Recently, I was part of a discussion regarding an issue that I thought was 
uncontroversial. However, it seems that this is not as straightforward as I 
first thought. The debate is about the place of phonetics in the study of 
'grammar'. More precisely, whether the study of sound patterns using 
phonetic methodologies and techniques falls within the broad scope of the 
term 'grammar'. 
 
My position is that phonetics, indeed, belongs and should be included in 
'grammar', whatever notion we may have of it, either as the more abstract 
idea of grammar as universal grammar or the more practical notion of 
grammar as the grammatical description of a given language. The 
antagonistic view to my own seems to be rooted in the fact that some 
traditional descriptive grammars have not included sections of the sound 
patterns of similar length to those dedicated to morpho-syntactic aspects 
of the language. While this is true and we often find that the phonology 
section of many grammars are reduced to the inventory of phonemes, I 
believe that this is, in part, because in the past the access to the tools 
and techniques was limited and linguists didn't have the training to 
provide more detailed descriptions of the sound patterns (Maddieson (2003) 
shows the low proportion of phonetics in 20 recent grammars). However, it 
is clear that many earlier and quite solid grammars, which have been 
praised as exemplars in the field, such as Sapir's Southern Paiute, Dixon's 
Yidin or Aoki's Nez Perce contain rich sections devoted to the fine 
phonetic description of the sound patterns of the languages. (I always 
wondered whether Sapir would have included acoustic analysis of the 
remarkable glottal processess in S. Paiute and corresponding illustrations 
if he had had expedite access to a sonograph.) 
 
Another point to consider supporting the inclusion of phonetics in 
'grammar' comes from languages with complex phonological processes which 
indicate grammatical categories, such as tone, non-modal phonation, 
nasalization and consonant mutation processes, among others. In these 
languages is especially clear that the instrumental study of the sounds 
might help to a better understanding of the nature of these processes and 
the interface of the different levels of linguistic analysis. Just to 
mention an example, a phenomenon called a 'ballistic syllable' has been 
described for several Otomanguean languages. The descriptions (as well as 
my own impressionistic observations) suggest processes related to the 
control of tone, non-modal phonation, intensity and overall 'effort' in the 
implementation of the contrast. Interestingly enough, the contrast is not 
only lexical but also is exploited in inflection of verb and noun 
paradigms. However, even with the heroic efforts of several scholars, we 
still do not know completely what the nature and appropriate description 
and analysis of 'ballistic syllables' is; in fact, we don't even know if 
the term refers to the same phenomenon across languages or covers several 
distinct processes. Nevertheless, how to produce a ballistic syllable has 
to be part of the speaker's knowledge, and thus grammar. I think that with 
languages of this type the study of phonetics shows particularly clearly 
that it merits being included in 'grammar'. 
 
One further domain where the need of phonetics is evident is in the study 
of intonation. Prosody is one of the less well-known areas of many 
languages and one where grammars do not abound in basic facts. However, I 
believe, nobody could deny that intonation is, indeed, a crucial component 
of grammar. Perhaps, its exclusion from descriptive grammars is due first 
to the limited access to tools that could adequately capture the phonetic 
nature of the phenomenon, but also (and maybe derived to some extent from 
the latter) to the absence of a descriptive framework within which to 
describe the patterns and handle the relationship between prosody and 
syntactic/semantic aspects of the language. With the development of better 
models and methods for the study of intonation, there has been a clear 
advance in knowledge of universal and language-specific patterns in this 
area but so far this is not typically reflected in descriptive grammars. 
 
In sum, I would like to see the grammars of the future including rich 
informative sections dealing with the phonetics of languages, including as 
far as possible instrumental measures of the basic acoustics and the most 
prominent phenomena of their sound patterns. Now we have the conditions to 
produce these more complete grammars: A basic grounding in phonetics is 
taught in most linguistic programs, acoustic analysis tools are accessible 
to almost anyone with access to a computer and internet, and - just as with 
any other aspect of grammar - the data to construct typologies of phonetic 
phenomena must come from descriptions of individual languages. Describing 
the grammar of a language entails necessarily describing its phonetic 
structures. 
 
Anyhow, because it seems that not everybody shares the idea that phonetics 
should be considered a substantive part of grammar, I'd like to hear the 
reactions from the community. I would appreciate very much your comments 
and views. 
 
 
References 
Maddieson, Ian. 2003. ''Field phonetics.'' In J. Larson & M. Paster, 
eds., Proceedings of the 28th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics 
Society, 411-429. 
Dixon, R.M.W. 1977. A Grammar of Yidin Cambridge. Cambridge studies in 
linguistics ; 19) New York : Cambridge University Press, 
Sapir, Edward. 1931. Southern Paiute, a Shoshonean language. Texts of the 
Kaibab Paiutes and Uintah Utes. Southern Paiute dictionary, (Proceedings of 
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences ; v.65) 
Aoki, Haruo. (1970). Nez Perce grammar. University of California 
publications in linguistics (Vol. 62). Berkeley: University of California 
Press. (Reprinted 1973, California Library Reprint series). 
 
===================== 
'Life is short but wide' 
 
Heriberto Avelino 
Department of Linguistics 
1203 Dwinelle Hall, 
University of California at Berkeley 
Berkeley, CA 94720-2650 
Phone: (510) 642-2757 
Fax: (510) 643-5688 
http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~avelino/ 
=====================

If Linguistics is stipulated, for the time being, as an epistemological 
discipline for the deployment of algocentric (a discourse that is motivated 
by metamathematical formalism or computational algorithmic simulation and 
which ignores the non-algorithmic constitutive “rules”) meta-symbolic order 
on the symbolic order, one may find a marginal other in Linguistics—an 
order of non-signs. For these non-signs, let me introduce a term: 
“silenceme”, which is at a time a non-sign and a sign and does not have a 
fixed componential meaning and thus violates the law of excluded middle. 
 
A blank parchment with the supposed seal of Caesar, when “read” by Antony, 
swayed the commoners (Julius Caesar, 3.2). In Tagore’s play, Post-office, a 
conspirator, out of fun, sent a blank letter to an “illiterate” boy, who 
was expecting king’s letter, when he was waiting for death. However, 
another character altogether differently interpreted that blank letter. 
This blankness of the white letter, then, was not interpreted as a 
poisonous fun, but as a “real” remedy for that boy. 
 
When you were asking me, “What’re you doing?” I said, “Nothing.” This 
single word, ”nothing” , a supposed minimal “free” (Where lies the 
essential freedom of word? ) form, is not free at all—“nothing” ’s freedom 
was pervaded by “other” non-signs, nothingness, the unspoken or something 
unspeakable, the non-discursive sonority or unintended sounds (as in John 
Cage’s musical compositions or in Rauschenberg and Robert Ryman’s 
Minimalist paintings with almost white surfaces.) 
 
There may be a strategic taxonomy of silenceme: cognitive silenceme, 
transcendental silenceme (as in case of seeking absolute silence and that 
is impossible!); Pathological silenceme (as in case of Foreclosure or 
Psychosis, the symbolic order is totally or partially rejected [instead of 
being repressed]; one’s Language Acquisition Device is not working due to 
the outside threat and violence); Creative silenceme ( as practiced by some 
Buddhists by non-internalizing the outside threat and violence.); Silenceme 
of conspiracy (the phrase “conspiracy of silence” was often used by Marx 
and Engels) etc. Thus, spoke Sartre: being silent does not entail that I 
am refusing to speak but it is a mode of keeping on speaking (What is 
Literature). 
 
What will we, the linguist community, do with such so-called ambiguous 
category? In Linguistics, what will be our agenda now? May we take 
Wittgenstein or John Cage seriously? Alternatively, we may ignore the 
silent marginal “other” space in Linguistics: the silenceme!

Is it “true” that when anyone is rewriting a “sentence” in Logical Form 
(LF) by deploying metalinguistic constants and variables, the ultimate 
output would reveal the ‘true’ meaning of a given sentence? In LF, a major 
concentration is devoted to describe and understand the ‘real world’. This 
supposed logical positivist “real” is incorporated in the logical analysis 
of sentences in the algorithmic chain of LF of S-Structure by deploying 
sentential calculus. LF mainly follows Fregean compositionality or its 
derivatives like Katz-Fodorian Model. The following questions may be asked: 
 
1. What is “real” in this real world? (To answer such question, one may 
take a clue from Russell’s An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth: “We all start 
from ‘naïve realism,’ i.e., the doctrine the things are what they seem. We 
think that grass is green, that stones are hard and snow is cold. But 
physics assures us that the greenness of grass, the hardness of stones, and 
coldness of snow are not the greenness, hardness and coldness that we know 
in our own experience, but something very different. The observer, when he 
(sic) seems to himself (sic) to be observing a stone, is really, if physics 
is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself (sic). 
Thus science seems to be at war with itself: when it most means to be 
objective, it finds itself plunged into subjectivity against its will. 
Naïve realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows that naïve 
realism is false. Therefore naïve realism, if true, is false; therefore it 
is false.” (1940:15) 
 
2. What happens in LF if anyone puts Russell’s paradox (1913) in LF? How 
do we incorporate Gödel’s theorem to tackle a formal system like LF? 
According to Goedel’s theorem (1931), no formal system is complete enough 
to handle all the problems within a formal paradigm. If anyone puts any 
Goedel’s proposition or Russell’s paradox (“One Calcuttan says that all 
Calcuttans are liars”) in LF of S-Structure, the total formal as well as 
mechanical algorithmic system to gauge the meaning may collapse. 
 
3. Katz-Fodorian (1963) system of binary componential analysis ignores the 
prototypical cognition of meaning by the human being. As some cognitive 
scientist observed that the meaning as endorsed by human beings, could not 
be analyzed by the stipulated components as humans understand meaning 
through prototypical cognition. What should we follow in semantic analysis: 
technical intelligentsia’s critical discursive habit of paraphrasing or 
commonsense deployment of prototypes? 
 
4. Let us switch over to another schooling and try to understand semantic 
problems raised by continental philosophers (under the umbrella of 
so-called Post-Formalism/ Structuralism). These Post-Formalists are talking 
about plural meanings of non-disposable texts as well as something called 
‘surplus meanings’, which is not at all analyzable or quantifiable . 
According to them, the meaning-site is too slippery area and any futile 
endeavor to formalize such site will be ended in vain. Do you think that 
they are neglecting ‘science’ and its formalism by promoting 
“un-scientific” non-formalism?