Probleme der allgemeinen und der französischen Phonologie

Abstract

Phonemic theories must be classified according to their acceptance, or refusal, of the Saussurean distinction between form and substance. If one is to accept this distinction, one has to disagree with the principle that a phoneme is a phoneme in every environment, a disagreement which means rejecting the taxonomic and/or generative concepts of (partial and total) phonemic overlapping, suprasegmental versus inherent distinctive features, universality of distinctive features, phonemic (non morphemic) junctures, morphophonemes, and a phonographic system without any logographic element. As to the mute e in French, an attempt is being made to establish a theory of clusters independently from it, on the grounds of feature-compatibility: the mute e is thus considered as the (facultative) phonetic aspect of an incompatibility between phonemic features.