Toward a General Calculus of Phonemic Distribution

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2863341
AutoresFrank Harary, Herbert H Paper
Ano1957
Volume33
Fascículo2
Páginas143
Data de publicação1957-04-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoLanguage (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0097-8507 • E-ISSN: 1535-0665
EditoraJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/410727
OpenAlexW2330861590
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5

In recent years there have appeared in linguistic publications a number of explicit references to the methodology and concepts of mathematical logic. In the abstract of one provocative article, Martin Joos writes, 'Physicists describe speech with continuous mathematics, such as Fourier analysis or the autocorrelation function. Linguists describe language instead, using a discontinuous or discrete mathematics called “linguistics”.' Joos spells out what he means by the identification 'linguistics—discrete mathematics' at a number of points in his article. ‘Ordinary mathematical techniques fall mostly into two classes, the continuous (e.g. the infinitesimal calculus) and the discrete or discontinuous (e.g. finite group theory). Now it will turn out that the mathematics called “linguistics” belongs in the second class. It does not even make any compromise with continuity as does statistics, or infinite-group theory. Linguistics is a quantum mechanics in the most extreme sense. All continuity, all possibilities of infinitesimal gradation, are shoved outside of linguistics in one direction or the other’ (702)

Calculus (dental) · Distribution (mathematics) · Linguistics · Mathematical analysis · Computer Science · Mathematics · Medicine · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Speech and Audio Processing