当代音系学的方法论特征_李兵.pdf

Guangzhou, China Modern Foreign Languages (Quarterly) Vol.24, No.1 January 2001: 1-22 Methodological Features of Today’s Phonology LI Bing The paper presents a survey of methodological issues in the contemporary phonology ranging from Classical Generative Phonology, Lexical Phonology, Underspecification Theory, Prosodic Morphology, Non-linear theories Dependency Phonology, Feature Geometry theories, to Optimality Theory, the latest but the most challenging development of the trend. The survey shows that the methodology in today’s phonology is characteristic of the following features. (1) Phonological studies are theoretic development -orientated. (2) A theory is a system of axioms , which is formally deductive and algorithmic. (3) Theory is voiced mainly in a meta-language and formal representations. (4) Speculation, hypothesization and deduction play a superseding role in theoretic development. (6) Economy counts in theoretic evaluation. A tendency has become distinct that phonology is of a closer resemblance to natural science where the methodological features are concerned. Such a characteristic methodology is decided by, and has been shown so far to be satisfactorily applicable to, a theory that aims at describing phonology as part of human linguistic knowledge. Keywords: Phonology, methodology, feature, theoretical linguistics Correspondence: School of Foreign Languages Hunan Normal University Changsha, Hunan 410081 P.R.China 现代外语（季刊）第24 卷2001 年第1 期（总第91 期）：1-22 中国·广州 当代音系学的方法论特征* 李 兵 本文讨论了当代音系学的方法论特征。讨论涉及经典生成音系学、词汇音系学、不 充分赋值理论、非线性理论、韵律构词学、特征几何理论、从属音系学和最近的重 要发展优选论。文章认为，当代音系学的目标是揭示作为语法知识组成部分的音系