Segment (linguistics)

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A segment in linguistics is an analyzed part of a linguistic utterance. Segments can be obtained at any level of speech analysis.

phonetics

Syllable structure

In phonetics , segments are the units on the lowest level of analysis, i.e. sounds / phones . As the smallest components of syllables , they can be divided into consonants and vowels , if necessary also into tones. Depending on your needs, these can be summarized as onset ω, nucleus ν, coda κ, initial ι, medial μ, final φ and rhyme ρ.

Other language levels

If you take a sentence in order to segment it, i.e. to break it down into its components, you can obtain segments of very different types. The smallest segments come into question in the analysis of spoken language, the sounds, in the analysis of written language, the letters or graphs . A sentence can also be broken down into syllables , morphs , words , parts of sentences or partial sentences . If one assumes even larger utterances than the sentence, for example the discourse , conversation or text , then even larger units such as paragraphs or chapters can be obtained as segments.

Importance of the segments

If one wants to develop a rule system, a grammar, one needs the segments so that one can execute which units are handled by the rule system. Procedures for breaking down linguistic utterances into segments with the most formal means possible (i.e. with as little use of one's own intuition) were developed primarily by the representatives of American (taxonomic) structuralism from the 1920s to 1950s, including Leonard Bloomfield and Joseph H. Greenberg , Zellig S. Harris, and Rulon S. Wells . The second step then consisted of classifying the segments obtained. The classification then leads to the units of the language system, the langue . For example, by classifying the sounds (= units of the parole ) according to their function in communication, one obtains the phonemes , the units of the langue. Similarly, morphs are classified into morphemes .

literature

  • Elisabeth Bense, Peter Eisenberg, Hartmut Haberland (eds.): Descriptive methods of American structuralism . Max Huber, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-19-006757-0 .
  • Joseph H. Greenberg: A Quantitative Approach to the Morphological Typology of Language . In: International Journal of American Linguistics . No. 26 , 1960, pp. 178–194 (English, first edition: 1954).
  • Zellig S. Harris: (Methods in) Structural Linguistics . The University of Chicago Press, 1951 (English, first edition: 1947).
  • Theodor Lewandowski: Linguistic Dictionary . 4th, revised edition. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1985, ISBN 3-494-02050-7 , segment, segmentation.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Greenberg 1960.
  2. ^ Harris 1951.
  3. ↑ On Bloomfield and Wells see the German translations of important articles in Bense et al. a. 1976.

Web links

Wiktionary: segment  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations