Similarity in phonological theory (SYMPHONY)
Languages around the world vary widely in their sound patterns, but tendencies recur in how humans group sounds within them. For example, sounds such as ‘p’, ‘t’ and ‘k’ are more commonly grouped together than ‘v’, ‘s’ and ‘g’. This suggests that the former are ‘similar’ to one another, whereas the latter are less so. While phonological theory has extensively explored such ‘classes’, the concept of similarity that shapes them remains poorly understood. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the SIMPHONY project will investigate assimilation and dissimilation patterns in a range of languages to deepen our understanding of phonological similarity. This will connect phonological theory, cross-linguistic variation and historical linguistics, offering new insights into how phonological classes arise.
Although the sound patterns across the languages of the world vary widely, commonalities seem to recur in how human beings categorise sounds: we seem consistently more likely to bundle /p t k/ than /v s g/, /f s h/ than /q x r/. A large fraction of phonological theory as it now exists has resulted from interest in the properties such classes of sounds might share; in the distributional typology of sound classes, and the extent to which linguists' intuitions about the rarity or ubiquity of such classes match reality; and in the mechanism by which such classes arise over time. Cognitive representations of the SIMILARITY between the sounds involved in these patterns, although essential to the complete picture, have remained poorly-understood.
This project seeks to remedy this gap in our understanding via the creation of a large cross-linguistic database of potentially similarity-driven phonological phenomena (assimilations and dissimilations). This will offer a good-quality empirical foundation on which to base theories of category formation and models of the similarity between individual segments. Analysis of this data, taking into account the interdependent nature of spatial variation and temporal variation, will link approaches to phonological theory and historical phonology with current state-of-the-art work in distributional typology; this connects sub-fields of linguistics whose intersection remains under-explored and overdue for further development.
Members:
Financial/grant information:
Funding Source: European Commission
Programme: HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01-01
Grant agreement ID: 101205253
Grant amount: 251 578,56 €