A fonológiai elméletek történetéből

A fonéma fogalmának története a korai fonológiaelméletektől a generatív fonológiáig és tovább

Neutrality and variation: what are they?

In this brief contribution, I will raise two basic issues – where basic is meant both as ‘elementary’ and as ‘fundamental’) that are at the heart of Rebrus and Törkenczy (2015). Both of these issues involve notions that are somehow taken for granted by the authors and are not given much consideration. Very simply put, they can be summarised as follows: -- What makes an N an N, and how can you recognise one when you see it? -- Are ‘lexical variation’ and ‘vacillation’ the same thing or are they different? With respect to the first problem, that of neutral vowels, the authors note in passing that the distinction between harmonic and neutral vowels is (normally) gradual, rather than categorical; but then they assume a “once an N, always an N” stance (recall the old structuralist dictum “once a phoneme, always a phoneme”) and capitalise on the intuitive notion of ‘neutral vowel’ which we all seem to share without looking more closely. In doing so, they abstract away from as much detail as possible. In particular, with respect to Hungarian, they deliberately ignore the Height Effect (Hayes and Cziráky Londe 2006) and Harmonic Uniformity (Rebrus and Törkenczy 2015); and, in general terms, they disregard the potentially non-uniform occurrence of individual neutral vowels in invariable suffixes or in anti-harmonic stems (in systems with more than one neutral vowel), as well as any other aspect that might make the system non-categorical, controversial, or messy (except for variation, broadly construed, that has a distinguished and eminent role in the analysis they present). With respect to the second problem, the authors simply subsume both phenomena concerned – quite distinct as they appear to be at first sight – under a common label, and do not discuss whether or not they are right in doing so in any detail (except for a brief mention, in footnote 39, of Hayes et al. (2009) who also refer to them by an umbrella term, ‘zones of variation’). This is all the more important since their key explanatory device, monotonicity, actually hinges on whether or not ‘variation’ in R&T’s sense is a single coherent concept

Hungarian yod

This paper argues that the segment /j/ in Hungarian is neither a fricative (as traditionally claimed) nor a glide (as it is usually classified in the international literature). The arguments adduced involve syllabification patterns, processes of j-obstruentisation, phonetic details of hiatus resolution, as well as phonotactic phenomena. Additional problems that are touched upon include the question whether Hungarian has diphthongs, the behaviour of /j/ with respect to vowel zero alternation, voicing assimilation and final devoicing, the analysis of imperative forms of t-final verbs, as well as the relationship between the Duke of York gambit and the principle of Proper Inclusion Precedence

Fonológiai ábrázolás és fonetikai megvalósítás: a magyar /aː/ esete *

A világ nyelveiben található magánhangzórendszerek általában kiegyensúlyozottnak és állandónak tűnnek, legalábbis első látásra. Ha azonban közelebbről megnézzük vala - mely magánhangzórendszer történetét vagy valamely jól dokumentált nyelv valamelyik magánhangzójának egymástól eltérő megvalósításait az adott nyelv különféle változataiban, azt láthatjuk, hogy a magánhangzók szeretnek ide-oda mozogni a magánhangzótérben, akár úgynevezett eltolódási láncolatokban, akár csak úgy egyenként, néha világos mintá - zatot mutatva, néha meg látszólag értelmetlenül, sőt néha egyenesen oda-vissza mozogva az idők folyamán

Hungarian books on linguistics

Introducing the following Hungarian books on linguistics: László Cseresnyési: Nyelvek és stratégiák, avagy a nyelv antropológiája [Languages and strategies, or, the anthropology of language]. Tinta Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 2004; Ferenc Kiefer: Lehetőség és szükségszerűség: Tanulmányok a nyelvi modalitás köréből [Possibility and necessity: Papers on linguistic modality]. Tinta Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 2005; Christopher Piñón - Péter Siptár (eds): Approaches to Hungarian, Volume Nine: Papers from the Düsseldorf Conference. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2005