Double articulation

Translations

Doppia articolazione | double articulation | zweifache Gliederung

Article

The concept of double articulation was first introduced by A. Martinet in the 1940s, but it is ultimately strongly reliant on the duality of linguistic sign as originally formulated by F. De Saussure. The principle of double articulation posits that any linguistic sign can be analyzed in two different fashions: by separating meaningless phonetic elements and by separating its meaningful constituents. The former corresponds to the phonemes of a language, while the latter, which Martinet called monemes (without establishing minimality as a requirement) roughly corresponds to what general linguists call morphemes.

In more general terms, the distinction between the two levels of patterning marks the boundary between the pre-semantic level of phonology and the fully semantic level of morphosyntax.

In contact scenarios, partial or imperfect competence of the morphology of a non-native language can carry to mistaken segmentation, which often lead to folk-etymological analyses and formations.

Example

Consider the Cuneiform Luwian noun phrase at-ra-hi-ša ma-aš-ha-hi-š[a] (KUB 35.133 iv 14). It can be analyzed on the first level of articulation, by separating words or morphemes:

Word-by-word patterning: atrahisa-masahisa
Morphological patterning: atra-ahit-sa-masa-ahit-sa

On the second level of articulation, it can be divided in syllables or in phonemes:

Syllabic patterning: at-ra-hi-sa-ma-sa-hi-sa
Phonemic patterning: a-t-r-a-h-i-s-a-m-a-s-a-h-i-s-a

Note that the first patterning highlights morphology (including phonemic elements that are lost by phonotaxis), while the second highlights units of sound.

For examples of folk-etymological patterning, see reanalysis.

References

André Martinet, 1960. Éléments de linguistique générale, Paris.