discontinuous (adj.)

A term used by Jakobson and Halle in their DISTINCTIVE FEATURE theory of PHONOLOGY to refer to sounds produced with a complete CLOSURE of the VOCAL TRACT, as in PLOSIVES. Its opposite is CONTINUANT, used to characterize FRICATIVES, VOWELS, etc.

In GRAMMATICAL analysis, discontinuity refers to the splitting of a CONSTRUCTION by the insertion of another grammatical UNIT. Discontinuous constructions or constituents are illustrated by the way the PARTICLE in some PHRASAL VERBS may be separated from the LEXICAL ELEMENT, e.g. switch on ⇒ switch the light on, by the double NEGATIVE system in some languages (French ne . . . pas, Welsh nid . . . ddim, etc.), or by the separation of AUXILIARY verb and main verb in QUESTION forms in English (e.g. is he coming?). Some analysts make use of the notion of a discontinuous morph(eme), as when Arabic ROOT forms are identified by the CONSONANTS they contain, each of which is separated by a VOWEL (e.g. k-t-b ‘write’). A discontinuity grammar is a logic grammar FORMALISM which allows relationships between widely separated constituents to be stated within a single grammatical RULE; there are several types (e.g. extraposition grammars, gapping grammars, static discontinuity grammars).

In language ACQUISITION, the term refers to the view, primarily proposed by the American linguist Roman JAKOBSON, that the sounds of babbling bear no direct relationship to later PHONOLOGICAL development. The discontinuity hypothesis is opposed to the better-supported ‘continuity’ hypothesis, which argues that languages gradually select from the range of sounds used in babbling. The term is also used in child language acquisition (especially in relation to PHONOLOGY) to describe a situation where new learning (e.g. acquiring a new phonological RULE) interferes with established ability, causing a temporary disturbance in the development of speech production.