The Segment in Phonetics and Phonology

The Segment in Phonetics and Phonology explores exactly what the segment is and on what levels it exists, approaching the study of the segment with theoretical, empirical, and methodological heterogeneity as its guiding principle. The segment is viewed from a variety of eclectic perspectives, with contributions from scholars around the world representing all of the major theoretical schools of phonology throughout the text focusing on the segment as a particular topic within phonology and phonetics. The text also provides a short overview of the history of the segment in language sciences in order to identify the main issues at play, and the final section provides a valuable overview of the contributions and a summary of the state of current research.

Contributions encompass fields as diverse as experimental psycholinguistics, language acquisition, mathematical theories of communication, articulatory phonology, brain imaging, signed language, and theoretical phonology. The unifying aspect of all the chapters is the focus on the segment, with the goal of advancing the field of phonology and its related fields by exploring and illuminating this narrowly defined topic.

Eric Raimy is Professor in the Department of English at the University of Wisconsin Madison whose research centers on phonology from a cognitive science perspective. His most recent publications are The Handbook of the Syllable (ed. Cairns and Raimy, 2011) and Wisconsin Talk (co–edited with Thomas Purnell and Joseph Salmons, 2013).

Charles E. Cairns is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at City University of New York, and his research specializes in phonology. His latest publications include Contemporary Views on Architecture and Representation in Phonology (co–ed. Raimy and Cairns, 2009).