In linguistics, double articulation, duality of patterning, or duality
is the fundamental language phenomenon consisting of the use of combinations of a small number of meaningless elements (sounds, that is,
phoneme
A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
s) to produce a large number of meaningful elements (words, actually
morpheme
A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...
s).
Its name refers to this two-level structure inherent to
sign system
A sign system is a key concept in semiotics and is used to refer to any system of signs and relations between signs. The term ''language'' is frequently used as a synonym for a sign-system. However, the term ''sign-system'' is considered preferab ...
s, many of which are composed of these two kinds of elements: 1) distinctive but meaningless and 2) significant or meaningful.
It is one of
Hockett's design features.
Theory
''Double articulation'' refers to the twofold structure of the stream of speech, which can be primarily divided into ''meaningful'' signs (like words or
morphemes
A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...
), and then secondarily into ''distinctive'' elements (like sounds or
phonemes
A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...
). For example, the meaningful English word "cat" is composed of the sounds /k/, /æ/, and /t/, which are meaningless as separate individual sounds (and which can also be combined to form the separate words "tack" and "act", with distinct meanings). These sounds, called
phonemes
A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...
, represent the secondary and lowest level of articulation in the hierarchy of the organization of speech. Higher, primary, levels of organization (including
morphology,
syntax
In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...
, and
semantics
Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...
) govern the combination of these individually meaningless phonemes into meaningful elements.
History
The French concept of ''double articulation'' was first introduced by
André Martinet in 1949, and elaborated in his ''Éléments de linguistique générale'' (1960). The English translation ''double articulation'' is a French
calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...
for ''double articulation'' (spelled exactly the same in French). It may also be termed ''duality of patterning''.
"Duality of patterning" was proposed by American linguist
Charles F. Hockett in a 1958 textbook ''A course in modern linguistics''. The two terms are similar but different, and Hockett and Martinet proposed their concepts independently. Both of them were probably inspired by Danish linguist
Louis Hjelmslev
Louis Trolle Hjelmslev (; 3 October 189930 May 1965) was a Danish linguist whose ideas formed the basis of the Copenhagen School of linguistics. Born into an academic family (his father was the mathematician Johannes Hjelmslev), Hjelmslev studi ...
's theory of "two planes" of human language. Hjelmslev proposed that human languages have two kinds of planes: planes of ''plereme'' ("fullness" in Greek) and planes of ''ceneme'' ("emptiness" in Greek). The planes of ''plereme'' contain meaningful units, and the planes of ''ceneme'' contain meaningless units that make up the meaningful units. For example, the ''cenemes'' of spoken language are phonemes, while the ''pleremes'' are morphemes or words; the ''cenemes'' of alphabetic writing are the letters and the ''pleremes'' are the words.
Sign language
Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with #Non-manual elements, no ...
s may have less double articulation because more gestures are possible than sound and able to convey more meaning without double articulation.
See also
*
Origin of language
The origin of language, its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study the origins of language draw inferences from evidence such as the fossil record, archaeolog ...
*
Origin of speech
The origin of speech differs from the origin of language because language is not necessarily spoken; it could equally be Written language, written or Sign language, signed. Speech is a fundamental aspect of human communication and plays a vital ...
References
External links
*Wendy Sandler et alii
"The gradual emergence of phonological form in a new language" 2009.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Double Articulation
Linguistics
Philosophy of language
Semiotics
Theories of language