:Phonology

Confusing description for vowel chart

Both images start with the same phrase, "The vowels of modern (Standard) Arabic and (Israeli) Hebrew from the phonetic point of view.", but then show completely different charts. This look like an error.172.56.34.120 (talk) 02:35, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

syntax problem

There are some sort of syntax problems in the notes section. Tried fixing it to no avail. Can anyone resolve it?--Megaman en m (talk) 09:58, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 August 2020 and 12 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Aaarnold2.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:34, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Expansion and restructuring of the entire article

Hi all. This article is not in great shape, and it is my goal to improve it to the level of a B-class article. I would like to expand on it significantly and also restructure it. And add sources! However, I would like to get some feedback before I make all sorts of changes. To start, I think that the structure of the current article is as follows.

0. Short introduction

1. Terminology

1.1 Explanation of the roots of the word "phonology"

1.2 The distinction between phonetics and phonology

1.3 Different definition of phonology

2. History

2.1 Earliest known phonological research

2.2 Another early phonologist (if we apply the term somewhat anachronistically)

2.3 Coining of the term phoneme and earliest modern phonology

2.4 Prague school of linguistics

2.5 SPE and distinctive features

2.6 Natural Phonology

2.7 Autosegmental Phonology (Lexical Phonology and Optimality Theory are named but not explained)

2.8 Government Phonology

2.9 Optimality Theory

2.10 Evolutionary Phonology

3. Analysis of Phonemes

3.1 Explanation of phonemes and how they relate to minimal pairs

3.2 Phonology aims to determine what a language's phonemes are

3.3 Sound systems change

3.4 The concept of a phoneme as a self-sufficient unit is problematic from the point of view of phonetics

3.5 Different views of what constitutes a phoneme

3.6 Morphophonemes instead of phonemes

4.0 Other topics

4.1 Things other than phonemes that are studied by phonologists

4.2 Other random things

4.3 Phonology in other modalities

This is my criticism/review of the current contents:

0. Not bad, but it should be simultaneously more general and more specific than the "a." and "b." as described

1. The title "terminology" is poorly chosen in my opinion. It prefer "The scope of phonology" or something to that effect.

1.1 Fine

1.2 Fine

1.3 Fine

2. There is a lot of information here, but I don't think all of it belongs here. A concise description of the history of phonology is appropriate, but this simultaneously describes the approaches, although not in enough detail to be sufficient. But the modern appraoches to phonology are not named elsewhere. There also needs to be much more connection between the paragraphs. Many new ideas were reaction to older ideas, and that needs to be reflected in this section.

2.1 Should be a single paragraph with 2.2

2.3 Fine

2.3 Mostly fine, but Jakobson and his features should be discussed here, not in 2.5

2.5 SPE indeed deserves its own paragraph

2.6 I have heard of Natural Phonology, but I genuinely do not think that it is or has been sufficiently influential to deserve this much text. This will sound rude, but... The most important practitioners are one guy and his wife? Wonderful to have such a phonological power couple, but I don't think they belong in this section.

2.7 Autosegmental Phonology was absolutely a turning point and deserves its own paragraph, and more text.

2.8 Element-based approaches, yep. But Dependency Phonology needs to be named as well, and Element Theory as a separate thing.

2.9 Needs more information.

2.10 I am not so convinced that Evolutionary Phonology is major enough to be named here. I admittedly do not know much about it and will read up on it, but I think it should only be here if this is some kind of turning point or if it has a big following.

3.0 Analysis of the phoneme is an important topic in Phonology, but this section is entirely unsourced and if 1 part of phonology is discussed in such detail, then why not any others? Phonotactics is at least as important, and there is nothing about phonotactics here. I think that most of the paragraphs here are not relevant enough to name.

4.0 A disgrace.

I propose the following structure instead, please give me feedback.

0. Short introduction, an improved version of the current one

1. Etymology and definition

1.1 Etymology

1.2 Phonology vs. Phonetics

1.3 Different views on what phonology is

2.0 Topics of study

2.1 Phonemes (segmental phonology, phonemic analysis)

2.2 Features (subsegmental phonology, elements, Articulatory phonology)

2.3 Tone (tonal primitives vs. features, tonal processses)

2.4 Voice Quality

2.5 Syllable structure and phonotactics

2.6 Stress

2.7 Intonation and prosodic phonology

2.8 Diachronic phonology

3.0 Approaches to characterising underlying representations and processes

3.1 Rule-based approach

3.2 OT

3.3 Exemplar Theory

3.4 Underspecification

4.0 History

4.1 Earliest phonological analyses, pre-modern

4.2 Conceptualisation of the phoneme

4.3 Prague school of linguistics, structuralism, conception of features

4.4 Generative linguistics, SPE

4.5 Autosegmental Phonology

4.6 Element-based approaches

4.7 Lexical Phonology

4.8 Optimality Theory

4.9 Perhaps Evolutionary Phonology

5.0 List of minor Phonological Theories with a 1-sentence explanation (e.g. Q-theory and Natural Phonology)

6.0 See also (Expansion)

I will definitely think of other things as well because I'm just writing this spontaneously now. Any and all feedback is welcome! Barefoot Banana (talk) 12:32, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

It is now a work-in-progress in my Sandbox. I think that's publicly visible. I will probably take at least a few weeks to do it. If no one else gives any input, I will just do the best I can. Barefoot Banana (talk) 12:55, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Generally, it sounds very nice! But I do have a few comments. I think the most important thing is making sure there are sources for things. History: I don't agree that it needs to be concise, as I think it's unfortunate to remove info if it's sourced. It's correct that it's somewhat even in places, but it's fine to be okay with adding info until there's enough for a separate History of phonology-article. But there's a lot of unsourced stuff after the first paragraphs, so plenty to clean up and remove from... I agree that different theories/approaches should be described somewhere else than just in history (and not all need to be in history, I guess?). It seems a bit odd to place the history-section later than it is now; they're usally one of the first sections in articles from what I see. I think there should be one heading covering what you have proposed as 3.0 and 5.0, which could then be subsections, not sure if "minor" is the best wording, when it could just be "other". I think the "topics" section is a good solution to the unfortunate and unsourced "analysis of phonemes" and "other topics". But those are just my two cents. I haven't looked at your sandbox, but I look forward to improvements. //Replayful (talk | contribs) 15:23, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I will keep your comments in mind, and indeed, add sources everywhere where they are needed, including existing text.

Regarding "minor theories", I was a bit sloppy, that was meant as a description rather than a literal title. "Other" suggests that the theories listed there are not mentioned earlier in the article, but that probably won't be the case. I'll see how it shakes out.

The "topics" section is an idea that I stole from the Syntax article. There, History comes after Topics, so I copied that too. I'll just start writing and see whether the order works out. I have no strong opinion either way. Barefoot Banana (talk) 19:32, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I think the syntax-topics section has approx. the same role as the terminology/definition-section in the phonology-article, and that's one of the few things usally before history (I think I created the syntax one...), but ordering is always easy to fix, so it's a non-issue really. For a section on thoeries, it should not matter whether or not they are also mentioned in the history though. //Replayful (talk | contribs) 22:30, 12 September 2023 (UTC)