polysystemicism (n.)

A term used to identify an approach to LINGUISTIC analysis proposed by J. R. Firth, in which different linguistic SYSTEMS are set up at different places in STRUCTURE, no attempt being made to identify the systems with each other. The approach has been developed primarily in relation to PHONOLOGY, where it is known as PROSODIC analysis. Polysystemic is opposed to ‘monosystemic’, as in phonemic theories of phonology, where a single basic phonological unit is used (the PHONEME), and the set of phonemes is seen as a single system of CONTRASTS, applicable to the analysis and TRANSCRIPTION of LINEAR SEQUENCES of speech sounds, regardless of the GRAMMATICAL or LEXICAL structures involved. In polysystemicism, on the other hand, different phonological systems are set up as required at different places in the structure of SYLLABLES, WORDS and other UNITS, and within different areas of the vocabulary or grammar. There is little emphasis on transcription, and a correspondingly greater emphasis on relating phonology to other levels of linguistic structure. In this approach, the set of sounds needed to define the contrastive possibilities at the beginning of words in a language may be quite different from those required in the middle or at the end of words. There is little evidence of the need for this analysis in English (apart from occasional contrasts such as  and /h/, which do not occur in the same ENVIRONMENTS), but several languages, such as many in South-East Asia, have been fruitfully analyzed in these terms.