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An investigation of the criteria needed to determine sameness and difference in the classification of items of phonological relevance. Reliance on phonetic substance and meaningful contrast as the criteria for phonological analysis is insufficient; an appeal to the function of the items to be classified is also necessary in many cases. A declarative account of phonology is proposed which is nonsegmental and polysystemic; derivation is excluded from the grammar. What counts as the same phonological item is investigated in a number of phenomena in different languages. Separate chapters are devoted to the issues of biuniqueness and monosystemicity, segmentation, and phonetic implementation and abstractness; a final chapter deals with panlectal grammars.

The development of phonetic notation from writing systems, and of phonetic transcription as a special mode of writing, are placed within the history of phonetics and within a theoretical framework which distinguishes phonetic transcription from spelling and transliteration, and emphasizes the heavy dependence of phonetic notation and transcription on phonetic theory. Different notation systems and different kinds of transcription are described, and an account is offered of how phonetic symbols work to denote theoretical categories on the one hand, and to represent spoken language data on the other. A critical discussion of the notion of ‘segment’ concludes that it is a legitimate unit of phonetic perception and analysis despite much scepticism in the phonetics and phonological literature. Arguments are put for the value of auditory-perceptual analysis and impressionistic phonetic transcription, and also for regarding the categories of general phonetic theory as neutral with respect to production, transmission and perception despite the overwhelmingly articulatory terminology. The relationship between transcription and instrumental records is also examined. A brief survey of various uses of phonetic transcription concludes the book. There is a short glossary of technical terms, and an Appendix containing the most recently updated IPA, ExtIPA, VoQS and IPA Braille charts, plus an ‘elaborated’ IPA chart.