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Part of
The Continuity of Linguistic Change: Selected papers in honour of Juan Andrés Villena-Ponsoda
Edited by Matilde Vida-Castro and Antonio Manuel Ávila-Muñoz
[Studies in Language Variation 31] 2024
► pp. 15–35

Chapter 1
Cognitive attributes of preclassical phonology

| Universität Heidelberg , Germany | Universidad de Alcalá , Spain

Cognitive phonology, as a development of cognitive linguistics, is one of the most interesting fields of research in the twenty-first century. It is often opposed to so-called “classical phonology”, since the latter mainly builds on structuralist foundations. This chapter considers the proposals made between 1889 and 1921 concerning the concept of “phoneme”, which coincide in many basic assumptions with contemporary cognitive phonology. Among these proposals, those of Jan Baudouin de Courtenay are especially relevant, together with those of Edward Sapir. Basic concepts of cognitivism, such as mental representation, similarity, social use and frequency, can be found in them, both explicitly and implicitly.

Keywords: phoneme, phonology, phonetics, cognitivism, mental representation, usage, frequency
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The history of the phoneme concept
  • 3.Theoretical foundations of cognitive phonology
  • 4.Baudouin de Courtenay, cognitivist phonologist avant la lettre
  • 5.Other precognitive proposals
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 5 February 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.31.01mor
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