Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

A universal structural characteristic which distinguishes human languages from less complex sign systems. Also known as ‘double articulation’, it means that language is structured on two different levels: the units of the ‘lower’ level of phonology are arranged to form units of the ‘higher’ level of grammar. Hence many thousands of morphemes can be represented economically by different combinations of a small set of phonemes. In alphabetic writing this duality is reproduced as letters are combined to form (visual) morphemes. Logographic writing systems are often thought to lack this feature, which is why their sign inventories are much more numerous than alphabets. However, closer inspection reveals that duality of patterning also underlies these systems, although it is structurally independent of the relationship between the phonological and morphological strata of language. Rather, the graphic system itself exhibits double articulation. For example, Chinese characters have an internal structure, being composed of smaller elements known as radicals. These radicals also occur independently, thus fulfilling a double function as building blocks and as self-sufficient characters. This is a structural analogue of phonemes, e.g. /e1/, which can function as morphemes or parts thereof, e.g. a and able , by exploiting the duality of sense-determinative and sense-discriminative units ... log in or subscribe to read full text