Senoufo Phonology, Discourse to Syllable (A Prosodic Approach)

SIL, 1984. - 247 p.Senoufo Phonology, Discourse to Syllable ( A Prosodic Approach).
Underlying this work is the hypothesis that any linguistic utterance, of whatever size, includes as one of its essential components a coherent and hierarchically organized phonological structure. This view as such is not new. It has been most explicitly stated within the framework of the tagmemic approach to language analysis, where the phonological hierarchy has equal theoretical status with the interrelated semantic (or referential) and grammatical hierarchies.
In spite of all this, and while among tagmemicists many have made reference to various units of the phonological hierarchy, few have attempted to demonstrate its validity for the higher levels beyond the stress group, and still less for the whole of discourse in any given language. Recognition of an independent phonological structure extending beyond the syllable is not limited to tagmemics. It is inherent in the prosodic approach pursued by Firthian linguists and is also implied in much of the Trench linguistic work on non-European languages. The complementary nature of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic dimensions of phonology has even been the point of departure for the description of another Gur language, Kasim (Bonvini 1974).